In the Tail of the Peacock

by Isabel Savory

Farther on stands the forge of the fortress: "for the slippers for the horses," Hadj Riffi explained. The blacksmith wore an apron of a whole goat-skin; he pared down the hoof with an instrument like a shovel, helped by the horse's owner or any chance onlooker, for Moors "hunt in packs," and only a mere Christian does anything by himself. The shoe is a complete circle of iron, has three nails on each side, and in some places a bar across the centre.

At last we reached the prison, the principal feature of the Kasbah. Much has been written about Moorish prisons, to be put down by ignorant critics as exaggerated. English visitors have shown up their horrors, only to be forbidden now by a stringent order to go inside. It is hard to say what happens behind the scenes, but torture is lightly thought of in Morocco; "cruelty," as Europeans understand it, has no place nor meaning in ignorant, fanatical minds; and an unpleasant inference is therefore to be drawn.

Of course many of the prisoners are confined, in all good faith, for offences, and will be released in time; but there are also Moors, in high positions socially, or possessed formerly of means, who "wither and agonize" year after year in captivity, their only fault that they were rich or influential in bygone days, thus tempting a jealous rival to remove them out of his path, or a greedy Government to confine them and feed upon their money. If they ever come out, it will be because a wealthy friend has chosen to pay the Government for their release, or because it has happened to occur to the ministers at Court to send for them; and half of them will reappear but scarred remnants of the men who went in. Descriptions of tortures which were unknown even in the Middle Ages in England may well be omitted: tortures which result in blind and tongueless creatures, without hands; bled of every penny they once possessed, and maimed in order to induce them to reveal the spot where their money was hidden, or the friends' names with whom they traded.

We looked in through a small iron grating in the door about two feet square, revealing a space open to the skies, with roofed recesses in the walls round the four sides, where the prisoners had huddled themselves in their rags. At night they are chained by the leg. An Oriental does not require "a bed," but he is provided with no substitute in prison, still less with food and drink, for which he is dependent on friends or relations willing to supply him. Of late years, in certain prisons, a small loaf of bread per day is given to each man. He has the great advantage of being able to talk all day to his fellow-prisoners; but in the case of a refined man such close intercourse has its drawbacks, more especially when a raving lunatic happens to be chained by an iron collar round his neck to one of the pillars. Madmen and all alike, without respect of persons, veritably rot to death, cheek by jowl, in a Moorish prison. Disease, starvation, and injuries tend to shorten their captivity. Whoever has smelt the smell within those walls will endorse the adjective "kindly" Death, than which there surely can be no more welcome visitor.

A few of the sound prisoners, sitting on the ground, were weaving baskets, some of which we bought through the keeper of the prison; then turned away, struck by the stoicism among the prisoners themselves in a situation of such uncertainty. Was it to end in death or release? Who knows? They merely shrug their shoulders, and ejaculate, "Ift shallah" (God will show).

Passing the soldiers guarding the outside of the prison, and out under a second gateway of the Kasbah, we stumbled down what is called one of the Sultan's "highways," something very rocky and not far off the perpendicular. R. chose her own feet, much to Hadj Riffi's annoyance. Though the ways are such that no donkey can be ridden without stumbling among cobble-stones and pitfalls, and thereby running a risk of pitching the rider off the insecure pack into a refuse-heap, it was impossible for a European, in his eyes, to walk and to maintain his dignity at the same time.

Two Sheikhs.

That no Moor runs when he can walk, or walks when he can ride, or stands when he can sit, or sits when he can lie down, is a saying fulfilled to the letter. And what poor man, however heavily he loads his small donkey with garden produce, forgoes mounting himself on top of all, and making the little beast stagger along, at a fair pace too, to market? The life of such a man is not eventful, but what there is of it is good: he sings as he jogs along in a monotonous tone, and has a word for every soul he meets, and a laugh too, curses his donkey—he is never quiet—and lands the produce of his little melon-patch in the market. The melons are sold by degrees, much gossip is interspersed, possibly he washes and prays, then eats, and sleeps a little; more gossip, until the sun tells him it is time to get outside the city gates; and then off he jogs again, singing, talking, back to the little reed-thatched hut, fenced in by its hedge of cactus. Life is too full of—call it resignation or content—to leave room for disturbing speculations, and he is born of a race which never repines: there is Allah and the One Faith, and the sun to lie down beneath and meditate and sleep. Not that the typical countryman is idle—far from it: he is hard-working, without any beer to do it upon.

It is a matter of more speculation as to what the courteous, solemn men, in turbans like carved snow, whom one meets walking along the beach telling their beads, or sees sitting in sunshine reading aloud in a low voice, steadily praising Allah, occupy themselves with from month to month; or the sleek sheikh—a countryman of some means, with smooth coffee-coloured face and a haik whiter than an iced birthday cake—perched between the peaks of his red cloth saddle, under which his hard, hammer-headed mule paces at an intermittent amble.