Next morning I rose feeling very "chippy," but being somewhat refreshed after partaking of a light breakfast, proceeded to the outskirts of the town with my sketch-book, where I discovered some picturesque bits.
On returning to my hotel I found a summons to give evidence in a case of alleged robbery. The law court to which I was taken was presided over by two picturesque elderly judges in the purest of white robes and equally clean turbans. Our party was fully represented. The man professed complete innocence of having even seen the watch, so meanwhile he was kept under surveillance.
The effect of the poisonous atmosphere I had imbibed in my lodging began to tell on my health, so I determined to get out of it and cut short my otherwise interesting visit.
I was now on my homeward journey, and having conveyed my instructions to the escort, viz. that if he should fail to extract a confession from the man (who then had his arms bound with cord), he was to trouble no more about him and leave him at the Fondak. About this the soldier seems to have taken no heed and was obdurate, and upon arriving there, arrested the coffee-coloured coffee boy as well, and marched the two of them into Tangier. Although this annoyed me and I tried to remonstrate at the time, I was powerless in the matter. On arriving in Tangier, however, very tired, I was only too glad to dismiss them from my mind and give orders that they should be at once liberated, while I came to the conclusion that the woman was the guilty party after all.
After the first ten days of North African air, my cough had gone, so that I was quite able to appreciate the change of scene, the white buildings, the coloured people, the superb vegetation, the mosques (but not the mosquitoes, as the latter worried me terribly); and by degrees the fascination of the climate, the atmosphere of romance and adventure surrounding the interesting race amongst whom I was living, took hold of me. My artistic sense was being constantly appealed to, and everywhere I saw a picture awaiting my brush. The Arabs and Moors, in their picturesque dresses, were to me extraordinarily attractive, with their magnificent physique and bearing, and especially the letter-carriers with their finely moulded ankles and feet with perfect straight toes. At Tangier I was fortunate enough to behold two of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen. I was walking in the bay one evening, watching the sun set like a ball of fire, dipping into a sea that shimmered with a thousand opalescent reflections as the wavelets rippled to my feet, when I came upon a group of swarthy, naked fishermen hauling in their nets, which were full of leaping fish that scintillated iridescently. With strong fine movements the men drew them in, some standing in the water, others on the shore, their bodies wet with the water that rolled off their mahogany skins in pearly drops. At each movement of their superb limbs, the play of muscle attracted my eye, and as they turned, their bodies bathed in the amber light, I saw a multitude of scales from the fish clinging to their bodies, like so many sequins, gold in the sun and silver in the colder light from the east. Spellbound, I watched them falling into groups and alternating attitudes, which in themselves were magnificent—an Arabian Nights dream and an ideal composition for the painter who could depict the movement, colour, and light of a scene that few men are lucky enough to behold. I shall never forget it and never see such beauty again, for it is well-nigh impossible that nature should repeat such perfection, with similar conspiracies of light, shade, and shadow in exactly the same manner.
GENERAL SMITH-DORRIEN. 1911.
LORD ROBERTS. 1900.
