LIVRE:The Project Gutenberg EBook of Morocco, by S.L. Bensusan

1 Janvier 2009 , Rédigé par saladin Publié dans #Histoire et socièté

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Morocco, by S.L. Bensusan



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Title: Morocco



Author: S.L. Bensusan



Illustrator: A.S. Forrest



Release Date: August 13, 2005 [EBook #16526]



Language: English



Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1



*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOROCCO ***









Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the

Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

MOROCCO

painted by
A.S. FORREST

described by
S.L. BENSUSAN

Transcriber's Note:

The following apparent printer's errors were changed:

from appearonce to appearance

from everthing to everything

from kindgom to kingdom

from "Tuesday market. to "Tuesday market."

Other inconsistencies in spelling have been left as in the original.

IN DJEDIDA

MOROCCO

painted by
A.S. FORREST

described by
S.L. BENSUSAN

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1904

"As I have felt, so I have written."

Eōthen.

Preface

It has been a pleasant task to recall the little journey set out in the following pages, but the writer can hardly escape the thought that the title of the book promises more than he has been able to perform. While the real Morocco remains a half-known land to-day, this book does not take the traveller from the highroad. The mere idler, the wayfarer to whom Morocco is no more than one of many places of pilgrimage, must needs deal modestly with his task, even though modesty be an unfashionable virtue; and the painstaking folk who pass through this world pelting one another with hard facts will find here but little to add to their store of ammunition. This appeal is of set purpose a limited one, made to the few who are content to travel for the sake of the pleasures of the road, free from the comforts that beset them at home, and free also from the popular belief that their city, religion, morals, and social laws are the best in the world. The qualifications that fit a man to make money and acquire the means for modern travel are often fatal to proper appreciation of the unfamiliar world he proposes to visit. To restore the balance of things, travel agents and other far-seeing folks have contrived to inflict upon most countries within the tourist's reach all the modern conveniences by which he lives and thrives. So soon as civilising missions and missionaries have pegged out their claims, even the desert is deemed incomplete without a modern hotel or two, fitted with electric light, monstrous tariff, and served by a crowd of debased guides. In the wake of these improvements the tourist follows, finds all the essentials of the life he left at home, and, knowing nothing of the life he came to see, has no regrets. So from Algiers, Tunis, Cairo—ay, even from Jerusalem itself, all suggestion of great history has passed, and one hears among ruins, once venerable, the globe-trotter's cry of praise. "Hail Cook," he cries, as he seizes the coupons that unveil Isis and read the riddle of the Sphinx, "those about to tour salute thee."

But of the great procession that steams past Gibraltar, heavily armed with assurance and circular tickets, few favour Morocco at all, and the most of these few go no farther than Tangier. Once there, they descend upon some modern hotel, often with no more than twenty-four hours in which to master the secrets of Sunset Land.

After dinner a few of the bolder spirits among the men take counsel of a guide, who leads them to the Moorish coffee-house by the great Mosque. There they listen to the music of ghaitah and gimbri, pay a peseta for a cup of indifferent coffee, and buy an unmusical instrument or two for many times the proper price. Thereafter they retire to their hotel to consider how fancy can best embellish the bare facts of the evening's amusement, while the True Believers of the coffee-house (debased in the eyes of all other Believers, and, somewhat, too, in fact, by reason of their contact with the Infidel) gather up the pesetas, curse the Unbeliever and his shameless relations, and praise Allah the One who, even in these degenerate days, sends them a profit.

On the following morning the tourists ride on mules or donkeys to the showplaces of Tangier, followed by scores of beggar boys. The ladies are shown over some hareem that they would enter less eagerly did they but know the exact status of the odalisques hired to meet them. One and all troop to the bazaars, where crafty men sit in receipt of custom and relieve the Nazarene of the money whose value he does not know. Lunch follows, and then the ship's siren summons the travellers away from Morocco, to speak and write with authority for all time of the country and its problems.

With these facts well in mind, it seemed best for me to let the pictures suffice for Tangier, and to choose for the text one road and one city. For if the truth be told there is little more than a single path to all the goals that the undisguised European may reach.

Morocco does not change save by compulsion, and there is no area of European influence below Tangier. Knowing one highway well you know something of all; consequently whether Fez, Mequinez, Wazzan, or Marrakesh be the objective, the travel story does not vary greatly. But to-day, Marrakusha-al-Hamra, Red Marrakesh, is the most African of all cities in Morocco, and seemed therefore best suited to the purpose of this book. Moreover, at the time when this journey was made, Bu Hamara was holding the approaches to Fez, and neither Mequinez nor Wazzan was in a mood to receive strangers.

So it falls out that the record of some two or three hundred miles of inland travel is all that awaits the reader here. In time to come, when Morocco has been purged of its offences of simplicity and primitiveness, the tourist shall accomplish in forty-eight hours the journey that demanded more than a month of last year's spring. For Sunset Land has no railway lines, nor can it boast—beyond the narrow limits of Tangier—telegraphs, telephones, electric light, modern hotels, or any of the other delights upon which the pampered traveller depends. It is as a primeval forest in the hour before the dawn. When the sun of France penetrates pacifically to all its hidden places, the forest will wake to a new life. Strange birds of bright plumage, called in Europe gens d'armes, will displace the storks upon the battlements of its ancient towns, the commis voyageur will appear where wild boar and hyæna now travel in comparative peace, the wild cat (felis Throgmortonensis) will arise from all mineralised districts. Arab and Berber will disappear slowly from the Moroccan forest as the lions have done before them, and in the place of their douars and ksor there shall be a multitude of small towns laid out with mathematical precision, reached by rail, afflicted with modern improvements, and partly filled with Frenchmen who strive to drown in the café their sorrow at being so far away from home. The real Morocco is so lacking in all the conveniences that would commend it to wealthy travellers that the writer feels some apology is due for the appearance of his short story of an almost unknown country in so fine a setting. Surely a simple tale of Sunset Land was never seen in such splendid guise before, and will not be seen again until, with past redeemed and forgotten, future assured, and civilisation modernised, Morocco ceases to be what it is to-day.

S.L. BENSUSAN.

July 1904.

CHAPTER I	page
By Cape Spartel	3
CHAPTER II
From Tangier to Djedida	21
CHAPTER III
On the Moorish Road	41
CHAPTER IV
To the Gates of Marrakesh	57
CHAPTER V
In Red Marrakesh	77
CHAPTER VI
Round about Marrakesh	101
CHAPTER VII
The Slave Market at Marrakesh	121
CHAPTER VIII
Green Tea and Politics	139
CHAPTER IX
Through a Southern Province	159
CHAPTER X
"Sons of Lions"	179
CHAPTER XI
In the Argan Forest	199
CHAPTER XII
To the Gate of the Picture City	217

List of Illustrations

1.	In Djedida	Frontispiece
		facing page
2.	A Shepherd, Cape Spartel	2
3.	The Courtyard of the Lighthouse, Cape Spartel	4
4.	A Street, Tangier	6
5.	In Tangier	8
6.	A Street in Tangier	10
7.	A Guide, Tangier	12
8.	The Road to the Kasbah, Tangier	14
9.	Head of a Boy from Mediunah	16
10.	The Goatherd from Mediunah	18
11.	Old Buildings, Tangier	20
12.	Moorish House, Cape Spartel	22
13.	A Patriarch	24
14.	Pilgrims on a Steamer	26
15.	The Hour of Sale	28
16.	Evening, Magazan	30
17.	Sunset off the Coast	32
18.	A Veranda at Magazan	34
19.	A Blacksmith's Shop	36
20.	A Saint's Tomb	40
21.	Near a Well in the Country	42
22.	Near a Well in the Town	44
23.	Moorish Woman and Child	46
24.	Evening on the Plains	48
25.	Travellers by Night	52
26.	The R'Kass	56
27.	A Traveller on the Plains	58
28.	The Mid-day Halt	60
29.	On Guard	64
30.	A Village at Dukala	68
31.	The Approach to Marrakesh	72
32.	Date Palms near Marrakesh	76
33.	On the Road to Marrakesh	80
34.	A Minstrel	84
35.	One of the City Gates	86
36.	A Blind Beggar	90
37.	A Wandering Minstrel	94
38.	The Roofs of Marrakesh	100
39.	A Gateway, Marrakesh	104
40.	A Courtyard, Marrakesh	108
41.	A Well in Marrakesh	112
42.	A Bazaar, Marrakesh	114
43.	A Brickfield, Marrakesh	116
44.	A Mosque, Marrakesh	120
45.	A Water Seller, Marrakesh	124
46.	On the Road to the Sôk el Abeed	126
47.	The Slave Market	128
48.	Dilals in the Slave Market	132
49.	On the House-top, Marrakesh	138
50.	A House Interior, Marrakesh	142
51.	A Glimpse of the Atlas Mountains	146
52.	A Marrakshi	150
53.	Street in Marrakesh	154
54.	An Arab Steed	158
55.	A Young Marrakshi	162
56.	Fruit Market, Marrakesh	164
57.	In the Fandak	166
58.	The Jama'a Effina	170
59.	Evening in Camp	178
60.	Preparing Supper	182
61.	A Goatherd	186
62.	Coming from the Mosque, Hanchen	190
63.	Evening at Hanchen	198
64.	On the Road to Argan Forest	202
65.	The Snake Charmer	204
66.	In Camp	206
67.	A Countryman	208
68.	Moonlight	212
69.	A Moorish Girl	216
70.	A Narrow Street in Mogador	218
71.	Night Scene, Mogador	220
72.	House Tops, Mogador	222
73.	Selling Grain in Mogador	224
74.	Selling Oranges	226