Poets, musicians, doctors, and men of science flocked to the capitals; both Almeria and Malaga were centres of culture, and the works of many writers who flourished in those cities still survive. But in Kintafi all was in decadence; for music, only a little thrumming on the gimbri, [175] beating of tom-toms, an occasional song sung to the lute, and the shrill music of the Moorish pipe known as the Ghaita, and which survives in parts of Spain under the name of Dulzaina. In both countries it is always accompanied by a small hand-drum.
Literature, in the modern Moorish State, is confined but to the Koran, the sacred books, an occasional Arab poet, and the study of the one book known to be written in the Berber tongue, and called El Maziri, which deals exclusively with the ceremonial of the faith. Strange that a people like the Moors, still brave, so fine in type, ardent in faith, sober in habit, and apparently (if history lie not more than usually) so like to what they were externally, when they shook Europe, should have fallen into such absolute decay. Literature, art, science, everything is forgotten; architecture but a base copy of their older styles, though still not so degraded as our own; bad government cries aloud in every town, on every road corruption runs rampant, and still the people, as mere men, are infinitely superior to any race in Europe I have seen; patient, and bearing hunger and oppression with a patience to put a saint to shame, and yet incapable of striking a blow to free themselves from the base tyranny which all must see and feel.
No man in all Morocco to rise and say, as the Sheikhs said to Omar when he asked if any one had a complaint against him: “By Allah, if we had had cause of complaint against thee, we had redressed it with our swords.” And still, in spite of decadence, I never met a Moor who knew anything of our European life and institutions, except, of course, the servant class and a few men in place, and money-lenders, who wished to change their decadence for our prosperity upon the terms of bowing to a foreign race. They know that to the individual man, with all its faults, their life is happier than ours—somehow they feel instinctively that when we talk of freedom, liberty, and of good government, these mean freedom, good government and liberty for ourselves, and that they, by submitting, would become slaves, receiving nothing in return. Still they accept our gin, our teas, our powder, and in general, all the good things which Europe sends them, with civility; but decline to see that we, for all our talk, are any better than themselves. Baulked of our negro, I cast about to find some other stranger willing to earn a dishonest penny by carrying letters for the prisoners of the Kaid. After much talking and long negotiation overnight, a man made up his mind to venture to Morocco city, a journey of about three days, for the magnificent guerdon of four dollars, one dollar to be paid at once, and the other three upon arrival, either at Mr. Nairn’s, the missionary’s, house, or that of Si Bu Bekr, a well-known merchant, and for a long time British Agent in the town, or at the house of the Sherif of Tamasluoght, a protected British subject, whose Zowia is about ten miles outside the town.
The letters duly written, with much care and secrecy, some to our friends, others to consuls, one to the British Minister in Tangier, and two [177] to newspapers, were wrapped up carefully in a piece of strong French packing paper, tied round with a palmetto cord, and given to the man, who crawled up to the tent door at dead of night, whilst we sat waiting for him like conspirators. At the last moment, he demanded “one more dollar in the hand,” dwelling upon the risks he ran, and which, indeed, were great. Not being prepared to bargain at such a time, I put the dollar in his hand, and bade him go with God, telling Mohammed-el-Hosein to explain in Berber all that he should do. They seemed to talk for hours, though I suppose it was not really long, and after having received instructions, minute enough to confuse a lawyer, he slipped away, crawling along the ground (his single long white garment looking like a shroud), until he reached a bank beside the mill stream, over which he dropped.
We sat late, talking over our tea, smoked the last of our tobacco, and calculated how long it would take to get an answer, if all went well, and if our messenger escaped the perils of the road. Mohammed-el-Hosein thought in five days, if in the interim it did not rain, and the rivers rise, we might have word, “for,” he said, “when the man arrives, either the missionary or Bu Bekr, or both, will send off messengers both to the Consul, to the Sultan, and another to the Kaid to tell him where we are. The messengers,” he said, “having their own spurs and other people’s horses, will not spare either, so that upon the evening of the fifth day we shall hear, Inshallah, if all goes well.”
All the night long we slept but little, fearing to hear shots and see our guide brought back escorted by a guard, but all passed quietly, and we congratulated ourselves on his escape, as we knew well the first ten miles of the road would be most difficult for him to pass.
Next morning we kept wondering, like children, how far our messenger had got upon the road, and trying to encourage one another by talking of the tremendous distance an Arab “rekass” could go when pushed to exert himself by fear or gain. The stories grew as the morning passed, until at last from eighty to a hundred miles seemed quite an ordinary trot. Privately, I thought the thick-legged mountaineer did not look like a record breaker, but I kept my opinion to myself, and let my followers yarn, seeing that it relieved their hearts. By this time, Mohammed-el-Hosein had ventured back from his refuge with the Sherif from Sus, and was quite sure that the Kaid had sent a messenger off to the Sultan, for, on the morning after we were captured, a “rekass” was seen to strike across the hills. The Chamberlain, [178] Si Mohammed, honoured us with a visit, wrapped up in fleecy, voluminous white clothes, new yellow shoes, beard dyed with henna, finger nails turned orange with the same substance, and followed by two stalwart, well-armed mountaineers, who strode behind him as he waddled to our tent. After due compliments and salutations, he officially informed us that the Kaid was wounded, and could not see us for a day or two. Though we knew this before, to show good manners, we pretended great astonishment, asked who could have dared to wound so good a prince, where it had happened, and as to seeing us, begged he would use his pleasure in the matter, though, of course, we counted every minute, till we should see his face. The Chamberlain, as excellent a diplomatist as could be wished for, said he was glad to see us in such spirits, for he had thought by my expression on the first day, that I was irritated with his lord, the Kaid, who had detained us (as he now said) merely to save our lives, as, had we crossed into the Sus, the “Illegitimate Ones” (Oulad el Haram) would have slain us, not for Christians, “for,” said the Chamberlain, looking at me with a slight smile, “you wear our clothes as if you had been born amongst the Arabs,” but as strangers, for God had made their hearts like stone to all they did not know. The conversation languished till he startled me by asking if I was a Moskou, which at first I did not comprehend, and thought he meant to ask me of what sect I was. Just as I had instructed Lutaif to inform him I was a member of the U.P. [179a] Church, and was as orthodox [179b] a Christian as he was a Mohammedan, it dawned upon me that he meant to ask me if I was a Russian, and might have said I was one, had I not feared to bring about a diplomatic question of some sort. Our guns against the tent-pole next struck his eye. Mine was a double-barrelled gun lent by the British Consul in Mogador. Lutaif’s, a single barrelled, Spanish gun, made in Barcelona, and so light upon the trigger, that on the only occasion he tried to fire with it, it started before he was expecting it, and the whole charge passed close to the head of an old negro on a donkey passing along the road. The negro did not turn a hair, but was just starting to abuse Lutaif, when, in my capacity of a Sherif, I rode up and cursed him for a dog for getting between the gun and the partridge Lutaif was firing at. This made things right, and the poor man rode on with many apologies for having frightened us. The Chamberlain examined the two weapons, and asked leave to show them to the Kaid, and, before we had time to answer, motioned to one of his attendants to take them off. I sat as solid as a rock, and said it was not usual to deprive a guest of his gun without consent, whereupon the Chamberlain poured out a torrent of excuses, and said the Kaid had now determined not to hurt a hair of any of our heads, and only wanted to see the guns from curiosity. Seeing the turn events were taking, I tried to get the Chamberlain to say if a “rekass” had been sent off to the Sultan or not, and if it was not possible for him to use his influence (for a consideration) to enable us to go on to the Sus.
Tipping through the East is understood to the full as well as it is understood in England, and his eyes glistened at the word “consideration,” but with an effort he replied, as far as he knew no messenger had gone, and, as to going to the Sus, had he not told us of the Sons of Belial who in that land cared for men’s lives as little as an ordinary man cared about killing lice? After some tea and a surreptitious cigarette which I found in the corner of my saddlebag, and which to make him smoke we had to close the tent, so that no one should see him “drink the shameful,” he departed, telling us to be of good cheer and we should soon be honoured by an interview with his liege lord the Kaid. As he departed I responded to his compliments ceremoniously in English, devoting his liege lord to all the devils mentioned in the Talmud, Cabala, Apocalypse, and other works upon theology which treat of angels, devils, and like works of human ingenuity. Lutaif almost exploded, and even Swani, who knew a little expletive English, seemed amused.
After the interview we walked up the river and sat down underneath an algarroba tree, to watch thirty or forty people, men, children, and women, more or less carelessly veiled (for in this matter Berbers are much less strict than Arabs), all cracking almonds in a long open shed.
Almonds are one of the staple articles of trade in the Atlas Mountains. Long trains of mules, during the autumn, convey them to Morocco city; from thence they go to Mogador and are shipped off to Europe, “though what you Christians do with such a quantity of almonds we do not know.” I took especial care not to enquire the price per bag, or ton, or box, they sell at; how many qualities there are; when they are ripe; how they are picked, sorted, or anything of that fatiguing nature, knowing how much I had disliked that kind of thing in books of travel I have read. Is not all that set forth in Consular Reports, in Blue Books, and the like, and who am I, by means of information got meanly at first hand, to “blackleg,” so to speak, upon a British Consul, or to “springe cockle in his cleene corne” with unofficial and uncalled details which would not bring me in a cent?