Will you be so kind, if you have time, to let me know when the box arrives, and, if it goes to England, how and when? It contains £50 or £60 of trinkets, the honey collected by my Queen Bee.
Shirreff is uncertain as to his motions. He is agog at the thoughts of a war and a three-decker. It is probable that he will turn off at Ossuna and proceed directly to Gibraltar by Ronda.
I hope to arrive at Granada next Wednesday, where, in case of seizure or squalls, you have a house at your disposicion to retire to.
Tetuan, Saturday, May 25 [1833].
Do not be alarmed at a letter from this land of lions, tigers, deserts, and cannibals, for I assure you it is a paradise compared to the garrison and gunfire of Gibraltar, almost as beautiful as Granada, quite as civilised as Spain, and abounding with comforts and accommodations, seeing that the houses of the Jews are more handsomely and abundantly furnished than those of the grandees of Seville.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that there is any difficulty or danger in travelling in Barbary, or that the condition of the Jews or Christians here is so deplorable as gentlemen on their travels have printed and published for the benefit of Mr. Colburn and edification of the British public. Both are treated with great kindness, and the proof of the substantial prosperity of the sons of Israel is in the silks and jewels, domestic comforts and luxuries, which are to be met with even among the poorest of them.
I must go back a little in my letter. We left Seville in April, and reached Granada in due time, in spite of the wind and the rain. We thence proceeded to the town called by the English Gib, by the way of Alhama ay de mi![36] Loja, Antequera, and Ronda, a fine mountain ride, full of Moorish castles and fastnesses, the scene of many a desperate conflict, all of which are written in the book of Washington Irving. From Gibraltar we were conveyed by Shirreff to Tangiers, a pretty little town situated in a sheltered bay. I need not tell you how great is the change on landing, greater than that between Dover and Calais. I will not say that, on coming from Spain, it is coming from civilisation to barbarism, it being well known that Africa begins at the Pyrenees; but still the change of turbans for hats, haiks for capas, camels for mules, wild Arabs in their peaked jellibeas for monks, is sufficiently striking. The interior of the town is like a Spanish one—all dirt, ruin, and bad pavement, the houses, low and windowless, looking like whitened sepulchres; and the women, in their haiks and muffled-up faces, look like the ghost in Semiramis—a very appropriate population for so sepulchral a city. From under the shroud, however, peep out certain black, soft eyes, so full of life that a gentleman would have no objection to be haunted in the night-time by one of these spectres.
The Jewesses do not hide their faces, and it would be a sin to do so, as they are truly beautiful. Their costume is most fanciful and oriental—a mass of brocade, golden sashes, handkerchiefs, and jewelry, pearls, rubies, and emeralds, by no means the trappings of a people said to be stripped to the skin by the Moors. If they have any “old cloes,” they buy and sell them and do not wear them. They are highly pleased at being visited, and show their finery with great complacency. My wife has been admitted into the interior of divers houses of the Moors, but does not give so favourable an account of them as of the Jewesses. The newly-married women paint their faces very much as we remember, in the days of our youth, that facetious gentleman Grimaldi did.
There is a very decent inn, much cleaner and better provided than those in Spain. We were lodged at His B. Majesty’s Consulate-General, and so changed houses with the Hays. From Tangiers we rode to Tetuan, a pleasant ride through a rich country, well cultivated, of about eleven hours. Here we have put up in the oriental dwelling of a respectable Jew, who has two daughters, who make me think every day better of Moses as a legislator—fair complexions, dark black hair, and soft, mild, large, almond-shaped eyes, rendered more oriental by a dark powder, with which the lids are slightly blacked, which gives an indescribable soft expression to them. We have been received by the Pasha in oriental state, turbaned guards, Ethiopian slaves, cushions and couches, and much green tea, almond cakes and sweetmeats. My wife was presented to his lady, and presented by her with a scarf value ten shillings, for which she gave her a musical snuff-box.
The situation of the town delightful, on the slope of a hill commanded by an embattled castle, and overlooking a valley of gardens bounded to the north-east by the blue sea, and to the south by a magnificent chain of mountains. It is a second Granada, and the original founders who fled from Granada brought with them all their love for agriculture and gardens, which are here the delight of the Moors. The hills supply them with an abundance of water, which under African sun and a fertile soil covers the earth with the most luxuriant vegetation and every kind of fruit given to man to eat. The town is like that of Tangiers, impressive when seen from the distance, but ruined in the interior. The bazaars, and especially the corn and vegetable markets, very African. Lines of camels laden with dates from Tafilet, silks from Fez, Ethiopians, wild Arabs, and muffled women, naked legs and covered faces, all talking a guttural idiom which beats German to nothing. The wares they deal with are as singular as the people: painted couskousu dishes from Fez, odd brown zebra-looking carpets from Rabat, tricolour clothes for the Ethiopians, velvet embroidered cushions, slippers and sashes from Algiers. Then the jewelry of the women. My wife represents the Moorish women as one mass of pearls and precious stones. I have seen the collection of a Jewish woman which filled a decent-size box, about four times as big as the one my wife troubled you with, and which I hope started safely for England. Huge uncut emeralds seem to be the favourites. The houses are full of small patios, arches, arabesque work, and tesselated pavement, like the Alhambra, and the palace of the Governor, which is in high order, gives one an idea of what the Alhambra must have been once upon a time. We hope to set out to-morrow for Gibraltar, and thence to Granada viâ Malaga, and, having embraced His B. M. Consul in that city, to get back to the Alhambra by the 6th of June, el dia de Corpus, which is celebrated with great pomp in Granada. Adios ever, here and everywhere.