Our Servants, S`lam and Tahara.
They were both of them Riffis, and their own home was in the Riff country, two days' journey into the mountains from Tetuan. His name was S`lam Ben Haddon Riffi of Bekiona, son of Haddon and of Fettouch Ben Haddon of Bekiona. S`lam's wife was Tahara. He had served for a year in the French army in Algeria, in the 2nd Regiment of Tirailleurs Algériens; and having picked up a little French, we learnt, with a few Arabic words, to understand each other. He and Tahara spoke Shillah to each other.
S`lam was about twenty-six years old, Tahara about twenty. He was a sinewy, long-legged ruffian, well over six feet, and holding himself creditably. He had a pair of fierce, dark, restless eyes, little beard or moustache, the front half of his head shaved, and a few locks left long at the back in token of his being a "brave" and having slain his man in a blood-feud. The Riffi turban, of strings of dark red wool, was wound round his head; a white shirt showed at his neck; he wore a black waistcoat, a white tunic down to his knees, and red knicks, below which came his long hairy shanks, ending in a pair of yellow slippers.
A scarlet leather bag, hung by a red cord over his shoulders, a leather belt, and his gun, finished off our Moorish servant, who shot us partridges, roasted chickens, and was as good a hand at buttered eggs and coffee as I have ever seen.
Out of doors he always wore his brown jellab, embroidered with silk tufts of green and yellow and white.
Tahara was a pretty, pale, dark girl, with curious cabalistic Riffi marks tattooed in blue on her forehead and chin. She bound round her head an orange-coloured silk handkerchief; wore, except when at work, an embroidered yellow waistcoat, a pale blue kaftan down to her ankles, a sprigged, white muslin, loose garment, all over that; and a creamy woollen haik, when she went out or was cold, covered everything.
S`lam acted as butler, Tahara kept our rooms in order, and they were joint cooks. Their standing dish was mutton stewed in vegetables, or a chicken; and given time, four hours in the pot, on the pan of charcoal, it was quite a success. But they learnt many things in a Dutch oven lent by the missionaries, besides stews. They had eccentricities—as when S`lam prepared to put the toast-rack itself on the charcoal fire, with the bread in it, thus to "toast": the toast-rack we made ourselves, too, out of some old wire. They kept chickens, which S`lam brought home from market, either in their bedrooms for the night, or else in the kitchen, until their crops were empty and they could be killed.
Every morning S`lam was dispatched to the city with a basket, instructions, and two or three shillings. He stayed there an unconscionable time, visiting his mother, and sitting sunning himself in the doorway of a little Moorish café, returning laden before lunch. He never went into the city without his gun and best jellab, striding along with his long legs—a most picturesque figure. After dinner every evening he rendered his account, stalking into the sitting-room when we called, pulling up a chair, and sitting down at the table opposite R. From his leather bag, change was produced, and if the change was wrong, there was agony; but that only happened once or twice. A scrap of paper was brought out covered with Arabic writing, items of the day's expenditure, which read more or less as follows:—
| Chicken | 7d. |
| Milk | 1d. |
| Four eggs | 2½d. |
| Mutton | 6d. |
| Apples | 2d. |
| Vegetables | 2d. |
| Bread three times a week | 4½d. |
| Butter twice a week | 9½d. |
Charcoal for cooking purposes, and oil for lamps, added three shillings to our moderate weekly expenditure. Living is cheap enough in Morocco, nor are servants' wages heavy. S`lam and Tahara had eighteen shillings a month and their food, which was simple indeed—a loaf each of native bread a day, green tea, lump sugar, and odds and ends from our meals. Our rent, it will be remembered, came to thirty shillings a month. Morocco suits "reduced circumstances."
