ON THE HOUSE-TOP, MARRAKESH
CHAPTER VIII
GREEN TEA AND POLITICS
Whither resorting from the vernal Heat
Shall Old Acquaintance Old Acquaintance greet,
Under the Branch that leans above the Wall
To shed his Blossom over head and feet.
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
He was a grave personable Moor of middle age, and full of the dignity that would seem to be the birthright of his race. His official position gave him a certain knowledge of political developments without affecting his serene outlook upon life. Whether he sat outside the Kasbah of his native town and administered the law according to his lights, or, summoned to the capital, rode attended so far as the Dar el Makhzan, there to take his part in a council of the Sultan's advisers, or whether, removed for a time from cares of office, he rested at ease among his cushions as he was doing now, this Moorish gentleman's placid and unruffled features would lead the Western observer to suppose that he was a very simple person with no sort of interest in affairs. I had occasion to know him, however, for a statesman, after the Moorish fashion—a keen if resigned observer of the tragic-comedy of his country's politics, and a pious man withal, who had visited Mecca in the month that is called Shawall, and had cast stones on the hill of Arafat, as the custom is among True Believers. Some years had passed since our first meeting, when I was the bearer of a letter of introduction written by a high official in the intricate Arabic character. It began: "Praise be to God! The blessing of Allah on our Lord Mohammed, and his peace upon Friends and Followers." Irrelevant perhaps all this, but the letter had opened the portals of his house to me, and had let loose for my benefit thoughts not lightly to be expressed.
Now we sat side by side on cushions in his patio, partly shaded by a rose tree that climbed over trellis-work and rioted in bud and blossom. We drank green tea flavoured with mint from tiny glasses that were floridly embossed in gilt. Beyond the patio there was a glimpse of garden ablaze with colour; we could hear slaves singing by the great Persian water-wheel, and the cooing of doves from the shaded heart of trees that screened a granary.
"Since Mulai el Hasan died," said the Hadj quietly, "since that Prince of Believers went to his Pavilion in Paradise, set among rivers in an orchard of never-failing fruit, as is explained in the Most Perspicuous Book,[27] troubles have swept over this land, even as El Jerad, the locust, comes upon it before the west wind has risen to blow him out to sea."