The pillars of Hercules

I went to-day up the river in a barge belonging to one of the schooners in the harbour. We landed at the bottom of the harbour to visit the great tower. It is about seventy feet square, and under two hundred in height, but was never finished. The facing of one of the angles has been stripped off by lightning, showing the interior of the masonry, which is composed throughout of stones exactly squared. The wall at the upper part is between six and seven feet thick. It is ascended by an inclined plane, up which a carriage might be driven. The centre is an inner tower composed of five stories of square halls, with the roofs in stucco, like the Alhambra. The outside is figured and carved. In simplicity and grace, “Hassan” exceeds the Giralda no less than in dimensions. Whoever has seen the Giralda, will know how much the name enhances the charm of that structure. This personification, which to us is an abnormal effort, and belongs to an ecstatic state, is part of their daily life. We may be poetic; they are poetry. The sword of Antor, the sword of Amra Ibn Maad,[200] the horn of Timour had each its name; and I never hear a bugle without a thrill, having, as a child, delighted in the history of the latter hero. Those who gave a man’s name to a tower, would be horror-struck at a man’s name given to a dog. The tower “Hassan” calls up the siege of Jerusalem and Lower Antonia. There all the towers had names—Hippicus, Piphunis, Mariamne: so the gates had names, as Genuath; but the gates, like those of Rabat, were probably structures exceeding the towers in dimensions.

The staircase has been rendered impracticable both at the entrance and near the top, but we clambered up by the aid of holes in the walls. We could now take in the fortifications of Rabat. The whole forms a triangle, the sides of which are the river and the sea-coast; the apex is the Cazata on the point of Rabat. It covers a space of ground considerably larger than Granada.

Adjoining the tower there is a large cistern with ten parallel walls running half through it, and beyond this, the extensive area of a mosque with many of the columns standing. They are of granite, unpolished. A century ago a missionary mentions the mosque as unroofed, with three hundred and sixty columns. This group of buildings is surrounded by massive walls in Tapia with turrets.

Wherever elsewhere are found monuments of past splendour, the race has disappeared, or it lives in subjection to some other people. Here the descendants of the people who reared these edifices, still dwell unconquered around. They gaze upon them with stupid wonder, knowing not whether they are the works of genii or their fathers.

The magnificent remains spread around were the creation of a single reign, and had one date of maturity and desolation. What measure do they not give of the power of Morocco, in the time of our Henry I.? Like the pyramids, they were reared by captive hands; they were bedewed with Gothic blood, and Christian sweat and tears. To forty thousand of the Christian slaves employed in them, the Emperor had promised freedom on their completion, and he gave them liberty to choose a district for their habitation. His ministers represented that such a colony would be dangerous. “My word,” said the Emir el Moslemin (Miramolin) “is passed for freedom, and what is freedom without the means of protecting it?” They were settled in the mountains to the east of Fez. Wives were given to them, and they were called Shabanets, from Shaban, the name of the month in which the removal took place. For some generations they preserved their language and religion, and three hundred years afterwards we find them a powerful tribe at war with the Moorish sovereign. The Shabanets were at that time undistinguished from the surrounding population in manners, languages, and religion. There is no trace of persecution for religion, and their contests with the princes of Morocco were for their civil rights.

That war of borders and of centuries between Moor and Goth, must have been, in part, the image of the kidnapping of Africa as carried on to-day. The common prisoner for us is an encumbrance, for them he was the chief booty. The estimating of the value, and the distribution of the shares amongst the captors, were defined and arranged by a peculiar code. A captive, for instance, made from a fortress within cross-bow range, belonged to the captor on payment of a fifth of the value to the king. Beyond cross-bow range the captor received a third of the value from the governor who got the slave.

This treatment of a captive shocks our sense of military honour, and so the lesson which war ought to teach is lost—that each is answerable in his person and fortune for his nation’s acts. The judicial and sacred character of war remains so long only as the captive is treated as a guilty man. Our civilization respects in the prisoner the professional man, because it has converted war from the execution of a sentence into a trade. Riley relates a conversation with some of the tribe on the borders of the Timbuctoo desert. “We cannot,” said they, in answer to his remonstrances, “give quarter, because they ought to die who give us cause to use our weapons. We will not take quarter if vanquished, because we will not be beholden for life to such men.” He describes the tribe as peculiarly harmless.

From the tower we proceeded two or three miles up the river to orange groves on the low ground, belonging to the late governor, which appeared utterly deserted, and the fruit lay rotting under the trees. Our European sailors loaded their boats with fruit, and decorated it with branches bearing fruit and flowers. I fancied the companions of Hercules must have done something of the same kind.

We found here a party of the Sultan’s troops, who were giving and receiving a treat from each other. There were various little fires and round trays of tea: they hailed us and made us land, and we had to drink tea with them. There was a nephew of the Emperor amongst them, a fine lad, almost black, with beautiful Greek features approaching to that Abyssinian cast, some individuals of which have appeared to me to be the most wonderful specimens of the human race. Homer was of the same opinion.

Several Spanish renegades were pointed out to me: they were criminals who had escaped from the Spanish presidio. The Moors spoke of them without contempt; the Jews told me they were much esteemed. I had been told at Ceuta that few attempted to escape, and that, when they did, they came back again, in consequence of the bad treatment they received. The Spaniards have an “extradition” treaty with the Moors, but here that modern infamy meets its reward—the deserters become Mussulmans. How different the present practice of converting the fortresses on the frontier into depôts for culprits, from that ancient practice of the Spanish kings, by which the frontier fortresses were sanctuaries. When reading those old charters, I had imagined that the object was to people them, and such is the explanation given by the Spanish legal writers; but now I saw the real purpose,—which was to afford the malefactor, who had already escaped from punishment, relief from apostacy. The malefactor was sheltered for a year and a day, and was then free. He would have been kept there for life, had the object been to people the fortresses. This is further confirmed by the singular privilege of these sanctuaries to receive women who had run away from their husbands, and once within them they are freed from the bonds of matrimony. These provisions will be found in the Charter of Ferdinand IV., granted to Gibraltar, and afterwards confirmed by Alonzo XI. From the benefits of the sanctuary were excepted only traitors—those who had delivered up castles—those who had broken the king’s peace, or seduced their lord’s wife.

Thus Moses separated three cities of refuge “on this side Jordan towards the sun’s rising;”[201] that is, on the side of the enemy and on his border. The period of sojourn was contingent on the life of the high-priest.

Among the renegades are to be found the scourings from all regions of the earth; Spain, France, Russia, Belgium, Prussia, Turkey, Tartary, Egypt, and the whole coast of Africa. Nigritia and Central Africa may be added to the list; as the slaves may rather be considered outcasts who find a home, than free men reduced to servitude. Poles they have here in Africa, it is true; but as “condottieri” only. There are representatives of every race, and records of every conspiracy and rebellion. They number four hundred in the camp, and two thousand throughout Morocco. The police is so strict, that it is impossible that one of them should ever return. Dante might here have got the suggestion for his inscription over the gates of hell.

There were formerly a great many emigrants from Algiers. They have died and wasted away: as the French colonization has advanced, they have retreated before it: they have preferred abandoning the graves of their fathers, their homes, their substance, their friends, to living where the Fih ruled. Such an emigration must not be compared to that of Poland, or to the victims of any European revolution. There was here no dread of vengeance and no proscription. They departed in anguish of heart, and Morocco for them was no land of promise. Of many who had acknowledged themselves as Fih subjects, that have come to Gibraltar in a state of destitution, not one has ever applied at the consulate for pecuniary relief. The Consul has repeatedly proffered assistance; it has in every case been declined. This getting out of the way of their conquerors is strikingly pictured in the address of an old Moor to the captor of Gibraltar:—

Christian slavery in Morocco, and the intercourse resulting from it with the princes and religious orders of Europe, would form a very interesting volume. It ought not, however, to be forgotten that the Christians set the example.[203] In Morocco the Rovers were no tractable subjects. Even when they were reduced to obedience, and one of the Sultans applied to Charles XII. for aid in quelling those of Tunis and Algiers,[204] who had supported the fraternity of Salee against himself, these princes, who would not recognize the Sultans of Constantinople, entered into friendly relations with the Roman Pontiff. Even on religious matters, the following extract will show, and will confirm, what I have elsewhere asserted, that the disappearance of Christianity from the soil of Africa is not attributable to persecution. While Henry, the first of European monarchs, was putting himself in open opposition to the Church, and setting her highest recognised authority at defiance, that authority received an unexpected recognition and homage from a Saracen and semi-barbarian sovereign in Africa. Annazir, the Mahometan ruler of Mauritania Sitifensis, sent to Rome a Christian priest, Servandus by name, with the request that he might be consecrated bishop of the church then existing at Hippo. Gregory’s answer to this prince announced his compliance with the Saracen’s desire, and the due consecration of the designated prelate. He thanked Annazir for his liberation of many Christians in his kingdom from slavery, and for his promised manumission of more. “This goodness,” he said, “God the Creator of all things, without whom we cannot do, or even think anything that is good, hath breathed into thine heart. He that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, hath in this thy purpose enlightened thy mind, for there is nothing of which the Almighty God, who would have all men to be saved, and who is not willing that any should perish, more highly approves than that, next to the love of his Maker, a man should cultivate that of his neighbour, and do nought to others which he would not that they should do to him; and this charity, due from and to all men, is more especially required between you and ourselves; who believe and confess, though in a different way, one God; and who both daily praise and adore Him, as the Creator of all ages, and the governor of the world.”[205]

If religious fanaticism was displayed in the acts which provoked the retaliation of the Moors, never was Christian charity more fervently exhibited than in the efforts made, and the suffering undergone, to redeem the captives. For this work of redemption two monastic orders were established. “The Trinitarians,” was founded by one Matta, and by Felix de Valois, in 1198. Innocent III. confirmed and encouraged the institution. It was a mendicant order. The friars wore a white habit, with a red and blue cross on the breast. The rule was that of St. Augustine, “to gather and carry alms into Barbary for the redemption of slaves,” to which purpose one-third of the revenue of each house was to be applied. They had thirty-nine houses in England, and nine in Scotland.

The “Merced,” or more properly the military religious order of “Our Lady of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives,” was founded in 1225 by Peter of Nolasco, who had served under De Montfort. It consisted of knights and friars. The friars were in holy orders, and therefore could not shed blood. The knights guarded the coast against the Saracens, but were obliged to keep choir when not on duty. The friars wore a white habit: the knights were dressed like seculars, but wore a white scapular on which, as on the habits of the friars, were embroidered the royal arms of Arragon. To the three religious vows this order added a fourth,—to devote their whole substance, and their liberty, if necessary, to the ransoming of slaves; remaining in the place of a slave if they could not otherwise obtain his release. This order being relieved from certain domestic austerities, they were obliged to go barefoot, and were called Das Calsos,[206] observing the strictest poverty, solitude, and abstinence.

In former times there was in these regions a most extraordinary traffic in Russian slaves of both sexes, and eunuchs. The Arabs called them Siklah (Silaavo). Abderachman III. had a body guard of them, splendidly accoutred. They rose to high offices in the State. One, named Wadha, was vizier to Hisham II. of Cordova; another, Naga, to Ibn Edris, Sultan of Ceuta, and Malaga. They even attained to sovereign power, and founded dynasties, as Lahayr and Keyran, both of Valentia.

5th of December.

This being Friday, the Sultan went in state to the mosque at the Alcazar. He passed between two lines of troops from his country box, a distance of three miles. I had an opportunity of seeing him from the roof of the consulate, as he passed along the brow of the hill to the Alcazar gate. He rode a white horse. When he came in sight there was a general exclamation from those on the roofs. “A white horse!” They all turned round and smiled, and beckoned to each other, and general joy seemed to be diffused. The Sultan rides a white horse! The colour of the horse denotes the humour of the prince; white being, of course, that of joy and gladness, and the other shades accordingly. Muley Ismael distinguished thus:—when he rode a red horse, he had a lance or sabre; when he rode a black one, a musket and gunpowder. In the Arabian Nights there is something like this,[207] in commenting on which Mr. Lane mentions (and I can also confirm), that the Turks signify anger against any class of their tributaries by issuing the Harutch papers of a red colour, and adds, “To exhibit the striking and dramatic spectacle described by our author may, I conceive, be more effective than any words could be.” In this way the black flag of the pirate has been selected, and the red flag of the rover. Next to the flag the war-horse is the shield for this blazon. Thus we have in the Revelation the pale horse of death. The idea is beautifully paraphrased in a sentence of the old Chevalier Fabian Phillips. “The pale horse of death, and the red of destruction, rode up to their bridles in blood.”

The Sultan wore a green bournous with the hood up. A man on each side fanned him. This hooded people had thrown back the capes of their sulams and the folds of the haïk from off their heads, so that the aspect of the crowd was suddenly changed, and the universal white was now considerably mingled with red and blue.[208]

I was much gratified at seeing, even from a distance, the chief of this singular empire, the manner of his march, and the greeting of his people, which is by bending down and raising up the body, and continuing to do so until he has passed.

I received a message to say, that orders had been given to conduct me over every place, not excepting his own residence. This was a most acceptable communication, as I found myself gradually falling into the condition of a prisoner.

After the ceremony of the mosque was over, several of the chief men came in. These visits were uninterrupted till night. I have seldom passed so interesting a day.

The revolution in the town, I suspect, is not yet completed. The Sultan has been now a month here. He never remained so long before, and this is a season of the year when it has been the undeviating practice of Moorish Sultans to be at the capital. The Baïram approaches; on the day after which, the list of functionaries for the ensuing year is published. The changes are then made. Then comes the reckoning between the Sultan and his servants. The chiefs are assembled, with their retainers, from all parts of the empire, so that he has the opportunity and the means of taking vengeance. The forms of a placitium prevail, and there may be points of real, as well as traces of apparent, resemblance between a divan of a Moorish Sultan, and the Wittenagemotte of a Saxon King. The Sultan publicly alleges his charges against the governors who are removed, and the people on their part have free access, and can accuse and petition.

The holding of the Baïram here, and not at Fez or Morocco, seems to be a case of Mahomet coming to the mountain. It is not a rebellious governor, but a refractory town. Rabat has the reputation of stubbornness. This perhaps renders it more difficult and dangerous for the Sultan to overlook the recent events, while it imposes on him the necessity of taking his measures with precaution. Without exciting alarm, or at least justifying measures of resistance, or even of precaution, he collects 50,000 men round the town.

One of my visitors this day was Mike Brittel. If I am to judge by his words or his air, never was city in the enjoyment of profounder repose, or man of more perfect felicity.

In the time of the late Emperor, Muley Mahomet, they killed and quartered their Caïd, and made the Jew butchers hang up the flesh in the shambles. It was so exposed for three days, ticketed at two blanquillos a pound. Then they came in troops to cheapen it, and haggle with the Jews who were instructed to maintain the two blanquillos. The Sultan marched against the city, but the people withdrew into the Alcazaba, and presented so imposing a front that he was content with an accommodation.

Civilized and philosophical Germany can riddle the body of a minister; but let us not compare such an act with the shambles of Rabat. The one is the frenzy of a people which cannot help itself; the other is vengeance—savage, if you like—but vengeance for crimes, applying a salutary lesson to those who are to follow. Such is the difference between the two conditions of existence. No reactions and no vengeance can profit where social evil springs from theory and legislation. Where the evil is the act of man, vengeance comes, like the storm, to clear the atmosphere, thus compensating for the ruin it has wrought.

I met at a house where I was visiting to-day, the governor of El Garb, whose encampment lies opposite our windows. I was told that he is chief of two millions of souls. His rule extends from the river to the neighbourhood of Tangier. There was nothing in his outward appearance to distinguish him from any other Moor: he went away unceremoniously, followed by a single attendant. The master of the house served me with coffee himself, and fancying that I liked milk, went down to the kitchen and brought up in his hands a basin of curds. Coffee is not in use, but it was especially prepared for me as a Turkish compliment. The coffee about which the French papers made so merry, as finding it all ready at Isly, was no proof that Marshal Bugeaud was unexpected, but the reverse.

The sellers of water use a little bell, which carries us back to Canaan. The Jews had bells to their garments; bells are still used in their synagogues, and ring every time the Bible is produced. The bells of the Etruscans were not to the Roman taste. Bells did not pass with Christianity from Judæa through Greece to Europe. In Greece they are not in common use, and wherever they are found, are a modern innovation. In all the primitive districts, a bar of metal, or a sounding board, supplies their place; and a small one is beaten by the hand through the streets, before matins and vespers. The Spaniards have bells to their churches; but not, as the mode of ringing them shows, derived from us. They strike them with the tongue, just as the Greeks do their sounding board with the hammer, and a peal from the bells of a Spanish town recalls a manufactory of steam-boilers, and a street of coppersmiths. There is no indication of bells amongst the Arabs, nor in any other ancient country: they belong to the Jews and Etruscans.

Barbary has furnished with caps the Western World. From the Atlantic to the frontiers of Persia, a cap is known by no other name than Fez. In Europe it goes by the name of Tunis (Bonnet de Tunis), in Morocco it is called Shashia. It is pointed like a sugar-loaf, with a small blue tuft at the top. Throughout the East it is worn under the turban. In Constantinople, now that they have dropped the turban, they wear it large and full; but the Shashia of Barbary is precisely that worn by the Flamens of Rome. With the slightest modification—and a modification which is not at present unknown here—it becomes the Phrygian cap. Phœnicia being the link between Phrygia[209] and Barbary, the cap and its colour would seem to belong to Tyre. It is singular that to the Easterns our head-dress should be the symbol of license, while theirs to us is the emblem of liberty; and still more so to find that both have come from a people who are the type of barbarism; for Barbary has given hats to the women as well as caps to the men. These hats are made of straw, like Leghorn bonnets, and with little tufts of many-coloured silks: thence, probably, the metaphor of women being crowns of glory to their husbands.

They have another usage which renders it more complete and distinct. When I was first at Tetuan I met a brother of the Caïd, who subsequently was ambassador at Paris. His haïk was over his head, but he threw it off, and then came out a bald pate. Being the first time that I had seen a shaved head in public,—I was very much astonished, and inquired into the reason, and it was told me that he was not married,[210] and in Barbary, is not permitted to put on a cap till then. In the Sock at this place, I had subsequently seen men from the interior with bald heads, and a rope of camel’s hair round them. It is remarkable and picturesque, and suggests the idea of the crown of thorns. It did not at the time occur to me, that the rope or band round the head,—for I have afterwards seen it a band of platted palmetto leaf—was the distinctive sign of the single, as the cap was of the married, so that I cannot affirm it to be so: the usage may now, indeed, have worn out. At all events, it is singular to find here the fillet round the bare head, and the cap only worn after marriage, while in the Highlands, there is the snood, or fillet, for the unmarried girls, and the cap, or much for the married woman. The Gaelic name for the cap, is properly carachd (cruch), but much is common north and south: now much is a Hebrew word applying to some soft and delicate but unknown substance.[211] It is supposed to mean silk; the snood has always the epithet of “silken,” and a peculiar silken kerchief completes the head-dress of the Jewesses of Barbary. The name for the stuff has therefore been given to the dress when adopted by the Galatean women in India, just as the name of the dress in the case of cotton,[212] has been transferred to the substance.

In Solomon’s Song it appears that the practice of the Jews was for the mother to crown the son on his marriage-day; but the word which we translate crown, conveys also the idea of covering the head, or putting a cap upon it. That some similar usage must have prevailed in ancient Greece, or some rite been introduced amongst the Greeks with Christianity, is shown in the expressions at present in use. Instead of saying “He married such a one,” they say, “He crowned such a one.”

In Servia the bride wears a crown, or rather, a cap of flowers, and she preserves it—not the same flowers,—for a whole year.

The connection of the fillet and the snood, is rendered more probable by that of the Shashia and the Highland bonnet. These are the two kinds, the flat, (liena) and the point (viruch). The latter has been nicknamed “Glengarry.” It owes its peculiarity to the slit; something very like it may be seen in the tombs of Egypt. The flat one has now generally got the addition of a chequered border, but that variation was introduced by the Regent Murray. It is, however, still worn without the border, and then it is a variety of the Shashia. It has preserved the two original colours, though it has exchanged them, the bonnet being blue, and the tassel red. Amongst the Basques it may be still seen red with a tassel blue.

On my return home, I found the colonel of the regular troops, who had come to pay me a visit. He was pacing the cancellaria; he was smoking a cigar, and he was spitting on the floor:—I recoiled from the triple abomination. I am perfectly aware that an Englishman will see nothing extraordinary in the former two, as they would not be so in himself, nor an American in the third. I supposed he must be a renegade, but he was only an Algerian who had lived some time at Gibraltar. Having served at Constantinople, he opened at once his heart to me, and poured forth complaints against the Moors. No one had shown him civility, and he could not even get a bath (there are no public ones). This unburdening of his mind was followed by a flow of spirits: he sent for his uniform, displayed it, dressed in it, and then sate down to dinner. While seated on a chair at a table, with a tumbler of wine in his raised hand, in walked two attendants of Mustafa Ducaly, bearing the usual dish or tray of kuscoussoo. He was struck mute and motionless; the untouched goblet was replaced on the table, and presently he arose and withdrew.

The uniform which is to displace this ancient and magnificent costume, is a caricature of us, as much as a scandal to the Moors; yet it is paraded as a necessary condition of learning the use of arms. In the last century, the Spanish army, indignant at the introduction of the Prussian discipline, exclaimed, “With the old tactics we raised Charles V. to the throne of Germany, and Philip V. to that of Spain; we put Don Carlos on the throne of Naples, and conquered Parma and Oran:” no doubt the argument was inconclusive. But to tell the Saracens that their costume is unfit for military purposes, was reserved for the genius of the nineteenth century. Shoe-strings at Versailles announced that the revolution was accomplished; a neckcloth sealed the fate of the khans of the Crimea; so button-holes at Rabat seem to presage, not that a barrier is raised in Morocco to the French, but that the sceptre of the Sheriffs is passing away.

Mehemet Ali’s uniform at least followed, while it disfigured, the dress in use. This one is a complete change; the bare leg, the distinctive mark of the Moor, has disappeared. The cap, their own original shashia,—the peaked cap of liberty,—is, for “fashion’s sake,” changed to the round shallow one of Egypt; cuffs and collars, the gracefulness of which so struck Napoleon, when he saw Eastern clothing, are the salient features of this tailoring invasion; which, after desolating Spain, has now fallen upon Morocco. Tertullian, in his letter on the “Toga and the Pallium,” ridicules the Africans of his day, for copying from Italy a dress which the ancestors of those Italians had borrowed from their own: what would he have said now?

The new uniform was of course of all sorts of tints and colours, from chocolate to pink.