Connected with the bashas and kaids, who are the only great men in the country or in the cities, there is little or no respect or formality. Only on Sundays a sort of "flash in the pan" reminds the Moor that he has a little despot in his midst, who is more or less lord of his life; and the drums are heard all over the city, the soldiers turn out, for the basha goes to pray at El Aoli (noon) in his own particular mosque opposite his house.
On Friday, the Sabbath, the biggest sok (market) in all the week, a little black flag was flown from the mosque-tops early in the morning to remind Tetuan of the holy day. The basha was inside the cool mosque, praying, at the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected, though the same event happened every Friday. No Moor is ever busy, ever hurries, but can always wait. At a quarter to one a bugler on the east side of the street, who had been sitting in the sun with his bugle, got up and blew a call to fall in. About sixty soldiers, who had all strolled off after the great man had disappeared into the mosque, sauntered up from different directions. If they were a ragged and indifferently drilled company, there was colour in the ranks at least. Every man wore a short scarlet flannel tunic, a pair of white cotton drawers, and a red fez: one drummer had a tunic of beetle-green. As they lined the street, short sturdy men, with hairy legs and coffee-coloured faces, their bright bayonets flashing in the sun, the drums thumping and the trumpeter running up and down the scale, the dazzling sunlight gave a trace of splendour to the medley of scarlet and steel against the whitewashed walls.
Everybody waited expectant. A stout man in white came out of the mosque, ordered the small boys away, and saw that there was ample room for the basha to pass across the street and into his own house. Then the ordinary crowd of worshippers began to file out of the building—prayers over: green-blue kaftans lined with crimson silk, filmy white robes, snowy turbans, moved slowly along—a dignified, impressive crowd. There was a pause before the basha appeared, a man arranging his two yellow slippers side by side upon the doorstep of the mosque. Another moment and the great, voluminous, expected figure filled the doorway. A twist of his ankles and he was in his slippers, the bugle sounded, the ragged squad presented arms somewhat untidily, a line of servants bowed themselves low and respectfully before him, and the basha moved slowly across the street.
Leading his own troops, dispensing justice, an after-type of those great Arabs who sprang from the sands of Arabia and Africa, shook Europe, and flourished in Spain, a basha should be no tyrant, but a courteous gentleman, a noble of "The Arabian Nights." But there was no aristocratic trace about Asydaibdalkdar. Carrying his rosary in his hand, clothed entirely in white, his features bore traces of servility and sensuality, the result of poisoning the Arab and Berber blood with the strain from Central Africa. Slavery is proving fatal to the Moorish race. Unlike the well-bred Moor, the basha's face was deeply lined: cruelty, cunning, pigheadedness, all fought for the upper hand in his swarthy countenance. He walked in under his own gateway into a courtyard beyond: there he sat down in a corner upon a seat—a great figure, much like some Indian god—while his underlings came forward, stood in a semicircle, bowed low, and saluted him; followed by his soldiers, who marched in single file into the courtyard, round it, past their chief, and out again—this three times, to the sound of drums; then, headed by the officer in command, they trooped off to the barracks, the basha's gateway was locked, and Church Parade was over.
The Basha Going to Pray.
For half an hour all the gates of the city had been barred and bolted, while prayers were going on—there being a superstition among the Moors, arising from an old prophecy, that on a certain morning of a Mohammedan Sabbath, Christians will gain possession of the cities while the kaids and bashas are in the mosques.
Two hundred soldiers are allowed by Government to the governor of Tetuan, by means of which he is to maintain law and order. However, a hundred only were maintained, and the pay of the remaining half went into somebody's pocket. There was apparently little for them to do; drill was a thing unheard of, and they spent most of the day hanging round the basha's house or doing errands for him.
On the feast days there was Lab-el-Barod—the famous "Powder Play" of Morocco; and then the soldiers all turned out into the feddan (the great market-square), and showed what Lab-el-Barod meant: to me rather a foolish game, with but one interesting point—that it is the imitation of the old Arab tribal battle. To-day the Moors gallop forward, stand up in their saddles, fire their guns under their horses' necks, over their tails—all this at full gallop—throw their guns into the air and catch them, and last of all pull up in an incredibly short space, dragging their horses right on to their haunches, which evolutions are imitations of what their ancestors did with spear and javelin. Lab-el-Barod prevailed in Spain till the middle of the eighteenth century, and it is still played in the East with reeds. There is of course a picturesque element in it—white turbans, white garments streaming in the wind, scarlet saddles, flashing steel, hard-held horses with yards of tail, and above all, the lithe figures in perfect balance whatever their positions; but the performance is often too "ragged" to be impressive, and it strenuously demands flats of desert as a background.
The basha would always come out and look on when there was one of these "field days" at Tetuan: his figure was not adapted to his participation therein, being perfectly in keeping with his walk in life, and that walk consisted in his sitting from six o'clock to ten o'clock in the morning, and from three o'clock to six o'clock in the afternoon, in a small open room off the street opposite his house, in a reclining position upon cushions, before him an excited group (as often as not), contradicting, swearing, gesticulating, abusing, all at the same moment—one of whom is carried off by the soldiers to be flogged, another is sent to prison, or, if the seekers after justice wax more troublesome than ordinary, they may all be thrown into prison by the heels together to calm them. At the same time the basha absorbs bribes, and sweeps loaves of sugar, packets of candles, and pounds of tea into his net. These are the ordinary bribes.
