CHAPTER XII.
MECHINEZ.
After twenty-four days of city life the caravan impressed me as a new spectacle. And yet nothing was changed, except that beside Mohamed Ducali rode the Moor, Schellal, who although his business had been amicably settled, thought it more prudent to return to Tangiers under the wing of the Ambassador than to remain in Fez under that of his government. An acute observer might also have observed upon our faces, if he were a pessimist, a certain annoyance; if an optimist, a calm serenity, which was derived from a profound consciousness in all, that we had left behind in the imperial capital no pining beauty, no offended husband, no distracted family. On all our faces also shone the thought of return—that is, on as much as could be seen of them under the umbrellas, veils, handkerchiefs, with which most of us had concealed our heads for shelter against the ardent sun and suffocating dust. Alas! here was the great change. The sun of May was changed into the sun of June, the thermometer marked forty-two degrees (centigrade) at the moment of departure, and before us lay two hundred miles of African soil.
To return to Tangiers we had to go to Mechinez, from thence to Laracce, then along the shores of the sea to Arzilla, and from Arzilla to Ain-Dalia, where we had first encamped.
We took three days to go to Mechinez, distant from Fez about fifty kilometres.
The country did not present any marked differences to that which we had traversed in going to Fez: always the same fields of grain and barley, in some of which they were beginning to reap; the same black duars, the same vast spaces covered with dwarf palms and lentiscus, those grand undulations of the land, rocky hills, dry beds of torrents, solitary palms, white tombs of saints, splendidly peaceful and infinitely sad. But because of the neighborhood of the two great cities, we met more people than on the way between Tangiers and Fez: caravans of camels, droves of cattle, merchants bringing troops of beautiful horses to the markets of Fez, saints preaching in the desert, couriers on foot and on horseback, groups of Arabs armed with reaping-hooks, and some rich Moorish families going to Fez with their servants and chattels. One of these—the family of a wealthy merchant known to Ducali—formed a long caravan. First came two servants armed with muskets; and behind them the head of the family, a handsome man of a stern countenance, with a black beard and a white turban, riding a richly caparisoned mule; with one hand he held the reins, and sustained a child of two or three years old, seated before him in the saddle; with the other he clasped the hand of a woman completely veiled—perhaps his favorite wife—who rode behind him astride of the mule’s crupper, and who held him round the waist as if she meant to suffocate him, perhaps in fear of us. Other women, all with veiled faces, came riding on other mules behind the master; armed relations, boys, black servants; women with babies in their arms; Arab servants with muskets on their shoulders; mules and asses laden with mattresses, pillows, coverings, plates, and other matters; and, finally, more servants on foot, bearing cages full of canary-birds and parrots.
The women, as they passed us, wrapped their veils more closely about them, the merchant did not look at us, the relations gave us a timid glance, and two of the children began to cry.
From these spectacles we were diverted on the third day by a sad event. Poor Doctor Miguerez, attacked at our second resting-place by the atrocious pain of sciatica, had to be transported to Mechinez in a litter, hastily made of a hammock and two curtain-poles, and suspended between two mules; and this depressed us all. The caravan was divided into two parts. I cannot express how painful it became to see, as we often did, that litter appear behind us on the top of a hill and slowly descend into the valley, surrounded by soldiers on horseback, muleteers, servants, and friends, all grave and silent as a funeral cortége, and now and then stopping to bend over the sick man, and then going on, signing to us from afar that our poor friend was growing worse. It was a painful spectacle, but a fine one also, giving to the caravan the air of the afflicted escort of a wounded sultan.
On the first day we encamped still in the plain of Fez; on the second, on the right bank of the Mduma River, at about five hours from Mechinez. Here we had a very pleasant adventure. Toward evening we all went down to the bank of the river, about half a mile from the camp, near a large duar, from which all the inhabitants came out to meet us. There was a bridge there of masonry; one single arch, of Arab construction, and old, but still entire and solid; and beside it the remains of another bridge, partly embedded in the high rocky bank, and partly fallen into the bed of the river. On the opposite shore, at about fifty paces from the bridge, there was a dilapidated wall, some traces of foundations, and a few big hewn stones that seemed to have once belonged to an important building. The country all about was deserted. The ruins, we were told, were those of an Arabian city, called Mduma, built upon the remains of another city anterior to the Mussulman invasion. We set to work to search among the stones for any traces of Roman construction; but we found or recognized none, to the manifest satisfaction of the Arabs, who doubtless believed that we were seeking, on the faith of some of our diabolical books, some hidden treasures of the Rumli (Romans), from whom, according to them, all Christians are direct descendants.
Captain de Boccard, however, recrossing the bridge to return to the camp, saw down in the river, on the top of an enormous fragment of almost pyramidal form, some small square stones, which looked to him as if they had characters engraved upon them; and the fact that they were there, as if placed there on purpose to be seen from the bridge, made the supposition of value. The Captain manifested his intention of going to see what they were. Everybody advised him not to. The river banks were very steep, the bottom encumbered with pointed rocks, scattered at some distance from each other, the current strong and rapid, the fragment of ruin on which the stones lay was very high, and either impossible or very dangerous of access. But Captain de Boccard is one of those persons who are impossible to move when once their purpose is fixed: they will do it, or die. We had not yet done dissuading him, when he was already down the bank, just as he was, with his horseman’s boots and spurs. A hundred Arabs were looking on, some fringed along the river banks, some leaning over the parapet of the bridge. As soon as they understood what the Captain was going to do, the enterprise appeared to them so desperate, that they began to laugh. When they saw him stop on the edge of the water and look about as if seeking a passage, they imagined that his courage had failed, and all burst out into insolently sonorous laughter. “Not one of us,” one cried, in a loud voice, “has ever succeeded in climbing up there; we shall see whether a Nazarene can do it.”
And certainly no other of us Italians could have done it. But he who attempted it was, as it happened, the most active personage in the Embassy. The laughter of the Arabs gave him the final impulse. He gave a spring, disappeared into the midst of the bushes, reappeared upon a rock, vanished again, and so from rock to rock, springing like a cat, clinging, and climbing, and slipping, over and over again risking a fall into the river, or the breaking of his bones, came to the foot of the piece of ruin, and without taking breath, clinging to every root and every projection, he reached the top, and stood erect upon it like a statue. We all drew a long breath, the Arabs were amazed, and Italian honor was safe. The Captain, like a noble victor, deigned not even a glance at his crestfallen adversaries, and as soon as he had satisfied himself that the supposed engraved stones were nothing but fragments of mortar that had fallen from the bridge, came down by the other side, and with a few jumps gained the shore, where he was received with the honors of a triumph.