In The Tail Of The Peacock Part 20

So much for his poverty. We were now, he explained, "quits." "All was right between us." He "would not like to leave us with a trace of ill feeling remaining between us and himself."

He _did_ leave us, however, with his tail fairly between his legs, and, if he had been kicked out of the hotel, could not have gone forth more sadly.

What motive he had for going back to Tetuan, or what whim seized him in Tangier, remained a mystery. Impulsive as a child, he had been at first madly keen, so he said, to go with us to the world's end; then, as the time approached, in the same ratio his ardour evaporated; until, finally, he had no more desire left, and on the march over to Tangier grew more indifferent and morose at every step. While we were in Tangier he was like a fish out of water. And yet he had been once to Fez and to Morocco City: he was a travelled man. Possibly he had a more remunerative billet in view, or was homesick, or jealous about Tahara. After all, whatever the reason, his line of conduct was only distinctly Moorish, and characteristic of a race in which, as a whole, no wise man places great reliance. A Moorish servant will not rob his European master: perquisites are a _sine qua non_, of course. Probably his lies are no blacker than those of European servants; but the Moor, in place of that quality of faithfulness which can enn.o.ble an English rascal, has a cold-blooded current in his veins. His manners may be charming--he is a plausible devil; but lean upon him, and he turns out to be as jerry-built as his own crumbling whitewashed walls.

It is with somewhat of a feeling of banishment into the unknown, that the pa.s.senger by the little coast-steamer takes his departure from Tangier, and sees first its white houses and yellow sands, and last of all Spartel lighthouse, disappear as the boat ploughs southwards. Once upon a time Gibraltar had const.i.tuted in our minds the outposts, so to speak, of civilization; but since we had spent three months in such an unexplored spot as the Tetuan vale and mountains, without society of the conventional type, or library, or church, or any other adjuncts, Tangier, when we came back to it, appeared in the light of a Paris. And now Tangier was again to be left behind; and on one of the little coasting-steamers, which deliver cargo at ports on the way, we meant to travel down to Mogador. To have marched the same distance would have meant perhaps a month on the road, going by Fez and taking it easily; therefore we saved much time by taking the steamer. Though by all report it was not likely to be at all a comfortable journey, it could only last four days at most; and few travellers but can stand four days'

discomfort.

We did not start without a few warnings and cautions from various friends, who seemed inclined to think that we were doing an unprecedented thing in thus setting off alone into the interior without even a reliable servant, which since the desertion of S'lam was the case. That could not be helped. We hoped for the best as regarded finding men in Mogador.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ILl.u.s.tRATIVE OF THE WAY WE RODE IN MOROCCO.

[_To face p. 262._]

Sir Arthur Nicolson had provided us with letters of introduction to the British Consul in Mogador, and to a Moor in Morocco City, where it is unnecessary to say there are no representatives of the English Government. I had written to him on the subject of getting up to Glaouia, in the Atlas Mountains, and had received the following reply:--

"DEAR MISS SAVORY,--

"As the Court is away from Morocco City, I hardly think it would be wise for you to attempt a visit to Glaouia. Matters are never very stable when the seat of Government is away, and I do not think the Government would be disposed to give you a permit at present. There would, however, be no objection whatever to your going to Morocco City, and I think you will find the journey interesting.

"Yours very truly, "A. NICOLSON."

This letter was a blow. But when we finally reached Morocco City we found that the thing could be done--that we could get up to Glaouia either under the protection of the English missionaries or with a certain Jewish trader who lives in Morocco City. The fact of the matter is, that to travel "officially," as it were, in Morocco is a fatal mistake. It means a written permission from the Sultan, an army of followers, a commotion wherever a halt is made, and a great deal of hospitality. The Sultan does not encourage Europeans to travel out of the ordinary line of route, on account of the superst.i.tious and fanatical spirit of his people, which would be roused to wrath against him, were he to countenance the invasion of their sacred land by infidels. Consequently, when he gives a permit, he writes upon the doc.u.ment to the effect that the Christian is committed to the care of Kaid So-and-so, and Kaid So-and-so is to see that no ill happens to him.

When the Christian traveller arrives at the district belonging to this kaid, through which he wishes to pa.s.s, he goes to the castle and delivers the permit. The kaid reads it, and knows what it means: the Sultan only wishes the Christian to be kept to frequented roads. Therefore the Christian is offered every hospitality, and the kaid almost weeps as he explains that it is impossible for the traveller to proceed--the tribesmen are dangerous, are in revolt along the line the Christian wishes to go. The traveller says he will take his chance. His servants, primed by the kaid, refuse to go with him on the score of the danger. If he manages to get away with one trusty follower, the kaid sends soldiers after them, fetches them back to the castle--to save their lives, he says, and his own life, which would be forfeited if a hair of their heads was injured. The Christian, after his rebellious conduct, may be forced to return discomforted to the coast towns, or he may be allowed to march on in another direction, keeping on the beaten track. Thus the Moorish Government will politely frustrate enterprising spirit on the part of the infidel. But if the traveller is content with other than a royal progression through the country, if he will travel quietly and without ostentation, dressed according to the habits of the people, and be prepared to "rough it," the chances are, that he may get to places which he could never have reached while impeded by a Government escort.

But the way above all others to travel in Morocco is to secure the help of a missionary and to go with him. Medicine is the golden key which opens every gate; and a Moor will do anything for a _tabiba_ (doctor), which is what a missionary practically is to him. The missionary arrives at a remote village, and the countryside flocks to him to have its teeth pulled out, its sores doctored, its fevers cured; and if the tabiba wishes to go on farther, by whatever path, who shall gainsay him, while he carries life and health in his hands? He understands their dialect a little, he dresses as they do, and he brings no overbearing servants to eat up their substance. Nor is he a spy, but only some harmless fanatic, some quaint Nazarene, who thinks to win heaven by thus walking the earth and doing good.

Thus several missionaries have penetrated to places in Morocco, from entering which, Europeans are debarred: they have not "advertised"

themselves nor written books upon what they have seen. But the thing has been done, and not only by men. Women missionaries have been where no Christian is supposed to be allowed. Indeed, it should be easier for women, in one way, to travel in forbidden territory than men, because their s.e.x is not credited with the sense which could do harm; and the idea of a woman spying, or thinking to exploit the country, discover mines, and so on, would be absolutely laughable to a Moor. Probably women, with a large stock of medicines and a knowledge of the country dialect, could travel in the unknown "Beyond" with comparatively little risk.

There is one other way for the Englishman to see something of the less-known districts of Morocco, and that is to travel under the protection of a holy Shar[=i]f. Shar[=i]fs are, like the Sultan, descendants of Mohammed, and they possess the holy _baraka_--that is, the birthright of the Shar[=i]fian line. They are little G.o.ds, and they have immunity from the laws of G.o.d and man. Their advice is sought for and followed by the ordinary country people on every question, and their decision is invariably accepted as final. There is no such thing as an aristocratic cla.s.s or n.o.bility in Morocco; and yet the Shar[=i]fs answer in a way to the same idea, for they possess a religious authority which sets them far above their countrymen, and const.i.tutes them, in a sense, lords over the people. Besides, they act greatly as mediums between the secular governors and the tribes, and judge upon various matters. It is possible for a holy Shar[=i]f to sin, but quite impossible for him to be punished, the obvious argument being that "the fire of h.e.l.l cannot touch a saint in whose veins runs the blood of the holy Prophet."

The Shar[=i]fian families form an entire cla.s.s by themselves. They are fed and clothed and housed by a convenient system of religious taxation, and large presents are made them, while after death their tombs become objects of visit to all devout Mohammedans.

A holy Shar[=i]f generally rides a horse, and he dresses in white, with a blue cloth cloak, or else a white woollen over-garment. He wears a pair of yellow slippers, or perhaps riding-boots, called _temag_, b.u.t.toned all up the back with green silk b.u.t.tons, and embroidered down the side with silk and silver thread. A scarlet fez and a white turban complete him.

Shar[=i]fs never shave under the chin, since the days when a certain sultan was being shaved thus by a barber who had it in his mind to cut the royal throat. But a little boy pa.s.sing saw the evil design in the barber's eye. With great presence of mind he rushed into the shop, crying to the Sultan, "O Most Holy One! the Great Mosque has fallen down!" Both sultan and barber leapt up and rushed out: the boy explained matters to the sultan, and the barber was killed.

But neither Shar[=i]f nor missionary-doctor had we any hope of meeting at Mogador, able and willing to travel into the Atlas Mountains with us. We started with plenty of chances open in front, but with nothing certain whereon to rely. Telegraph station and all such vanities were left behind us at Tangier: letters could not reach us till we ourselves reached Morocco City, ten or twelve days being the time they would take to arrive there from Tangier. Our agents--Cook & Son--in the latter place, had instructions to open all wires, and in an urgent case to forward to us by a _reka.s.s_ (a runner), who might do the distance in as short a time as seven or eight days. A wire sent thus, by a reka.s.s, might cost three or four pounds, according to the time the man took: the faster he did the journey, the more he should be paid.

In spite of its hotels Tangier does not possess a single shop where English newspapers or books can be bought. Our literature had by this time reached a low ebb; and on board the Hungarian boat, at a time when one generally reads omnivorously because there is nothing else to do, we had but a couple of standard books to fall back upon--a history of the country was one, the other a volume of Lecky. The history was fairly committed to heart before travelling days were done.

On the whole, when at last we got off in the little Hungarian steamer, she did not leave much to be desired. For three days we had hung on at the Continental Hotel, waiting for the hourly expected arrival of the boat, beginning almost to despair of her ever coming in.

Finally, patience was rewarded, and one afternoon, with all our baggage, we went on board. We had everything wanted for camping out except tents, and these were to be hired at Mogador. A great wooden kitchen-box held pots, pans, knives, etc., and a case contained potted meats, soups, biscuits, and so forth.

R. and myself were the only women on board when we left Tangier: eight men joined us at dinner that night, at one long table in the small saloon, and we were said to fill the boat. She was very small, only eighteen hundred tons, and there was not much room for walking about on her; but we never went out of sight of the coast, and, sitting on a couple of chairs, could see through the gla.s.ses whatever was going on on the beach--which, I must add, was little enough, at a time when the smallest incidents become of importance. The greater part of the _Arpad_ was given up to cargo. We landed green tea in quant.i.ties at Mazagan, and black-wood, cane-seated chairs for the Jews and Spaniards living there, as well as bales of goods and casks; but we took nothing on board, and the _Arpad_ became more and more like an empty egg-sh.e.l.l, with a decided inclination to roll, on the swell which invariably sets down that coast.

The captain, a small dark Hungarian, when we left Tangier, changed into a thin tweed suit and straw hat: he did not understand English. There was no stewardess; but the steward, who did all the waiting at table, spoke a little German. One of our fellow-pa.s.sengers was an Englishman, born in Morocco, without any desire to leave it--his horizon Gibraltar: he was Dutch Consul at Mazagan. Another man was a grain merchant in Mazagan. All were interesting, and could tell us a great deal about the country.

Certainly the coast-line, as seen from the deck of the _Arpad_, was monotonous, desolate, uninviting to a degree: a long low sh.o.r.e, kh[=a]ki-coloured, treeless, without sign of life, did not raise in us regrets that we had come by sea, especially when told that what we saw, was a fairly correct sample of most of the country we should have ridden through.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIGHTERS LOADING.

[_To face p. 268._]

On the entire six hundred miles' length of coast south of Cape Spartel, and down which we were steaming, there is not a single lighthouse, bell, beacon, or buoy to mark a reef or shoal, nor is there any harbour, and no steamer dares to lie close in-sh.o.r.e off a port at night. Therefore, as there are several ports at which cargo has generally to be landed or taken on board, steamers go on the line of steaming all night, and lying outside a port in the daytime, while boats carry cargo between them and the sh.o.r.e. Rabat, Casablanca, Mazagan--we stopped at them all, and got accustomed to the eternal clank of the crane hoisting bales in and out of the boats; to rolling on to the backs and down into the troughs of the Atlantic combers.

Finally, we reached Mogador early on the morning of Good Friday, 1902, and said good-bye to the uneasy _Arpad_ and its primitive _menage_ without regret: irregular, white-walled Mogador, set in its rock-locked harbour, lay in front of us. It was the hot south--there was no doubt about that. The Riviera is called "the sunny south," and Tangier is warmer than the Riviera; but penetrate inland into Africa, go down as far as Mogador, and it is another thing altogether. Here there is no _trace_ of Europe, but a great sense of being far away in letter and spirit from England--farther away than Bombay, and many another place, which out-distances it in miles again and again.

We saw Mogador first in a grey light: heavy thunder-clouds hung above; dim and visionary hills lay behind; a regiment of camels paraded the wet sands in front, and lay in the sun underneath the battlemented walls; black flags floated from the mosque-tops, for it was the Mussulman Sunday. For the rest Mogador is a city of sea and sand--sand, sand, and yet more sand: it takes two hours' riding to get to anything else except sand.

With the grey waves was.h.i.+ng round two sides of it, and two sides blown and sanded by desert wastes, white-walled Mogador has a somewhat saddened aspect, as of lifeless bleached bones, apart from the fact that it is so far removed from the outer world.

And infinitely remote, it certainly is. A telegram takes about a fortnight to reach England; so that an answer by wire to a wire can be expected in about a month. A letter sent by a special courier to Tangier takes eight days--a distance of four hundred miles: by this means a wire could be sent to England in nine days. The steamers to Mogador are most irregular, because, in view of there being no safe anchorage, a boat will not put in in bad weather. Cargo, pa.s.sengers, and mails are often and often enough not landed at all, and the inhabitants of the city see but the stern of the vanished steamer with all their letters on board, not to return perhaps for a week. When the English Consul married, and his furniture was sent out from England, the _Forward_ boat, which brought it, came in sight of Mogador, and, being a rough day, went off to Madeira and on its round by the Canary Isles, back to London again, without touching at the sad white city at all. In this way things are apt to be lost: it has happened with pa.s.sengers.

A rowing-boat landed us on green seaweedy rocks, and we walked up the old sh.e.l.l-encrusted water-stairs, and under the arch of the Water-port Gate, above which is carved in Arabic, "The glorious King, my lord Mohammed, ordered the building of this gate by his servant Hamed, son of Hammoo, 1184."

Once on a time, Agadir, a city on the coast, much farther south, was the great port and commercial centre of Southern Morocco; but it was far removed from the Sultan's grasp, the tax-gatherer could pursue the even tenor of his ways without interruption, and the kaid afford to be dictatorial and troublesome. Then the heavy hand fell, and the Sultan's armies closed the seaport, offering its throng of prosperous merchants the alternative of going to prison or of taking up their abode in Mogador. This they did, and Mogador arose; while to work the lighters (the cargo-boats), and to generally serve the merchants, a company of Berbers was transported with them from the Sus and Agadir to the new seaport.

Beyond the Water-port Gate we met a line of heavily laden camels, with a company of athletic Berber drivers from the Sus, in quaint long tunics of butcher-blue, and lank black hair: many of the men veiled themselves; they all looked as wild as hawks, different from any type hitherto seen.

The familiar Hebrew broker, in dark blue or black gabardine and greasy skull-cap, was strongly _en evidence_; while as to the state of the dogs we met, of them must the Moorish proverb be written, "If fasting be a t.i.tle to Paradise, let the dog walk in first."

Our baggage had all to pa.s.s through the Customs House inside the Water-port Gate; and there we walked, through great white-walled courtyards, whose vistas, of arch beyond arch, suggested Temple courts.

Donkeys laden with skins were hurrying across them. Now and then a train of camels swung along, carrying gum or wax or argan oil or almonds. In a good almond year as many as a thousand camels have sometimes come into Mogador in one day. The Customs House officer was at breakfast, and we awaited his coming by our baggage. At last there was a stir among the many hands who had carried our things up from the boat, and the most solemn and dignified individual conceivable slowly sailed upon the scene, way being made for his flowing robes, which were white as a sheet of best glazed "cream-laid" before the pen marks it. I handed him our pa.s.s-paper from the Customs House officer at Tangier, feeling like a humble subject laying a pet.i.tion before a monarch: he slowly unfolded it, and more slowly searched for and produced a pair of spectacles in a silver case.

Lastly, having read the doc.u.ment and reviewed our pile, he "pa.s.sed" it with an impressive wave of his hand. He then took a seat, a Moor minion on each side: we filed solemnly past him, shaking him by the hand. A new-born infant has not such a guileless face as that bland Arab.

We took up quarters in the Suera Hotel, managed by a capable Scotchwoman and her husband, who had once farmed on the veldt. Early next day I rode to Palm-tree House on a little horse belonging to the hotel: out by the Beach Gate, we cantered along the sands close to the sea, crossed the river, left the patron saint-house of Mogador on our left hand, bore upwards across the sandy dunes, and struck inland over hard calcareous rock, where, in the teeth of the wind, the sand never lies. It was blowing, that day, a hot desert wind, which in a naturally hot place only makes one the hotter: with the wind, came a good deal of fine sand, on a really windy day making riding almost impossible.

Palm-tree House is a hotel four miles south-east of Mogador, in the loneliest of situations, with the advantage of a view and an open, wild country all round: it has none of the drawbacks of the city; it is breezy, wild, and bare. Having reached the top of the dunes, we struck off in more or less of a bee-line for Palm-tree House, still riding over soft sand, where nothing but miles upon miles of _r'tam_ (white broom) grew, lovely when in flower, of which we were destined to see almost more than enough before we left Southern Morocco.

The horses ploughed their way through the white track; two or three b.u.t.terflies hovered about the r'tam; chameleons scuttled occasionally over the path; a tortoise crept along. There were not a few locusts about either, looking like handsome little dragon-flies on the wing.

A last canter along one of the rough rides through the scrub led us up to the house, planted well on a rising sand-hill, a view of the sea in front, the hills behind.

There are no palm-trees, and there is no garden, nor is there any water, I was told, on the spot; but for all that, Palm-tree House might have been a satisfactory lodge wherein to put up. The stunted bush and the sand fringed the very walls. It had the country to itself, and there was nothing _but_ itself which could spoil that country. It was cool and airy and oddly quiet. Inside, tiles and open patios and big panelled rooms gave all that could be desired: outside, there was an impression of simplicity and freedom.

The stables were a great point, and the bobbery pack, which hunt pig for five months all through the winter, accounted in one season for something like nineteen full-grown boar, ten tuskers, and nine sows.

Palm-tree House belonged for more than twenty years to a British merchant, who simply provided accommodation for any sportsman liking to come out and put up for a week or so outside Mogador: it has still the air of a shooting-box. The host, in breeches and gaiters and a great felt wideawake, rode up while we were there, and offered us every hospitality--a tall wiry man, with good hands and seat.

Had time been of no object, we should have moved on into Palm-tree House.

It would be a spot to visit at any season, for the climate scarcely varies all the year round: the difference between summer and winter is not more than five degrees.

Back again in the city and strolling round it that same afternoon, the conviction was borne in upon us that of all saddening spots Mogador was possibly the saddest--that is, to the traveller, from an outside point of view: residents may have another tale to tell. But without vegetation or cultivation within sight, suggestive of life and change and labour, with the monotonous roar of the grey breakers beating its seaward walls, and wastes of blown white sand to landward, Mogador is the picture of a city which has lost all heart, and settled down into grim apathy, without a vestige of joy or activity outside its walls. The overcrowding of the Jews in the Mellah is a shocking evil, already stamping the rising generation with disease.

Earlier by three-quarters of an hour than Tetuan at the same time of year, the city gates at Mogador were shut at six o'clock, and picnic parties of Moorish or European traders were hurried back in broad daylight. We met the basha gravely pacing the sands on a white mule with scarlet trappings--of all stout officials, in a country where it is a sin and a shame on the part of one in office to be thin, the stoutest. His broad body overshadowed the big mule, and his two little legs might have been a pair of ninepins below a vast cask draped in white.