The brass and copper workers had most of their metal brought to them from the Sus country, and sold their goods by weight. Woe to the dealer discovered with false scales. The gunsmiths, who seemed to do quite a big trade in flint-lock guns, worked with their feet as well as their hands, their dexterity being almost Japanese. Nearly every master had an apprentice or two, and if there are idle apprentices in the southern capital of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz, I was not fated to see one.
No phase of the city's life lacked fascination, nor was the interest abated when life and death moved side by side. A Moorish funeral wound slowly along the road in the path of a morning's ride. First came a crowd of ragged fellows on foot singing the praises of Allah, who gives one life to his servants here and an eternity of bliss in Paradise at the end of their day's work. The body of the deceased followed, wrapped in a knotted shroud and partially covered with what looked like a coloured shawl, but was, I think, the flag from a saint's shrine. Four bearers carried the open bier, and following came men of high class on mules. The contrast between the living and the dead was accentuated by the freshness of the day, the life that thronged the streets, the absence of a coffin, the weird, sonorous chaunting of the mourners. The deceased must have been a man of mark, for the crowd preceding the bier was composed largely of beggars, on their way to the cemetery, where a gift of food would be distributed. Following their master's remains came two slaves, newly manumitted, their certificates of freedom borne aloft in cleft sticks to testify before all men to the generosity of the loudly lamented. Doubtless the shroud of the dead had been sprinkled with water brought from the well Zem Zem, which is by the mosque of Mecca, and is said to have been miraculously provided for Hagar, when Ishmael, then a little boy, was like to die of thirst in the wilderness.
I watched the procession wind its way out of sight to the burial-ground by the mosque, whose mueddin would greet its arrival with the cry, "May Allah have mercy upon him." Then the dead man would be carried to the cemetery, laid on his right side looking towards Mecca, and the shroud would be untied, that there may be no awkwardness or delay upon the day of the Resurrection. And the Kadi or f'K'hay[44] would say, "O Allah, if he did good, over-estimate his goodness; and if he did evil, forget his evil deeds; and of Thy Mercy grant that he may experience Thine Acceptance; and spare him the trials and troubles of the grave.... Of Thy Mercy grant him freedom from torment until Thou send him to Paradise, O Thou Most Pitiful of the pitying.... Pardon us, and him, and all Moslems, O Lord of Creation."
A YOUNG MARRAKSHI
On the three following mornings the men of the deceased's house would attend by the newly-made grave, in company with the tolba, and would distribute bread and fruit to the poor, and when their task was over and the way clear, the veiled women would bring flowers, with myrtle, willows, and young leaves of the palm, and lay them on the grave, and over these the water-carrier would empty his goat-skin. I knew that the dead man would have gone without flinching to his appointed end, not as one who fears, but rather as he who sets out joyfully to a feast prepared in his honour. His faith had kept all doubts at bay, and even if he had been an ill liver the charitable deeds wrought in his name by surviving relatives would enable him to face the two angels who descend to the grave on the night following a man's burial and sit in judgment upon his soul. This one who passed me on his last journey would tell the angels of the men who were slaves but yesterday and were now free, he would speak of the hungry who had been fed, and of the intercession of the righteous and learned. These facts and his faith, the greatest fact of all, would assuredly satisfy Munkir and Nakir.[45] Small wonder if no manner of life, however vile, stamps ill-livers in Morocco with the seal we learn to recognise in the Western world. For the Moslem death has no sting, and hell no victory. Faith, whether it be in One God, in a Trinity, in Christ, Mohammed, or Buddha, is surely the most precious of all possessions, so it be as virile and living a thing as it is in Sunset Land.
Writing of religion, I needs must set down a word in this place of the men and women who work for the Southern Morocco Mission in Marrakesh. The beauty of the city has long ceased to hold any fresh surprises for them, their labour is among the people who "walk in noonday as in the night." It is not necessary to be of their faith to admire the steadfast devotion to high ideals that keeps Mr. Nairn and his companions in Marrakesh. I do not think that they make converts in the sense that they desire, the faith of Islam suits Morocco and the Moors, and it will not suffer successful invasion, but the work of the Mission has been effective in many ways. If the few Europeans who visit the city are free to wander unchallenged, unmolested through its every street, let them thank the missionaries; if the news that men from the West are straight-dealing, honourable, and slaves to truth, has gone from the villages on the hither side of Atlas down to the far cities of the Sus, let the missionaries be praised. And if a European woman can go unveiled yet uninsulted through Marrakesh, the credit is due to the ladies of the Mission. It may be said without mental reservation that the Southern Morocco Mission accomplishes a great work, and is most successful in its apparent failure. It does not make professing Christians out of Moors, but it teaches the Moors to live finer lives within the limits of their own faith, and if they are kinder and cleaner and more honourable by reason of their intercourse with the "tabibs" and "tabibas," the world gains and Morocco is well served. When the Sultan was in difficulties towards the end of 1902, and the star of Bu Hamara was in the ascendant, Sir Arthur Nicolson, our Minister in Tangier, ordered all British subjects to leave the inland towns for the coast. As soon as the news reached the Marrakshis, the houses of the missionaries were besieged by eager crowds of Moors and Berbers, offering to defend the well-beloved tabibs against all comers, and begging them not to go away. Very reluctantly Mr. Nairn and his companions obeyed the orders sent from Tangier, but, having seen their wives and children safely housed in Djedida, they returned to their work.
