John Ball

“ The steep ridges enclosing the valley were now thickly powdered with snow, but almost concealed from view by the clouds that hung low over our heads. Towards sunset these gradually rose up and melted into mist, and the whole scene was transfused with a delicate sea-green hue that seemed bright by contrast with the sombre tints in which we had been enveloped during the day. It often happens in bad weather that as the distant horizon is lit up towards sunset the rays, travelling under the dense strata of cloud that cover a mountain district, produce at that hour the effect of sudden illumination ”

“ To be able to converse in a tone approaching to equality with powerful officials; to emancipate oneself from restrictions trifling, yet galling, in matters of dress and demeanour; to share in some measure in the vague sense of power vested in the representatives of the great European States—must be the climax of ambition to a member of a despised nationality in a land where neither intelligence nor wealth nor good reputation give a man security or social recognition. ”

“ More serious even than fanaticism, as an obstacle to good government, is the seeming incapacity of the Moor to estimate any but immediate results, or to make any effort of which the good effect will not be very speedily visible. To prove to a Sultan of Marocco that such a public work or other improvement would double his revenue at the end of twenty or thirty years would be sheer waste of breath. It would never occur to a Moor that a benefit so distant, however great, was worth the slightest present exertion. ”

“ From the time we first got a clear view of our mountain we had fixed on a range of beetling crags, not far below the summit, which promised to afford an excellent habitat for rare plants. The promise was kept, for we had scarcely approached their base when with joyful cries we saluted one of the chief prizes of our excursion. From clefts on the face of the rock hung great leafy tufts, quite a yard in diameter, supported on stems as thick as a man’s arm. The flowering branches produced an abundance of yellow flowers, then just expanding and only partly opened. ”

“ On the western side successive undulations of the ground—range beyond range of low hills—melted away into the horizon, but as the eye turned northward it rested on a more varied picture. To the right of the Angera Mountains and Ape’s Hill a small dark islet seemed to stand out from the Spanish coast. In this we scarcely recognised Gibraltar, for the shadow of a cloud happened to rest on its grey limestone cliffs. ”

“ The moon stood high in the cloudless sky, wherein there was so little vapour that the stars seemed scarcely dimmed by her brilliancy. The great tower, stark against the black vault, appeared gigantic in its proportions as it looked down on the strange scene below. The noises of the city—even the howling of the dogs—were for the moment completely stilled; our camels, horses, mules, and asses lay resting after their day’s work, and amongst them the sleeping figures of our men, wrapped up in white haïks or jellabias, looked weird and ghostly in the moonlight. ”

“ Our increased acquaintance with the flora of the Great Atlas did not much modify our first impressions. Making due allowance for the earliness of the season, and for the adverse conditions that may have concealed from us some species inhabiting the higher zone, it was clear that the vegetation here differs very much from that of all the lofty mountain masses of Southern Europe and Western Asia, and especially in the absence of those families that elsewhere form the chief ornaments of the higher mountain zone, and which we are accustomed to associate with the glories of the Alpine flora. ”

“ If a few plants close to the stream appear to thrive about the waters of Elias, the surrounding vegetation is meagre, and amid the straggling bushes of exotic aspect that surround the spot the traveller seeks in vain for effectual protection from the sun. Here, besides the gigantic olive trees that must have been planted at a remote period, the white poplar grows to a great size, and wild herbaceous plants were still green, many of them in flower as well as fruit, at this advanced season. ”

“ As if because the natives would spare no space that could be turned to profit, we soon found that on the steeper portion of the ascent the only way was up the bed of a brawling stream that had for irrigation’s sake been diverted from the upper course of the torrent. The track lay over big blocks of porphyry, with deep holes between, over which the water leaped and tumbled, between straggling branches of spiny bushes, that left many a mark on the faces and clothing of the passing horsemen. ”

“ The rocky sunburnt flanks of the mountains were dotted with trees of dark foliage, doubtless some form of the evergreen oak, up to a height of about 8,000 feet above the sea, for the most part solitary, sometimes in clumps, but nowhere forming a continuous forest. The numerous feeders of the Oued Nfys had cut deep ravines in the flanks of the mountains, and were lost to sight, except where gleams of silver light shot upwards from the deeper valleys amid the walnut trees that fringed their banks. ”

“ Carstensen’s thorough knowledge of the language, this must have been felt as a serious inconvenience, for Abraham proved himself active and intelligent; and the duties of a consular agent on the Marocco coast being by no means of a hum-drum character, the need of a man familiar with the country and the people in the capacity of secretary and assistant is daily felt. Being a Marocco Jew, born in a position of relative inferiority to his Mohammedan neighbours, Abraham no doubt felt a keen satisfaction in the sense of security which he derived from his position in the British service. ”

“ To lay, in new regions, the foundations of civil society; to establish, more or less imperfectly, the reign of order and justice, and to secure the protection of the weak against the strong—these have been the tasks hitherto achieved by the ruling races of the world; and as knowledge has increased, as the difficulties of social progress have become better understood, and a stricter code of justice in dealing with the inferior races is gradually becoming established, it is allowable to hope that the inevitable changes may be accomplished with less of human suffering and with better success. ”

“ Few readers may care to sympathise with the distress of a naturalist who looks on his specimens, not only as scientific documents bringing some additions to our knowledge of the structure and relations of the organised world, but as things of beauty giving delight to the senses of form and colour, when, after much pains and care, he finds the flowers change their hues and drop off, the leaves turn black, and when mould, the sure sign of decomposition, begins to encrust the stems and fruits. ”

“ We had ascended several hundred feet, and were looking about for plants among rocks to the left of the path, when some faint sound made us look up, and we descried, amid the rain and mist, a party of men and laden mules descending towards us down the steep ravine. There was some obvious awkwardness in the impending encounter of three Englishmen, utterly ignorant of the native tongue, with a set of wild mountaineers of the Atlas, in a spot where no stranger had ever before been seen. ”

“ It is impossible not to feel some interest in this structure that for so many a mariner marks the limit of the great continent, [21] more than three times the area of Europe, that remains, in spite of all the efforts of modern enterprise, the chief home of all that is strange and mysterious and unknown in the world. It represents, too, the only concession that the Moor has made to the demands of modern civilisation; for the building has been raised at the cost of the Sultan of Marocco, though the expense of its maintenance is shared between the four Powers, England, France, Italy, and Spain. ”

“ Even the Governor’s kasbah, though often a pile of large dimensions, rarely survives a single generation. The great wall and massive towers surrounding it, as well as the building itself, are constructed of unbaked bricks or of blocks of mud half dried in the sun; and save in cases where a son succeeds his father in power, the custom of the country is to level the whole structure to the ground on the death or removal of the occupant. A few seasons complete the work, and nothing remains but a few mounds of clay to mark the site. ”

“ Ambak and Hamed, who had made the journey on foot, with none but the scantiest and the poorest clothing, now appeared fresh from the bath and dressed in their best: Hamed looking especially dignified in a snow-white turban, and formidable-looking dagger stuck in his girdle. All seemed pleased and satisfied with the very moderate sums awarded them—to which in the case of the more deserving were added knives and other articles of English cutlery. The soldiers who had travelled all the way from Mogador received eight dollars (40 francs) each, while to the Marocco men were given five dollars each. ”

“ Cubical blocks of white-washed masonry, with scarcely an opening to represent a window, rise one above another on the steep slope of a recess in the hills that faces the NE. A few slender square towers belong to as many mosques of paltry proportions. Numerous consular flagstaffs remind the European that he still enjoys the protection of his own government, and on the summit of the hill a massive gaunt castle of forbidding aspect shows where he might expect to lodge if that protection were removed, and he were to give offence to the native functionaries. ”

“ It is true that until late years the Marocco Jew was exposed to some vexatious regulations. He was required to put off his sandals on passing the outside of a mosque, to wear a peculiar dress, and is still confined to a separate quarter in each town. But in ordinary intercourse between man and man the Jews of the coast towns seemed to us to have attained a footing of almost complete equality, due as well to their superior intelligence and commercial instinct, as to the tolerance which affinity of race and creed has developed among the people of Arab stock. ”

“ On a fine evening, with the gentle heaving of the broad Atlantic billows to tune all to harmony, we passed the headland of Cape Spartel, and received the first rays of the great lanthorn as they shot out seaward when lighted for the night. ”

“ Trees, and running water, without which in this climate few trees will grow, are therefore the essential requisites. Beyond this the Moor, if he be rich and luxurious, may plant a few sweet-scented flowers, of which the rose, violet, jessamine, and Acacia Farnesiana are most prized; but beyond this, no mere pleasure of the eye is ever dreamt of, and here, as elsewhere, there seems to be among the natives a complete want of the sense of beauty. ”

“ Within those limits it is enough to let it be known that a traveller enjoys the Imperial protection; no one will ever think of daring to molest him.
After devoting a good part of the day to indispensable preparations for our future journey, we were free to look about us in the singular little town which, as the chief port of South Marocco, is the last outpost of civilisation on the African coast at this side of the French settlements of Senegal. Like many other places in Marocco, this owes its existence to the caprice of a Sultan. ”

“ As we had already assured ourselves, the spring climate of North Marocco is delightful to the human frame. The sky had been clear, the air warm, and only one or two slight showers of rain had fallen since we first landed on the coast; but the breezes, whether they travel eastward from the Atlantic, or westward from the Mediterranean, are laden with aqueous vapour nearly to the point of saturation, and nothing dries spontaneously by mere exposure to the air. ”

“ Up to this we had little experience of what the horses and mules of Marocco can do in the way of getting over rough ground, and it was not without surprise that we saw how successfully they managed to scramble up the slippery channel over blocks worn smooth by the constant passage of men and animals. In the midst of the scramble we all dismounted, for we here saw for the first time the blue daisy of the Atlas, growing in the shade under the bushes, or nestling in the hollows between the rocks. ”

“ Looking due west, nothing approaching our level lay between us and the dim horizon. A succession of projecting spurs of the Atlas, dividing as many successive valleys, subsided into the plain; the most prominent, and that extending farthest from the main chain, being the mountain above Seksaoua. Turning the eye a little to the left, about west by south, we saw crowded together many of the higher summits of the western portion of the main range, which was here seen foreshortened, so that it was impossible to judge of their true relative position. ”

“ The dread of arbitrary exactions, that elsewhere in Marocco drives the Moor as well as the Jew to conceal the possession of property as carefully as men elsewhere hide the evidence of guilt, is less keenly felt here. For in and around Tangier, but nowhere else in this country, it may be said that life and property are tolerably secure, not only from outward violence, but from the caprice and cupidity of men in authority. ”

“ The poor fellows who had for some way followed us without further remonstrance, now renewed with redoubled energy their appeal that we should return. Kissing the hem of our coats at one moment, brandishing their arms with passionate gestures, or actually pulling us back at another, they really impressed us more by their pitiable appearance, exposed with the slightest covering to the bitter blast, their feet and bare legs cut and bleeding from the rocks and thorny bushes of the way. ”

“ To be turned back at the very moment when the main object of our journey lay before our eyes, and that on pretexts that we utterly disbelieved, was sufficiently aggravating; and it was not in the most cheerful humour that, about mid-day, we retraced our steps down the valley, and, yielding to the suggestions of our escort, halted at the olive grove beside the village which we had noticed during our ascent. This was the first Shelluh village that we had been able to inspect nearly, and it was of the same type which we afterwards found throughout the mountain region. ”