The sultan of the mountains

“Everything that you can see from now on belongs to him,” explained Mr. Cerdeira, the official interpreter between the Spanish Government and el Raisuli, who most kindly accompanied me to Tazrut, which he was the first European to visit, I believe. He added that, when Spain temporarily confiscated the properties of the Sherif during the recent war, they were valued at six million pesetas. Certainly these rolling downs, where villages were frequent, appeared to be excellent land for cultivation, though there were still as many acres of great, heavy-headed thistles as of grain. The post of Suq el Talata appeared on a hill-top in a haze of heat, and, after that, we clung panting to the sides of the car while we negotiated a track that, as the Sherif expressed it, after he had hit the hood several times, “jolted our backbones through our heads.” Sidi el Haddi, a valley where the stream made great pools between trees gnarled with lichen and thickets of the ubiquitous oleanders, gave us a little rest, and then up again by Sidi Buqir, a little white Morabit, where is buried one of the seven holy men of Beni Aros.

At last, when our throats were parched and our lips cracked, we had our first good view of Jebel Alan, on whose great peak was buried Sidi Abd es Salaam, the most famous of el Raisuli’s ancestors, and its twin mountain Jebel Hashim, the guardian of Tazrut. Below them, and most blessedly near, appeared the last big Spanish post, Suq el Khemis, and the little police camp of Sidi Ali. With a series of mighty jerks the car leaped up and over the intervening track and deposited us, much exhausted, in the centre of a crowd which represented both the old Morocco and the new. On one side were the officers of the police post, cheerily apologetic because of a combination of pyjama jackets and puttees, speaking Arabic like natives, and saying that it was so long (two years) since they had seen a woman that they had forgotten what one looked like! On the other were the envoys of el Raisuli, with a guard of his mountaineers. Prominent among them, because of his bulk, appeared Sherif Badr Din el Bakali, and behind him, his jellaba turned back over a purple waistcoat and girt with a huge silver belt, the Kaid el Meshwar ed Menebbhe. These brought me greetings from the Sherif and expressed many ceremonious regrets that his eldest son, Mohamed el Khalid, had not been able to accompany them. I learned afterwards that the said youth, aged eighteen, having consistently neglected his studies during the festivities consequent upon his father’s recent wedding, had been put in irons by the Sherif, so that he might not be able to escape from his books!

It was then 108° Fahr. in the shade, and, personally, even in Arabia I have never felt anything hotter than the dry, burning wind, which appeared to issue from an oven among the hills. It was decided that while the Moslems prayed at the tomb of Sidi Mared, another of the sainted seven, fortunately conveniently near, the Christians should eat. We lunched with the hospitable officers, whose names I never knew, and a wonderful meal it was, not only on account of the inventive genius of the cook, but because no two people spoke the same language. Between us we mustered several different forms of Arabic and various European tongues, but the Tower of Babel would have been shaken by the efforts of the guests to communicate with their hosts! We gave it up in the end and sat outside, in the largest patch of shade, looking over the plain where the great weekly market is held.

Hearing that strangers were in the camp, some gipsies came and stared at us over the edge of the sand-bags. One man held a snake in his hand to which he was crooning gently. Without much encouragement they began their unpleasant performance. A wild-looking youth with hair standing on end seized a glass and began crunching it up in his teeth. The man with the snake held it at arm’s-length and adjured it in the names of dead saints. Then, opening his mouth, from which foam dripped at the corners, he put out his tongue and let the reptile fix its fangs in it. Blood stained the foam and, with veins congested and eyes turned inwards, the gipsy began eating the living snake, first swallowing the head affixed to his tongue, and then chewing the body, which writhed up and struck him on the cheeks. All the time, the others kept up a curiously hypnotic chant which appeared to stimulate the hysteria or fervour of the performers, for, with a sudden shout, the eater of glass seized an iron mace which one of his companions was carrying. With this he struck his head so forcibly that the blood ran down under his matted hair. It was a disgusting spectacle, but evidently it delighted the remaining gipsies, who uttered bestial howls and flung themselves into a dance in which the maximum of contortion was achieved.

It was with great relief that I saw the approach of el Raisuli’s dignified envoys. “If we would arrive tonight, we must start,” said the Kaid, and, in another moment, there was the bustle of loading mules and mounting horses. The Kaid, evidently impressed by my boots, offered me his mount, a wild, grey stallion. “He is an Afrit[7]; so treat him with respect.” I did not need the warning. The look in the Afrit’s eye was quite enough, but, fortunately, it is almost impossible to fall off an Arab saddle. Immensely wide and padded, with a high pommel back and front, it is girthed over half-a-dozen different-coloured saddle-cloths and has silver stirrups rather like coal-shovels.

The procession that moved away from Sidi Ali was imposing, for half-a-dozen officers, on their way to an outpost at Bugelia, rode with us, accompanied by their troopers; but, after we had clambered up and down a series of precipitous ridges, they left us, and we were in the hands of Raisuli.

The country became even wilder, the wadis a tangle of vine and blackberry, with high-growing shrubs nameless to me as to the Arabs, who called them “firewood.” First went the soldiers of the Sherif, stalwart mountaineers in short brown jellaba, with the rifles across their backs. They were followed by a couple of baggage-mules, behind whom rode a servant of the Kaid, a sporting Martini-Henry rifle ready for partridge or hare. His master was mounted on a gaily-caparisoned mule whose trappings went well with the gay colours of his turban and waistcoat. The Afrit and I danced uncomfortably behind him, generally sideways or in a series of bounds. Then came old Mulai Sadiq astride the plumpest of saddle-mules, his spectacles still balanced on the tip of his nose and a white umbrella over his head. Sidi Badr ed Din, his beard dyed with henna glittering in the sunshine, his horse almost hidden by his ample proportions, brought up the rear with the interpreter and some servants, who took off their outer garments one by one, to pile them on their heads against the fierceness of the sun.

For a couple of hours we rode across the mountains of Beni Aros, passing mud-built villages huddled under the shade of a cliff, their thatched roofs covered with wild vine, and wadis where the trees met above our heads, and grey foxes slipped away into the bushes. After this there was only a goat track, which ran on the edge of a gully thick with blackberries, or across open pastures where the shepherds went armed, beside their flocks. The sun slipped low behind us as we clambered up the last rocks, blackened by recent fires, to the Qubba of Sidi Musa. There, at a well under wide-spreading trees, we stopped to rest. The Arabs said their afternoon prayers, bowing themselves till the earth grimed their foreheads, but I noticed that they drank out of the same cup as their Christian guest, without washing it. If the fanatics of Libia or Asir did such a thing by mistake, they would consider themselves defiled.

In the sunset we approached Tazrut, a cluster of white houses and green roofs, with the tower of the Mosque rising beside a thicket of oak. Seen across a stretch of scrub and rock, it looked an ideal hermitage for a saint and an admirable post of vantage for a warrior.

Tazrut is the strategical centre of Raisuli’s country. It lies midway between all his great positions and is within a day’s journey of most of them, yet it is in the heart of the mountains, commanding a wide expanse of country in front, where the hills of Beni Aros are piled, fold upon fold. Behind is the great barrier range, to whose summits the Spaniards are pushing their advance posts, but which a few years ago was only inhabited by wild pigs and monkeys. We pushed our tired horses across the last mullah[8] and found ourselves suddenly among ruins. On all sides were traces of the Spanish aeroplanes, which had bombed Tazrut for two days in 1922. Here were rough pits under the rocks, where the inhabitants had taken shelter, and great holes torn by bombs and shells. Not a house was undamaged. Roofless, with gaping walls and doors made of new sheets of galvanised iron or the wood of packing-cases, they stood among cactus and thorn and curiously shaped boulders. I looked again, for there was something very odd about these rocks, and then I saw that, on the top of each, crouched an immobile figure in an earth-brown jellaba, with a rifle in his hands.

We passed various camps where mountain-men sat at the doors of their tents, profiting by the coolness, and then, among piled stones and broken walls, where the earth was gashed open below a mass of plaster, there appeared a splash of colour. “It is the sons of the Sherifs,” murmured someone, and I saw two vivid petunia jellabas, from the depth of whose hoods peered elfin faces with wild, tousled hair. In another moment we came to the paved road that runs between the mosque, miraculously untouched by war, the one complete building left in desolate Tazrut, and the dwelling of Raisuli. Slaves ran to hold out stirrups before the great arch which still kept some traces of its ancient carving. To the left was the domed tomb of Sidi Mohamed Ben Ali, a seventeenth-century ancestor of the Sherif; in front of us the passage leading into a space, half-yard, half-court. The compound was perhaps two hundred yards in length and, within its high walls, were various buildings. At one end was the Zawia, wherein were the rooms of el Raisuli, communicating with the old house which contained the family tomb and the women’s apartments. This was sacred ground, and no Christian might enter, but, during the Spanish occupation, photographs were taken of the interior court, one of which is reproduced in this book. Opposite was a large structure, temporarily roofed with corrugated iron. This contained, on the ground-floor, a series of storerooms and, above, a couple of reception chambers, where the Sherif ate with his friends and followers. At the other end of the yard was an old thatched building, once a residence of the Sherif, now his son’s school, with rooms for visitors above. Near this was pitched a great black-and-white tent, with a fig-tree shading its porch, and various smaller tents behind.

“This is your home,” said Sherif Badr ed Din, beckoning me to enter, “and we are your servants.” The pavilion was lined with gay damask and carpeted with rugs piled one upon another. It was about twenty feet in diameter and round the walls were mattresses covered with white linen, and rows of very hard cushions. There was also a table with two huge brass candlesticks and several long-stemmed silver flasks containing orange-water and home-made scent of roses, but presumably this was an ornament, for we always had our meals on the floor. As a peculiar honour, the Sherif had lent the chair made specially in Spain to suit his colossal proportions, and, sitting in one corner of its great expanse, I drank my first cup of green tea at Tazrut.

The moon had risen and, outside the tent door, the breeze stole whispering across beds of mint and poppies. The figures of Mulai Sadiq and Badr ed Din looked like ghostly monks, sunk under the hoods of their voluminous drapery. From far away came the sound of chanting. “It is in the mosque,” said the Kaid. “Sidi Mohamed Ben Ali is buried there. It was he who won the battle of Jebel Alan (in 1542), where three kings were killed. The power of the Shorfa Raisuli began after that day, for Sidi Mahamed arrived with the tribes of the Jebala, when the Moslems were hard-pressed. ‘Have courage in the name of Allah,’ he cried, ‘for I tell you a Christian head will not be worth more than fifteen uqueia today.’” The three kings referred to by el Menebbhe were Don Sebastian of Portugal, the Sultan of Morocco, and the Moorish Pretender.

After the prayers in the mosque were over, Sidi Mohamed el Khalid, released from his irons in order that he might perform his religious duties, came to see us. Fair-skinned as a girl, with an indefinite nose and hair clipped two inches back from his forehead and then dyed with henna and allowed to grow long, the boy greeted us shyly. His manners were clumsy for an Arab of great race, and he whispered instead of speaking out loud. When the Sherif Badr ed Din rebuked him, he said, “All we Moslems are savages, and I am the worst of them. My father wants to make me into an alim[9], for the ulema[10] of Beni Aros are famous throughout Islam, but I do not like books.” “What do you like?” “Only one thing, war. It is a pity that we have finished fighting!” “What do you do to amuse yourself now?” “I shoot. Will you come into the mountains and hunt monkeys? It is great fun! We go at night, when there is a moon, but it is very rough country; so we must leave our horses and walk. The monkeys come out one after another, screaming, and we shoot them.” “I have no rifle with me.” “That does not matter. You can have a choice of all kinds here, German, Spanish, French, or revolvers, if you like; but hunting is not so exciting as war.”

After this there was silence, and Mulai Sadiq left us, to pray in the Zawia. Soon his voice was heard leading the aysha prayers. In spite of his age, his words rang across the compound, and it seemed to me that I was listening to the voice of old Morocco protesting against the Christians who trod her borders and penetrated even to the threshold of her sanctuaries.

CHAPTER III

About 4 or 5 in the afternoon, el Raisuli makes a second appearance, and, from then till midnight, or a much later hour, he transacts work and receives messengers, with the numerous reports and petitions that come to him from all over the country. The interviews I had with him were nearly always in my tent, or in the garden, or in one of the guest-rooms where a slave would hurriedly spread mattresses and rugs. The Sherif is a facile raconteur, and his memory is astounding. He never hesitates for a date or a name, but his eloquence consists more in the wealth of his similes than the richness of his language. His vocabulary is small, and he uses the same words continually. He recounts conversations word by word, with an annoying repetition of “qultu” (I said to him) and “qali” (he said to me). Obviously he is used to telling the story of his life, but this is natural, for very little Arab biography is written, in any case, till long after the death of the subject. Facts and anecdotes are handed down verbally, and it is part of the work of disciples to know by heart the life of their master, of schoolboys to learn the history of their ancestors.

The Sherif did not tell me a consecutive story, for often he would think of incidents that he had omitted, and indulge in much repetition in order to bring in a certain anecdote, but at different times he reviewed most of his life with a wealth of detail. Of course the episodes that most interested him and upon which he dwelt at length were often not those which would appeal to a European biographer. On the contrary, he showed no interest in events which to me were of historical value, and it needed a great deal of tact and patience to induce him to talk of them at all. At times his point of view was so biassed that it was palpably incorrect, but his story, even though it often either exaggerates or lacks detail, is a record of an amazing life—a web of philosophy and atrocities, of war and psychology, of politics, ambition, and Pan-Islamism.

When he became interested in his narrative, the Sherif lost all sense of time. Once he talked from about 7 in the morning till nearly 3 P.M. and often he would arrive before dinner and, hardly troubling to eat, talk without a pause till 2 or 3 A.M. Mulai Sadiq and Sidi Badr ed Din acted as a sort of Greek chorus, reinforced on certain occasions by the two favourite slaves, who emphasised the story with murmured confirmation. When the Sherif was in the Zawia, his cousin permanently kept us company, while others dropped in for an hour or two’s “short talk.” My notes were always scribbled in the wildest confusion as I grasped the meaning of the Moorish dialect, or as the interpreter rendered it in French, but I got quite used to writing them up while a violent argument was going on between the Spaniard and three or four Arabs as to whether a soldier found wounded in the mountains had been fired upon by a tribesman, or had accidentally shot himself. The Moorish voices rose to a pitch that would indicate incipient murder in any other country, as they revelled in the game at which they excelled—prevarication!—and I admired the persistence of the interpreter in outscreaming them. The fate of that soldier haunted my stay at Tazrut, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I managed to exclude him from my book!

CHAPTER IV

“My house is of the Beni Aros, who are descendants of Abd es Salam Sherif, buried on the highest point of Jebel Alan. We are the greatest of the Western Sherifs, whose power has always rivalled that of the Caliphs. Go to Tetuan and you will see the veneration paid to the Qubba of our ancestor, Sidi Ali ibn Isa, and all through the country you will hear of the Sherifs Raisuli. When we go to visit (the tomb of) Sidi Abd es Salaam, we are fifteen thousand of the line of Jebel Alan, his descendants, though of the family of Raisuli there are but seventy. We have held great posts in the past and stood between our people and the oppression of the Sultans. It is our duty to protect the people, for they honour us as holy. For us who have the “baraka,”[11] the blessing of Allah, they would give their lives and their property. If I tell a man, ‘Start today for Cairo, or for Mecca,’ he would ask no questions, but pick up his jellaba and go.

“No one dies of starvation in Islam, but a Sherif may sit at the door of his house and the whole countryside will come to him to kiss the edge of his robe and pour their tribute into his basket. I remember when I was a boy, small so”—he made a gesture towards the ground—“my father, on whom be peace, was angry with a slave. He ordered him to go out and tell the others to beat him—so many lashes. I met the man on the way and asked him where he was going. He told me, to get so many lashes. I asked him what crime he had committed, and he answered, ‘I do not know, but the Sherif knows, and without doubt it is a bad one.’

“Once it was necessary that someone should die for a crime that had been done, and it was not politic that the murderer should be given up at Tangier. The Sherif sent for a poor man and said to him, ‘Would you have your family live in plenty, and yourself gain a paradise? If so, remember that on such-and-such a date, you killed a certain person.’ The man answered, ‘If the Sherif wills it—it must be that I am guilty,’ and the Lord gave him wisdom to answer all questions that were put to him.

“Such has been the power of my house, and that is why men follow me in battle. Death beside me is a blessing, and, were I to kill a man, his family would know that I had sent him to paradise. Oh! Mubarak, bring me my keys.” The slave, who had been listening eagerly, brought a great leather box and, from it, el Raisuli extracted a key. “I will show you a paper that you may understand my words and see that my family are greater than the line of Mulai Idris who ruled in Fez.” Here is the translation of the document laid before us:

“Praise be to Allah. The genealogical relation of our Master the Sherif, the gifted, the great, the venerated, the excellent, the unique of his epoch, the chosen among those endowed with majesty and goodness in these times, the majestuous by his origin, of whom there is no peer or equal at this moment, my master and lord Ahmed el Raisuli, el Hasani, el Alani—may Allah grant him holiness and power. My lord Ahmed; the son of Sidi Mohamed; son of Sidi Abdullah; son of Sidi el Mecki, who was the first Sherif Raisuli and who, by order of our master, Mulai Ismail—whom may Allah receive in his bosom, conceding him mercy—for the purpose of ennobling this city, came to Tetuan, which longed for a bond of union with Allah, the Almighty, through the baraka (blessing) which, by reason of descent from the Prophet, this family possesses—May prayer and peace be with him. Sidi el Mecki was son of Sidi Buker, son of Sidi Ahmed; son of Sidi Ali; son of Sidi Hassani; our master and lord Mohamed; son of our lord and master Ali, he who was first to bear the name of Raisuli, who died in the year of the hejira 930; son of Sidi Aissa and of Lal-la Raisuli;[12] son of Sidi Abderrahman, son of Sidi Ali; son of Sidi Mohamed; son of Sidi Abd-Alah; son of Sidi Yunis, brother of Sidi Mechich the celebrated, very holy and powerful Mulana Abd es Salaam, most learned Imam, also known as Sidi Abi-el Hassam Chedli. May Allah keep him in his mercy and pity. Our master Yunis was the son of Sidi abu Beker; son of Sidi Ali; son of Sidi Hormat; son of Sidi Aissa; son of Sidi Salaam; son of Sidi Mazuar; son of our master and the Prince of the Faithful the Sultan of Morocco, Mulai Ali, who was known by the name of El Hidarat, he who is always in places of danger in battle; son of the Prince of the Faithful, Sidi Mohamed; son of the Emir Al-mumenina our master Mulai Idris, founder of the holy capital of Fez, the white city which shines from a distance, the noble, the generous and beautiful; son of the Prince of the Faithful Sidi Idris the Great, a Conqueror for Islam of the Empire of the West, el Aksa. His tomb is in Mt. Serhen, venerated by all Moslems who believe in God. He was the son of Inulana Abdallah el Kamel the Perfect, pretender to the throne of his ancestors in the Orient, which was usurped by the Abasides who, having defeated him, caused him to die loaded with chains; son of Sidi Hassan el Muzenna. In the person of Muzenna the trunk of the descendants of the Prophet divides into two branches; one of these we have already followed, and the other is that of Alanien, in whose hands today is the sceptre of empire and who are the descendants of Sidi Mohamed el Nefs Ezzakia, brother of our master Abdallah el Kamel. They came to Morocco more than fifty years after the ancestors of the Shorfa Raisuli, which proves that these Sherifs possess a greater right to the throne than the present Emperors. Hassan el Muzenna is son of the Emir Almumenina, our lord and owner, Hassan the 7th—may God receive him in his mercy;—son of the Prince of the Faithful, the fourth Caliph of the Mehidie (the Reformers), Sidi Ali; son of Abu Talib, uncle of the Messenger of God;[13] may peace and prayer be upon him and may his face be venerated and may he be united before God with our mistress Fatima, the daughter of our owner, the Prophet of Allah on earth. As the rain from heaven falls, rejoicing the earth, may there fall upon him prayer and peace.”

The slave kissed the document when it was given back to him, and el Raisuli continued, his voice rumbling at the back of his throat: “Once, when I was a boy, I was riding with an important Sherif, and, as we went by the outskirts of a village, a man was lying on the ground in the shade of an olive. It was hot and he did not trouble to salute the traveller, who stopped his mule quickly and asked the reason. ‘The sun was in my eyes, Sidi,—I did not see,’ answered the man. ‘You do not use your eyes, so you have no need of them,’ said the Sherif, and, from that moment, the man was blind.

“It is also told of one of the brothers of the Sultan that when he was in prison in Rabat, having rebelled against his ruler, he found, by means of his friends, that the way was open for him to escape. A sentry stood at the door and tried to stop him, as was his duty. ‘If you do not let me pass, you will go blind for the rest of your life,’ threatened the Sherif. The sentry hesitated, but he knew that he would lose his head if he allowed the prisoner to escape, so reluctantly he still barred the way. ‘Very well, then, you are blind,’ said the brother of the Sultan, and the man fell back, putting up his hands to his face, for he could see nothing.” There was a moment’s silence. Then the slave, Mubarak, murmured, “These things are well known, and all me know that those who disobey my master lose their sight.”

“Yes,” whispered the Spaniard, “that is quite true; but by means of hot coins pressed on the eyelids, not by autosuggestion!”

“How old am I?” said el Raisuli. “I can tell you I was born in the year of the hejira . . . (1871 A.D.), but what matter the number of my years? No Arab keeps count of time. Ask Mubarak—oh, man, then, how old are you?” “As old as my lord wills.” Then, evidently anxious to satisfy, “Ten, eleven perhaps . . . or thirty. By Allah, I do not know.”

“I was born at Zinat,” said the Sherif. “You have seen the village, small houses with great roofs that you cannot pick out at a distance, and the hedges of cactus that even the dogs cannot get through. It was but a gun-shot to the top of the mountain, which commanded a wide view. I used to sit up there for hours and look at the country— not like these hills but a rolling plain, golden with corn. I could see the women gleaning, and imagine how they cried ‘A-ee, A-ee!’ when the thistles tore their skin like needles. They used to make a shelter out of a haik spread on a pole for the heat of noon, and later, when it was cool, they would sit in a circle among the corn-sheaves and beat out the grain with wooden flails. I could hear their song like a thread, and away by the river I could see the boys bathing, but I never wished to be with them. I was happier alone. On the horizon were the hills of Beni Mesauer, from which came my mother, and I used to wonder why the others were content to work in the plain, when there was a great country beyond, full of valleys and rocks, where one could hunt in a different mountain each day. The ideas of a boy!

“When I was ten or eleven, I was already a ‘talib’[14] able to read and write and repeat the sayings of the Prophet. For this reason an ‘alim,’ a very learned man who came to the village, was interested in me and told me many things. I used to look after his mule for him in order that he would talk the more. He had the gift of speech, and he could make men weep or laugh. I decided that I would do the same; so I collected some of my friends (many were older and bigger than myself), and we went round the neighbouring villages with small white flags, to collect money for the alim who, as many wise men, was very poor. Sometimes people laughed at us, and would not give. Then I spoke to them, and, remembering the eloquence of my master, my words became swords to pierce their hearts, and they said to us, ‘Take this and that,’ even more than they could afford.

“When, after some days, we returned and poured the money into the alim’s robe, he blessed me and said that I should travel much and acquire much wealth. After that my spirit was restless, and I would make up speeches on the mountain and declaim them to the birds and the goats. All that was told me I could remember, and, to this day, I can repeat every word that has been said in conversation between such and such people on such and such days. It is a blessing from Allah, but it astonished my master, as did my love of history. I wanted to know everything that had happened in the past, for, in those days, I believed that all wisdom lay in books. The right was not with me, for it is the study of one’s neighbours that brings wisdom. What book can tell you that which lies in the heart of your enemy?—it matters not about your friend, for you will see your own thoughts there—and how can you conquer him if you do not know his designs?

“When my feet grew too restless, I collected the same boys once more and, with white handkerchiefs tied round our heads, and staffs cut from olive-trees, our jellabas kilted up, we made a pilgrimage round the shrines of the neighbourhood. You have seen them, perhaps,—a pile of whitewashed stones under a bush from which flutters a strip of white stuff, or a Qubba high on a hill. We took nothing with us, neither water nor food, but the villagers gave to us plentifully—we had no need to beg—and some of them, who remembered me, said, “Here is the little messenger. Tell us stories, oh, master! Make us a speech, so that we see if our ears played us tricks.” I told them many stories, but always of war.

“It was at Tetuan that I finished my education, and there I lived till the death of my father, who is buried in the tombs of our family in the mosque of Sidi Isa. By this time I had studied law and jurisprudence. I knew the four codes of Islam and could interpret them according to the Koran. The mountains were shut out by the walls of Tetuan, and I thought of them no more. It was my intention to be a lawgiver and a poet, for my world was closed between the covers of my books. When I went back to Zinat, people said, ‘He is a Faqih,’[15] and came a long distance to consult me. In the daytime I used to explain to them the law of the Prophet and the solution of their difficulties, and, at night, I used to walk on the mountain-side and watch the stars. Have you thought how great a part the stars play in our lives?—how the Prophet (may Allah bless him) spent nights in the desert, communing with them, how Jesus, the Breath of God, and David the father of Solomon, studied them while they kept their flocks? It was in those nights that I wrote verses, but none that were worthy of remembrance. Most of my wealth I gave away, for it seemed to me then that earning and silver did not live well together. The people heard of this, and, knowing that I had the ‘baraka,’ they came to me the more for advice, and carried out all that I said to them.”

CHAPTER V

From this period date the fabulous tales of el Raisuli’s cunning and audacity, for he had everything to appeal to the imagination of a lawless and adventurous race. His physique was Herculean and he was so much a fatalist that he had no fear. To this must be added the prestige of his race, his indubitable learning, his eloquence, which throughout his life has been of great service to him, his skill as a rider and a shot, together with a curious gift of intuition which accounts for what he calls the infallibility of his psychology. There were many bands of brigands in Morocco at that time, for the authority of the Sultan’s Maghsen[16] was so attenuated as to be negligible. Brigandage was a paying game, if you had a better gun than your neighbour, but, whereas most of the famous robbers came to an unpleasant end, such as the Sultan’s lions or the knife of a rival, Raisuli’s power increased with the stories of his supernatural power.

“In those days,” said the Sherif, “it began to be told of me that no ordinary bullet could touch me. I have heard that one of my enemies had a bullet of gold specially constructed, but, praise be to Allah, it flew wide, and the man only wasted his money.”

“It is said of my lord,” interposed the slave gently, “that the one on his right and the one on his left shall fall, but he shall be untouched. Those who wish to gain heaven swiftly claim these posts in battle, and it has happened many times. Once, at the great fight at Wadi Ras, it was a Spaniard who stood beside him, and my lord told him to go, but he would not, and whutt! he was shot!”

“Many tales are told of me,” said Raisuli, “and some are true, but always it is due to the ‘baraka’ which is in me, and perhaps a little to these.” He fumbled in his voluminous robes and produced two small grimy objects, which he held carefully and would not allow me to touch. One was the inside of a gazelle’s ear, complete with the long white hair, and the other a square inch of sticky black amber, tied up with some shreds of silk from the robe of a sainted ancestor. “A very potent charm,” said the slave. “Doubtless it saved my lord’s life in the day of the curse.” The Sherif frowned, and his rebuke was venomous enough to arouse my curiosity. This was the second time I had heard of the curse.

“It is long ago that we lived in the hills, without shelter, and imposed our will on the villages, but I still remember the cold of the nights when our jellabas were old and the sharpness of the rocks when our shoes grew thin. But a few months ago, a Faqih travelling from Fez stayed to see me on the way. He had walked so far that but half of his shoes were left, so he asked me for another pair. Then I remembered my youth, and, because of the days when my shoes were tied up with a string and stuffed with leaves, instead of a pair of babouches[17] I gave him two horses, two mules and two slaves.”

“My lord is generous,” muttered the slave, but the Sherif continued, unheeding, “When my friends among the villages came to us for help, we were swift in vengeance. Once some robbers had carried off all the stored corn of a poor family, who were left defenceless against the winter. The man came to me, knowing our password, and showed us which way the robbers had gone, high up over the mountains, where it is very barren and few men travel. We followed them and caught them while they slept, and, for a punishment, we emptied some of the sacks into our jellabas and brought the corn down in this way. Then we tied up the robbers, and put one man into each sack, securely fastened and weighted with stones. After this, we left them on a ledge in the mountains and went away.”

“What happened to them?”

“Allah alone knows.”

There was a long silence. Perhaps the Sherif was thinking of the villagers whom he had alternately protected and oppressed. Generous in the extreme, but, of course, with other people’s money, incredibly daring and astute enough to leave nothing to chance, believing implicitly in his luck, which it was said that only treachery could destroy, he soon dominated the mountain country. His host was increased by volunteers from the tribes of Anjera, Beni Aros, Beni Mesauer and Wadi Ras, while a noted Sheikh gave him a daughter in marriage. In lieu of, or in addition to, a dowry, el Raisuli deposited at the Chief’s gate, all neatly strung on a cord and ready to be used for decorative purposes, the heads of half-a-dozen bandits who had been annoying his prospective father-in-law by stealing his sheep!

“As the numbers of my followers swelled like the flocks in spring-time, we established a sort of customs in the hills. Each caravan had to pay according to its wealth, and, if it refused, well, then, the sight of a traveller sitting impaled on a spike probably made the next one open his purse. It was all business. I never refused a request and never betrayed my word, but the townsfolk were ungenerous and close-fisted. It took a long time to teach them their lessons, and by that time Mulai Hassan, the then Sultan, had heard of my affairs. I had an army in the mountains, and every man obeyed me because of my strength and my knowledge. It is well when there is one head in a country, but when there are many, there is trouble. There are caves in Beni Mesauer where a company may be hidden and hear the feet of their pursuers overhead. The country is rough and cushioned with scrub, and between the bushes run great cracks where a band may hasten, one after another, and no one know they are coming. In this land I lived and fought the forces of the Maghsen. When they said, ‘Where is el Raisuli?’ the tribesmen answered, ‘We do not know,’ for they were frightened to give me up. The soldiers of Mulai Hassan went here and there like dogs which have lost the scent, for one day it was said, ‘El Raisuli is here. Was he not seen this morning at the threshing of so-and-so?’ and a few hours later he was a hundred miles away.

“We had a password, and, one night, some men, riding below our camp, gave it, and added that the troops of the Maghsen were approaching up a gully on the right. Away we went to the left. He goes furthest and fastest who has few possessions! It was a trick, and before we had got into our stride we had fallen into an ambush, but Allah was with us. We had come so much sooner than expected that the soldiers were not ready. They picked me out, saying, ‘We must kill that one! He is the Chief,’ and the bullets went through my jellaba, but did not touch me. Then they thought I was a magician and, being ignorant men, fled.

“We had some silver buried in the place where we had camped; so I went back with two men to fetch it. We came noiselessly through the bushes, and there was the man who had betrayed us, searching for traces of our hoard. He did not look up till we were quite near, and then, when he saw my face, he screamed once—only once. . . . He was a coward, that one! We tore out his tongue.”

El Raisuli told these stories with an immobile face, and his voice was equally monotonous. One of the charms of the Arabs is the touch of childishness in even the gravest and the most learned Sheikh. His smile is a little wistful, and, when he smiles, it is as if he takes you into his heart, confident of approval, and in his boasting there is always something of a child’s ingenuousness. His gestures are graphic and his voice often diffident. El Raisuli rarely moved or gestured, and never smiled, during the recital of his life. His voice was a sort of soft rumble. Yet his words were vivid, and his personality so forceful that he made one see pictures. He spoke of his childhood and of the life of his village without any touch of youth. There was no impulsive interest in his manner, no spontaneity, yet, inside my tent, leaning against a pile of hard cushions and staring at the wall of the compound, I imagined I saw the olives and the fig-trees of Beni Mesauer, and the ragged horde they sheltered.

I understood also the gift of speech which has conquered Arabs and Spaniards alike, but I never knew whether the Sherif believed all that he told. The superstition of his people and their fanaticism have credited el Raisuli with miraculous powers as well as with immunity from all weapons, but I do not know how far the Sherif fostered this belief for his own purposes.

“It is better to tell a lie than to be discourteous,” he said once, and again, “If you separate a man from his beliefs, he has no ground to stand on.” Eloquence is much appreciated by the Arabs, and a battle of words is to them as exciting as more dangerous warfare. There are regular trials of skill among orators, to discover which can argue the best, and I have seen a Bedouin sit rapt and open-mouthed while a demagogue harangued his tribe. At the end of the oration he has said, “I did not understand a word of it, but, by Allah, it was fine Arabic.”

El Raisuli, still telling of his guerilla warfare with the Sultan’s troops, recounted how it was necessary for him to acquire the friendship of a certain chief. “He was not my enemy, but relations between us were—um—so, so . . . I went to him one evening, after the sunset, claiming the law of ‘deafa,’[18] and, as he was obliged, he offered me food. That night we ate and said nothing, but next morning, after the dawn prayers, we sat under a tree by the wall of his house, and I talked to him for seven hours. That was my first speech. At noon he got up to pray, and, afterwards, he would have eaten, but I said, ‘I would have further speech with thee,’ and I talked to him till it was evening, and neither of us noticed that the light was gone. After that he was my friend. We were together and he helped me against the Maghsen.

“It was not difficult, for the troops of Mulai Hassan had no wish to fight. There was always one who would say, ‘We go to such and such a place. Take care that thou art absent.’ They had little money or food, and sometimes they would sell us their ammunition for a few douros, after which, if their commander insisted on a battle, they got their bullets back again in a way which they did not like.

“On one occasion we dressed ourselves in the uniforms of some of the soldiers we had killed and put their fezzes on our heads. Then we went between their companies and burned a large farm in the country of our enemies, and took all that was of value in it, and the people thought, ‘It is the tyranny of the Maghsen. Let us not complain, or worse will happen to us.’

“In those days we took men from the houses near Tangier and held them for ransom. No one was safe who was against me, and, because of their fear and their respect for the Shorfa, the people dared not complain.

“At last the European politicians in Tangier protested to the Sultan, who sent a letter to Abderrahman Abd es Sadiq, the Bey of Tangier, demanding my instant capture. ‘Your head or his,’ wrote Mulai Hassan, and Sidi Abderrahman began to feel the strength of his shoulder-bones! What is written is written. There is no need for a man to worry about his fate. How otherwise could one live? There was an outlaw whom even the Spaniards called ‘The Courageous’. He captured many prisoners and killed and robbed, but in the end he died by the dagger of his brother, who was jealous. A knife is clean, but there was one el Roghbi, who was captured by the mehalla of Mulai Hassan. He was shut in a small cage made of his own gun-barrels and taken to Fez on the back of a camel. After he had been hung on the wall for days, for the people to see, the lions had what was left of him! That was in old Morocco. You have done away with these arrangements. To what purpose?”

CHAPTER VI

“With my share of the money we made under the noses of the Sultan’s troops, I bought land, so that I had farms in many places, but always in the names of my family. One day a collector of taxes came to my brother and said, ‘This house is not really yours. It was bought by Mulai Ahmed and, if the Maghsen knew that, they would confiscate it. Give me certain cattle and sheep, and I will say nothing.’ It happened that I came to the house while still my brother was arguing. When they told me what was happening, I expounded the law of inheritance to the tax-collector, citing him verses from the Koran and the four Imams.[19] After this, as he was still obstinate, I cut off his head and sent it in a basket of fruit to Sidi Abderrahman. The Bey began to wonder if his own head would soon follow, and, as all his efforts against me had been useless, he took counsel of Haj el Arbi el Mo-allem of Wadi Ras, a man whose audacity and courage were equal to any enterprise.

“Truly it is said, ‘In difficulty, consult a friend, for the truth is not hidden from the minds of two,’ and also, ‘By means of a mirror a man may see his face, but by means of two he can see also his back.’ El Arbi was wise, and he knew the minds of men and their desires. So he came to me in the hills and hunted with me, and we talked of guns and war. Then he said to me, ‘Have you seen the rifles of the Bey of Tangier? By Allah, they are the newest and the most wonderful things yet invented. By means of them you can kill a bird out of sight.’ He extolled these rifles to such an extent that I became curious and begged him to arrange for me to see them. ‘That would be difficult,’ answered el Arbi, knowing that opposition always makes a man more determined, ‘for you are at war with the Bey, and he is your enemy.’

“‘Tell him that I am willing to treat with him. Arrange a meeting,’ I urged. El Arbi shook his head doubtfully, but, after much persuasion, he agreed to try and arrange the matter. You do not know what a gun is to an Arab—it is his son and his master. Note how lovingly he holds it across his knee, even at the council, or when eating. Without it he does not feel himself a man.

“Some days later, I received a letter from el Arbi, saying that the Bey would meet me and perhaps he would give me one of the rifles, if I would surrender some hostages I had taken from the outskirts of Tangier. By Allah, I walked into that trap as the serpent into the hands of the charmer. Since then I have never made a pact with a townsman! On the appointed day I went to Tangier, with a few of my men, and the people ran into their houses, peeping out from behind their shutters, saying, ‘See, he has come! For what reason? What new thing is he plotting?’ I rode straight to the house of Sidi Abderrahman, who received me with great honour, but, before I went inside, I asked for bread, and they brought me some. I ate this on my horse, with my men beside me, their fingers on the trigger, for, if once you have partaken of a man’s hospitality, his house is yours, and you are safe.

“‘Welcome, in the name of Allah,’ said the Bey, and took me to the room where the food was prepared. There were many men present, both his friends and his servants. Sheep had been cooked whole and stuffed with rice and eggs—all the things that we do for the honour and entertainment of a guest. I looked round for el Arbi, but he was not there. ‘With health, with appetite!’ invited the host, but, as soon as I sat down, men threw themselves upon me and seized my weapons. I could have killed many in the open, for there was no man strong enough to oppose me, but I was seated and cramped for space, so that they overpowered me and dragged me to another room. All the time I called to Sidi Abderrahman, for he had broken the law of ‘deafa’ but he would not come; so they put chains on me and took me away to the prison of Mogador. It was written that el Raisuli should fall by treachery and not by the weapon of an enemy. My men, waiting outside, heard the noise, but were told that I was dead; so they were afraid, and escaped to the mountains.”

So far the Sherif had told his story in the presence of various retainers, but he would not speak before them of his years in prison. It was on another occasion, when we were standing on the hillside above the mosque, from which there was a wide view of the tumbled mountain country sloping towards Suq el Khemis, that he began suddenly:

“It is good for a man to see far away, that he may judge of things in proportion. You think this land is empty—you see no one?”

I looked at the rough country and confessed that it appeared utterly deserted. “Watch,” said Raisuli, and strode forward on monstrous limbs. He gave a curious sort of cry, which carried very far, and, instantly, from behind each group of trees or rocks, appeared a tribesman. It seemed to me even that some of the stones had become men, so exactly did the rough brown jellabas match the surrounding earth.

“That is one of the results of Mogador,” said the Sherif; “I trust no man now, and tell none my plans. Each of my tribes sends me a guard, but they are changed every month, and I am the Captain of my guard; so I watch over myself. I sleep very little, and, at night, I go out and see that there is peace. You wish to hear about Mogador? The marks of the chains are still on my body! My gaolers were more afraid of me than I of them; so they heaped iron on me, a weight that no other man could have borne.

“It was the intention of the Government to send me to the island, from which no prisoner ever returns, being buried there for his life, till the will of Allah releases him. But the moving of the prisoners takes place on Saturdays. The first Saturday there was a great tempest, so that no boat could set out, and, for three Saturdays afterwards, the wind raged and it was not possible to launch a felucca.[20] Then they knew it was a sign that the ‘baraka’ was with me, and they said. ‘One day he will be a Sultan, and it is not the will of Allah that he shall die,’ because we have a saying that the sea is a sultan and no king may travel on it, for it is not suitable that one sultan should put his foot on the back of another.

“At first I was chained in the patio of the Kashba, a collar round my neck, riveted to the wall.[21] The sun used to creep across the court till it licked my feet, and then my knees, so that my whole body burned and the sweat ran down into my eyes. There was no time, only torture. Days of heat that burned and blistered, nights which froze so that my bones rattled against the wall. The men of the mountains, who were my friends, came down to watch over me. They brought me food and water, but I said to them, ‘Come in the morning; then I will talk with you,’ and they used to sit with me, and I would lecture on the law and its interpretation. They went away, saying, ‘He is a Faqih, a saint, and above afflictions of the body.’ But one of the gaolers hated me, for my friends had rebuked him for his treatment of a Sherif, and one day when the sun was like fire, he upset the jar of water that my people had put beside me. When he saw the drops trickle into the dust he laughed; I would have thrown myself down to suck them from the filth but for the chain about my neck. My hand went out for the support of the walls, for my thoughts were clouded, and it happened that Allah provided a stone! I threw it with all my force, and the man dropped, the bones of his head showing and the blood running out faster than the water he had spilled.

“After that they sent for a mason to break the chains from the wall. ‘Allah make you strong,’ said the smith. ‘I had thought to do this only with your death.’ How long it was that I had been in the patio I do not know, but, after this, they put me in a dungeon that was dark except for a little window, so shadowed by a wall that the sun never came in, and the light but for a few minutes at midday. Here I was chained to two other prisoners, and one of them was weak and could not support the weight of his fetters; so we lifted him between us when he would have moved. Seeing in his face that he would soon die, I occupied his attention by reciting the Koran, and he asked my blessing and recommended his family to my care. All this time my friends fed me, and they would have bribed the gaolers for my release, but for the strict orders of Sidi Abderrahman, who feared that if I were free, his life would not be a long one.

“It is good for a man to suffer. Here one sees with one’s eyes and does not consider. In prison one uses the eyes of the mind. I reflected deeply on my life and saw my mistakes. I knew that, in the future, I should be free, for my luck is indestructible, but how soon I did not know. It is useless to fight against the fate which is ordained before man is born. All must accept the will of Allah, but poets die in prison and politicians are born! ‘What will you do when you are free?’ asked the men who were with me, but, though, I wanted only two things, vengeance and my books, I would tell nobody my thoughts. The smell and the filth of the cell bred all sorts of vermin. After a little while they were the only things that moved, for we were too exhausted. Each end of the chain that held us together was riveted to a wall and the sick man was in the middle between us. The sores on our limbs festered and were black with flies and lice, but we did not feel them. Suffering comes to an end in time, and I was surprised one morning when the man on my right did not answer.

“At that time they had altered the chains so that I could not touch him. We had to wait till nearly noon, when the light came faintly and we could just see that he was dead. It was summer and very foul, but for three days his corpse hung there rotting, for the gaolers did not dare to remove it for fear the Governor should say he had escaped. The rats came and ate the feet and the legs, and we could not keep them away; but truly he was mostly bones, and their meal was poor. When at last the corpse was taken away, the collar had sunk so deeply into the flesh that they had to tear it off, and it remained empty as a witness of man’s destiny.

“All this time my friends had worked for me, and even Sidi Mohammed Torres interceded for me, so that, in time, they gave me a better cell—one with a barred window, through which my people could pass food, but the light hurt my eyes and I did not wish to move. Effort seemed to me in vain. The Arab race is very old and it is used to resignation. You Europeans are so much in love with your possessions—you care for your houses and your lands more than your sons. We are different. At one moment a man has great wealth, with slaves and horses and property. It is good. Suddenly fortune changes, and he has nothing but a torn mantle and the shoes on his feet. He keeps the goats of one who was once his servant, but he is happy, for the time may come again when he will be great. Carpets and furniture and great rooms are not necessary to us, as they are to you. See that man asleep in the dust under the tree. He is so poor that he cannot buy food to keep the skin on his bones, but he is contented, for he is an Alim of Teledi, and the people of his village kiss his footsteps as he passes.

“That is why I did not die in prison. I had my thoughts. I cannot tell you how many years I was there, four or five perhaps, before I escaped with two others. A man of the Beni Aros brought me a loaf of bread with his lips pursed between his fingers. I broke it open at night, and there was a file inside. Then, for many days, months probably, I worked when it was dark, till I had cut through each bar. A thousand times I thought someone would hear the noise, like the cry of a small animal; but the gaolers were careless. I had been there for so long, and, in the daytime, I pretended to be ill and unable to move.

“Just when my work was accomplished, two men were brought to my cell, and I was obliged to take them into my confidence, but they were weak and afraid to try and escape. One had received so many lashes that strips of his shirt had been beaten into his body and could not be removed. All day he lay silent and would not move, but the second night I showed him the broken bars, and the sight cheered him. He said, if I would wait four days more, he would come. As he was young and of my people, I would not leave him to die by repeated lashes.

“When my friends came with food, I told them to be ready with a boat on the fourth night. It was not written thus. The next day it was known that the Governor would make a tour of the prison, and most certainly he would discover the state of the bars, for there went with him a smith who tested the chains and other metals with a hammer. Therefore we decided to make an attempt that very night; but we had not realized the difficulty of our chains, which we did not have time to cut. I crawled out the first, with a noise that should have awakened the town. Then the man who had been beaten and who still had no strength of his own, was lifted up and, one pushing, one pulling, we dragged him through the window. The other followed, and when I found myself in the air, under the stars, I trembled and could hardly breathe. A soldier by the door had been bribed and gave no alarm when we climbed the wall where it was broken. Then we were in the town, dragging our chains and stumbling as we moved.