It was on a later visit to Tangier that I made the acquaintance of the famous Sharifa, Madame Wazzan, the English wife of the late Sharif, the native ruler of this part of the country. She was an interesting personage and for many years played an important part in Moroccan affairs. She was a strong, masterful-looking woman rather Oriental in type, but thoroughly British in her tastes. Her drawing-room was the most characteristically English room I ever saw out of Great Britain. On the walls hung signed photographs of royalties and distinguished personages from all over the world, for this vigorous woman with iron-gray hair and aquiline features was a power in the land of her adoption. She spoke of her late husband with affection. His portrait held the central place on the walls. I met the wife of her son, a pretty Oriental with the regulation henna-tinted nails and palms. Tea was served English fashion and it was not till I was introduced to the Oriental part of the establishment that I realized what the Sharifa meant when she said:
“I lead a double life. With Arabs I am an Arab; with Europeans I am a European.”
The Sharifa has done much to help civilize her adopted country. She told me that she had introduced vaccination to Tangier, where she vaccinates hundreds of children every year. I met Muli Hassan, her grandson and heir to the title, a pretty, well-mannered child.
“In certain respects,” the Sharifa told me, “my grandchildren are brought up English fashion, as my children were. But I never forget that they are not only noble, but in the eyes of the people here, almost sacred persons. The crowd of cripples and beggars you saw outside my gate were waiting for the chance of touching Muli Hassan’s garments when he goes out to ride.”
The influence of such English women as the Sharifa of Wazzan and Lady Hester Stanhope upon the Mohammedan world into which they married, is beyond calculation. It must have been a very potent one, and perhaps worth to the British Empire the awful price they must have paid!
[To Laura Richards.]
On board the steamer, bound
for Naples, January 19, 1894.
When we saw Granada we did not wonder that the Moors still mourned for their lost paradise.
At Seville we found a good English pension, honest and cheap, and best of all Don Antonio Sucillio, a friend of J.’s and one of the leading Spanish sculptors. He took us to his heart and we had two days of pure unmixed delight at Seville in the shadow of the Giralda, one of the perfect towers in the world, as lovely in its way as the Giglio at Florence. We saw some fine Murillos, the unique cathedral, the Alcazar, and the House of Pilate, only less beautiful than the Alhambra and the fitting prelude to this brightest jewel in the crown of Spain.
We reached the marvelous garden of delight, Granada, at nine o’clock on a full moonlight night. The next morning we were in the Alhambra in the very room where Queen Isabella first listened to Columbus and promised him her jewels for his quest. The capital of the Moors is perched on a high hill behind which rise the snow-clad Sierras. The town of Granada lies at the foot of the hill reserved for the palaces and gardens. The exterior of the Alhambra is grim and simple, but noble in its somber strength. The interior—but it is indescribable! The beauty of design, the wealth of color, the wonderful harmony, the romance, the hot passionate quality of it all makes Greece seem cold and Italy thin compared to it. Charles the Fifth did a little butchering and Ferdinand and Isabella a little more, but on the whole it has been wonderfully preserved. Restoration is only made when necessary and is so perfectly done that one asks not to be told where the original work leaves off and the reproduction begins.