Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands/Chapter 5
CHAPTER III.
On leaving the Moorish houses and passing into the streets, one cannot but be struck by the contrast presented between the show, the glitter, and the elegance within, and the plainness, dirtiness, and even squalor, of all that one sees without. The streets in Tangier scarcely deserve the name, for they are merely narrow lanes, with nothing in the way of architectural display on which they eye can rest with pleasure. A high white wall, singularly bare and monotonous in appearance, runs along on both sides, completely concealing the houses behind. At every step we are compelled to turn aside with disgust from the most disagreeable and forbidding objects; here from a heap of foul refuse, and there from the decomposed bodies of dogs and other animals, all festering in the sun, and almost sickening one by their loathsome appearance. The Moors appear to have no idea of any effective way of keeping their towns clean; the streets are seldom swept; and the stagnating air is purified only when a strong and penetrating east wind disperses the ill-odoured and poisonous miasma which has been floating in the atmosphere for days and weeks. It is only some very particular occasion that can rouse the authorities from their inertness, and stir them up to provide a remedy for so happen to be raging in the immediate vicinity, and to be threatening themselves with the scourge that shall certainly lay many of their townsmen low, they then become sensible of the necessity of exertion, and set about removing those hotbeds of corruption which generate or attract the most deadly forms of disease. But even in so serious a case, their sluggish apathy is only roused to action by the intervention of a foreign stimulus; and it is not until the consuls of the European powers have urged and re-urged the matter upon them that they can be induced to set about taking the necessary steps for the cleansing of their town.
As I was passing along the street, I observed a tiny door standing open, and as I approached, a din of childish voices issuing from it told me what was going on within. It was a school for Moorish children, a perfect Babel, to all appearance, fr a more stunning noise never saluted my ears from any dame's school in an English village, where, to speak the truth, they are often noisy enough. As I was anxious to see all that I could in this country, and among other things to learn something of their method of instructing the young, I looked into the place. A group of young children, exceedingly dirty in appearance, was collected round their pedagogue, who was instructing them in the precepts of their sacred book, the Koran. They were seated on the floor; and such an amusing sight they presented, all bobbing their little shaved heads up and down, and touching their knees with their faces regularly at certain intervals, as uniformly as if wound up and kept going by clockwork, that I could scarcely help betraying my presence and my feelings by a hearty laugh. I was observed at last, however, and the effect was instantaneous. They all suddenly pulled up at once, and fixing their little eyes upon me, began to manifest the feelings with which I was regarded by them, by making all sorts of wry, contemptuous, and ill-natured faces at me. The master neither checked them in this strange manifestation of their breeding, nor made any attempt to do so. He probably rather thought it a very natural and commendable display of the irrepressible aversion which the sight of one who rejects the Prophet should excite in their young hearts. He himself gaped with undisguised amazement at the unbelieving Nazarene, at the strange woman, who, with uncovered face, ventured to look boldly on so many "lords of the creation." Their feelings at length found vent in a general shout of execration. "The Jew to the dog, and the Christian to the fire," they all exclaimed at once; and having received this characteristic blessing, I turned my back upon them, and proceeded on my way.
I now went on until I reached the gate of the town, passing, on my way, several Moors here and there squatted on the ground, and, as we occasionally see in Spain and Portugal, deeply engaged in entomological investigations. Not being anxious to stay long near such votaries of science, I hastened on, and soon found myself in the Sokko, or Moorish market-place, which is situated outside the town, just beyond the gate. I had fortunately visited this place at a favourable time to see a good deal of the people, for I was always anxious to observe and to sketch everything striking in costume and appearance. At the period of my visit, it happened to be the evening preceding market day, and the villagers from the surrounding neighbourhood were crowding in with their wares. A more varied and picturesque sight could not well be imagined, as party after party, in their many and brilliantly coloured costumes, arrived upon the ground, and began to pitch their black horse-hair tents. As daylight declined and the evening gloom set in, the scene became still more interesting and romantic. The various fires being lighted, the flames burned brightly up, and threw their lurid reflection upon the dark figures of the Moors moving about with their horses, and the Riffians with their one lock of hair, and their long straight dagger at their sides. There was something of witch-like gloom in the scene, as they moved to and fro, in dark mysterious masses, sometimes in and sometimes out of the fiery glare.
Looking out towards the sea, the rock of Gibraltar loomed dimly at a distance on the horizon. Suddenly a flash of light illuminates the darkness, and the long boom of the evening gun by which it is followed is heard distinctly by us across the Straits. Gibel Moosa, the opposite and African pillar of Hercules, was still tipped with a rosy ethereal hue. On the calm waters of this usually stormy, though narrow, sea, there was not a single ripple, and the dark fragments of the fortifications, which in the time of our Charles II. were mounted by English soldiers, filled up the intermediate space, and in a jagged, desolate outline, cut darkly along the sea. In the inland distance I could just perceive a long line of camels, looking afar off like specks on the horizon, as they were observed, by the trembling lights, winding their way along the zigzag paths of the hill towards the general market. It was a strange sight, when they came to rest and to pitch their tents, to see the children and the horses, the donkeys, the camels, and the chickens, all nestling together for the night. The women now set about preparing their evening meal, while their turbaned husbands were busily engaged in unpacking their wares, or in looking after their animals. We could have lingered for a long time in the midst of this motley and busy scene, which presented so much that was novel and interesting in aspect to us. But we were compelled reluctantly to turn our backs upon it. At a certain hour every night, the white flag is hoisted for evening prayer, and if anyone, either of the Faithful or of the Unbelievers, was not in the town at the time, he was remorselessly shut out for the night. We therefore made all haste back, in order that we might through the Cazyold gate in good time, and thus escape so awkward a dilemma. Unfortunately, at this hour the gate is usually crowded with horses, waiting just inside, until the popular farrier of the place, whose forge is always blazing, can despatch them in all points fitted for their journey. As we were entering, in addition to the accumulation of these animals of the equine tribe, a long line of camels were hurrying out, and it appeared likely to prove a problem of some difficulty how we should find our way in. As it was a matter of necessity, we must, however, make the attempt, and the consequence was that we all got jammed up together in one mass of confusion, and felt at a loss how we should now be able to extricate ourselves. Besides, barb horses are not the animals to stand the like of this with the most exemplary patience. One, on which a companion rode, got exceedingly restive, and during the disturbance which he caused, the lady had the misfortune to get bonnet knocked off. But perseverance at last gained its end; and after a certain amount, more certainly that was agreeable, of pushing and scrambling, we finally managed to get through, and were rejoiced to find ourselves on the right side of the gate.
The first rays of sunlight on the morrow woke up the varied multitude to the real business of the day. Here were people from all parts of the empire,―blacks from the interior, Riffians from the frontiers, Arabs from the desert, the Jews of the cities, and numbers of Berbers, the most ancient race of the country. All the individuals of this strange assemblage of tribes were driving busy traffic, eager to make the most of their wares, and to dispose of them to the greatest advantage. Here, as in every other land where any of the race have found a settlement, the Jews were pushing a thriving trade. Anxious only to exchange their goods for hard cash, they were not at all scrupulous about the means by which their end was to be gained. If they did occasionally cheat a little, where was the harms, when the victim of their wily art, their fawning look, and their deceptive tongue was only a persecuting follower of the false prophet on the one hand, or a vile dog of Nazarene on the other? There they are, jostling about in all directions―when they purchase, bantering Hadj Mohammed out of his last farthing of profit, and when they sell, laying it on the Christian rebel against God, and on the English contemner of His people, in the same proportion that they have already skinned the Faithful.
The Moors, as they sit squatted on the ground, have a very earthy look, and even a strange earthy sort of smell, and their gilabs also being very much of the colour of the earth, it is difficult to distinguish them at a short distance from big grubs that have sprung up on the spot, with which a person of short sight, or of a lively imagination, may very easily confound them.
The market is abundantly provided with the usual produce displayed on such occasions at home. Here sits Fatima or Leila, presiding over a numerous collection of meagre fowls, or disposing to her customers of butter, eggs, millet, and vegetables of all descriptions. It was really something new to fin myself engaged in striking a bargain with a young lady enjoying one of these romantic names, usually associated with the enticing fictions of the Arabian Night or the high-wrought poetry of Byron. With all the mystery attending the appearance of one who peers at you only with one eye, while she carefully conceals all the rest of her visage in the folds of her haikh, after the foresaid Fatima or Leila has sold us a dozen eggs or a pound of butter, we do not feel quite so disposed to think of these ladies only as the inmates of luxurious harems, where they repose all day on the softest couches, breathing only an atmosphere pervaded with the most fragrant perfumes, holding the amber-mouthed narghil to their lips, and constantly fanned by the black slaves who are ever at their beck. A little acquiantance with Moorish and Eastern life soon dispels much of the romance with which ignorance associates it.
How strange are the associations of real life! I had only to turn in one direction from this scene of active barter, and within the distance of a stone's throw I beheld the Moorish cemetery. It is a melancholy and deserted looking place. The last homes of the departed are indicated, as in our own churchyards, by small mounds of earth, the graves of the more wealthy being encircled by a low white wall. The dead are all buried with their heads towards Mecca, the sacred city, which no Christian is allowed to enter, which is the resort of so many Mohammedan pilgrims during life, and where are the three things held most holy in the estimation of a follower of the prophet, viz., the well Zemzem, the Kaaba, or house of God, and the Black Stone. The repulsive melancholy of this gloomy cemetery was scarcely dispelled by a few feeble flowers, almost gasping for life, and by one or two withering fig-trees, blasted by the easterly winds that tell so severely on all kinds of vegetation in this part of the world.
On the following day, however, which was Friday, the Moorish Sabbath, the place presented an entirely different, although I can scarcely call it a more pleasing, appearance. It was occupied by crowds of women, all dressed in white, and in such a locality looking like so many ghosts, or at least like what we consider ghosts in England. In all the agony of bereavement, some were beating their breasts, and invoking the departed in piercing tones of anguish, while others, prostrated beside graves which had evidently not been long closed over the dead, called in the most endearing terms that the glowing imaginations of these children of the sun can suggest on the lost friend or relative to wait for them. Another brings fresh flowers to adorn the grave of a departed husband, and while she lingers at the sad spot where her heart lies buried, she tells him that life is now a burden to her, that the world can no longer attract her by its pleasures, and that her most anxious desire and prayer now is, that she may soon be permitted to join him beyond the grave.
What an imposing and thoughtful scene is that of the burial of Ophelia, when the Price of Denmark soliloquizes on the strange destiny of man, and traces the dust of him that kept the world in awe, until, in imagination, he finds it stopping a beer-barrel! And yet the scene, with all its profound emotions and its varied suggestiveness, has also its ludicrous features, when, in admirable fidelity to the strangely mingled web of human life, the two gravediggers interpose with their coarse jests and shallow reflections during the profound meditations of Hamlet. I could not help thinking on this scene of our immortal dramatist, as here, in actual life, I beheld a spectacle and listened to remarks which, if not precisely similar, afforded at least, in many respects, a good parallel. In the midst of the lamentation of woe, and the outpourings of grief in which the heart, doubtless, had its share, I heard the most absurd and ridiculous remarks addressed to the dear departed, apparently under the influence of the most unhesitating belief that he still continued to feel a warm interest in all that pertained, not only to the life, but even to the town and the society he had left. A woman is sitting at one grave, and with the most matter-of-fact and serious countenance in the world, is informing the defunct of all the gossip of Tangier during the past week, of all the scandal and slander that have been circulating there from mouth to mouth, and of all th domestic annals, the quarrels, the reconciliations, the jealousies, and the envies that the most untiring zeal could treasure up in the interchange of such agreeable small-talk. Such is the strange motley in which human life here, as everywhere else, invests itself.
But if I felt inclined to indulge in a series of the usual moral reflections after witnessing so unusual a spectacle, I was not allowed to lengthen them out to any immoderate extent. I was suddenly interrupted by the approach of a funeral procession, the vicinity of which was announced by the monotonous chant of the mourners, and by the hurried, heavy sound of many feet. The corpse, muffled in a Haikh, was borne along in a rough trough, carried on the shoulders of four men, who at every few paces were relieved by others, anxious to obtain the promised blessing of the Prophet, and to expedite the arrival of the deceased at his newly-dug grave, where the angel of death is believed to be waiting for him, in order that his examination may be begun, and the judgement which is to decide his final fate pronounced. On their way to the grave, all who take part in the funeral ceremony join in singing verses from the Koran; and on their arrival in the burial-ground, a short prayer is offered up. The corpse is then put into the grave without a coffin, and placed a little on one side, so that the face may look towards Mecca, the right hand being put to the ear of the same side, so as to appear to lean upon it. A little earth is thrown over the body, and the crowd return to the house of the deceased to compliment the relatives. During the ceremony, the women of the family assemble, and continue uninterruptedly to make the most unearthly yellings and hideous outcries, as indeed they have been doing ever since the time of the death. In this exhausting exercise of their lungs, they persevere for no less than eight long days; and as they are, on all other occasions, totally excluded from the public society of men, they eagerly seize on these solemnities for display, and vie with each other in the intensity and duration of their unearthly yells.