Isabel Savory

“ Among the brown jellabs and varied turbans European clothes were forcibly out of their place: a people like the Moors, childlike, patriarchal, whose lives embody one of the oldest and perhaps best ideas of a simple existence, may well hate the sight, on the face of their select country, of prosaic tailoring and hideous head-gear. The traveller in his boots, where boots are things unknown, passes the muffled women with their silent gait, the picturesque ruffians with their swinging stride, and is unable to help feeling not at home and something of a blot on the landscape. ”

“ Go where you will in Tetuan, at every turn water bubbles into time-worn and artistically moulded troughs and basins, under quaint arches, tiled in blue and brown and white. In the narrow winding street-ways, between the houses, half dark, still the bubbling of water is heard, and the shining wet trough seen.
As we left the city and walked down the sandy road which leads to the sea, our tents lay a quarter of a mile off, two white spots, pitched on grass just off the road, the mules picketed by them. ”

“ Only by living its own life, can the country and its ways unfold themselves, and become understood and cared for, by the traveller who has time for, and a love of, such things.
As a whole, and seen in January before spring has begun, around Tetuan it is a tired and brownish-looking country: its colour is bleached and dried out of it, and it has the air of a sun-dried, wind-blown land, patched with pieces of brilliant greenery where corn has been sown near water. And yet it possesses the charm of strength and repose which simplicity gives ”

“ Time is to him no "race": he drifts easily down the years; knows no other home than, it may be, Tetuan; nor is conscious that Tetuan sleeps, as it has slept for ages, curled up, underneath the towering hills, white, petrified, like Lot's wife.
Still down more streets, and on towards the Belgravia of the city we walked, leaving steaming little hot-fritter shops, where sfins are fried in oil and eaten with honey, where cream tarts may possibly be made and honeyed cakes, and crisp pastry prepared with attar of roses, and candied musk lemons, and dates mixed with almond paste. ”

“ It is not only such contradictions as lie on the surface—the squalor of some filthy fondâk, the emaciated raw-skinned donkeys, the bent-backed women, rubbing shoulders with the white-scented robes, the sleek mules, the luxurious tiled houses—these a blind man could see: the under-currents which will puzzle an Englishman more the longer he lives there are known to those only who have dwelt much in Morocco, and they belong by every right to a life which is drawn to the letter in "The Arabian Nights." ”

“ Leading his own troops, dispensing justice, an after-type of those great Arabs who sprang from the sands of Arabia and Africa, shook Europe, and flourished in Spain, a basha should be no tyrant, but a courteous gentleman, a noble of "The Arabian Nights." But there was no aristocratic trace about Asydaibdalkdar. Carrying his rosary in his hand, clothed entirely in white, his features bore traces of servility and sensuality, the result of poisoning the Arab and Berber blood with the strain from Central Africa. Slavery is proving fatal to the Moorish race. ”

“ A row of tiled pillars divided the room lengthwise, and raised the inner half a step above the outer: it was immensely lofty, lighted by the great double doors only, which stood wide open on to the patio. Glass is not used in Morocco: the windowless rooms are aired by the unfastened doors which look on to the patio, itself open to the winds of heaven. The outside world can have little idea of the life going on within the courtyard house: there is much seclusion therein, in fitting harmony with the spirit of Morocco. ”

“ It is a matter of more speculation as to what the courteous, solemn men, in turbans like carved snow, whom one meets walking along the beach telling their beads, or sees sitting in sunshine reading aloud in a low voice, steadily praising Allah, occupy themselves with from month to month; or the sleek sheikh—a countryman of some means, with smooth coffee-coloured face and a haik whiter than an iced birthday cake—perched between the peaks of his red cloth saddle, under which his hard, hammer-headed mule paces at an intermittent amble. ”

“ He is a fortunate voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end and the reward of life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.
The great Thursday Market is one of those things in Marrakesh which, once seen, is stamped deeper than a hundred other memories upon the mind. It is held in a sun-baked open space outside the Gate of the Thursday Market, just beyond the city walls, within view of the plains and a distant low range of mountains. ”

“ Our host dispensed sherrub de minat, the wine of the country, made from grapes; the little dome-shaped pewter teapot was there, with its fond associations of Morocco, together with the copper tray and circle of diminutive painted glasses; a gorgeous indolent sun poured down beyond the patch of shade; the hum and hover of insects vibrated in the air; and presently musicians were summoned—girls wearing pale green jellabs and silver ornaments, with yellow handkerchiefs twisted round their heads, men in bright colours. ”

“ We camped that night near another red ruined kasbah, whose long line of crumbling tapia walls against the Atlas Mountains stretched itself out like a watch-dog beside the forbidden hills. In the morning Arabs were more importunate than ever, one woman thrusting her head between the flaps of the canvas while we were dressing. A deal, meantime, went on in the kitchen-tent over a lamb, Omar feeling its neck and tail, and subsequently buying it for five shillings, after which it was silently dispatched on the far side, skinned, cut up; and the donkey bore a pannierful of meat that day. ”

“ Humanity can indeed be separated from humanity by gulfs impassable, or gulfs which may alone be bridged over by a violation of [329] nature, on the part of the man upon the east bank or upon the west bank.
The palm-trees wave above Marrakesh, turtle-backed mosques and tall towers rise among the gardens and gleam in the sun, but above and beyond every other feature of the far-away fantastic southern capital one watch-tower rises over everything and rears itself into the sky—the Kutobea, built, according to tradition, by Fabir for the Sultan El Mansur. ”

“ A sunny, walled garden lay in front; big orange- and banana-trees, both covered with fruit, shaded precious seedlings; a large tank, filled with gold-fish, took up much [48] space under the windows; and in the background a high cane fence penned in turkeys, geese, ducks, and chickens, scratching and squabbling under orange-trees. There are no grassy lawns in these gardens: they are devoted to fruit, shrubs, and flowers, bisected into equal divisions by tiled or grass paths.
People in Morocco, as all the world over, collect curiosities nolens volens. Mr. Bewicke's dining-room was no exception. ”

“ There is something, too, eternally fascinating in the beautiful seat of an Arab on his horse—not of a fat sheikh or a rich basha or a thriving merchant, but that of the lean and wiry Arab horseman born and bred, who, as he thunders past at full gallop, puts himself into a dozen positions, is at home in them all, shoots behind him, above him, below him, without drawing rein, turning in any direction, while he makes the whole air ring with his wild cries. ”

“ Only able to move with an army, that army, without any commissariat or transport, feeding itself upon its march, wipes corn and food off the face of the land as a sponge wipes a slate. "Where the Sultan's horse treads the corn ceases to grow." He seldom travels with less than thirty thousand followers; and, supposing he is passing through a turbulent tribe, fights his way as he goes, leaving ruin and desolation behind. "They make a desert, and they call it peace." ”

“ Meanwhile, the bare and uninteresting-looking Iron Mountains were disappearing from view: another ridge, which met them at right angles, spotted with argan-trees, looked in the distance like a tea or coffee plantation on Eastern hills—that too faded from sight; and we rode on—now through a blaze of flowers, for every hedge flamed pink and yellow, and even the dry thorns were blotted with colour—now past fields of mauve poppies and scarlet poppies and stretches of stainless blue. ”

“ There was colour running riot indeed. Several of the stately figures, all in white, walked up to the saint-house to pray: one great man waddled down to the stream (to be great is to be fat, in Morocco) , and a few began to groom their horses. The guns were piled: the sun glinted on them and on the silver-chased stirrups, and blazed on the snowy garments, on the poppies, and the saddles, one of which was blue, another yellow. We were in the land of Arabs: the Berbers were left behind at Mogador, and these tall lean horsemen, burnt coffee-coloured, were all descendants of the sons of the desert. ”

“ Every man of them has a gun, and bloodshed and plunder are life itself to him. Treat him well, he bides his time, grows rich with the rest of his tribe; together they descend upon their neighbours, avenge an old wrong, loot to their hearts' content, perhaps attack the Sultan himself. But disarm one and all such men, and in the far future a peaceable agricultural folk may reign in their stead. ”

“ A Moorish house is the essence of purity and light, with its whitewashed walls, its absence of all stifling furniture, and its capability of being sluiced down from top to bottom every day with rivers of water by barefooted slaves. ”

“ To the north, upon our left, lay the Iron Mountains, no very great height, somewhere about two thousand feet, and famous for iron in the days of the Romans and Carthaginians, who both probably worked them. Now they are mined no more, and only known as the favourite quarters of wild boar, signs of whose existence we saw for ourselves, in patches of ground rooted and torn up.
We rode down through these fruitful acres as the sun was getting low: here and there lay a little white farmer's house; birds were everywhere—suddenly we heard a cuckoo, then a nightingale. ”

“ Ordinary Arabic words show an extraordinary gift of description: the word for "secretly" means literally "under the matting," and "never" is expressed thus, "when the charcoal takes root and the salt buds."
Uncontrolled ascendency of imagination marks the Arab, and endows his nature with a fascination all its own: an outdoor life is his heritage, and the things of Nature are a part of himself. "Spring" he calls "grass"; "summer" is "gleaning"; "autumn" is "fruit"; "winter" is "rainy."
If only he could keep pure his race, Morocco had never stood among the nations where she stands now. ”

“ It was enough in the distance to "wind" the Tetuan prison. There remains the reflection—call it comforting if you like—that a people who consent to endure such filth, and misery, and harsh treatment, are not affected by them in the same way in which a highly civilized people would be affected.
It is absurd to blame the Moorish Government; it is absurd to say, "The people are obliged to endure." No people can be forced to endure: a point comes beyond endurance, and they rebel, choosing death rather. The vigorous and progressive race endures least. ”

“ Following our winding path, we reached at last a white saint-house, which dominated a little hill overgrown with gnarled grey olives, and acted guardian over a large and flourishing village which lay below,—at least it was a collection of mud huts, and more of them than usual, but, like so many of these "villages," seemed to all intents and purposes deserted—a city of the dead. Many of the inhabitants were out no doubt, but those who were in were not tempted by curiosity to stare at us: without windows there can be no signs of the rites which are carried on inside the houses. ”

“ The likes and dislikes of Moors are not the likes and dislikes of Europeans, and most of them view their good times and bad times with equal calm, as merely the will of Allah. Besides which, anything in the shape of law and order and daily routine rasps their raw nature. Just as a Moor prefers to eat to repletion when there is food, and to go without when there is not, so he would choose a desultory and irresponsible life, alternating between perfect freedom and excessive tyranny, to any regular humdrum form of government which Europe could offer him. ”

“ Ostentatious funerals and processions of all sorts, public demonstrations over trifles, the worship of gilt and glitter, and the emotional spirit called loyalty, of the present day, do not exist in El Moghreb. There is a spirit of simplicity about its shows; they do not breathe of money: old as their customs are, there is vigour in them and a certain amount of use, for the people have not outgrown them, do not make of them so many lay figures on which to display signs of their own great wealth.
The Day of the Great Feast up at Court with the Sultan, that is the pageant in all Morocco. ”

“ She was pale and dark, with a little head like a snake's, thin sarcastic lips, and eyes full of smouldering devil. Two silver trays stood in front of her, covered with fragile porcelain cups and thin gilded cut-glass, with a silver-topped box full of fragrant mint, another quaint box containing fine green tea, an enormous cut-glass sugar-basin heaped with small rocks of white sugar, two silver embossed and steaming teapots, some scent-sprinklers and incense-burners of silver. At her elbow, on the floor, was the largest silver urn I ever saw, capable of supplying half a dozen school feasts ”

“ Leaving the saint-house and village, we struck a path upwards into a wild gorge, at the bottom of which a brawling torrent was tumbling. It turned many rude mills, and there were lush fields of corn on its banks. Far away in the grey distance now, to the north, we could see a dark wedge of rock, almost on the sky-line beyond the Anjera and other hills of Morocco: the Rock—Gibraltar.
At this point we lunched. Mohammed was provided, and dropped behind a rock: the donkey grazed. A little boy, minding goats, came up with a fascinating pocket-knife, but would not let it go out of his hand. ”

“ The Moor who entertained us was a certain Ci Hamed Ghralmia, the eldest son of a Government official who had fattened physically and financially on the Customs, and whose fine house represented so many perquisites and bribes, and so much pared off the lump sum which went annually up to the Sultan.
It was as luxurious a house as Eastern could wish: soft Rabat carpets, old Fez silk hangings, round the four-post beds, standing back in recesses in the room into which our host led us,—hangings such as even Fez can no longer produce; such silk is not made. ”

“ On Friday, the Sabbath, the biggest sok (market) in all the week, a little black flag was flown from the mosque-tops early in the morning to remind Tetuan of the holy day. The basha was inside the cool mosque, praying, at the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected, though the same event happened every Friday. No Moor is ever busy, ever hurries, but can always wait. At a quarter to one a bugler on the east side of the street, who had been sitting in the sun with his bugle, got up and blew a call to fall in. ”

“ Truly no men think alike: a vast chasm yawns between the natures of the slave-trader and the European: that chasm is a universal education. To realize all which separates a native of Africa from a Frenchman or an Englishman, and the difficulties which lie in the way of promoting an understanding between the two, visit such a place as the Slave Market in Marrakesh.
Groups of slaves, more or less gorgeously dressed, some in rags where nothing better could be afforded, were sitting far back in little covered-in recesses which lined the square. ”