One word on the inhabitants of the country. The Berbers are the aborigines of Morocco, and live more or less in the hills and mountains, into which they were driven by the Arabs in the seventh century, when they overran Morocco. The Arabs, on the other hand, live in the plains; and Arabs and Berbers practically halve the country between them. Both peoples divide into numerous tribes, of which the men from the Riff are a Berber tribe. The negroes in Morocco are merely slaves imported from the south. One and all the Arab and Berber tribes are called indiscriminately by Europeans "Moors." The other wanderers in Tangier filter through the land from their own countries: who can tell why or wherefore? Hadj Riffi himself had obeyed his Prophet Mohammed in so far as to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. A journey the prospect of which would horrify a tradesman at home is undertaken by an earnest-minded shop-keeping Moor as a matter of course. What are the twelve uncomfortable days by sea to Jeddah? Or the journey thence to Mecca, lying stretched in a long pannier on one side of a camel, balanced by a second pilgrim in a pannier on the other side, and over the whole an awning spread? But this luxurious travelling is for the rich pilgrim, who swings silently along day after day, under the burning sun or the cold stars, across the tideless sea of sand, towards an illimitable horizon. Hadj Riffi "footed it," spent three days at Mecca, at this time transformed into a city of a myriad tents, among which it is easy enough to be lost, teeming with pilgrims—Chinese, Hindoos, Circassians, Georgians, Bosnians—most of them unable to understand each other, beyond a verse or two from the Korān and a few pious ejaculations.
Hadj Riffi and his fellow-Moors prayed three days at Mecca, and performed the ceremonies round the celebrated Kāaba, the chief shrine and holiest of all holy places, built by Adam and Eve after the pattern of their own Sanctum Sanctorum in the Garden of Eden.
The far-famed Black Stone, presented to the masons by the Angel Gabriel, built into the east corner of the outer wall of the Kāaba, is a semicircular fragment of volcanic basalt, sprinkled with coloured crystals, about six by eight inches large, bordered with silver, and the surface of it reddish brown, undulating, and polished.
Having kissed the Black Stone and performed other rites, the Moors went three days' journey to the Prophet's Mountain to pray; then they took themselves back to Morocco, but on their way, missing a steamer, were obliged to travel by land through Tunis, which took them five months, and, running short of money, lived, Hadj Riffi said, largely on roots.
In the meantime he urged our donkey along, breaking his discourse with "Arrah! Arrah!" until at last it was cajoled under the gateway and into the Kasbah. This fortress, reported a good specimen of Moorish architecture, could impress nobody: it has no regular garrison; the batteries are antiquated, the artillery hopelessly inefficient. The crumbling battlements are overgrown with rank grass and fig-trees, though tradition has it they were once brass, when the city was built of gold and silver.
Tangier is immensely old, and has seen many conquerors, many demolitions. Arabs, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Spaniards, and Portuguese have all in their turn besieged and taken, ruled and deserted, the white city. England has had her turn too. When Charles II. married Catherine of Braganza, Tangier and Bombay formed part of her dowry and passed into British hands. The Portuguese, to whom Tangier then belonged, withdrew; the English entered, repaired the city wall, built forts, and in the course of three years a great mole across the harbour at a cost of £31,000. Trade increased rapidly under the protection of the plucky Tangier Regiment (now the Queen's Royal West Surrey). An English mayor and corporation—six aldermen and twelve Common Council men—were established in the little colony, and attended church in scarlet and purple.
And then the Home Government made a mistake. The slovenly Tangier board in London wasted money, sent adventurers out to Tangier as governors. An exposure of their mismanagement followed, which induced the Home Government to throw up a troublesome charge, and to evacuate as valuable a port as England ever possessed, in a country which, unlike India, is admirably adapted for European colonization, and blessed with every natural advantage Creation can offer.
The mole and fortifications were blown up, Lord Dartmouth and his garrison marched out of Tangier on February 6, 1684, and the Moors took possession of a heap of fragmentary ruins. With Tangier in our hands we could have confidently commanded the passage of the Straits for seventy miles, nor would there have been a risk to Gibraltar of having all her supplies cut off in the event of Spain and Morocco being hostile to us. Fresh-comers to Morocco regret these things: in a few weeks the spirit of the country induces a lazy tolerance and a general apathy towards the past as well as towards the present state of affairs.
We found inside the Kasbah an entirely Moorish element—one sacred spot where no "Christians" may live. A children's school was making a deafening noise on our right, and we looked in to see a group of small boys sitting round an ancient, turbaned Moor, who was sewing at a jellab and paying small attention to his pupils: one and all were on their heels, lighted by the open door, there being of course no windows; and each held in his two hands a board inscribed with Arabic characters, which he swayed backwards and forwards as he swayed his body in time with sentences from the Korān, learnt thus by heart and chanted in a high sing-song key. There were no girls. Boys alone are taught anything; and in general their education begins and ends, as above, with the Korān. Few Moors can write or read: there are no books in Morocco, except the Korān and a religious treatise or two, to tempt them to learn. As for geography, an intelligent Moor will know by name England, France, and Germany, not Russia, and that his own country is the biggest, the best, and the most powerful.
Leaving the noisy little school, which did not approve of being stared at, we came to the empty palace, with its great horse-shoe doorway, painted blue-white and carved in a rudimentary way, called in Arabic "The little garden," descriptive of its inside courtyard, planted with oranges, figs, and palms.