Journal of a tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas

by Joseph Dalton Hooker; John Ball

The dwarf fan-palm (Chamærops humilis, or palmetto of the Spaniards), much less common in Marocco than it is in the hotter parts of Southern Europe, was here rather abundant, perhaps because it is one of the few plants that the locusts are unable or unwilling to devour.

As we rode onward, gradually ascending over a gently undulating country, this became constantly more productive. In two or three places the people were cutting tolerable crops of ripe corn; the olive, fig, and pomegranate became frequent, and for the first and last time we saw the former tree cultivated with care, pruned, and apparently manured.

The sun had just set when we at length reached our camp outside the large castle of the Governor of Shedma, and found our interpreter and other attendants anxiously awaiting our arrival. The tents were already pitched, and our heavy luggage was in its place. We should have been glad to eat a moderate repast in peace, lay out the plants collected during the day, and retire to rest; but that would have been nowise suitable to the dignity of a party travelling under the especial protection of the Sultan, and whose importance had doubtless been exaggerated to the utmost by the inventive talents of our interpreter. In the absence of the Governor, his son, a stout overfed man of forty, welcomed us on our arrival, and invited us to dine in the kasbah, and of course courtesy required us to accept the invitation. After a brief toilet, we proceeded to enter the castle, and were led through open spaces to the inner building, which forms the dwelling of the Governor, and then through a court, with flower-plots in the centre, to a large and handsome hall, where we were to be entertained. As usual, there was little furniture, save several showy Rabat carpets, but we noticed three or four ornamental French timepieces in a recess where it would appear that the Governor or his son were used to sleep. Besides our host, there was present a grave man whose features differed much from the ordinary Moorish type. He turned out to be a Turk who had already passed several months as a guest in the Governor’s castle. We never understood accurately what had brought him so far from Istamboul; but we were led to believe that he had come on some informal mission, and that its traditional jealousy of foreigners, nowise confined to Christians, had led the Moorish Court to interpose obstacles in the way of his advance into the country.

After a quarter of an hour’s interchange of civil speeches, conversation began to flag; but the Governor’s cook, who perhaps wished to display his professional skill on the occasion, was yet far from completing his operations. Quite an hour passed, we were tired and sleepy, and our fat host showed no talent for conversation, so that the time hung heavily enough until the usual preface to dinner, green tea, was introduced. Doubtless the entertainment was everything that a Moorish connoisseur would have thought refined and exquisite. Orange-flower water was provided for washing the fingers, and incense was burned at the beginning of the repast. Our host was attentive enough to pick out and present to us choice pieces of meat or vegetable from the dishes that followed each other in slow order, but he fortunately did not think it necessary to show the utmost mark of hospitable attention by taking an especially delicate morsel from his own mouth and thrusting it into that of a guest. It was quite ten o’clock when, after further potations of green tea, we returned to our tents. Presently Hooker was requested, through Abraham, our interpreter, to receive the mona, or offering of food, which, in accordance with the Sultan’s order, was to be provided at each place where we stopped on our journey. The mona on this occasion befitted the dignity of the Governor of an important province rather than the wants of three travellers who had just been abundantly fed, and whose retinue could not, with the best intentions, consume one half of the articles supplied.

Opposite the door of our large tent a number of the Governor’s servants appeared, the whole group being lit up by torchlight. First, five live sheep were dragged forward, then twenty fowls, then followed a large hollow dish filled with eggs. To these succeeded a very large earthen jar of butter, and another of honey, a package of green tea, four loaves of sugar, candles of French manufacture, which are largely imported, and finally corn for our horses and mules. As if all this were not enough, there then advanced a procession of men, carrying the usual large dishes with beehive covers, each of which in turn was laid down before Hooker. It may be here mentioned that the presentation of mona was henceforward a daily ceremony, repeated every evening, some time after our arrival in camp. The requisition was made by the soldiers of our escort upon the local authority, whether a governor or a mere village sheik; and this was a part of their duties which they performed with unfailing zeal and punctuality. On such an occasion as the present we had no fear of pressing too hardly on the donors of the mona; but in poor places, and especially in the valleys of the Great Atlas, we had an unpleasant feeling that the exorbitant demands of our rapacious escort imposed a heavy tax on the limited means of the population.

Struggling against sleep, we diligently worked at our plants till long past midnight, and then, at length, sought rest after our first day’s journey in South Marocco. On the morning of April 30, we were up betimes, and had an opportunity of viewing the kasbah. It is a large pile of building, enclosed by a high wall, within which there is space for great numbers of horses, camels, and domestic animals of all kinds, with dwellings for the numerous retainers and rooms for guests, all separate from the central block which forms the residence of the great man, his family, and personal attendants. Except that it is mainly built of tapia, or blocks of mud, rammed into square moulds and hardened in the sun, this and other similar buildings in Marocco differ little from the castles which the semibarbarous feudal chiefs inhabited throughout a great part of Europe in the so-called ages of chivalry, and down to the beginning of the last century. A more extended acquaintance with the country afterwards showed further points of comparison. There is not one of these kasbahs that has not been the scene of atrocious deeds of cruelty and treachery, such as we find in the records of most of our mediæval strongholds. When we shudder at tales of Moorish atrocities we are apt to forget that they merely disclose an anachronism, no way surprising in a country that has stood altogether aloof from the influences that have brought Europe to a condition of relative civilisation.

The kasbah of Shedma is well placed, on nearly flat ground, at the summit of one of the highest of the undulating hills that intervene between the coast and the great plain of Marocco, standing, by our measurements, 1,430 feet (436 mètres) above the sea level. The view over the gently heaving surface of the lower hills to the south was very pleasing. The slopes covered with short herbage, the green now beginning to turn brown and yellow, are studded with trees, chiefly Argan, olive, and fig, sometimes in clumps, sometimes dotted over the surface. Close to us, adjoining the gate of the kasbah, were several very fine Argan trees just coming into flower.

We were rather late in this morning’s start, and it was near 9 A.M. when, after the tents and luggage were packed, we got under way, accompanied by our host of last night, the Governor’s son, who volunteered to show us his father’s garden, of which he was evidently proud. We rode down the hill, and soon reached a place called the ‘Tuesday Market’ (Souk el Tleta), beside which we were to inspect the first example we met of Moorish horticulture. The enclosed space, about an acre in extent, was divided into oblong beds, in which the only cultivated flowers were roses and marigolds, growing amidst an abundant growth of weeds. Along with these we noticed several beds of mint, which is in constant requisition for mixing with green tea.

At the open space of the ‘Tuesday Market,’ our host took leave of us. We had not thought it necessary to make him a present, but he had no hesitation in asking for such small articles as caught his fancy. Maw had beguiled the tedious hour of waiting for dinner last night by exhibiting the combustion of magnesium wire, and complied with a request to that effect by giving up a small portion of his store. The Moor had spied a small lens in the hands of Crump, Hooker’s servant, and now asked for that. He next begged for some trifling European article belonging to Abraham, our interpreter, and finally for a box of fusees, the last possessed by Ball.

In a country where shops are unknown, except in a few large towns, the only chance for obtaining anything which the peasant cannot raise on his own ground is at the nearest market. These are held at some selected spot throughout the inhabited parts of the country, not always near a village, and the place takes its name from the day of the week on which the market is held. We found this place to be 1,183 feet (360·3 m.) above the sea level.