Beni Mora

“ With the money we’d saved we left Algiers, and came into the desert to take a café which was to let near the station at Beni-Mora.”
“I’ve just come from there.”
“They call it ‘Au Retour du Sahara.’”
“I’ve had coffee there.”
“That was ours, and there little Marie was born. In those days there weren’t many strangers in Beni-Mora. The railway had only just come there, and it was wild enough. Very few, except the Arabs. Well, they were often our customers. We learned to talk a bit of their language, and they a bit of ours ”

“ Cleanliness—what a blessed condition that was, a condition to breed bravery. In this early morning hour Beni-Mora looked magically clean. Domini thought of the desperate dirt of London mornings, of the sooty air brooding above black trees and greasy pavements. Surely it was difficult to be clean of soul there. Here it would be easy. One would tune one’s lyre in accord with Nature and be as a singing palm tree beside a water-spring. ”

“ Already Beni-Mora was bathed in golden beams and full of gentle activities. A flock of goats pattered by towards the edge of the oasis. The Arab gardeners were lazily sweeping small leaves from the narrow paths under the mimosa and pepper trees. Soldiers in loose white suits, dark blue sashes and the fez, were hastening from the Fort towards the market. A distant bugle rang out and the snarl of camels was audible from the village. Domini stood on the verandah for a moment, drinking in the desert air. It made her feel very pure and clean, as if she had just bathed in clear water. ”

“ No chattering voices broke the furtive silence that prevailed in this quarter of Beni-Mora. The moonlight was fainter here, obscured by the close-set buildings, and at the moment there was not an Arab in sight. The sense of loneliness and peace was profound, and as the rare windows of the houses, minute and protected by heavy gratings, were dark, it had seemed to Domini at first as if all the inhabitants were in bed and asleep. But, in passing on, she had seen a faint and blanched illumination; then another; the vague vision of an aperture; a seated figure making a darkness against whiteness ”

“ Then had followed her silent ride back to Beni-Mora with Androvsky along the straight road which had always fascinated her spirit of adventure. They had ridden slowly, without looking at each other, without exchanging a word. She had felt dry and weary, like an old woman who had passed through a long life of suffering and emerged into a region where any acute feeling is unable to exist, as at a certain altitude from the earth human life can no longer exist. ”

“ As if with the sedulous effort of something weary but of unconquered will, it slowly lit up Beni-Mora with a feeble light that flickered in a cloud of whirling sand, revealing the desolation of an almost featureless void. The village, the whole oasis, was penetrated by a passionate fog that instead of brooding heavily, phlegmatically, over the face of life and nature travelled like a demented thing bent upon instant destruction, and coming thus cloudily to be more free for crime. ”

“ Let us forget everything, everything that we ever knew before Beni-Mora, Domini. It’s dead, absolutely dead, unless we make it live by thinking. And that’s mad, crazy. Thought’s the great madness. Domini, have you forgotten everything before we knew each other? ”

“ On an autumn evening, Domini Enfilden leaned on the parapet of a verandah of the Hotel du Désert at Beni-Mora, in Southern Algeria, gazing towards the great Sahara, which was lit up by the glory of sunset. The bell of the Catholic Church chimed. She heard the throbbing of native drums in the village near by. Tired with her long journey from England, she watched and listened while the twilight crept among the palms, and the sandy alleys grew dark.
Thirty-two, an orphan, unmarried, strong, fearless, ardent, but a deeply religious woman and a Catholic, Domini had passed through much mental agony. ”

“ Two years ago I was travelling by diligence in the Sahara Desert on the great caravan route, which starts from Beni-Mora and ends, they say, at Tombouctou. For fourteen hours each day we were on the road, and each evening about nine o’clock we stopped at a Bordj, or Travellers’ House, ate a hasty meal, threw ourselves down on our gaudy Arab rugs, and slept heavily till the hour before dawn, drugged by fatigue, and by the strong air of the desert. ”

“ I broke it by saying: “It was the sand-diviner?”
He looked at me sharply. “I don’t know.”
“You never found out?”
“At Beni-Mora the women go veiled,” he said harshly.
Suddenly I realised the horror of the situation: the deserted husband living on with his child in the midst of the ordained and close secrecy of Beni-Mora, where many of the women never set foot out of doors, and those who do, unless they are the public dancers, are so heavily veiled that their features cannot be recognised. ”

“ In those delicious times, when deities and demigods appeared familiarly on earth, mingling with its inhabitants as friend with friend,—when nymphs, satyrs, and the whole train of classic faith or fable hardly took pains to hide themselves in the primeval woods,—at that auspicious period the lineage of Monte Beni had its rise. Its progenitor was a being not altogether human, yet partaking so largely of the gentlest human qualities, as to be neither awful nor shocking to the imagination. ”

“ About the right of Atághér the country called Nafry lies, by the side of a river larger than that of Kowárá.
“The people of Beni are now extremely poor. They are submissive to their princes, till and cultivate the lands of others, and pay capitation tax. Sheep, goats, oxen, horses, and fowls, are scarce in their country; and as to asses, there are none, except what are imported from other countries. They have, however, plenty of elephants. ”

“ The world has grown either too evil, or else too wise and sad, for such men as the old Counts of Monte Beni used to be. His very first taste of it, as you see, has changed and spoilt my poor young lord. There had not been a single count in the family these hundred years or more, who was so true a Monte Beni, of the antique stamp, as this poor signorino; and now it brings the tears into my eyes to hear him sighing over a cup of Sunshine! Ah, it is a sad world now!”
“Then you think there was a merrier world once?” asked Kenyon.
“Surely, Signore,” said Tomaso ”

“ The first notable event in the history of the Beni ‘Ukbah was a quarrel that arose between them and their brother-tribe, the Beni ‘Amr. The ‘Ayn el-Tabbákhah,93 the fine water of Wady Madyan, now called Wady Makná, was discovered by a Hutaymi shepherd of the Beni ‘Ali clan, while tending his flocks; others say that the lucky man was a hunter following a gazelle. However that may be, the find was reported to the Shaykh of the Musálimah (Beni ‘Ukbah) , who had married ‘Ayayfah, the sister of Ali ibn Nejdi, the Beni ‘Amr chief, whilst the latter had also taken his brother-inlaw’s sister to wife. ”

“ I humbly salute you! But ugh! my gorge rises at the mere recollection of you and all your works! what more can I say to you? Come, friend Beni, get up and come away: it is no pleasure to me to sit here any longer. ”

“ Beni had the family Bible, the basket of silverware from the sideboard, a copper kettle and papa’s fur overcoat.
“Oh, joy!” said Victor, putting down his load; “it is pleasant to rob once more.”
“Oh, ecstacy!” said Beni; but he let the kettle drop on his toe and immediately began dancing around in anguish, while he muttered queer words in the Italian language.
“We have much wealth,” continued Victor, holding the mince pie while Lugui added his spoils to the heap; “and all from one house! This America must be a rich place.” ”

“ Reassured by our replies he turned toward the little archæologist and went on: “Of you, Doctor Morgano, I need have no fear; for you have been accepted as a member of the highest council in my race and by our rites are now a brother of mine. But what of you, Beni Hassan Azdul? Do the men of your tribe ever break the laws of hospitality? Do they betray those who have trusted them?” ”

“ Ah! you thought that I had deserted you, when fearing for your father’s life you wept and prayed in the darkness of the cave. Yet it was not so, for I did but suffer the doom which I had read to fulfil itself as it must do.”
He rose to his feet and, resting on his staff, laid one withered hand upon the head of Benita.
“Maiden,” he said, “we meet no more beneath the sun. Yet because you have brought deliverance to my people, because you are sweet and pure and true, take with you the blessing of Munwali, spoken by the mouth of his servant Mambo, the old Molimo of Bambatse. ”

“ At this moment, looking up, Benita saw a figure gliding out of the darkness into the ring of light, so silently that she started, for it might well have been one of those ghosts in whom Jacob Meyer did not believe. In fact, however, it was the old Molimo, who had a habit of coming upon them thus.
“What says the white man?” he asked of Benita, while his dreamy eyes wandered over the three of them, and the hole in the violated tomb.
“He says that he does not believe in spirits, and that he defies them,” she answered. ”

“ Trouble may still come upon you; yes, I think that it will come, but once more I pray you, have no fear, for out of this evil root shall spring a flower of joy,” and he rose to go.
“Stay,” said Benita. “Has the chief Meyer found the gold?”
“No; he has found nothing; but he hunts and hunts like a hungry jackal digging for a bone. But that bone is not for him; it is for you, Lady, you and you only. Oh! I know, you do not seek, still you shall find. Only the next time that you want help, do not run away into the wilderness. Hear the word of Munwali given by his mouth, the Molimo of Bambatse!” ”

“ As they came, except one figure who remained seated with his back against the wall, the human circle stood up as a token of respect, and Benita saw that they were of the same stamp as the messengers—tall and good-looking, with melancholy eyes and a cowed expression, wearing the appearance of people who from day to day live in dread of slavery and death. Opposite to them was a break in the circle, through which Tamas led them, and as they crossed it Benita felt that all those people were staring at her with their sad eyes. ”

“ Of the early history of the races inhabiting the coast lands little is known. The Beni appear to have been the most powerful race at the time of the discovery of the coast by the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the kings of Benin in the 17th century ruled a large part of the south-western portion of the existing British protectorate (see Benin) . The Benin influence does not seem to have reached east of the Forcados mouth of the Niger. In the greater part of the delta region each town owned a different chief and there was no one dominant tribe. ”

“ Benito was quite overwhelmed, and accused himself of having destroyed his father, and had it not been for the entreaties of Yaquita, of his sister, of Padre Passanha, and of Manoel, the distracted youth would in the first moments of despair have probably made away with himself. But he was never allowed to get out of sight; he was never left alone. And besides, how could he have acted otherwise? Ah! why had not Joam Dacosta told him all before he left the jangada? Why had he refrained from speaking, except before a judge, of this material proof of his innocence? ”

“ My simple observations go no further than to declare, that through the course of a seafaring life, to almost all parts of Europe, the West Indies, and North America, I never saw a happier race of people than those of the kingdom of Benin.
The subjects of the king of Benin were, during my observations there, seated in ease and plenty. The slave trade, and its unavoidably bad effects excepted, every thing bore the appearance of friendship, tranquillity, and primitive independence. At Gatoe the markets were regular and well stocked: they teemed with luxuries unknown to the Europeans. ”

“ It appears the tribe called Beni Sira, sons of burnt fathers, as our host refers to them, have stopped the pass, not that they are bad men, at least our host is sure of this, or lives too near them to venture on a criticism, but because they are dissatisfied with the new governor recently appointed, and wish to get him into bad odour with the Sultan by causing trouble. It appears those mis-begotten folk have fired upon a party only the day before, and wounded a Jewish merchant, who is laid up in a house not far from where we sit. ”

“ There was nothing which the rich fazender refused his son. Benito was possessed of a cheerful disposition, an active mind, a lively intelligence, and qualities of heart equal to those of his head. At the age of twelve he was sent into Para, to Belem, and there, under the direction of excellent professors, he acquired the elements of an education which could not but eventually make him a distinguished man. Nothing in literature, in the sciences, in the arts, was a stranger to him. ”

“ There the sick man, yonder the grinning skeletons, around the blackness and the silence, and beyond these again a miserable death, or Jacob Meyer. But of him Benita saw nothing, though once or twice she thought that she heard his voice raving outside the wall which they had built. If so, either he did not try to pull it down, or he failed in the attempt, or perhaps he feared that should he succeed, he would be greeted by a bullet. So at last she gave up thinking about him. Should he force his way into the cave she must deal with the situation as best she could. ”