Leaving the International Sanatorium of the Palmera at the hour that Allah willed it, which happened to be about eight in the morning of the 12th October, dressed in Moorish clothes, our faces far too white, and our ample robes like driven snow, the low thick scrub of Argan, dwarf rhododendrons, and thorny sandarac, and “suddra” [61a] bushes after five minutes’ riding swallowed us up, quite as effectually as might have done a forest of tall trees. Mohammed el Hosein, fully aware of the importance of getting accustomed to the Moorish clothes before at once emerging on the beaten track which leads from Mogador to Morocco city, engaged us in a labyrinth of cattle tracks, winding in and out for full two hours through stones and bushes, following the beds of water courses dry with the twelve months’ drought, which had caused almost a state of famine, and calling to us to hold ourselves more seemly, not to let our “selhams” [61b] hang too low, not to talk English, and when dismounted to walk as befits Arab gentlemen, to whom time is a drug.
After much threading through the tortuous paths, getting well torn and sunburned by the fierce sun, we emerged at the crossing of the river El Ghoreb, which runs into the sea at Mogador.
Here we encountered the usual stream of travellers always to be met with at the crossing of a river in countries like Morocco; grave men on mules going to do nothing gravely, as if the business of the world depended on their doing it with due precision. Long trains of mules laden with cotton goods going up to the capital; a travelling Arab family, the father on his horse, his gun cased in a red cloth case, balanced across the pommel of his saddle; his wife, either on foot or seated on a donkey following him, the children trotting behind, a ragged boy or two drawing a few brown goats, a scraggy camel packed with the household goods on one side, and on the other with a pannier from which a foal stuck out its head; and, lastly, two or three grown-up girls, who, as we came upon them crossing the stream, lift up their single garment and veil their mouths according to the laws of Arab decency. We sit and eat under a tree as far away as possible from all the passers-by, and our clean clothes and look of most intense respectability, secure us from all danger of intrusion on our privacy.
No sooner seated than Swani seized my legs and pulled them violently, and rubbed the knee-joints after the fashion of a shampooer in a Turkish bath. On my enquiry he assured me he knew I must be suffering agony from the short Moorish stirrups and cramped seat. I had indeed felt for the past half-hour as if upon the rack; but a horseman’s pride and acquaintanceship with many forms of saddles had kept me silent. The rubbing and pulling afforded intense relief, and I acknowledged what I had endured, on his assurance that no one escapes the pain, and that the most experienced riders in the land are sometimes kept awake all night, after a long day’s march, owing to the stiffness of their legs.
In mediæval Spain, good riders were often designated as “Ginete en ambas sillas,” [63] that is accustomed to either saddle, i.e. the Moorish and the Christian, and I now understood why chroniclers have taken the trouble to record the fact. Strangely enough the high-peaked and short-stirruped saddle does not cross the Nile, the Arabs of Arabia riding rather flat saddles with an ordinary length of leg. The Arab saddle of Morocco, in itself, is perhaps the worst that man has yet designed, but curiously enough from it was made the Mexican saddle, perhaps the most useful for all kinds of horses and of countries that the world has seen.
The Moors girth loosely and keep their saddle in its place by a broad breast plate; so that it becomes extremely difficult to mount, and to do so gracefully, you have to seize the cantle and the pommel at the same time, and get as gingerly into your seat as possible. Like all natural horsemen, the Moors mount in one motion, and bend their knees in mounting; thus, in their loose clothes, they appear to sink into the saddle without an effort. Once in the saddle a man of any pretension to respectability has his clothes arranged for him by a retainer, as being so voluminous, it is quite an art to make them sit.
Swathed in the various cloaks and wrappings which constitute the Arab dress, the feet driven well home into the stirrups, and gripping your horse’s sides with all the leg, the seat is firm, though most uncomfortable at first. After a little it becomes more tolerable, but few men can walk a step without enduring agony when they dismount after three or four hours on horseback, especially as it is a superstition amongst the Moors to mount and dismount as seldom as they can, for they imagine the act of getting on and off fatigues the horse far more than the mere carrying the burden on his back. Of course, both getting on and off are done in the name of God, that is after the repetition of the sacramental word Bismillah, used on eating, drinking, riding or performing any action for which a true believer should give thanks to Him who giveth benefits to man. It is the fashion amongst Europeans to sneer at Arab riding, and no doubt an Arab in the hunting field would not look well; and it is possible that a hunting man might also find himself embarrassed to ride a Moorish horse in Moorish saddle fast downhill over a country strewn with boulders, or at the “powder play,” to stand upon his saddle and perform the feats the Moors perform.
Horsemen and theologians are both intolerant. Believe my faith, and ride my horse after my fashion, for no Nonconformist, Cossack, Anglican, Gaucho, Roman Catholic, or Mexican can see the least redeeming point about his fellows’ creed, his saddle, horse, ox, ass, or any other thing belonging to him.
Lunch despatched, green tea drunk, and cigarette carefully smoked behind a bush, for men in our position must not give offence by “drinking the shameful” [64] in the face of true believers, we mount again, and plunge into an angle of the Argan forest, which extends from Mogador to Saffi.
Goats climb upon the trees, and camels here and there browse on the shoots; under the trees grow a few Aras (Callitris Quadrivalvis), and in the sandy soil some liliaceous plants gleam like stars in the expanse of heaven. After an hour the trees grow sparser and we emerge into a rolling country, and pass a granary, which marks the boundary between the provinces of Ha-Ha and Shiadma, and take our last look of the sea.