Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli had travelled considerably farther afield than his sovereign; he knew Genoa, Marseilles, Egypt, and of course Mecca. The Mussulman pilgrims passing through Constantinople on their way to Mecca this year are, he told us, very numerous, the Sultan having ordered the fares on the Massousieh Company's steamers to be reduced one-half for them. He thought that about two thousand Moors would be leaving Tangier in the early spring for the pilgrimage, returning some three months later. Neither the Hadj's sons nor Mr. Bewicke's soldier joined in the conversation, but continued steadily to consume tea, all eyes and ears.
At last the trays were removed; and there being no co-religious eye to shock, Hadj Mukhtar indulged in a cigarette, while we puzzled him with a few tricks of balance and reach, which pleased him quite as much as his boys: everybody tried their hands, and finally the Hadj sent his eldest son for an old, heavy sword, and, squatting on the floor, showed us a clever piece of leverage with it and his thumb, which it was in vain to try and imitate.
Watching our failures, he produced a snuff-box, a small cocoanut-shell, ornamented with little silver and coral knobs, with a narrow ivory mouthpiece, a stopper, and an ivory pin fastened to the cocoanut-shell to stir up the snuff inside—Tetuan snuff—noted for its pungent flavour. Hadj Mukhtar jerked the grains through the narrow mouthpiece into the hollow of the back of his thumb, where all Moors lay it, then lifted his hand up to his nose.
Near the door hung his rosary of ninety-nine beads, reminding the pious Mussulman of the ninety-nine attributes of God. Each of the ninety-nine beads corresponds to the name of some holy man, and as the bead is passed along with the hand the saint's name is murmured. Curious that the use of rosaries in the Spanish Church is said to have been borrowed first of all from the Spanish Moors.
The eldest son of our host was, his father told us, looking forward to beginning the Fast of Rámadhan this year—fasting, as he was only a novice, for half the day instead of the whole of it: evidently as much importance and excitement were attached to the prospect as later on would attend the boy's marriage. This same boy of fourteen is learning to write in Latin characters, for a Moor a most unusual and advanced step: at present he was only wearing a little red fez cap, not having reached the age of turbans, with all their dignified symmetry. The Korān was all the literature the boy would ever know. Strange that a strong and sober people should have for ages confined their studies to the Korān, an occasional Arab poet, and a sacred treatise or two. There is, as I have already said, no literature, no art, no science, in Morocco, and no architecture—the Korān forbidding, it is said, research or study in any line except that of religion. Geography is entirely unknown. Like Moors in general, Hadj Mukhtar may have heard of London and Paris, and might know the names Germany and Russia, besides Mecca; but none of the former would have any connection or "place" in his mind, and Morocco must be, he is confident, the finest country under the sun. If it were brought home to him that his country is in a decadent condition, he would reply that at least it is good enough for him as it is; and that if Europeans were allowed to exploit it and to settle therein, the end would be prosperity for the Western civilization, and a knuckling-under on the part of the Moorish—which is true.
We talked on upon one and another subject till it grew late, but before we left our host took R. and myself to see his wife, downstairs, in a smaller room. Five wives are allowed by Mohammed, but few Moors in Tetuan were rich enough to afford as many, and contented themselves with slaves. We were not impressed by the very plain, sallow-faced lady, with a black fringe and hard brown eyes, who shook hands with us, and from her likeness to the eldest boy was probably his mother. The second son was evidently by a slave: there was no mistaking that likeness—a fat, happy individual, the greatest contrast to another slave, who, though well dressed, was pale and miserable-looking. Two or three other corpulent, smiling blackamoors made up the sum-total of the party in the downstairs room—most comfortable, lounging on the cushions, they looked, no mean advertisements of Hadj Mukhtar's "table." The principal and favourite wife possessed a noisy sewing-machine, which she proudly displayed.
Every Moor's establishment has its slaves—so many, according to his income: in Tetuan they are sold privately, and frequently exchanged one for the other, while the wives are as easily divorced. Every year something like three thousand slaves come into Morocco, chiefly from the Soudan: a few are stolen from Moorish tribes; the rest are brought in by Moorish traders, who catch them in various ways, such as scattering sweetmeats, or in hard times corn, round the villages, up to neighbouring coverts, just as a poacher at home entices pheasants with raisins, then pouncing out and carrying them off.
As there are no such things as Moorish women-servants, negresses and slaves of various types step into the gap, and the evil of this influx of black blood is seen in the deterioration of a fine race, and the increase of the type which tends towards thick lips, low foreheads, and sensual tastes. The slavery of Christians in Morocco, once common, has been by treaty abolished since the day when the savage Sultan Mulai Ismael had eleven thousand Christian slaves in Mequinez employed in building his walls, whose bodies, when they succumbed, were mixed in with the stones and mud of the buildings. Slaves are not ill treated in the present day, though now and again one may be flogged to death as the result of fault or the malice and slander of a jealous fellow-slave: as a rule they live happily; and if a female slave bears a male child to her master, by a law in the Korān both mother and son are ipso facto freed, though they continue to live on in the same house.
The last thing Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli showed us was his hummum, cunningly arranged to flank the kitchen fire at the back. A tiny room; but four of his wives and slaves could, he explained, take their bath in it at once. There was a small stone slab inside as a seat, and hot air came in by means of a pipe in one corner. The hummum, or Turkish bath, is partly enjoined by the Korān and partly taken for its own enjoyment; it is a feature of every Moorish house of any pretension, and largely used by men and women.
The evening was a dark one, and we picked our way back to the fonda by the light of lanterns: it is impossible to go out at night in Tetuan without carrying one; the streets are wholly unlit, and the refuse-heaps and central gutters unpleasant traps.