Life in Morocco and Glimpses Beyond Part 15

"After many adversities, joy."

_Moorish Proverb._

Outside the walls of Mazagan an English traveller had pitched his camp. Night had fallen when one of his men, returning from the town, besought admission to the tent.

"Well, how now?"

"Sir, I have a woman here, by thy leave, yes, a woman, a slave, whom I found at the door of thy consulate, where she had taken refuge, but the police guard drove her away, so I brought her to thee for justice.

Have pity on her, and G.o.d will reward thee! See, here! Rabhah!"

At this bidding there approached a truly pitiable object, a dark-skinned woman, not quite black, though of decidedly negroid appearance--whose tattered garments scarcely served to hide a half-starved form. Throwing herself on the ground before the foreigner, she begged his pity, his a.s.sistance, for the sake of the Pitiful G.o.d.

"Oh, Bashador," she pleaded, addressing him as though a foreign envoy, "I take refuge with G.o.d and with thee! I have no one else. I have fled from my master, who has cruelly used me. See my back!"

Suiting action to word, she slipped aside the coverings from her shoulder and revealed the weals of many a stripe, tears streaming down her face the while. Her tones were such as none but a heart of stone could ignore.

"I bore it ten days, sir, till I could do so no longer, and then I escaped. It was all to make me give false witness--from which G.o.d deliver me--for that I will never do. My present master is the Shekh bin Zaharah, Lieutenant Kad of the Boo Azeezi, but I was once the slave-wife of the English agent, who sold me again, though they said that he dare not, because of his English protection. That was why I fled for justice to the English consul, and now come to thee. For G.o.d's sake, succour me!"

With a sob her head fell forward on her breast, as again she crouched at the foreigner's feet, till made to rise and told to relate her whole story quietly. When she was calmer, aided by questions, she unfolded a tale which could, alas! be often paralleled in Morocco.

"My home? How can I tell thee where that was, when I was brought away so early? All I know is that it was in the Sudan" (_i.e._ Land of the Blacks), "and that I came to Mogador on my mother's back. In my country the slave-dealers lie in wait outside the villages to catch the children when they play. They put them in bags like those used for grain, with their heads left outside the necks for air. So they are carried off, and travel all the way to this country slung on mules, being set down from time to time to be fed. But I, though born free, was brought by my mother, who had been carried off as a slave. The lines cut on my cheek show that, for every free-born child in our country is marked so by its mother. That is our sultan's order. In Mogador my mother's master sold me to a man who took me from her, and brought me to Dar el Bada. They took away my mother first; they dragged her off crying, and I never saw or heard of her again. When she was gone I cried for her, and could not eat till they gave me sugar and sweet dates. At Dar el Bada I was sold in the market auction to a shareefa named Lalla Mona, wife of the mountain scribe who taught the kadi's children. With her I was very happy, for she treated me well, and when she went to Mekka on the pilgrimage she let me go out to work on my own account, promising to make me free if G.o.d brought her back safely. She was good to me, Bashador, but though she returned safely she always put off making me free; but I had laid by fifteen dollars, and had bought a boxful of clothes as well. And that was where my trouble began. For G.o.d's sake succour me!

"One day the agent saw me in the street, and eyed me so that I was frightened of him. He followed me home, and then sent a letter offering to buy me, but my mistress refused. Then the agent often came to the house, and I had to wait upon him. He told me that he wanted to buy me, and that if he did I should be better off than if I were free, but I refused to listen. When the agent was away his man Sarghini used to come and try to buy me, but in vain; and when the agent returned he threatened to bring my mistress into trouble if she refused. At last she had to yield, and I cried when I had to go. 'Thou art sold to that man,' she said; 'but as thou art a daughter to me, he has promised to take care of thee and bring thee back whenever I wish.'

"Sarghini took me out by one gate with the servants of the agent, who took care to go out with a big fat Jew by another, that the English consul should not see him go out with a woman. We rode on mules, and I wore a white cloak; I had not then begun to fast" (_i.e._ was not yet twelve years of age). "After two days on the road the agent asked for the key of my box, in which he found my fifteen dollars, tied up in a rag, and took them, but gave me back my clothes. We were five days travelling to Marrakesh, staying each night with a kad who treated us very well. So I came to the agent's house.

"There I found many other slave girls, besides men slaves in the garden. These were Ruby, bought in Saffi, by whom the agent had a daughter; and Star, a white girl stolen from her home in Sus, who had no children; Jessamine the Less, another white girl bought in Marrakesh, mother of one daughter; Jessamine the Greater, whose daughter was her father's favourite, loaded with jewels; and others who cooked or served, not having children, though one had a son who died. There were thirteen of us under an older slave who clothed and fed us.

"When the bashador came to the house the agent shut all but five or six of us in a room, the others waiting on him. I used to have to cook for the bashador, for whom they had great receptions with music and dancing-women. Next door there was a larger house, a fandak, where the agent kept public women and boys, and men at the door took money from the Muslims and Nazarenes who went there. The missionaries who lived close by know the truth of what I say.

"A few days after I arrived I was bathed and dressed in fresh clothes, and taken to my master's room, as he used to call for one or another according to fancy. But I had no child, because he struck me, and I was sick. When one girl, named Amber, refused to go to him because she was ill, he dragged her off to another part of the house. Presently we heard the report of a pistol, and he came back to say she was dead. He had a pistol in his hand as long as my forearm. We found the girl in a pool of blood in agonies, and tried to flee, but had nowhere to go. So when she was quite dead he made us wash her. Then he brought in four men to dig a pit, in which he said he would bury b.u.t.ter. When they had gone we buried her there, and I can show you the spot.

"One day he took two men slaves and me on a journey. One of them ran away, the other was sold by the way. I was sold at the Tuesday market of Sidi bin Nur to a dealer in slaves, whom I heard promise my master to keep me close for three months, and not to sell me in that place lest the Nazarenes should get word of it. Some time after I was bought by a tax-collector, with whom I remained till he died, and then lived in the house of his son. This man sold me to my present master, who has ill-treated me as I told thee. Oh, Bashador, when I fled from him, I came to the English consul because I was told that the agent had had no right to hold or sell me, since he had English protection. Thou knowest what has happened since. Here I am, at thy feet, imploring a.s.sistance. I beseech thee, turn me not away. I speak truth before G.o.d."

No one could hear such a tale unmoved, and after due inquiry the Englishman thus appealed to secured her liberty on depositing at the British Consulate the $140 paid for her by her owner, who claimed her or the money. Rabhah's story, taken down by independent persons at different times, was afterwards told by her without variation in a British Court of Law. Subsequently a p.r.o.nouncement as to her freedom having been made by the British Legation at Tangier, the $140 was refunded, and she lives free to-day. The last time the writer saw her, in the service of a European in Morocco, he was somewhat taken aback to find her arms about his neck, and to have kisses showered on his shoulders for the unimportant part that he had played in securing her freedom.

XXIII

THE PILGRIM CAMP

"Work for the children is better than pilgrimage or holy war."

_Moorish Proverb._

Year by year the month succeeding the fast of Ramadan sees a motley a.s.semblage of pilgrims bound for Mekka, gathered at most of the North African ports from all parts of Barbary and even beyond, awaiting vessels bound for Alexandria or Jedda. This comparatively easy means of covering the distance, which includes the whole length of the Mediterranean when the pilgrims from Morocco are concerned--not to mention some two-thirds of the Red Sea,--has almost entirely superseded the original method of travelling all the way by land, in the once imposing caravans.

These historic inst.i.tutions owed their importance no less to the facilities they offered for trade, than to the opportunity they afforded for accomplis.h.i.+ng the pilgrimage which is enjoined on every follower of Mohammed. Although caravans still cross the deserts of North Africa in considerable force from west to east, as well as from south to north, to carry on the trade of the countries to the south of the Barbary States, the former are steadily dwindling down to mere local affairs, and the number of travellers who select the modern route by steamer is yearly increasing, as its advantages become better known. For the accommodation of the large number of pa.s.sengers special vessels are chartered by speculators, and are fitted up for the occasion. Only some 3 are charged for the whole journey from Tangier, a thousand pilgrims being crowded on a medium-sized merchant vessel, making the horrors of the voyage indescribable.

But the troubles of the pilgrims do not begin here. Before they could even reach the sea some of them will have travelled on foot for a month from remote parts of the interior, and at the coast they may have to endure a wearisome time of waiting for a steamer. It is while they are thus learning a lesson of patience at one of the Moorish ports that I will invite you for a stroll round their encampment on the market-place.

This consists of scores of low, makes.h.i.+ft tents, with here and there a better-cla.s.s round one dotted amongst them. The prevailing shape of the majority is a modified edition of the dwelling of the nomad Arab, to which cla.s.s doubtless belongs a fair proportion of their occupants.

Across the top of two poles about five feet high, before and behind, a ridge-piece is placed, and over this is stretched to the ground on either side a long piece of palmetto or goat-hair cloth, or perhaps one of the long woollen blankets worn by men and women alike, called haks, which will again be used for its original purpose on board the vessel. The back is formed of another piece of some sort of cloth stretched out at the bottom to form a semi-circle, and so give more room inside. Those who have a bit of rug or a light mattress, spread it on the floor, and pile their various other belongings around its edge.

The straits to which many of these poor people are put to get a covering of any kind to shelter them from sun, rain, and wind, are often very severe, to judge from some of the specimens of tents--if they deserve the name--constructed of all sorts of odds and ends, almost anything, it would seem, that will cover a few square inches.

There is one such to be seen on this busy market which deserves special attention as a remarkable example of this style of architecture. Let us examine it. The materials of which it is composed include hair-cloth, woollen-cloth, a cotton s.h.i.+rt, a woollen cloak, and some sacking; goat skin, sheep's fleece, straw, and palmetto cord; rush mats, a palmetto mat, split-cane baskets and wicker baskets; bits of wood, a piece of cork, bark and sticks; petroleum tins flattened out, sheet iron, zinc, and jam and other tins; an earthenware dish and a stone bottle, with bits of crockery, stones, and a cow's horn to weight some of the other items down. Now, if any one can make anything of this, which is an exact inventory of such of the materials as are visible on the outside, he must be a born architect. Yet here this extraordinary construction stands, as it has stood for several months, and its occupant looks the jolliest fellow out. Let us pay him a visit.

Stooping down to look under the flap which serves as a door, and raising it with my stick, I greet him with the customary salutation of "Peace be with you." "With you be peace," is the cheery reply, to which is added, "Welcome to thee; make thyself at home." Although invited to enter, I feel quite enough at home on the outside of his dwelling, so reply that I have no time to stay, as I only "looked in"

to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance and examining his "palace." At the last word one or two bystanders who have gathered round indulge in a little chuckle to themselves, overhearing which I turn round and make the most flattering remarks I can think of as to its beauty, elegance, comfort, and admirable system of ventilation, which sets the whole company, tenant included, into a roar of laughter. Mine host is busy cleaning fish, and now presses us to stay and share his evening meal with him, but our appet.i.tes are not quite equal to _that_ yet, though it is beyond doubt that the morsel he would offer us would be as savoury and well cooked as could be supplied by any restaurant in Piccadilly.

Inquiries elicit the fact that our friend is hoping to leave for Mekka by the first steamer, and that meanwhile he supports himself as a water-carrier, proudly showing us his goat-skin "bottle" lying on the floor, with the leather flap he wears between it and his side to protect him from the damp. Here, too, are his chain and bell, with the bright bra.s.s and tin cups. In fact, he is quite a "swell" in his way, and, in spite of his uncouth-looking surroundings, manages to enjoy life by looking on the bright side of things.

"What will you do with your palace when you leave it?" we ask, seeing that it could not be moved unless the whole were jumbled up in a sack, when it would be impossible to reconstruct it.

"Oh, I'd let it to some one else."

"For how much?"

"Well, that I'd leave to G.o.d."

A glance round the interior of this strange abode shows that there are still many materials employed in its construction which might have been enumerated. One or two bundles, a box and a basket round the sides, serve to support the roof, and from the ridge-pole hangs a bundle which we are informed contains semolina. I once saw such a bundle suspended from a beam in a village mosque in which I had pa.s.sed the night in the guise of a pious Muslim, and, observing its dusty condition, inquired how it came there.

"A traveller left it there about a year and a half ago, and has not yet come for it," was the reply; to judge from which it might remain till Doomsday--a fact which spoke well for the honesty of the country folk in that respect at least, although I learned that they were notorious highwaymen.

Though the roof admits daylight every few inches, the occupier remarks that it keeps the sun and rain off fairly well, and seems to think none the worse of it for its transparent faults. A sick woman lying in a native hut with a thatched roof hardly in better condition than this one, remarked when a visitor observed a big hole just above her pallet bed--

"Oh, it's so nice in the summer time; it lets the breeze in so delightfully!"

It was then the depth of winter, and she had had to s.h.i.+ft her position once or twice to avoid the rain which came through that hole. What a lesson in making the best of things did not that ignorant invalid teach!

Having bid the amiable water-carrier "a Dieu,"--literally as well as figuratively--we turn towards a group of tents further up, whence a white-robed form has been beckoning us. After the usual salutations have been exchanged, the eager inquiry is made, "Is there a steamer yet?"

"No; I've nothing to do with steamers--but there's sure to be one soon."

A man who evidently disbelieves me calls out, "I've got my money for the pa.s.sage, and I'll hire a place with you, only bring the s.h.i.+p quickly."

Since their arrival in Tangier they have learnt to call a steamer, which they have never seen before,--or even the sea,--a "babor," a corruption of the Spanish "vapor," for Arabic knows neither "v" nor "p."

Another now comes forward to know if there is an eye-doctor in the place, for there is a mist before his eyes, as he is well-advanced in the decline of life. The sound of the word "doctor" brings up a few more of the bystanders, who ask if I am one, and as I reply in the negative, they ask who can cure their ears, legs, stomachs, and what not. I explain where they may find an excellent doctor, who will be glad to do all he can for them gratis--whereat they open their eyes incredulously,--and that for G.o.d's sake, in the name of Seydna Asa ("Our Lord Jesus"), which they appreciate at once with murmurs of satisfaction, though they are not quite satisfied until they have ascertained by further questioning that he receives no support from his own or any other government. Hearing the name of Seydna Asa, one of the group breaks out into "El hamdu l'Illah, el hamdu l'Illah"

("Praise be to G.o.d"), a s.n.a.t.c.h of a missionary hymn to a "Moody and Sankey" tune, barely recognizable as he renders it. He has only been here a fortnight, and disclaims all further knowledge of the hymn or where he heard it.

Before another tent hard by sits a native barber, bleeding a youth from a vein in the arm, for which the fee is about five farthings.

As one or two come round to look on, he remarks, in an off-hand way--probably with a view to increasing his practice--that "all the pilgrims are having this done; it's good for the internals."