All the above he told me, and plenty more, with the inimitable charm that Easterns have in storytelling, compared to which even Guy de Maupassant, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Balzac, or Fielding fall immeasurably behind. The doubtful author of the Celestina [201] and Cervantes, perhaps, come nearer; but then they, being Spaniards, were more nearly in communion with the East.
As we returned, tired and half hoping that there might be news, we learned a “rekass” had just arrived bringing despatches from the Sultan to the Kaid. Though we knew well there had not been time for the Kaid to get an answer to the letter he had sent about ourselves, yet outside news was valuable, and, in fact, had I chanced to come upon a copy of the Rock, I think I could have read it, advertisements and all. In half an hour or so the “rekass” strolled past our tent, and I invited him to come and have some tea. Out of respect he sat outside the tent, saluted us, and remained waiting to be interrogated. He was a tall, lean, teak-complexioned man, in face resembling a Maori god stuck up outside a Pah; vacant and glassy eyed and at first sight a kieffi, that is a kief smoker, thick lipped and with uncertain speech as if the tongue was (like the tongues of Bourbons) too large for his mouth, also a symptom of too much kief smoking; legs like a bronco’s from the Bad Lands, a mule’s, or a bagual’s from the stony deserts of Patagonia; feet rather large, with the toes so flexible that the whole member seemed to quiver as he walked. For clothes he had a single white garment like a nightshirt (long freed from all the tyranny of soap), hanging down almost to the ankles, girt round the waist with a string of camel’s hair. He went bare-headed and had a cord of camel’s hair bound round his temples, with a long lock, at least eight inches long, hanging from the top of his bare shaven head beside his ear. Though he had walked incessantly for the last seven days, sleeping an hour or two with a piece of burning match tied to his toe to wake him as it burned away, he strolled about, or sitting drank his tea, taking a cup now and again, which Ali or Swani passed to him out of the tent. He said as long as he had kief he never wanted food, but munched a bit of bread occasionally, drank at every stream, and trotted on day after day, just like a camel, for, as he told us, he was born to run. Withal no fool, and pious, praying now and then whenever he passed a saint’s tomb and felt wearied with the way. Just such a man as you may see amongst the cholos of the sierras of Peru, with the difference that the cholo takes coca instead of kief, and is in general a short, squat, ugly fellow, whereas our kieffi stood over six feet high, straight as a pikestaff, and was intelligent after his fashion, could read and write, and no doubt knew as much theology as was required from a right-thinking man.
For impedimenta he had a little bag in which he kept his kief, his matches, pipe, and the small store of money which it was possible he had. In one hand he carried a stout quarter-staff full five feet long, which all “rekasses” use to walk with, try the depth of water in crossing streams, defend themselves, and ease their backs by passing it behind them through their two arms, and resting on it as they trot along.
His news was brief but bloody. “Our Lord the Sultan is camped in Tedla. [202] He is indeed a king, fifty-one heads cut off, two tribes quite eaten up, three hundred of the Kaffirs wounded! O what a joy it was to see the ‘maquina,’ the Christian devil gun, which fires all day, play on the enemies of our Lord the king. Praise be to Allah who alone giveth victory.” Which being interpreted meant that the Sultan had gone under pretence of peace to Tedla; had by the advice of the Grand Vizier Ba Ahmed attacked them; butchered as many as he could, and probably sent a few hundred to die in gaol. The selfsame fate overtook the Rahamna tribe close to Morocco city. They fought a year with varying success, but at the last were decimated, butchered in hundreds, and their power destroyed.
The Grand Vizier Ba Ahmed, if all reports be true, is a bad counsellor for the young Sultan, Mulai Abdul Assiz. But be this as it may—for some who know the country say that the Grand Vizier, being a Moor, knows how to rule his countrymen—Sidi Ahmed ben Musa, usually called Ba Ahmed (Father Ahmed), is an ambitious and most powerful man, holding the Sultan in a sort of tutelage, and piling up a fortune by his exactions, which report says he has invested in safe securities abroad.
The father of the Sultan, Mulai el Hassan, who died or was poisoned some four years ago, was a remarkable personality, and perhaps one of the last Oriental potentates of the old school. Standing about six feet three inches in his slippers, he was dark in face, having, though a descendant of Mohammed, some negro blood; a perfect horseman, shot, and skilled in swordsmanship; though educated in all the learning of the Moors, he yet was tolerant of Christians, kind to Jews, and much more liberal in regard to new ideas than is his son, that is to say, if it is not Ba Ahmed who directs his policy. Mulai el Hassan was what is called a “riding Sultan,” that is a warrior, always on horseback, and passing all his life either in journeys between his various capitals, or on long expeditions to reduce refractory tribes. His fine white horse has been described by almost every embassy for the past ten years that went to Fez, for from his back the Sultan used to receive ambassadors, who bound in their hats, hosen, coats, swords, tight boots, and dignity, and forced to stand in a hot sun, on foot, must have presented a very lamentable sight.
On the white horse’s back the Sultan almost died, for one who saw him shortly before his death was standing in a street in the outskirts of Marakesh when the Sultan passed, having been sixteen hours on horseback in the rain, and looking like a corpse. Next day he died so suddenly that some thought he had been poisoned, but others think worn out with care and trouble, long journeys, and all the burden of a ruler’s life. All those who knew him say that his manners were most courteous, kind, and dignified, and that through all his life none of his servants ever heard him raise his voice, even in battle or when he ordered some unlucky man to death, above its ordinary pitch.
His clothes were spotless white; but made in the fashion of those worn by an ordinary tribesman, only of finer stuff. Colours he never wore, or jewellery, except a silver ring with a large diamond, and which when once an individual, whose name I forbear to mention, asked him for it for a keepsake, he half drew off (for usually he gave all that was asked for); but replaced and said with a quiet smile, “No, I will keep it, but you can have its value in money if you choose.” His clothes he never wore more than a day, and then his servants claimed them as perquisites; so that his wardrobe must have been pretty extensive even for a king. Upon a journey he carried almost all he had, packed upon camels, and, being troubled with insomnia at times, would say, “Bring me the telescope the Belgian Minister gave me ten years ago,” or “the watch the Queen of England sent me,” and the unlucky man to whom he spoke had to produce the thing, if he unpacked a hundred camels in the search.
The taxes he used to collect in person with an army, so that his camp was like a town of canvas, and yet the order of his own tents so great and his men so skilled in pitching them, that at a halt they used to rise like magic from the ground.
Wives, and that sort of thing, he had about three hundred, and was much addicted to their company, and some of them accompanied him on all the journeys which he made. His son, the present Sultan, was born of a Circassian, white, and report said beautiful and educated; but she transmitted little beauty and less education to her son, who is a rather heavy youth of about twenty, not well instructed, and completely in the hands of his Vizier, Ba Ahmed, who, by exactions, cruelties, and bloodshed, has made his master’s name detested all through the land. Still a strong man, and no doubt in such countries as Morocco, when a Sultan dies a strong man is required, for the tribes usually rise in rebellion, kill their Kaids, burn down their castles, and a recognised period of anarchy takes place, known as El Siba by the natives, and of which they all take full advantage.