CHAPTER XIII

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BENABU. 1857.

In December 1857, Mr. Hay writes to his sister-in-law:—

Poor Benabu has been arrested at Fas by the Sultan and imprisoned. All his property has been confiscated except the house in which he lived. The property and jewels of his wives have not yet been touched.

To the surprise of everybody the Sultan has appointed, in Benabu’s place as Basha, the youngest son of the former governor of Tangier, Alarbi el Saidi. He was a bookbinder and very poor, but no sooner did he get the Sultan’s letter, than he assumed the reins of power well, and with the dignity of a grandee. We are already good friends.

The story of Benabu, whose sudden downfall is here alluded to, deserves, we think, to be repeated.

The Basha of Tangier, Kaid Mohammed Ben Abdelmalek, better known as ‘Benabu’ (_Anglice_, the son of his father), was Governor of that province in the year 1857. He had previously held the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Sultan’s Cavalry, was distinguished for bravery when His Sherifian Majesty, whom, it is believed, ‘Allah protects,’ marched annually against rebellious tribes ‘to eat them up,’ an expression very significative of a Moorish monarch’s plan of campaign.

Benabu had also been for many years Governor-General of the Rif Provinces. He was a Rifian by extraction, as are most of the inhabitants of Tangier. One of his ancestors, in the time of Charles II, when the English were in possession of Tangier, commanded an army sent to invade that place. In a sanguinary conflict which took place between the Moors and the English, when the latter stormed the heights where the Moorish forces had encamped above the river of Bubána, about two miles from Tangier, Benabu’s ancestor was killed.

The site is called to this day the ‘Mujáhidin,’ or ‘Warriors of the Faith.’ It is considered holy ground, as those who fell in that battle against ‘Infidels,’ were buried on the spot. Kubbas, or cupola-formed mausoleums, were erected, in which the bodies of the Moorish chieftains were laid. A regiment of our Foot-guards took

## part in the action, and it is said that the member of the Guards’

band who plays the cymbals used to wear an Oriental costume, in commemoration of this battle.

When Mr. Bulwer was sent to Tangier on a Mission by the British and Spanish Governments, to settle the differences between Spain and Morocco, in 1845, I gave him a long rapier which I had found at low water in the ruins of the fine old mole which the English blew up, from a dog-in-the-manger policy, when they gave up the place. The hilt had on one side a C. on the other a rose. Though it had lain for nearly three centuries in salt water, I managed to restore the weapon, which proved to be of beautiful steel, and before I introduced the lance for pig sticking, I had at full gallop killed boar with this rapier on the plains of ‘Awara.’

One night I had donned my dressing-gown and was about to go to bed. It was late; lights had been extinguished and the servants had retired, when the porter at the gate of the Legation, a Moorish soldier, lantern in hand, appeared. He was trembling with excitement and could hardly articulate as he addressed me. ‘The Basha is here, alone in the porch. He came on foot and is without an attendant. He wishes to see you at once. He has commanded that “I shut my tongue within my teeth.”’

I received the Basha, who was an old friend, in my dressing-gown. He was about six feet three in height, and of a Herculean frame. His features were very marked; a prominent Roman nose and massive jaw, with eyes like a lion; shaggy locks hung beneath his turban over each ear. The general expression of his countenance was that of a stern tyrant, but in conversation with those he liked, his face beamed with good humour, and he had a pleasant, kind manner.

Benabu was very intelligent, and not a fanatic, as Moorish grandees generally are. After friendly salutations, and bidding him welcome, I inquired the cause of his visit at such an unusual hour.

The Basha, having looked around repeatedly, to satisfy himself that there were no eavesdroppers, said, ‘I come to you as the only friend I can trust, to beg a great favour. This evening an officer arrived with a letter from the Sultan, summoning me to the Sherifian Court. I leave to-morrow at daybreak. You know,’ he continued, ‘what this means—either it is to extend my government to the district of Anjera, which I have applied for, or it is to place me under arrest, and then, by long imprisonment, or even the bastinado, to extort, under the pretext of arrears of taxes or other dues, the little wealth I have accumulated during my long and arduous services, both in campaigns and as Governor of the Rif. I am an old soldier, and it is my firm intention, even if I were put into the wooden jelab[31] or other torture, not to give one ‘fels’ either to the Sultan, the Uzir, or other rapacious satellites of the Court, who, no doubt, expect to fleece me as they do other Bashas and Sheikhs, even if it is the Sultan’s will that I am to receive some mark of his goodwill.

‘The favour I have to beg of you,’ continued Benabu, ‘is that you allow me to leave in your possession some bags of gold I have brought with me.’

I looked at the Basha; he had nothing in his hands, but, beneath the ample folds of his ‘sulham,’ I observed that his huge chest and body were distended to an extraordinary size.

‘I am very sorry,’ I replied, ‘to hear of the sudden summons to the Court, which, I fear, bodes no good. I shall be happy, as an old friend, to do anything to help you; but,’ I added, ‘it will be a delicate matter for me, as British Representative, to receive in deposit a large sum of money, which might hereafter be claimed as arrears of taxes due to the Treasury, and the British Government might disapprove of my having placed myself in a false position.’

Benabu replied that he had paid up all arrears of taxes; that the money he wished to leave with me was not only savings effected during a long career of forty years, but money inherited from his father. He added, ‘I have also other money, which I secretly placed some time ago, for safety and profit, in the hands of a wealthy Jew, who is under foreign protection.’

Benabu reminded me, that when war broke out between Spain and Morocco I had allowed the Moorish Minister for Foreign Affairs—Sid Mohammed Khatíb—to deposit about £10,000 in my hands, and he pleaded so earnestly that I gave way.

Taking the key of a cellar where I kept a stock of wine, and which my butler never visited unless I accompanied him, I led the Basha to it.

‘Can no one hear or observe us?’ asked the Basha, as we descended into the cellar. I replied that the servants were all in bed, and that the porter at the gate could not intrude, as I had locked the front door of the Legation.

Bag after bag was extracted from Benabu’s portly person, and deposited in an empty bin, which I selected for that purpose.

I observed to the Basha that the bags were not sealed, being merely tied with string, and offered to fetch sealing-wax, requesting him to mark on each bag its contents.

He declined, saying he really did not know the amount of money each bag contained; and had neither time nor inclination to count the coin, but added, ‘it is all good, and safer in your hands than in a bank.’ By laying some laths on the top of the pile, and then bottles of wine, the treasure was well concealed.

On returning to my study, I took up a sheet of paper and pen, and told the Basha I was about to prepare a receipt, stating that a number of bags without seal, contents unknown, had been deposited by him in my cellar, and that I was not responsible for losses occasioned by fire, robbery, &c. ‘Do you think,’ said the Basha, ‘I am “hamak” [mad] to take such a receipt? Don’t you understand that, going as I am to the Court, I may be searched? If I leave such a document with my wife—no woman can hold her tongue—the secret would be betrayed. My sons are spendthrifts, and not to be depended on.’ I suggested that he should take my receipt and hide it in his house, or bury it in his garden until his return from the Court.

He declined, saying, ‘Walls have ears, trees have eyes, so not only must I decline to take a receipt, but I beg that you will keep no record of having received these bags from me.’ I remonstrated, saying, ‘I may die; my heirs will find the money in the cellar and will rightfully appropriate it, even if you or your heirs were to claim the money, for there will be no proof that you are the rightful owner. You also,’ I added, ‘are in the hands of “Allah,” and may die.’ Benabu replied, ‘We are all in the hands of “Allah.” What is written[32] by the Almighty is written. I have entire confidence in you, and if you die, as you say might happen, and your son and daughters, whom I know and love as my own, got possession of the money—it could not fall into better hands.’

He then took leave, and wishing him ‘God speed,’ I let him out by the garden-door. Summoning the porter, I told him the Basha was leaving for the Court in the morning, and had come to announce his departure; I warned him not to let any one hear of the visit, as it might give offence to other Representatives, upon whom he had not time to call to take leave. ‘Remember,’ I said, ‘you are a soldier of the Basha, and if you betray his visit he may some day mark his displeasure.’

Benabu departed for the Court the following morning, leaving his elder son, who had been his Khalífa, or Lieutenant-Governor, in charge of the government of the province.

On the arrival of Benabu at the Court, he was summoned by the Uzir, who informed him that the Sultan was dissatisfied with the accounts rendered by him of receipts of taxes and dues during his government both of the Tangier and Rif provinces; that a house had been allotted to him, where he was to reside, and consider himself under arrest until more regular accounts were presented. Benabu replied that the Uzir knew the Rifians never paid tithes upon land or agriculture; that he had transmitted regularly to the Court the presents of mules and other gifts which the Rif population had delivered to him, as their customary annual tribute to the Sultan, as ‘Prince of Believers and Allah’s kaliph;’ that as to the Tangier province, he had presented annually an account of receipts of taxes, and other dues; that the receipts had greatly diminished on account of irregular protection being extended by Foreign Ministers and Consuls to rich farmers, and to the peasantry in general, and that all protected persons were held by the Foreign Representatives to be exempted from the payment of taxes or other contributions to the Government.

Guarded by the Uzir’s kavasses, Benabu was taken to the small house that had been prepared for his confinement. He was allowed to retain one of his followers; the bodyguard he had brought from Tangier was dismissed, and ordered to return.

Months passed, Benabu remained under arrest; his son, the Khalífa at Tangier, died. This misfortune, and the harsh treatment he had received as an old and loyal servant of the Sultan, preyed on his mind. Prostrated by an ague, followed by typhus fever, Benabu petitioned the Sultan to be allowed to send for his younger son Fatmeh. This was granted, and Fatmeh arrived a few days before his father’s death.

On the return of Fatmeh to Tangier, I waited some days expecting him to call and claim the money left in my possession; but he did not appear, so I sent for him.

After expressions of condolence about the death of his father, I inquired whether he had found him still sensible on his arrival at the Court, and whether his father had given him any message for me. He said he had found his father in a dying state, but perfectly sensible, and that he was able to give him full directions about his property: that he had spoken of me and had used the words—‘God’s blessing be on his head, he has been a true friend to me and to the Mohammedans!’ ‘Did he not mention,’ I asked, ‘that he had seen me the night before he left Tangier and had placed money in my hands? Did he not mention also that he had left property in the hands of a Jewish friend?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘a large sum with ———, which I have had the greatest difficulty in recovering, though my mother had a receipt. Two thousand dollars were paid by my family to recover the money left in the Jew’s hands.’

‘Did your father not tell you,’ I repeated, ‘that I had also received a deposit in money for which, as requested, I did not give a receipt?’ On Fatmeh replying in the negative, I told him to return to his mother and ask her whether her late husband had ever mentioned his intention of secretly depositing money in my hands; adding, ‘Come back, unattended, to the Legation at midnight, and without knocking enter at the garden door, which you will find open.’

At midnight Fatmeh returned. I awaited him. He informed me that his mother had never heard or supposed that any money had been deposited with me. We then descended into the cellar and, pointing to the bin where the bags lay, I told him to remove the bottles and laths.

‘These bags,’ I said, ‘contain coin left me by your father, who refused to accept a receipt. They now belong to his heirs. I know not the amount, but wish you to open each bag before you leave, and to bring me to-morrow some proof that you have delivered the money to your mother.’

Fatmeh took down a bag, and opening it, exclaimed in a very excited manner, ‘Gold!’ Each bag was opened with the same exclamation, his excitement increasing. Having finished the examination of the bags, I told him to put them as his father had done, in the ample folds of his dress, above the girdle. ‘All?’ he said. I replied ‘all.’ He hesitated, and then turning to me, observed: ‘Shall I not leave you half?’ ‘You are “hamák,”’ (mad) I replied. ‘Don’t you understand, that if I had wanted this money I might have kept all?’

So he interned bag after bag in the ample folds of his dress until they could hold no more, for he was a smaller man than his father.

Three bags remained, which he said he could not possibly carry in his dress, and begged that I would keep them. I replied angrily, and fetching a basket, put the remaining bags into it, and, bidding him ‘Good-night,’ I passed him through the garden gate.

Next day I received, through a mutual Mohammedan friend in the confidence of the family, a message from Benabu’s widow, to say her son[33] had delivered to her all that he had received from me.

A week passed, and Fatmeh again asked me for an interview. He informed me he had come with a message from his mother and sister to reiterate their thanks, and to beg that I would not refuse to accept, as a token of their gratitude, a Spanish ‘three-decker,’ of which Fatmeh gave the following history.

‘In the last great naval war between Spain and England, my great-grandfather was Basha of Tangier. He was on the most intimate terms of friendship with the Spanish Representative, and was a strong

## partisan of Spain and unfriendly towards the English. Having granted

to the Spanish Representative some special privilege unauthorised by the Sultan, his intrigues and proceedings came to the knowledge of His Sherifian Majesty. An officer and an executioner were dispatched forthwith to Tangier: my ancestor was decapitated, and his head was placed by special order of the Sultan over the gateway of the residence of the Spanish Representative.

‘Amongst other gifts which had been presented to my ancestor by the Spanish Government was the model of a Spanish three-decker, in a glass case, about four feet long. It was much prized by my late father, and my mother and our family beg you to accept it.’

I accepted the gift of the line-of-battle ship. It was a curious old model, very complete, with figures of sailors in the rigging, and Spanish flag flying.

This model may have been of the ‘Santissima Trinidad,’ one of the largest three-deckers sunk by the English at the battle of Trafalgar. Her masts were washed ashore on the Moorish coast not far from Cape Spartel, were taken possession of by the Moorish authorities and floated down to the mouth of the river Wad el Halk, which enters the bay near the site called ‘old Tangier[34],’ an arsenal built by the Romans wherein to lay up their galleys. The masts were floated as far as the village of Sharf, and placed across the high banks of the river; parapets of masonry were built on each side to form a bridge for horse and foot-passengers.

The bridge was still in use twenty years ago, and I have often crossed it; but one of the masts having given way, it was taken down by order of the Sultan, and a Portuguese architect was employed to erect a stone bridge in its place. The Portuguese had nearly completed the work, when a freshet from the hills levelled it to the water’s edge, hardly leaving a vestige of the fabric. The Moors declared the bridge was accursed by Allah, as the Sultan had employed an Infidel ‘Nazarene’ instead of a Mohammedan architect. A Moor was then dispatched from Fas by the Sultan to rebuild the bridge, which he executed in a satisfactory manner on three arches and sluices.

An aged Tangerine, some twenty years ago, told me that he and many other Moors witnessed from the heights of the hills near Cape Spartel[35] the great battle, and that their hearts were with the English. He said the firing was terrific, with an occasional explosion. Wreckage and many bodies were cast upon the African shore.

Benabu was the best Governor I have known during the forty years I was at Tangier. Under his iron but just rule, murder, robbery, and even theft became unknown after the first year of his government. He made terrible examples of all criminals.

Cattle-lifting was, and still is, a common practice throughout Morocco. On his first appointment as Basha he sent the public crier, on a market-day when the mountaineers and peasantry flock in to make their purchases, to proclaim that the severest punishment would be inflicted on robbers or other criminals.

He kept his word, for the next market-day two cattle-lifters, caught red-handed, were brought before him. After hearing the evidence, they were severely bastinadoed. Benabu had caused an iron brand to be prepared with the letter س (‘sin’), the first of the word ‘sarak’ meaning robber. On the forehead, just above and between the eyebrows, these robbers were marked with the hot brand.

Their property was seized and confiscated, and after issuing a fresh proclamation that any criminal who had been branded, would, on a second conviction of crime, have his hand or foot or both amputated, according to circumstances, Benabu liberated the robbers, and reported his proceedings to the Sultan, making known to H.S.M. that he had found on his appointment murders, robberies, and crime of all kinds prevailed, and that there was no security for life or property outside the walls of Tangier, and he requested the Sultan’s authority to cut off the hand or foot of any person branded with the ‘Sin,’ who was again convicted of a murder or robbery with violence.

The Sultan approved of his conduct, and complied with the request.

Six months after the branding of the two robbers, one of them was caught, having robbed some cattle and wounded the herd in charge.

The delinquent, stripped to the waist, was mounted on the back of a donkey. The animal was led through the principal streets and market-place; two soldiers followed with the bastinado, which is a rope of twisted leather about four feet long. The lash was applied every twenty paces to the back of the prisoner, who was compelled to proclaim his crimes in a loud voice. He was then taken off the donkey in the middle of the market-place, where a fire was lit, and on it an earthen pot stood filled with boiling pitch.

A butcher, the first the soldiers could lay hands on, was seized, and ordered to sever a right hand and left foot.

The unfortunate butcher remonstrated in vain. The condemned man was laid on the ground, his hands were untied; the right hand was taken off at the joint, and the stump plunged into the pot of pitch to stop hemorrhage and prevent gangrene.

The left foot was amputated in the same manner. Charitable bystanders carried off the victim to a small house in the town called ‘Morstan[36],’ where paupers seek shelter at night. There he was provided with food and water for some months. He recovered, and could be seen crawling about the streets or sitting at the gate of the town, begging[37].

Murder, robbery, and cattle-lifting ceased throughout the Tangier province. Life and property were safe. Thus this cruel and barbarous mutilation of one ruffian saved hundreds of innocent men from murder, and women and helpless Jews from outrage.

On a shooting excursion to a district about eight miles from Tangier, I found in a sheltered spot about forty beehives[38]. There was no village within a mile of the hives, and there was no hut even for a guard. Passing a cowherd attending some oxen, not far from the hives, I inquired to whom they belonged. He said they were the property of the village of Zinats. I asked whether there was no guard to watch the property, which could easily be carried off at night. Pointing towards Tangier, he exclaimed, ‘Benabu.’

There was a very beautiful young Mohammedan widow at Tangier, who led a dissolute life. Fatmeh, the Basha’s son, was a constant visitor at her house. Benabu had repeatedly warned his son to discontinue his visits. He summoned also the widow; and after censuring her misconduct, he told her that if she again admitted his son into her house he would mar her beauty, which was the cause of his son’s disgraceful conduct.

Some weeks afterwards, Benabu was informed that Fatmeh had again visited the house of the widow. He was arrested and imprisoned, and the widow was brought before the Basha.

‘You have not,’ said the Basha, ‘kept your promise to me, or taken heed of my warning. Your beauty has brought disgrace upon my son and myself.’

Turning to the guards who attended in the ‘Meshwa,’ or Hall of Judgment, he said, ‘Bring a barber.’

The barber was brought.

‘Cut off,’ said Benabu, ‘below the cartilage, the tip of this woman’s nose.’

The barber, trembling, begged that the operation might not be performed by him. ‘It shall be as you wish,’ replied the Basha; ‘but then your nose will be taken off for disobedience.’ The barber obeyed, and the tip of the nose of the pretty widow was cut off. ‘Go,’ said the Basha to her; ‘you will now be able to lead a better life. May Allah forgive you, as I do, your past sins!’

When Benabu, as a young man, was Kaid in command of a body of cavalry, he received orders from the Sultan to escort with his troopers a foreign Envoy to the Court at Marákesh. During the journey to the capital, the camp had been pitched in the neighbourhood of a large village, where a ‘Marábet’ or holy man dwelt, who was looked up to with great veneration by the villagers.

This fanatic, having observed the Envoy seated in his tent with a light, and the door of the tent open, fetched his long gun, squatted down at about fifty yards, and took a pot shot at the ‘Nazarene Infidel.’ He missed the Envoy, but the ball, passing through the tent, killed a horse of one of the escort on the other side.

Benabu, hearing a shot, rushed out of his tent, and seeing a strange man making off, had him arrested and brought before the tent of the Envoy.

‘This assassin,’ Benabu said, ‘who calls himself a Marábet, has attempted to take your life, and thus placed in jeopardy my head; for had he killed you, the Sultan would have beheaded me.’

Benabu then drew his sword, and, ordering the guards to bare the Marábet’s neck and shoulders, turned to the Envoy and said: ‘My lord the Sultan, whose life may Allah prolong, has alone the power of life and death; but I am ordered to protect your life at all hazards through this country as the Representative of a great friendly Power; and therefore, to deter others, I am determined to make an example of this villain who has attempted to take your life.’ Then, raising his sword, he added, ‘Give the signal, and the head of this assassin shall fall at your feet.’

The Envoy requested Benabu to sheathe his sword, saying that he believed the man to be mad. Benabu, who, no doubt, felt persuaded that the Envoy would never give the signal for the execution of the man, put his sword in the scabbard; the man was then bastinadoed and sent off early next morning to the Governor of the district, with a request that he should be confined in a dungeon until the Sultan’s decision was learnt.

Benabu demanded also that a good horse, with new saddle and bridle, should be sent by the Governor at once for the soldier of the escort whose horse had been shot; this was done.

The name of Benabu went forth far and wide, and the Sultan, on the arrival of the Mission, promoted Benabu to the rank of Kaid ‘Erha.’

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