When the Christian traveller arrives at the district belonging to this kaid, through which he wishes to pass, he goes to the castle and delivers the permit. The kaid reads it, and knows what it means: the Sultan only wishes the Christian to be kept to frequented roads. Therefore the Christian is offered every hospitality, and the kaid almost weeps as he explains that it is impossible for the traveller to proceed—the tribesmen are dangerous, are in revolt along the line the Christian wishes to go. The traveller says he will take his chance. His servants, primed by the kaid, refuse to go with him on the score of the danger. If he manages to get away with one trusty follower, the kaid sends soldiers after them, fetches them back to the castle—to save their lives, he says, and his own life, which would be forfeited if a hair of their heads was injured. The Christian, after his rebellious conduct, may be forced to return discomforted to the coast towns, or he may be allowed to march on in another direction, keeping on the beaten track. Thus the Moorish Government will politely frustrate enterprising spirit on the part of the infidel. But if the traveller is content with other than a royal progression through the country, if he will travel quietly and without ostentation, dressed according to the habits of the people, and be prepared to "rough it," the chances are, that he may get to places which he could never have reached while impeded by a Government escort.
But the way above all others to travel in Morocco is to secure the help of a missionary and to go with him. Medicine is the golden key which opens every gate; and a Moor will do anything for a tabiba (doctor), which is what a missionary practically is to him. The missionary arrives at a remote village, and the countryside flocks to him to have its teeth pulled out, its sores doctored, its fevers cured; and if the tabiba wishes to go on farther, by whatever path, who shall gainsay him, while he carries life and health in his hands? He understands their dialect a little, he dresses as they do, and he brings no overbearing servants to eat up their substance. Nor is he a spy, but only some harmless fanatic, some quaint Nazarene, who thinks to win heaven by thus walking the earth and doing good.
Thus several missionaries have penetrated to places in Morocco, from entering which, Europeans are debarred: they have not "advertised" themselves nor written books upon what they have seen. But the thing has been done, and not only by men. Women missionaries have been where no Christian is supposed to be allowed. Indeed, it should be easier for women, in one way, to travel in forbidden territory than men, because their sex is not credited with the sense which could do harm; and the idea of a woman spying, or thinking to exploit the country, discover mines, and so on, would be absolutely laughable to a Moor. Probably women, with a large stock of medicines and a knowledge of the country dialect, could travel in the unknown "Beyond" with comparatively little risk.
There is one other way for the Englishman to see something of the less-known districts of Morocco, and that is to travel under the protection of a holy Sharīf. Sharīfs are, like the Sultan, descendants of Mohammed, and they possess the holy baraka—that is, the birthright of the Sharīfian line. They are little gods, and they have immunity from the laws of God and man. Their advice is sought for and followed by the ordinary country people on every question, and their decision is invariably accepted as final. There is no such thing as an aristocratic class or nobility in Morocco; and yet the Sharīfs answer in a way to the same idea, for they possess a religious authority which sets them far above their countrymen, and constitutes them, in a sense, lords over the people. Besides, they act greatly as mediums between the secular governors and the tribes, and judge upon various matters. It is possible for a holy Sharīf to sin, but quite impossible for him to be punished, the obvious argument being that "the fire of hell cannot touch a saint in whose veins runs the blood of the holy Prophet."
The Sharīfian families form an entire class by themselves. They are fed and clothed and housed by a convenient system of religious taxation, and large presents are made them, while after death their tombs become objects of visit to all devout Mohammedans.
A holy Sharīf generally rides a horse, and he dresses in white, with a blue cloth cloak, or else a white woollen over-garment. He wears a pair of yellow slippers, or perhaps riding-boots, called temag, buttoned all up the back with green silk buttons, and embroidered down the side with silk and silver thread. A scarlet fez and a white turban complete him.
Sharīfs never shave under the chin, since the days when a certain sultan was being shaved thus by a barber who had it in his mind to cut the royal throat. But a little boy passing saw the evil design in the barber's eye. With great presence of mind he rushed into the shop, crying to the Sultan, "O Most Holy One! the Great Mosque has fallen down!" Both sultan and barber leapt up and rushed out: the boy explained matters to the sultan, and the barber was killed.
But neither Sharīf nor missionary-doctor had we any hope of meeting at Mogador, able and willing to travel into the Atlas Mountains with us. We started with plenty of chances open in front, but with nothing certain whereon to rely. Telegraph station and all such vanities were left behind us at Tangier: letters could not reach us till we ourselves reached Morocco City, ten or twelve days being the time they would take to arrive there from Tangier. Our agents—Cook & Son—in the latter place, had instructions to open all wires, and in an urgent case to forward to us by a rekass (a runner), who might do the distance in as short a time as seven or eight days. A wire sent thus, by a rekass, might cost three or four pounds, according to the time the man took: the faster he did the journey, the more he should be paid.
In spite of its hotels Tangier does not possess a single shop where English newspapers or books can be bought. Our literature had by this time reached a low ebb; and on board the Hungarian boat, at a time when one generally reads omnivorously because there is nothing else to do, we had but a couple of standard books to fall back upon—a history of the country was one, the other a volume of Lecky. The history was fairly committed to heart before travelling days were done.
On the whole, when at last we got off in the little Hungarian steamer, she did not leave much to be desired. For three days we had hung on at the Continental Hotel, waiting for the hourly expected arrival of the boat, beginning almost to despair of her ever coming in.