On The Terraces, Fez.
Yesterday we dined with the Grand Vizier, Taib Ben-Jamani, surnamed Boascherin, which signifies, according to some, victor at the game of ball, and according to others, father of twenty children;—Grand Vizier, however, by courtesy only, his father having filled that office under the late Sultan. The messenger bearing the invitation was received by the Ambassador in our presence.
“The Grand Vizier, Taib Ben-Jamani Boascherin,” said he, with much gravity, “prays the Ambassador of Italy and his suite to dine to-day at his house.”
The Ambassador expressed his thanks.
“The Grand Vizier, Taib Ben-Jamani Boascherin,” he continued, with the same gravity, “prays the Ambassador and his suite to bring with them their knives and forks, and also their servants to wait on them at table.”
We went toward evening, in dress-coats and white cravats, mounted, and with an armed guard as before. I do not remember in what part of the city the house was situated, so many were the turns and twists we made, the ups and downs, through covered ways gloomy and sinister, holding up the mules from slipping, and stooping our heads not to strike them against the low damp vaults of those interminable galleries. We dismounted in a dark passage, and entered a square court, paved in mosaic, and surrounded by tall white pilasters, which upheld little arches painted green and ornamented with arabesques in stucco—a strange Moorish-Babylonian sort of architecture, both pleasing and peculiar. In the middle of the court seven jets of water shot up from as many vases of white marble, making a noise as of a heavy rain. All around were little half-closed doors and double windows. At the two shorter sides two great doors stood open, giving access to two halls. On the threshold of one of these doors was the Grand Vizier, standing; behind him two old Moors, relations of his; to the right and left, two wings of male and female slaves.
After the usual salutations, the Grand Vizier seated himself upon a divan which ran along the wall, crossed his legs, hugged to his stomach, with both his hands, a large round cushion—his habitual and peculiar attitude—and never moved again for the rest of the evening.
He was a man of about forty-five years of age, vigorous, and with regular features, but with a certain false light shining in his eyes. He wore a white turban and caftan. He spoke with much vivacity, and laughed loud and long at his own words and those of others, throwing back his head while he did so, and keeping his mouth open long after he had done laughing.
On the walls hung some small pictures with inscriptions from the Koran in gold letters; in the middle of the room there were a common wooden table and some rustic chairs; all about lay white mattresses, on which we threw our hats.
Sidi-Ben-Jamani began a vivacious conversation with the Ambassador, asking if he were married, and why he did not marry. He said that if he had been married he might have brought his wife to dinner; that the English Ambassador had brought his daughter, and that she had been much diverted by what she saw there; that all the ambassadors ought to marry, expressly to conduct their wives to Fez, and dine with him; together with other talk of the same kind, all of it interspersed with loud laughter.