Due West; Or, Round the World in Ten Months

by Maturin M. Ballou

There were men, women, children, and animals, each little group a family, picturesque in their squalor and their coarseness. Their brown, flat tents were of the same shape and material as those we had seen between Suez and Ismailia. Naked children and half-clad mothers peeped at us out of their canvas homes, or raised their heads above the awkward saddles and trappings of the kneeling camels, behind which they reposed. The docile, uncouth, buff-colored beasts were soberly chewing their cuds, and resting after their long and weary journey. It was a striking scene, which an artist would have traveled far to sketch, lying under a warm, hazy, atmospheric covering, so peculiar to Egypt and Africa, with the rough, red stone walls of the city for a background, and the arched Moorish gateway at the side. Here and there were to be seen dapple-gray horses of unmistakable Arab breed, animals which any rich European would have been proud to own. In one instance, seeing a fine full-bred mare and her foal lying down amid a family group, the children absolutely between the mother's legs, who was untethered, and the colt also extended on the ground with them, at our request the guide asked of the sober old Arab, who sat cross-legged, smoking by the entrance of the tent, what he would sell us the horse and colt for. "Tell your chief," was his answer, "there is not enough money coined to purchase them." This was a good and independent response. "But," added the guide, "he will sell you his wife, or any of the children!" We were contented with purchasing some fresh dates from an itinerant, who cried them in good, sonorous Arabic, "O dates, in the name of the Prophet!" and got most iniquitously cheated, both in quality and in price, according to the guide.

At sunrise, on the morning following our arrival, mules were ready at the door, and we started off, laughing merrily over the crude saddlery and other untoward fittings of the animals. Ladies' side-saddles are yet a myth in Morocco. We were bound for Washington Mount, a league or two outside the city walls, where the American Minister, several foreign consuls, and a few rich merchants of European birth make their homes, in handsome modern villas, surrounded by perennial gardens and orchards. The vegetation was often so rank as to overhang the narrow and steep roads up which we wended our way. They were so thick with agave and prickly pear, that we could hardly keep upright in the saddle. The trefoil, honeysuckle, myrtle, and white convolvulus grew in rank profusion, with occasional pale pink, single-leaved roses. Over the hedges in the private grounds, though it was early in March, we saw the orange-trees and pomegranates, the former laden with large, yellow fruit, and the latter blushing crimson with flowers among companion palms, figs, and olives. On the way through the meadow, before coming to the ascent, the ground was enameled with a pale blue daisy, which the guide told us was perennial here. After an hour's ride, emerging upon the high, open plateau, there burst upon our eyes a most enchanting view. The far-reaching waters of the Mediterranean seemed to surround the land upon which we were. Looking off towards the Spanish coast, a few white sails intervened to give character to the maritime scene; while a large steamship was making the passage of the straits, leaving behind her a long line of dense smoke. How suggestive was that expanse of waters, the most interesting of all known seas: its shores hallowed by associations connected with the entire progress of civilization; the cradle, as it has been aptly called, of the human race, the battle-field of the world, and still the connecting link between Europe, Asia, and Africa.

All around us, upon the sloping hill-side, were delightful villas, painted in bright colors, and half buried in thrifty foliage, each located in an atmosphere redolent of fruits and flowers; its front ever open to that glorious sea-view. The broad piazzas of these smiling homes were hung with hammocks, telling of luxurious out-door life. Family groups could be seen taking their morning coffee on the verandas; and the voices of many children rang out clear and bird-like, floating up to the eyrie where we were perched. Down towards the shore lay brown, dingy, dirty Tangier, with its mud-colored groups of tiled roofs, its teeming population, its mouldy old walls and arched gates, and its minarets, square and dominant. On our way back, we again passed through the slave market, and saw a freshly arrived caravan pitching their tents after a long and weary journey. A snake-charmer was busy amusing an idle group of boys and girls in one of the small squares, and a group of dancing girls, with tambourines and castanets, looked wistfully at us, hoping to get an audience; but our yet unhonored breakfast awaited us, and the mountain excursion had imparted healthful appetites.

It was quite the thing to patronize one of the little dingy cafés, and so we patiently endured the punishment of drinking an egg-shell cup of a muddy compound called coffee, but nothing short of compulsion would have induced a repetition of the same. A dose of senna would have been ambrosia compared to it. In passing through a narrow court we saw a group of children sitting cross-legged, in a circle, on the floor of an open house, with books in their hands, presided over by a sage-looking Moorish party, with long, snow-white beard, and deep-set dark eyes that seemed to burn like gas jets. The guide explained that it was a native school; and the children, who were all talking aloud at the same time, in a drawling, sing-song tone, swaying back and forth incessantly, were learning their lessons. When we inquired what special branch was being taught them, he answered: "The Koran; they learn it from the beginning to the end." "And is that all the instruction imparted to them?" we asked. "Of course," he replied; "what else do they require in Morocco?"

The houses were more like toys than dwelling-places, they were so very small, rarely of more than one story, the walls whitewashed to such a degree as to be almost blinding. Now and then the monotony was broken by an arabesque window, but, as a rule, there were none opening outward; like all Moorish houses, they had a small inner court upon which doors and windows opened, thus avoiding being overlooked, and promoting the seclusion of the harem, which seems to be the first and foremost idea of the Eastern people. Nearly the last sound that greeted our ears as we walked down over the irregular pavements, and through the narrow lanes towards the pier from whence we were to embark, was the rude music of the snake-charmer; and the last impressive sight was that of a public story-teller, in one of the little squares, in earnest gesticulation, as with a high-pitched, shrill voice he related to a group of women, who were squatted in their white haiks, and men of the desert in their hooded gehabs, what the guide told us was a chapter from the "Thousand and One Nights!" We embarked once more on board the little Leon Belge for Gibraltar, well pleased with our brief visit to the curious Moorish capital.

The Sultan of Morocco is supreme, and holds the lives and fortunes of his subjects at his will. He is judge and executor of laws which emanate solely from himself. Taxation is so heavy as to amount to prohibition in many departments of enterprise. All exportation is hampered, agriculture heavily loaded with taxation, and only so far pursued as to supply the barest necessities of life. Manufacture is where it was centuries ago, and is performed with the same primitive tools. The printing-press is unknown. There are no books; the language itself is such a mixture of tongues and so corrupted as to have hardly a distinctive existence. The power of the sultan sucks the life-blood out of the people, who obey the local sheikhs; above them are the cadis, controlling provinces; and still higher the pashas, who are accountable only to the sultan. And yet the Berbers, so-called, who form the basis of the native population, outnumbering the Moors, Arabs, Jews, and Negroes, and who live mostly in the nearly inaccessible mountains of the Atlas, are so independent, savage, and turbulent, as to nearly defy the imperial authority, yielding only so far to its control as they deem advantageous to themselves. The Arabs occupy the plains and are nomadic; the Moors possess the wealth of the land and control most branches of trade, making their homes in the cities, and are the direct descendants of the Moors of Spain. Strange there should be such a spirit of detestation existing towards every idea associated with civilized and Christian life, but so it is at Tangier.

From Gibraltar to Malaga by sea is less than a hundred miles eastward along the coast. We embarked on board the English steamer Cadiz. Fortunately the trip is a short one, for the boat was filthy, and had just been transporting cattle from England to the Rock. The water was rough enough to make the few passengers, except ourselves, quite seasick; which, in the contracted accommodations of the Cadiz, made matters far from agreeable. To add to the discomfort there was a steady downpour of rain during the trip; but we were no strangers to such contingencies, and made the best of it. The irregular Spanish coast was in sight through a veil of mist nearly all the way until we landed, after a slight skirmish with the custom-house officers, at Malaga, March 15th. It is commercially one of the most important cities of Spain, and was once the capital of an independent state, with plenty of ancient lore hanging about it, as it was a large and prosperous Phœnician capital centuries before Christ. The older portions of the city have all the Moorish peculiarities of construction,—narrow streets, narrow passages, small barred windows, and heavy doors; but the more modern part of Malaga is characterized by broad, straight thoroughfares, and elegantly built houses. This is especially the case with the Alameda, which has a central walk lined on either side with handsome almond-trees, edged by plats of flowers, and green shrubs intermingled, besides which there are statues and a fountain of an elaborate character at the end of the walk. On either side of this promenade is a good roadway, flanked with houses of pleasing architectural effect, lofty and well relieved.

There are several fine open squares in Malaga, some of which contain statues and ornamental trees and flowers. The discovery, not long since, of Roman antiquities in the environs has created a warm interest among archæologists. The trade of the city in wine, dried and green fruit, is large; and we were told that nearly nine tenths of the forty thousand butts of sweet wine, sold here for foreign use annually, were exported to the United States. On the whole, we were agreeably disappointed at the thrifty and business-like aspect of the city. There are no picture-galleries or art treasures to examine; but the people of new localities are always an interesting study, and the shops were decidedly the best we had seen since we left America. There is a grand cathedral, which is considered almost the only place worth exhibiting to strangers. It is of rather modern date, having been commenced in 1528, and is of mixed style, its façade constituting almost its only feature of remarkable beauty.

The old Moorish castle, crowning the seaward heights, has been converted into a modern fortress, and is well worth visiting for the superb view to be obtained from the battlements. Few people now come to Malaga except for a special purpose. In a sanitary point of view, as a resort for consumptives, it has long enjoyed a reputation which it certainly does not merit to-day, whatever it may have done in the past. First, it is much too cold and damp for delicate lungs. Again, it has not one comfort or social attraction to interest the visitor in search of health. Moreover, its sewerage is shamefully defective. Indeed, in the older parts of the town, the surface gutters receive and convey all the accumulated filth, so that the atmosphere is most unfavorably influenced. The published mortuary statistics have been unfairly given, as the mortality is larger in percentage than in any other part of Spain, which, as a rule, is far from possessing a healthy climate. We doubt if physicians any longer advise their patients to resort thither, certainly they would not do so if possessed of personal experience of the place.

The present population is a little over a hundred and twenty thousand, and is made up of a community of more than average respectability, though it would appear that there is an unreasonable percentage of beggars to be met with. In and about the cathedral of Santa Barbara the visitor finds this nuisance extremely annoying. Malaga has one of the largest bull-rings to be found in Spain. We were shown all over its various offices with evident pride on the part of the custodian. All contingencies, are here provided for. One apartment, with the necessary appliances, is arranged as a surgery, so that if the picadors, chulos, or matadores (bull-fighters) be any of them seriously wounded, the surgeon, who is always in attendance, can at once proceed to business. Another large apartment is fitted up as a Roman Catholic chapel. If any of the bull-fighters are fatally injured and about to die, here the priest, as regular an attendant as the surgeon, can administer the last rite, shrive the sufferer of all sin, and start him on his triumphant way to other, and, it is to be hoped, happier hunting-grounds. At the bull-ring the populace, to the number of from fourteen to fifteen thousand, assemble nearly every Sabbath during the season, to witness this most cruel of all sports. No seat is left unoccupied, and, as we were informed, the day before the exhibition tickets are nearly always sold at a premium. The devotion of the Spaniards to this national sport is universal, from the grandee to the peasant. More than once has the attempt been made by the throne to bring the cruel business into disrepute, but it has been found unavailing. The taste is too deeply rooted in the masses of the people. We were told subsequently, at Madrid, that an attempt to suppress the bull-fights in Spain would be more likely to lead to a revolution than would the most stringent political measure that could be named. The cry of the mob is "Bread and bulls," which is very significant to those who have studied Spanish character.