Murder, robbery, and cattle-lifting ceased throughout the Tangier province. Life and property were safe. Thus this cruel and barbarous mutilation of one ruffian saved hundreds of innocent men from murder, and women and helpless Jews from outrage.
On a shooting excursion to a district about eight miles from Tangier, I found in a sheltered spot about forty beehives[38]. There was no village within a mile of the hives, and there was no hut even for a guard. Passing a cowherd attending some oxen, not far from the hives, I inquired to whom they belonged. He said they were the property of the village of Zinats. I asked whether there was no guard to watch the property, which could easily be carried off at night. Pointing towards Tangier, he exclaimed, ‘Benabu.’
There was a very beautiful young Mohammedan widow at Tangier, who led a dissolute life. Fatmeh, the Basha’s son, was a constant visitor at her house. Benabu had repeatedly warned his son to discontinue his visits. He summoned also the widow; and after censuring her misconduct, he told her that if she again admitted his son into her house he would mar her beauty, which was the cause of his son’s disgraceful conduct.
Some weeks afterwards, Benabu was informed that Fatmeh had again visited the house of the widow. He was arrested and imprisoned, and the widow was brought before the Basha.
‘You have not,’ said the Basha, ‘kept your promise to me, or taken heed of my warning. Your beauty has brought disgrace upon my son and myself.’
Turning to the guards who attended in the ‘Meshwa,’ or Hall of Judgment, he said, ‘Bring a barber.’
The barber was brought.
‘Cut off,’ said Benabu, ‘below the cartilage, the tip of this woman’s nose.’
The barber, trembling, begged that the operation might not be performed by him. ‘It shall be as you wish,’ replied the Basha; ‘but then your nose will be taken off for disobedience.’ The barber obeyed, and the tip of the nose of the pretty widow was cut off. ‘Go,’ said the Basha to her; ‘you will now be able to lead a better life. May Allah forgive you, as I do, your past sins!’
When Benabu, as a young man, was Kaid in command of a body of cavalry, he received orders from the Sultan to escort with his troopers a foreign Envoy to the Court at Marákesh. During the journey to the capital, the camp had been pitched in the neighbourhood of a large village, where a ‘Marábet’ or holy man dwelt, who was looked up to with great veneration by the villagers.