I was amazed. Then I assumed a grave and courteous air, and glanced round at my followers who were beaming with delight; and after having tasted for an instant the honor of an official reception, I undeceived the old Hebrew, with a sigh, and told him who I was. He seemed for a moment displeased, but did not change his manner. He offered me his house to rest in, and when I declined his hospitality, he would at any rate accompany me to the spot destined for the encampment.
We all went on together, skirting the city, toward the sea-shore. Ah! if Ussi and Biseo could only have seen me! How picturesque I must have been, sitting on a mule, with a white scarf round my head, followed by my staff, composed of a cook in his shirt sleeves, two sailors armed with sticks, and a ragged Moor! O Italian Art, what hast thou not lost!
Arzilla, the Zilia of the Carthagenians, the Julia Traducta of the Romans, passed from the hands of the latter into those of the Goths, was sacked by the English toward the middle of the tenth century, remained for thirty years a heap of stones, was rebuilt by Abd-er-Rhaman-ben-Ali, Caliph of Cordova, taken by the Portuguese, and retaken by Morocco, and is now nothing but a little town of about one thousand inhabitants between Moors and Hebrews, surrounded on the sea and land sides by high battlemented walls, which are falling into ruin; white and quiet as a cloister, and imprinted, like all the small Mahometan towns, with that smiling melancholy which recalls the last look on the face of the dying who are glad to die.
In the evening, at sunset, the Ambassador arrived, and came to the encampment across the city; and I have still before my eyes the spectacle of that beautiful cavalcade, full of color and life, issuing out of a battlemented gate, advancing in picturesque disorder along the shore, and throwing across the sands in the rosy sunset light its long black shadows; and here, in fact, it may be said that our journey came to an end, since the following morning we encamped at Ain-Dalia, and two days afterward we re-entered Tangiers, where the caravan broke up in that same little market-place where it had formed two months before.
The commandant, the captain, the two painters, and I left together for Gibraltar. The Ambassador, the vice-consul, all the people of the Legation accompanied us to the shore, and the farewells were very affectionate. All were moved, even the good General Hamed-ben-Kasen, who, pressing my hand against his mighty chest, repeated three times the only European word he knew—“A Dios!”—with a voice that came from his heart. We had scarcely put our foot upon the deck of the ship when, oh! how distant in space and time seemed all that phantasmagoria of pashàs, and negroes, and tents, and mosques, and battlemented towers. It was not a country, it was an entire world that in a moment vanished from our eyes, and a world that we should never see again. A little of Africa accompanied us on board, however, in the two Selams, Ali, Hamed, Abd-er-Rhaman, Civo, Morteo’s servants, and other kind young fellows whom Mussulman superstition had not prevented from wishing well to the Nazarenes and serving them with fidelity. And they also took leave of us with warm demonstrations of affection and regret, Civo more than the others, who, causing his long white shirt to float for the last time before my eyes, threw his arms about my neck, and planted two kisses in my ear. And when the steamer moved they saluted us still from a boat, waving their red fezes, and shouting as long as we could see them, “Allah be with you! Come back to Morocco! Farewell, Nazarenes! Farewell, Italians! A Dios! A Dios!”
Footnotes
[1]. Naso forcuto, a favorite expression with the author.
[2]. Bersaglieri, Italian riflemen.
[3]. “Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa.”—Dante.
[4]. The then king of Italy. Died in 1878.