The pillars of Hercules

The domestic arrangements differ here from other Mussulman countries. The house is not divided into Harem and Salambu. In fact, there is no harem, for there are neither its rights nor privileges: the separation of the women, which in Arabia could not be extended to the habitation, adapted itself to the gynæceum of the houses among the Greeks, and the Zanana of the followers of Zoroaster. In Morocco, there having been no such anterior practice, the injunction has had no effect on those who live under the tent, and has converted the domiciles of the inhabitants of the cities into inhospitable abodes. I went to-day to Mike Brettel’s, on invitation, expressly for the purpose of seeing his house, which is just finished. I can see nothing more remarkable at Fez or Morocco, so I shall endeavour to describe it.

We approached by a narrow lane of blind walls about twelve feet high. The door was in the corner, the arch above it, and the lintels were painted in broad bars, and stripes of deep colours like an Egyptian tomb: there was a knocker—nay, two—one for the folding doors, and another for the wicket; the upper one might have been made in London. We knocked: the knock is neither a single tap, nor a postman’s double rap, but a double knock, though neither quite so loud or long as those with which the squares of London were wont to resound. The door not being immediately opened, we heard within a bell rung sharply, (in Eastern countries the bell is unknown), and the door was opened by a young girl, a slave, small, yet apparently full grown. She wore a tunic of blue and white, striped, which left her neck, arms, and half her legs bare. Her colour was chocolate, her features perfect, her form a model. Her sparkling eyes and white teeth announced that the visit was expected; and, waving her hands as a signal to follow, she tripped up a narrow staircase by the door. The steps and passages were inlaid with hexagonal red tiles and small triangles of green tiles: there was no flooring about the house richer than this, which is very modest: the houses and courtyard of the Jews are in Mosaic. At the top of the stairs we found ourselves in a small vestibule, the light let in from above, through the ornamented portions of the ceiling. Everything was in proportion: all palace-like, but microscopic;—I might have taken it for the abode of the pigmies of Herodotus, had my guide not rather suggested fairies or sylphs.

The vestibule led to an apartment, where the master of the house was seated in the middle of the floor with a tea-tray before him. Seeing me busied in taking off my shoes, he came forward entreating me to enter with them on; for it is common to imagine that Europeans make it a point of honour to disregard the feelings of their Eastern hosts, and to soil their carpets. This room was the gem of the house, but it was some time before I could venture to examine it, being shamed by the officious zeal of the Jews who accompanied me, and who began at once to point out this and that, as if we had entered a shop,—I mean a European one,—for in an Oriental shop the decencies are not neglected.

Mike Brettel commenced making tea;—they use fine green tea—they put it into the pot with sundry sweet herbs and large lumps of sugar. The teapot was Britannia metal, the cups and saucers the small delicate Chinese. The tray was of a manufacture for which Rabat is celebrated. It is brass chased in arabesques and inlaid in colours. At Mecca they work in the same way. He rang the bell for hot water and sugar, which were brought, the one by the olive maiden already mentioned, the other by one whom I might have taken for her, had her tunic not been white and red. The hot water was brought in a common tin kettle, the sugar in a japanned epaulette box. The two little slaves having discharged their office, returned and stood with crossed arms against the white wall, which cast forth as from the field of a phantasmagoria, their plump, symmetrical and dark limbs. They seemed to have been sent on the part of the female household to do all the work of gazing on the strangers; and if I had to judge by them of those we did not see, Mike Brettel’s Harem, for beauty, originality, and sprightliness, had little to fear from competition, far or near.

I was accompanied by the consular agent, his soldier, and a common Jew. After Mr. Leraza and I were seated, the soldier was invited to sit down, and then the Jew: he did so quite familiarly, close to the master of the house, who, with his own hand served him, after the rest, with tea.

The room was a cube of fifteen feet; there was one small window, a simple aperture in the white wall in the form of a niche struck through the thickness of the wall, levelled inside; this feature took the apartment out of the common-place. On the floor was spread one of their beautiful mats; on the three sides were mattresses covered with Turkey carpets, and cushions at each end resembling a low Turkish divan. The walls were dead white, broken by richly-ornamented arm-racks. Three long guns on each in their red cloth cases, daggers in massive chased silver scabbards, swords and pouches, were suspended by silk cords with large tassels, blue, red and yellow. The crown of the room was the ceiling: an octagon dome was fitted on to the cube by means of arches in the angles, which will be understood by reference to the Hall of the Ambassadors, in Owen Jones’s Alhambra; but the roof, instead of being in coloured stucco, was in carved and painted wood. There was no gilding or silvering—the effect was worked out entirely from dead colour. I looked at it till my neck was sore and stiff, and I can only describe it by the word arabesque, just as I might say kaleidoscope, and in like manner, interminable: the same elements re-appear in never-ending forms, ever pleasing, ever new, yet always, in so far as description can go, the same. The roof was the statue, the apartment the pedestal: each required the other. The solitary light, the pure white walls, the cubic form, were required to set off the placid beauty of the dome. The window was minute; the door (if one might say so in reference to so small a body,) grand. Its horse-shoe arch expanded to the sides and reached the vault, displaying the little vestibule, all variegated in colours, all ornamented in form like the ceiling. It was a thing not to live in, but to gaze at.

We next got our host to permit us to examine the arms. One was of Tetuan manufacture, one of Fez; the first spirally fluted on the outside: both barrels were inlaid with gold, were four feet and a half long, and ornamented at the muzzle like old pieces of ordnance. The mounting was silver, ornamented with the black figures which in the East are called Sabat. The locks were cumbersome, the work intricate, and all outside. There is a covering to the powder in the pan like the old pieces of the French Gardes du Corps. The price was twenty-five and thirty-five dollars: I should have guessed them at double. The daggers were in no way remarkable; but the cases, handles, and cords were very rich: one sword rang like a Damascus blade. Their swords are long and straight, slightly bent towards the point, and have a heavy thick handle with a peculiar guard.[241]

The only other piece of furniture was a Turkish sofra, or small hexagonal stool inlaid in tortoiseshell and mother of pearl, on which is placed the tepsi, or round tray for dinner. The carving of the sofra is peculiar, and might be taken for the model of some portion of a Gothic building. I now saw that this was no Turkish piece of furniture: the Turks, like the Romans, have borrowed from every other people what was most elegant or useful. Augustus introduced a stool from Spain to Rome—why should not one have been carried from Morocco to Constantinople?

As this Moor was reaching down one of the guns, his haïk fell off, displaying a rich blue and red vesture, while the volumes of the white toga cast their majestic folds around. Close by stood the Numidians—two antique bronzes. We cultivate the arts: we raise to the rank of sages and princes the men who excel in conceiving and portraying beautiful forms. Their works are the embellishments of temples and palaces, the glory of empires and the worth of millions. They have no schools of design; no science of colours; no artist—no, nor even tailors; and yet there was his costume—there was mine. I attempted to convey this to him: he said, “Our fathers have left us many good things, and we are content with them.”

Proceeding on our inspection, we passed through a succession of small courts and corridors, as if we were in the under-story of a palace. There were four houses joined together by doors broken through the wall: these houses are fitted one against the other like so many boxes, the lights coming from the court in the centre of each. In the kitchens there was a great assortment of wood dishes, like low corn measures, scrubbed white, as in Switzerland; rows of round pots, in which the fires are made, called nafé; and kuskoussoo dishes of pottery called Keskas, the covers in thick close basket-work, ornamented with colours. Every place, thing, corner, was most perfectly sweet and clean. On entering the store rooms it seemed as if we had penetrated into a chamber at Pompeii. (The whole establishment recalled Pompeii.) Jars of the shape and dimensions of amphoræ, only transversed at the point, stood in rows containing, not, indeed, Falernian wine, but kuskoussoo, pease, butter, rice, and even fresh meat. After it is packed, butter is kneaded hard into the orifice, and water is poured over it. Homer says, that in Lybia neither prince nor peasant wants for food, and this was confirmed by the large scale on which the arrangements were here made to meet the demands of hospitality. One of the court-yards, with an adjoining kitchen and store, was appropriated to cooking food, to be sent out to friends and strangers.

We now entered a court which rivalled the first apartment—all white, light and airy. At each of the angles there was a group of three columns, and from them sprang a lofty fretted arch, which occupied the centre of each of the faces. A narrow cornice in coloured stucco under the projecting eaves ran all round; so the stuccoes of Spain are not a lost art.

From this truly barbaresque hall, open to the heavens, we passed into the women’s principal apartment. It was a long and very narrow room, entered in the centre by lofty folding doors: the wicket only was open. At each extremity was a bed filling the width of the apartment, raised high and concealed by brocade curtains. In two successive stages were mattresses piled and covered with rich stuffs, and cushions, serving for divans by day and beds by night. The open space in the centre was covered with a mat, and there were low narrow seats around of folded carpets and coverlids. On each side of the door were wardrobe chests. The room, to the height of four and a half feet, was hung with red velvet, inlaid to imitate mosaics; but perhaps the mosaics may be the imitation with velvet of other colours.

The embroidery on the cushions, &c., is unlike anything else. There are patches of colour as though formed by a succession of the palms of an Indian shawl, one row blue, another red, and so on: the stitches are long and the work looks like satin with bindings, each long stitch being followed by a short one. There were fastened to the wall, and projecting from it, those many-coloured racks or brackets of which I have spoken, on which stood fine china-ware and ornaments. The rafters of the roof were ornamented in like manner, vermilion predominating. The sleeping apartment had portals like a church,[242] their hinges and sockets were on the outside; the large slabs were of arbor-vitæ, soft as velvet to the touch, and rubbed over with red ochre.

We were treated to a sight of the contents of the chests. The dresses were principally in brocade of Lyons; but otherwise, they were inferior to those of the Jewesses of Tangier and Tetuan, and had not the merit of native taste and work. Not so the jewellery. One necklace was peculiar: it was formed of large gold pieces, some of them cufic and coral balls, divided by bunches of pearls, in the centre of each of which there was a pierced amethyst. For the negresses, the necklaces were large coral beads and silver coins alternately, the coins being strung through the centre. The necklace does not go round the neck, but from shoulder to shoulder. At the shoulder it is fastened to a brooch of a very singular construction, and is in various ways a most interesting ornament. It is circular, and serves also to secure the haïk and in it the most precious stones they have are placed. One was an emerald an inch and a quarter in diameter. Such were Aaron’s ouches on the[243] shoulders to which the chains were attached.

This brooch is called kefkiat, and has a moveable tongue which traverses round a circle, in which there is a slip, so that after passing the tongue through the folds that are to be secured, you turn the circle and thereby the tongue fits on upon it as if it were a buckle. When I saw it, I was immediately reminded of the Highland brooch for the plaid, to which they have adopted the stones which their Hyperborean country affords; and I recollected having seen an ancient one which seemed to be like these. On visiting Dublin, subsequently to my return from Barbary, I saw in the museum numerous kefkiats, and on recognizing them as old friends, I was assured by the learned that I must be mistaken, for that these ornaments were peculiar to the Irish Celts. However, there they are—alone found in Ireland—alone worn in Barbary.

In an unfinished corner of the Tower Hassan, I found the wall as it had been prepared for the stucco: it was divided off in lines, crossing at right angles, like the frame-work that artists sometimes use, to verify the exactness of a copy. Over these were drawn a succession of intersecting segments of circles. By these they could work with certainty and celerity, and the mere intersection of the plain and curved lines formed the suggested patterns. This may account for the interminable variety of these, and the uniformity of their character. The stuccoes were of plaster of Paris, and on getting one of the workmen to describe the process of making it, I found that near Fez there is a large supply of arrowheaded selenite, corresponding with that of Montmartre, near Paris.[244] The colour is laid on with white of egg. The great instrument of the Moorish artist is the compass.

The Moorish compass is not composed of two limbs of metal jointed. It is a fixed measure and tied by a string; so that for each different dimension there is a separate compass, and its name is davit, which we retain for the bent stanchions used in vessels to hoist up boats.

Arabs have no buildings: their tent was their habitation. No traces of their architecture are to be found in the two ancient cities of Mecca and Medina. The Caaba itself was a square building, as if the two poles of the transverse one of the flying tent had been doubled for the stationary one, and the Caaba, in sign and memory thereof, is hung with drapery to this day.[245] The Arabs, however, appear to have spread architecture over Europe, Asia, and Africa;—they who possess neither ancient ruins nor modern dwellings. These, with the materials and models, are found in Morocco, preserved in the midst of ignorance, unobscured and unchanged.

Architecture is the peculiar feeling and passion of this people. The figures which we find in our cathedrals and ancient churches, are scattered about their domestic establishments, are to be seen in their trays, on their stools, and in endless variety upon their tombstones. They have not, like us, a domestic and a public, a religious and a civil architecture. Alone have they combined delicacy and strength. In their edifices there is the durability of the rock and the delicacy of the flower. It would seem as if they at once thought only of to-day and only of eternity. Nor have there been with them different ages and styles—one of strong and busy war, another of idle elegance: their strongest and rudest military works preserve the choicest specimen of arts, which elsewhere have required, that they might spring and blossom, times of peace and ages of refinement.

I cannot resist the temptation of quoting from the “Quarterly Review,” a glowing description of Moorish dwellings.

“The exterior of Moorish edifices in general was plain and forbidding; the object was to keep out heat and enemies, foreign and domestic, and to keep in women and to disarm the evil eye—the great bugbear of antiquity, the East, Andalusia, and Naples. The interior, all light, air, colour, and luxury, glittered like a spar enclosed in a rough pebble, and the door once opened, ushered the Moor into a houri-peopled palace which realised those gorgeous descriptions that seem to our good folks, who live in bricks and mortar, to be the fictions of oriental poetry, or the fabric of Aladdin’s genii; yet such were the palatial fortresses—the Abazares, the Alhambras of the Spanish Moors; and such, on a minor scale, were their private dwellings, many of which still exist in Seville, though dimmed by ages and neglect. The generic features are, a court hidden from public gaze, but open to the blue sky, and surrounded with horse-shoe-arched corridors, which rest on palm-like pillars of marble, whose spandrils are pierced in gossamer lace-work; in the centre plays a fountain, gladdening the air with freshness, the ear with music, the eye with dropping diamonds. On the walls around, was lavished a surface of mosaic decoration, richer than shawls of cashmere, wrought in porcelain and delicate plaster, and painted with variegated tints; above hung a roof of Phœnician-like carpentry, gilded and starred as a heaven; while the doors and windows admitted vistas of gardens of myrtles, roses, oranges, and pomegranates, where fruit mingled with flower and colour vied with fragrance.”