His master’s house held many slaves—they were regarded as a source of wealth, and were encouraged to do their best. In earlier days, when slaves were very cheap, they had not fared so well, but now that a master must pay heavily, he would not waste man or woman as he could afford to do in times when Mulai Ismail ruled and England held Tangier.
To-day Marzuk is the chief of his master’s household, a strong, intelligent fellow, who rejoices in the whitest of djellabas and the largest size of yellow slippers, carries a long rosary, and rules his master’s other servants with a rod of iron.
Marzuk has picked up a great deal of Arabic; he has become a Mohammedan, and looks forward to the day when he will be manumitted, and will be able to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Thereafter he will embark his small store of dollars in trade, and with his knowledge of markets and capacity for sustained work he should end by employing slaves of his own.
I have set down the main features of his story as he told them to me in his master’s house, in days not long gone past when I was a guest there, and entered, so far as I might, into the fascinating life of the East, and I cannot refrain from adding that Marzuk stands to-day on a far higher rung in the ladder of civilisation and progress than he would have reached if the curse of slavery had not fallen on him in far Timbuctoo.
And therein (a wholesome reflection for the more arrogant among us) slavery, as understood and practised in the world of Islam, differs mightily from slavery as understood and practised in Christian lands a few years ago.
I make no mention of the sort of slavery still existing, under European auspices, on the Congo, and in many of the cities of every country of Europe. Allah forbid that sleek, smiling Marzuk, upon whose ample shoulders the burden of labour has fallen so lightly, should ever know the bitterness of such sad lives as these.
| [5] | Marrakesh, known in England as Morocco City, is the southern capital of the Moorish Empire. |