Читать книгу Life in Morocco and Glimpses Beyond - Budgett Meakin - Страница 17

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"Every lion in his own forest roars."

Moorish Proverb.

Few who glibly use the word "Barbarian" pause to consider whether the present meaning attached to the name is justified or not, or whether the people of Barbary are indeed the uncivilized, uncouth, incapable lot their name would seem to imply to-day. In fact, the popular ignorance regarding the nearest point of Africa is even greater than of the actually less known central portions, where the white man penetrates with every risk. To declare that the inhabitants of the four Barbary States—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli—are not "Blackamoors" at all, but white like ourselves, is to astonish most folk at the outset.

Of course in lands where the enslavement of neighbouring negro races has been an institution for a thousand years or more, there is a goodly proportion of mulattoes; and among those whose lives have been spent for generations in field work there are many whose skins are bronzed and darkened, but they are white by nature, nevertheless, and town life soon restores the original hue. The student class of Fez, drawn from all sections of the population of Morocco, actually makes a boast of the pale[page 48] and pasty complexions attained by life amid the shaded cloisters and covered streets of the intellectual capital. Then again those who are sunburned and bronzed are more of the Arab stock than of the Berber.

These Berbers, the original Barbarians, known to the Romans and Greeks as such before the Arab was heard of outside Arabia, are at once the greatest and the most interesting nation, or rather race, of the whole of Africa. Had such a coalition as "the United States of North Africa" been possible, Europe would long ago have learned to fear and respect the title "Barbarian" too much to put it to its present use. But the weak point of the Berber race has been its lack of homogeneity; it has ever been split up into independent states and tribes, constantly indulging in internecine warfare. This is a principle which has its origin in the relations of the units whereof they are composed, of whom it may be said as of the sons of Ishmael, that every man's hand is against his neighbour. The vendetta, a result of the lex talionis of "eye for eye and tooth for tooth," flourishes still. No youth is supposed to have attained full manhood until he has slain his man, and excuses are seldom lacking. The greatest insult that can be offered to an enemy is to tell him that his father died in bed—even greater than the imputation of evil character to his maternal relatives.

Some years ago I had in my service a lad of about thirteen, one of several Reefians whom I had about me for the practice of their language. Two or three years later, on returning to Morocco, I met him one day on the market.

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"I am so glad to see you," he said; "I want you to help me buy some guns."

"What for?"

"Well, my father's dead; may God have mercy on him!"

"How did he die?"

"God knows."

"But what has that to do with the gun?"

"You see, we must kill my three uncles, I and my two brothers, and we want three guns."

"What! Did they kill your father?"

"God knows."

"May He deliver you from such a deed. Come round to the house for some food."

"But I've got married since you saw me, and expect an heir, yet they chaff me and call me a boy because I have never yet killed a man."

I asked an old servant who had been to England, and seemed "almost a Christian," to try and dissuade him, but only to meet with an appreciative, "Well done! I always thought there was something in that lad."

So I tried a second, but with worse results, for he patted the boy on the back with an assurance that he could not dissuade him from so sacred a duty; and at last I had to do what I could myself. I extorted a promise that he would try and arrange to take blood-money, but as he left the door his eye fell on a broken walking-stick.

"Oh, do give me that! It's no use to you, and it would make such a nice prop for my gun, as I am a very bad shot, and we mean to wait outside for them in the dark."

The sequel I have never heard.

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Up in those mountains every one lives in fortified dwellings—big men in citadels, others in wall-girt villages, all from time to time at war with one another, or with the dwellers in some neighbouring valley. Fighting is their element; as soon as "the powder speaks" there are plenty to answer, for every one carries his gun, and it is wonderful how soon upon these barren hills an armed crowd can muster. Their life is a hard fight with Nature; all they ask is to be left alone to fight it out among themselves. Even on the plains among the Arabs and the mixed tribes described as Moors, things are not much better, for there, too, vendettas and cattle lifting keep them at loggerheads, and there is nothing the clansmen like so well as a raid on the Governor's kasbah or castle. These kasbahs are great walled strongholds dotted about the country; in times of peace surrounded by groups of huts and tents, whose inhabitants take refuge inside when their neighbours appear. The high walls and towers are built of mud concrete, often red like the Alhambra, the surface of which stands the weather ill, but which, when kept in repair, lasts for centuries.

The Reefian Berbers are among the finest men in Morocco—warlike and fierce, it is true, from long habit and training; but they have many excellent qualities, in addition to stalwart frames. "If you don't want to be robbed," say they, "don't come our way. We only care to see men who can fight, with whom we may try our luck." They will come and work for Europeans, forming friendships among them, and if it were not for the suspicion of those who have not done so, who always fear political[page 51] agents and spies, they would often be willing to take Europeans through their land. I have more than once been invited to go as a Moor. But the ideas they get of Europeans in Tangier do not predispose to friendship, and they will not allow them to enter their territories if they can help it. Only those who are in subjection to the Sultan permit them to do so freely.

The men are a hardy, sturdy race, wiry and lithe, inured to toil and cold, fonder far of the gun and sword than of the ploughshare, and steady riders of an equally wiry race of mountain ponies. Their dwellings are of stone and mud, often of two floors, flat-topped, with rugged, projecting eaves, the roofs being made of poles covered with the same material as the walls, stamped and smoothed. These houses are seldom whitewashed, and present a ruinous appearance. Their ovens are domes about three feet or less in height outside; they are heated by a fire inside, then emptied, and the bread put in. Similar ovens are employed in camp to bake for the Court.

Instead of that forced seclusion and concealment of the features to which the followers of Islám elsewhere doom their women, in these mountain homes they enjoy almost as perfect liberty as their sisters in Europe. I have been greatly struck with their intelligence and generally superior appearance to such Arab women as I have by chance been able to see. Once, when supping with the son of a powerful governor from above Fez, his mother, wife, and wife's sister sat composedly to eat with us, which could never have occurred in the dwelling of a Moor. No attempt at covering their faces was[page 52] made, though male attendants were present at times, but the little daughter shrieked at the sight of a Nazarene. The grandmother, a fine, buxom dame, could read and write—which would be an astonishing accomplishment for a Moorish woman—and she could converse better than many men who would in this country pass for educated.

The Berber dress has either borrowed from or lent much to the Moor, but a few articles stamp it wherever worn. One of these is a large black cloak of goat's-hair, impervious to rain, made of one piece, with no arm-holes. At the point of the cowl hangs a black tassel, and right across the back, about the level of the knees, runs an assagai-shaped patch, often with a centre of red. It has been opined that this remarkable feature represents the All-seeing Eye, so often used as a charm, but from the scanty information I could gather from the people themselves, I believe that they have lost sight of the original idea, though some have told me that variations in the pattern mark clan distinctions. I have ridden—when in the guise of a native—for days together in one of these cloaks, during pelting rain which never penetrated it. In more remote districts, seldom visited by Europeans, the garments are ruder far, entirely of undyed wool, and unsewn, mere blankets with slits cut in the centre for the head. This is, however, in every respect, a great difference between the various districts. The turban is little used by these people, skull-caps being preferred, while their red cloth gun-cases are commonly twisted turban-wise as head-gear, though often a camel's-hair cord is deemed sufficient protection for the head.

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Every successive ruler of North Africa has had to do with the problem of subduing the Berbers and has failed. In the wars between Rome and Carthage it was among her sturdy Berber soldiers that the southern rival of the great queen city of the world found actual sinews enough to hold the Roman legions so long at bay, and often to overcome her vaunted cohorts and carry the war across into Europe. Where else did Rome find so near a match, and what wars cost her more than did those of Africa? Carthage indeed has fallen, and from her once famed Byrsa the writer has been able to count on his fingers the local remains of her greatness, yet the people who made her what she was remain—the Berbers of Tunisia. The Phœnician settlers, though bringing with them wealth and learning and arts, could never have done alone what they did without the hardy fighting men supplied by the hills around.

When Rome herself had fallen, and the fames of Carthage and Utica were forgotten, there came across North Africa a very different race from those who had preceded them, the desert Arabs, introducing the creed of Islám. In the course of a century or two, North Africa became Mohammedan, pagan and Christian institutions being swept away before that onward wave. It is not probable that at any time Christianity had any real hold upon the Berbers themselves, and Islám itself sits lightly on their easy consciences.

The Arabs had for the moment solved the Berber problem. They were the amalgam which, by coalescing with the scattered factions of their race, had bound them up together and had formed[page 54] for once a nation of them. Thus it was that the Muslim armies obtained force to carry all before them, and thus was provided the new blood and the active temper to which alone are due the conquest of Spain, and subsequent achievements there. The popular description of the Mohammedan rulers of Spain as "Saracens"—Easterners—is as erroneous as the supposition that they were Arabs. The people who conquered Spain were Berbers, although their leaders often adopted Arabic names with an Arab religion and Arab culture. The Arabic language, although official, was by no means general, nor is it otherwise to-day. The men who fought and the men who ruled were Berbers out and out, though the latter were often the sons of Arab fathers or mothers, and the great religious chiefs were purely Arab on the father's side at least, the majority claiming descent from Mohammed himself, and as such forming a class apart of shareefs or nobles.

Though nominal Mohammedans, and in Morocco acknowledging the religious supremacy of the reigning shareefian family, the Moorish Berbers still retain a semi-independence. The mountains of the Atlas chain have always been their home and refuge, where the plainsmen find it difficult and dangerous to follow them. The history of the conquest of Algeria and Tunisia by the French has shown that they are no mean opponents even to modern weapons and modern warfare. The Kabyles,^* as they are erroneously styled in those countries,[page 55] have still to be kept in check by the fear of arms, and their prowess no one disputes. These are the people the French propose to subdue by "pacific penetration." The awe with which these mountaineers have inspired the plainsmen and townsfolk is remarkable; as good an illustration of it as I know was the effect produced on a Moor by my explanation that a Highland friend to whom I had introduced him was not an Englishman, but what I might call a "British Berber." The man was absolutely awe-struck.

Separated from the Arab as well as from the European by a totally distinct, unwritten language, with numerous dialects, these people still exist as a mine of raw material, full of possibilities. In habits and style of life they may be considered uncivilized even in contrast to the mingled dwellers on the lowlands; but they are far from being savages. Their stalwart frames and sturdy independence fit them for anything, although the latter quality keeps them aloof, and has so far prevented intercourse with the outside world.

Many have their own pet theories as to the origin of the Berbers and their language, not a few believing them to have once been altogether Christians, while others, following native authors, attribute to them Canaanitish ancestors, and ethnologists dispute as to the branch of Noah's family in which to class them. It is more than probable that they are one with the ancient Egyptians, who, at least, were no barbarians, if Berbers. But all are agreed that some of the finest stocks of southern and western Europe are of kindred origin, if not[page 56] identical with them, and even if this be uncertain, enough has been said to show that they have played no unimportant part in European history, though it has ever been their lot to play behind the scenes—scene-shifters rather than actors.

* I.e. "Provincials," so misnamed from Kabîlah (pl. Kabáïl), a province.

Photograph by Dr. Rudduck. AN ARAB TENT IN MOROCCO.

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