The Kaid’s house, perched upon a rock, I avoided like a plague spot, fearing to be recognised and sent back to Mogador, and made, instead, for the house of one Haj Addee, a Sheikh, [80b] which being interpreted may stand in his case for country gentleman.
The Sheikh has been in Mecca, Masar el Kahira (Cairo), carries a rosary, has some knowledge of the world (Mohammedan), and is not quite unlike those old world Hidalgos of La Mancha, they of the “Rocin flaco y galgo corredor,” whom Cervantes has immortalised in the person of Don Quixote.
Friends interested in my journey in Mogador had recommended the Sheikh to me as a safe man in whom to trust, before engaging myself in the recesses of the Atlas. So, riding to his house, I sent in Swani with a letter from an influential man in Mogador, and Haj Addee soon appeared, and, after asking me to dismount, led me by the hand to his guest house. This was an apartment composed of three small rooms, one serving as a bedroom, the second as a place in which to store our saddles, tent, and camping requisites, and the third, which had no roof, as sitting-room. All round the sitting-room ran a clay divan, a fire burned in one corner, and overhead the stars shone down upon us, especially the three last stars in the Great Bear’s tail, so that, take it for all in all, it was as pleasantly illuminated a drawing-room as any I have seen. Hard by the door stood an immense clay structure, shaped like a water barrel, which served for storing corn [81a] in during the winter, and in the spring broken to pieces when the corn was used.
Seated on the divan, I watched an enormous copper kettle try to boil upon a brass tripod [81b] in which a little charcoal glowed, whilst in a small brass dish a wick fed with raw mutton fat made darkness manifest. As I look round the room it strikes me that there seems to be a sort of dominant type of Mohammedan formed by religion, in the same way that in the north of Ireland you can distinguish a Catholic from a Protestant, across the street. Mohammed el Hosein, though of a different race, and from thousands of miles away, presents the perfect type of an Afridi, as depicted in the columns of the illustrated papers. Ali, our muleteer, with his thin legs, beard brushed into a fan, and coppery skin, might sit for the picture of a Pathan; it may be that an Oriental would discern a great resemblance between a Dutchman and a Portuguese which had lain dormant to our faculties, and if this was the case my theory would be as well confirmed as many other theories which have revolutionised the scientific world.
We talk of Mecca and Medina, of travelling from Jeddah, stretched in “shegedefs” [82] upon a camel’s back, of Gibel Arafat, the Caaba, and of the multitude of different classes of Mohammedans who swarm like bees, Hindoos and Bosnians, Georgians, Circassians, the dwellers in the Straits, and the Chinese believers, whom my host serves up all in a lump as Jawi, and says that they are little, yellow, all have one face, and that their mother in the beginning was a Djin. It appears that at the sacred places, the town of tents is of such vast dimensions that it is possible to lose yourself and wander for miles if you forget to take the bearings of your tent. It must be a curious sight to see the various nationalities, the greater part of whom have no means of communication other than a few pious sentences, and a verse or two from the Koran.
Swani, who is a double pilgrim, having twice been in Mecca, comes out most learnedly as to nice points in Mohammedan theology. Though he can neither read nor write, and is, I fear, not all too strict in the mere practice of his religion, yet he can talk for hours upon the attributes of God, and as judiciously as if he had been a graduate of St. Bees, so well he knows the essence, qualities, power, majesty, might, glory, and every proper adjective to be applied. The object of his hopes is to induce me to perform the pilgrimage. He assures me that it is quite feasible, has even arranged for my disguise, and tells me that in Mecca he can take me to a friend’s house, who is as big a Kaffir as myself. His idea is that I shall go as a Circassian, which people I resemble as to type, and when I say, “What, if I fall upon a real Circassian?” he only answers, “That is impossible,” in the same manner as when asked what they would do if they discovered me; he answers, “they would not discover you, you look so like a man from Fez.” What annoys him is that I make no apparent progress in the language, and I fear that I shall have to take a longer pilgrimage before I am fit, even with such a guide, to throw the stones on Gibel Arafat. Sometimes our talk ran on the wonders of the West; the steamships in which the pilgrims sail from Tangier to Jeddah, and on board of one of which, our host informs us, once when he was praying, the Kaffir Captain touched him on the arm, and, pointing to the compass, informed him he was not head on to the proper point. This conduct seems to have impressed Haj Addee, and he remarks, “God, in his mercy, may yet release that captain from the fire.” As we were talking, neighbours dropped in, in the familiar Eastern way, and sat quiet and self-contained, occasionally drinking from one of the two long-necked and porous water-jars, known as “Baradas,” or the “coolers,” which stand, their wooden stoppers tied to them with a palmetto cord, on each side the divan. Swani concocts the tea, using the aforesaid weighty copper kettle, a pewter cone-shaped tea-pot, made in Germany, a tin tea-caddy, painted the colour of orange marmalade, with crude blue flowers, which kind of merchandise Birmingham sends to Morocco, to be sold at one-and-sixpence, to show how much superior are our wares to those of all the world. The host knocks off great pieces from a loaf of cheap [84] French sugar with the key of the house, drawing it from his belt, and hammering lustily, as the key weighs about four ounces, and is eight or nine inches long.
Imintanout being, as it were, the gate of Sus, and the end of the first stage of our journey, we ask most anxiously as to the condition of the road. The way we learn is easy, so easy that trains of laden camels pass every day, and the whole distance across the mountains is a short two days. So far so good, but when we intimate our intention of starting early next morning, then bad news comes out.
It appears the tribe called Beni Sira, sons of burnt fathers, as our host refers to them, have stopped the pass, not that they are bad men, at least our host is sure of this, or lives too near them to venture on a criticism, but because they are dissatisfied with the new governor recently appointed, and wish to get him into bad odour with the Sultan by causing trouble. It appears those mis-begotten folk have fired upon a party only the day before, and wounded a Jewish merchant, who is laid up in a house not far from where we sit. A caravan of twenty mules was set upon last week, two men were wounded and the goods all carried off. A most ingenious system of proving that the governor is incompetent to preserve order, and therefore must be changed.
Suspecting that the story was untrue, and only got up to prevent my entering the Sus, I sent two messengers, one to see the Jewish merchant, and tell me if he is really wounded, and another to a Sheikh, asking if a traveller, going to pray in Tarudant, and skilled in medicine, can pass that way. The report of fighting seriously alarms our muleteers, and even Swani, though brave enough, looks grave at having to fight so far away from home. Haj Addee—to show goodwill, or to impress us with his power—offers, should the local Sheikh of the Beni Sira return an unfavourable reply, to get his men together and fight his way right through the pass. I thank him with effusion, but resolve not to place myself alone in the middle of a tribal battle without a rifle, on a half-tired horse, and deprived even of a Kodak with which to affright the nimble adversary.
And so I lose a day, or perhaps gain it, talking to the curious people, and prescribing wisely for ophthalmia; dividing Seidlitz powders into small portions to be taken at stated times to serve as aphrodisiacs, and watching an incantation which seems to cure our host of rheumatism.