Morocco, Its People and Places

by Edmondo De Amicis

“Really!” exclaimed the ingenuous young fellow. “You have all read it! and you know all these things! I never should have imagined it!”

Gradually the conversation became general, the officials also joining in it, and we heard some singular things. The English Ambassador had presented to the Sultan two telegraphic machines, and had taught some of the court people how to use them; and they were used, not publicly, because the sight of those mysterious wires in the city would cause disturbance, but in the interior of the palace; and words could not express the astonishment they excited. Not, however, to the point that we might suppose, because, from what they had first heard, they all, including the Sultan, had conceived a much more wonderful idea of it; for they believed that the transmission of the thought was not effected by means of letters and words, but at once, instantaneously, so that a touch was sufficient to express and transmit any speech. They recognized, however, that the instrument was ingenious and might be very useful in our countries where there were many people and much traffic, and where every thing had to be done in a hurry. All of which signified in plain words: what should we do with a telegraph? And to what would the policy of our government be reduced if to the demands of the representatives of European States we were obliged to reply at once and in few words, and renounce the great excuse of delays, and the eternal pretext of lost letters, thanks to which we can protract for two months, questions that could be answered in two days? We learned also, or rather we were given to understand, that the Sultan is a man of a mild disposition and a kind heart, who lives austerely, who loves one woman only, who eats without a fork, like all his subjects, and seated on the floor, but with the dishes placed upon a little gilded table about a foot high; that before coming to the throne he drilled with the soldiers, and was one of the most active among them; that he likes to work, and often does himself what ought to be done by his servants, even to packing his own things when he goes away; and that the people love him, but also fear him, because they know that should a great revolt break out, he would be the first to spring on horseback and draw his sabre against the rebels.

But with what grace they told us all these things! with what smiles and elegant gestures! What a pity not to be able to understand their language, all color and imagery, and read and search at will in the ingenuous ignorance of their minds!

In about two hours’ time the Ambassador came back, with Sid-Moussa, the grand Scherif, and the officials; and there was such an interchange of hand-pressings, and smiles, and bows, and salutations, that we seemed to be engaged in some dance of ceremony; and finally we departed between two long rows of astonished servants. As we went out we saw at a large grated window on the ground-floor about ten faces of women, black, white, and mulatto, all be-jewelled and be-diademed; who, beholding us, instantly vanished with a great noise of flapping slippers and trailing skirts.

From the first day of our journey, the Sultan, Muley-el-Hassan, was, as may be imagined, the principal object of our curiosity. It was, then, a festival for us all when at last the Ambassador announced the reception for the following morning. I never in my life unfolded my dress-coat, or touched the spring of my gibus, with more profound complacency than on this occasion.

This great curiosity was produced, in part, by the history of his dynasty. There was the wish to look in the face of one of that terrible family of the Scherifs Fileli, to whom history assigns pre-eminence in fanaticism, ferocity, and crime, over all the dynasties that have ever reigned in Morocco. At the beginning of the seventeenth century some inhabitants of Tafilet, a province of the empire on the confines of the desert, the Scherifs of which take the name of Fileli, brought from Mecca into their country a Scherif named Ali, a native of Jambo, and a descendant of Mahomet, by Hassen, the second son of Ali and Fatima. The climate of the province of Tafilet, a little after his arrival, resumed a mildness that it had for some time lost; dates grew in great abundance; the merit was attributed to Ali; Ali was elected king under the name of Muley-Scherif; his descendants gradually, by their arms, extended the kingdom of their ancestor; they took possession of Morocco and Fez, drove out the dynasty of the Saadini Scherifs, and have reigned up to our day over the whole country comprised between the Muluia, the desert, and the sea. Sidi-Mohammed, son of Muley-Scherif, reigned with wise clemency; but after him the throne was steeped in blood. El Reschid governed by terror, usurped the office of executioner, and lacerated with his own hands the breasts of women, in order to force them to reveal the hiding-places of their husbands’ treasure. Muley-Ismail, the luxurious prince, the lover of eight thousand women, and father of twelve hundred sons, the founder of the famous corps of black guards, the gallant Sultan who asked in marriage of Louis XIV the daughter of the Duchess de la Vallière, and stuck ten thousand heads over the battlements of Morocco and Fez. Muley Ahmed el Dehebi, avaricious and a debauchee, stole the jewels of his father’s women, stupefied himself with wine, pulled out the teeth of his own wives, and cut off the head of a slave who had pressed the tobacco too much down into his pipe. Muley-Abdallah, vanquished by the Berbers, cut the throats of the inhabitants of Mechinez to satisfy his rage, aided the executioner in decapitating the officers of his brave but vanquished army, and invented the horrible torture of cooking a man alive inside a disembowelled bull, that the two might putrify together. The best of the race appears to have been Sidi-Mohammed, his son who surrounded himself with renegade Christians, tried to live at peace, and brought Morocco nearer to Europe. Then came Muley-Yezid, a cruel and violent fanatic, who, in order to pay his soldiers, gave them leave to sack and pillage the Hebrew quarters in all the cities of the empire; Muley-Hescham, who, after a reign of a few days, went into sanctuary to die; Muley-Soliman, who destroyed piracy, and made a show of friendship to Europe, but with artful cunning separated Morocco from all civilized states, and caused to be brought to the foot of his throne the heads of all renegade Jews from whom had escaped a word of regret for their forced abjuration; Abd-er-Raman, the conqueror of Isly, who built up conspirators alive into the walls of Fez; and, finally, Sidi-Mohammed, the victor of Tetuan, who, in order to inculcate respect and devotion in his people, sent the heads of his enemies to the duars and cities, stuck upon his soldiers’ muskets. Nor are these the worst calamities that afflicted the empire under the fatal dynasty of the Fileli. There are wars with Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, France, and the Turks of Algiers; ferocious insurrections of Berbers, disastrous expeditions into the Soudan, revolts of fanatical tribes, mutinies of the black guard, persecutions of the Christians; furious wars of succession between father and son, uncle and nephew, brother and brother; the empire by turns dismembered and rejoined; sultans five times discrowned and five times reinstated; unnatural vengeance of princes of the same blood, jealousies and horrid crimes and monstrous suffering, and precipitate decline into antique barbarism; and at all times one principle is triumphant: that not being able to admit European civilization unless upon the ruins of the entire political and religious edifice of the Prophet, ignorance is the best bulwark of the empire, and barbarism an element necessary to its life.

With these recollections surrounding him, the Sultan became an object of special interest, and we were impatient to appear before him.

At eight o’clock in the morning, the Ambassador, the vice-consul, Signor Morteo, the commandant, and the captain, dressed in their best uniforms, were assembled in the court-yard, with a throng of soldiers, among whom the caid appeared in great pomp. We—that is to say, the two artists, the doctor, and myself, all four appeared in dress-coats, gibus hats, and white cravats—dared not issue from our rooms in the fear that our strange costume, perhaps never before seen in Fez, might draw upon us the laughter of the public. “You go first.”—“No, you.”—“No, you,”—thus for a quarter of an hour, one trying to push the other out at the door. Finally, after a sage observation from the doctor that union made strength, we all came out together in a group, with our heads down and hats pulled over our eyes. Our appearance in the court-yard produced amazement among the soldiers and servants of the palace, some of whom hid themselves behind the pillars to laugh at their ease. But it was another thing in the city. We mounted our horses, and proceeded toward the gate of the Nicchia del Burro, with a company of the red division of infantry leading the way, followed by all the soldiers of the Legation, and flanked by officials, interpreters, masters of ceremony, and horsemen of the escort of Ben-Kasen-Buhammei. It was a fine spectacle, that mingling of tall hats and white turbans, diplomatic uniforms and red caftans, gold-mounted swords and barbaric sabres, yellow gloves and black hands, gilded pantaloons and bare legs; and the figure that we four made, in evening dress, mounted on mules, upon scarlet saddles as high as thrones, covered with dust and perspiration, may be left to the imagination. The streets were full of people; at our appearance they all stopped and formed into two lines. They looked at the plumed hat of the Ambassador, the gold cord of the captain, the medals of the commandant, and gave no sign of wonder; but when we four passed by, who were the last, there was an opening of eyes and an exhilaration of countenance that was truly trying. Mohammed-Ducali rode near us, and we begged him to translate for us some of the observations which he caught in passing. A Moor standing with a number of others said something to which the rest seemed to assent. Ducali laughed, and told us they took us for executioners. Some—perhaps because black is odious to the Moors—looked at us almost with anger and disdain; others shook their heads with a look of commiseration.

“Signori,” said the doctor, “if we do not make ourselves respected it is our own fault. We have arms; let us use them. I will set the example.”

Thus speaking, he took off his gibus hat, shut down the spring, and passing before a group of smiling Moors, suddenly sprung it at them. The wonder and agitation of them at the sight cannot be expressed. Three or four sprang backward, and threw a glance of profound suspicion upon the diabolical hat. The artists and I, encouraged by the example, imitated him; and thus, by dint of our gibus, we arrived, respected and feared, at the city walls.