Soon after we entered the main valley, and were riding along a broad track parallel to the Tetuan river, we came upon a group that for the first time brought home to us an illustration of the true condition of society in this country. A body of armed horsemen, many of them true Negroes or mulattoes, were resting beside the way, broken up into lively groups, laughing and chattering together. Amongst them was a solitary man, poorly clothed, and, as we observed, laden with heavy chains. He kept his back turned towards the track, and seemed to take advantage of the halt to dip his feet into the brook that ran along beside it. So numerous an escort in charge of a single prisoner suggested something unusual, and we were led to make inquiry. According to the story retailed to us, the chained captive was lately the powerful governor of a distant province, who had offered a stout resistance when summoned to the capital to give an account of his administration. It is well understood in Marocco that such summons, whether framed as a peremptory order or a flattering invitation, has but one meaning—that the time has come when it seems to the Sultan or his counsellors that the wretched governor should be ‘squeezed,’ or, in other words, be forced by torture to surrender whatever wealth he may have hoarded. As the appointment of a new governor generally means that the province will be subjected to fresh impositions and extortions, the people are apt to side with the old governor, and sometimes, in a country where the central power is so feeble, a man, by a judicious combination of force and bribery, may long keep the government at bay, and escape the miserable fate that usually awaits him. Our prisoner, apparently, was too formidable a man to be safely kept at Fez or Marocco, and was therefore sent to Tetuan, the extreme limit of the territory, there to undergo such torture as might be necessary to extort confession of the hiding place of his treasure, unless, through ill-judged obstinacy, he should die in torments before disgorging as much as might be expected. No better illustration of the system can be found than the fact that strangers are informed, as of something extraordinary and unexampled, that one old man now lives at Tetuan who long held a high and confidential post in the government, and yet was allowed to retire without being ‘squeezed!’ The truth is, that he had gained the good-will and confidence of the representatives of the European Powers, and that it was urged upon the late Sultan that the credit of his government would suffer, if, after a long course of faithful service, the minister were to undergo the common fate of his colleagues.

Some twenty years before, when one of our party visited Tetuan, the whole province was thrown into confusion by one of these customary acts of the then reigning Sultan. Hash Hash, a man of unusual capacity and energy, had governed the province of Tetuan for many years with extraordinary success. He kept the turbulent Riff mountaineers in order, and, so it was said, Jew and Christian, under his rule, enjoyed the same security as the Moor. At length he received messengers from the Court with the gift of a white horse richly caparisoned, and an autograph letter from his sovereign full of commendation and winding up with an invitation to the capital, then fixed at Fez. He started on the fatal journey, but arrived only to be flung into a dungeon and subjected to daily torture. Soldiers were sent to Tetuan, where his house was pillaged, his wives and children led to prison, while the absence of all control led to a rapid growth of crime in the district, and life and property were no longer thought safe in the surrounding country.

J. B. delt.

TETUAN

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The approach to Tetuan presented the most picturesque scene that we anywhere beheld in Marocco. Begirt with a lofty wall, set at short intervals with massive square towers, the city shows from a distance only a few mosques and a heavy, frowning heap of masonry that forms the castle or citadel. It stands on the slope of a limestone hill, some two hundred feet above the river, which flows through a broad valley, rich with the most brilliant vegetation. After riding for hours over the thirsty hills, it was a delight to rest the eyes on the patches of emerald meadow, and on the darker green of the luxuriant orchards, where the best oranges in the world grow along with figs, almonds, peaches, and all our common tree fruit. Amidst all this wealth of greenery many a little white house—a mere cube of chalk—gleamed brightly. Most of these seem to belong to peasant owners, but some are kiosks to which the wealthier inhabitants repair to escape from the heat and bad air of the town.

We were not yet familiar with the squalor and neglect that seem the inevitable characteristics of a Moorish town, and it was a disappointment to find the interior of Tetuan correspond so ill to the picturesqueness of its outward aspect. After riding between high walls, apparently forming an inner defence to the town, we went through some streets of mean aspect, and, traversing one wide open space, passed under an interior gate guarded by a sentry, and found ourselves in a labyrinth of narrow alleys decidedly cleaner than the remainder of the city. This is the Jewish quarter, where, as in the Jewry or Ghetto of mediæval Europe, the children of Israel are required to live apart, within a wall and gates that are locked at night, and where they seem to manage their own affairs with little interference from the Moorish authorities. We soon established ourselves in very fair quarters at the house of Isaac Nahum, who acts as clerk and interpreter at the single consulate which of late years has watched over the safety of all Europeans who happen to reach Tetuan whether by land or sea. Since the war in which Tetuan was taken by the Spanish troops—their solitary achievement during the last sixty years—the Government of Spain has desired to maintain its influence in this part of the country by the presence of a consul; and the other European States have willingly taken advantage of his presence. The duties cannot be heavy, for few strangers now visit Tetuan, although up to the year 1770 it was the residence of all the European consuls. The beauty of its site, the excellence of its oranges and other fruit, and the reported superiority in refinement of its inhabitants, both Moorish and Jew, do not compensate for the difficulty of access by sea, since none but the smallest class of coasting vessels can cross the bar at the mouth of the river. This is guarded (or was so up to the time of the Spanish war in 1859) by a massive square tower, without door or other apparent opening. A Christian boat from Gibraltar, in which one of us had formerly arrived, was hailed from the summit of the tower. After a preliminary parley, a rope ladder was let down from the top, some seventy or eighty feet, and a black soldier scrambled down with great activity, the final result of the parley being that the strangers, after payment of some trifling harbour dues, were sent to the town, a distance of five or six miles, under the escort of a soldier.

Whether because there really is some slight diminution in the feeling that has so long excluded strangers, and especially Christians, from the interior of Marocco, or that previous travellers had happened to make the attempt at unfavourable conjunctures, we found that the letter to the Governor given to us by Sir J. D. Hay was scarcely required, and no difficulty was raised about the requisite official permission to ascend the Beni Hosmar, as the mountain mass is called, which forms the end of the chain extending northward from the Beni Hassan.

One of our party had already succeeded in ascending about half the height of the mountain; but the only European known to have reached the upper ridge was the late Mr. Barker Webb, the author of the ‘Phytographia Canariensis,’ and other important botanical works. He effected his object by liberal expenditure, having begun by a present of 40l. to the Governor, besides handsome rewards to those who were sent with him.