CHAPTER XI

BUILDING THE PALACE AT AZEILA

“When I came to Azeila,” said the Sherif, “I found there had been much injustice, and where there is no justice, there is no security. I made peace between the tribes and brought safety to the town. As when I was Governor of el Fahs, merchandise could be left unguarded and no man needed a gun. When there was a rebellion among the tribes I put it down with a strong hand—for if you have a sore which is poisonous, it is better to cut it out at once, rather than to make a great many slashes which are useless. My name was protection enough for any traveller, and once again the suqs were full. At this time I tried to turn my enemies into my friends, for I saw that politics would be difficult in the future and that Moslems must stand together.

“The worst quality of the Moors is that they cannot look ahead. Every man and woman in England, perhaps even the children, know that France works for a great African Empire which shall reach from Casablanca to Alexandria, but the Arab is like a child who has seen a peseta fall in the dust, and is so busy digging for it that he can think of nothing else. France is a strong nation, but she will not share the land, except as a farmer who drives his mules shares with them the value of the grain they thresh.” “She has done much for Morocco,” I protested. “The material and the labour are Arab. Only the head is French. She has spent no money on the country and taken much out of it; but that is the way of the strong. It is possible that our sons may bless her, but, as I tell you, no Arab looks beyond his own life. The civilization that you bring is like your wine, which goes to men’s heads and makes them foolish. You cannot make good Europeans out of us, but you can make bad Arabs.

“While I was Governor of Azeila I knew what was passing in Europe. I had men in Tangier who translated the foreign newspapers for me and sent me those paragraphs which concerned Morocco. There were others of my people in the post-offices and the markets, and all that was said came to my ears. The more I heard, the more I laboured to win the friendship of the educated, that I might teach them my views. At that time I was blind to treachery, and many sat beside me and ate my meat whose heads should rightly have been upon my gates. I said to myself, ‘If you can take the poison from a man’s heart he may be useful and pleasant,’ so to that end, my house was open to all men and none were denied.

“I began building my great palace by the sea, for there was no room to receive my guests in the little house where all my family were living. Because I wanted it done quickly, I said to all the country people, ‘Bring me material, so much for each man.’ All day they came in from the plain, bringing stones and bricks baked in the sun. Even the women carried their loads. Perhaps they hated me, but, doubtless, they thought, ‘Our Pasha must be very rich and mighty. He will be strong to protect us.’ They called my house ‘The House of Tears,’ because it had been built with forced labour, but it was very beautiful and, within a year, it was nearly finished. There was a great court, with a fountain which came from Italy. The floor was black and white marble, and the walls were decorated with mosaic. All day long men used to sit in a row by the door, with a basket of tiles beside them. The sound of their hammers was like music, and always, as they chipped, the heap of coloured fragments grew. There were other men who made the designs and wrote verses from the Koran in white clay round the walls, and others who painted the ceilings in bright colours, red and blue and that vivid yellow which is made from the yolk of an egg.

“There were many rooms in my house, for always my Wakils said to the country people, ‘Bring more and more stones, and the taxes shall be remitted to you, and my lord will consider this better than any presents of sheep and grain that you may give him.’ There was a gallery with a number of arches, from which I could look out on to the sea, and, on clear days, I could see Cape Spartel, and the air was good for my health, like the air of the mountains, for I cannot breathe in towns.”

For once the Sherif’s descriptions were hardly adequate, for his palace at Azeila is a fine example of modern Moorish architecture. The main block, which is quadrangular, is approached by a covered way, on one side of which are a row of prisons and, on the other, a long seat for the general public who wish to have a speech with the Sherif. This passage leads into a courtyard, with the house on one side and the audience-chamber, where, as Governor, Raisuli conducted his tribunals, on the other. There was a mosque just inside the main door, but, when I saw the palace, this had been dismantled and was used as a store for rows of mighty saddles covered with red and green stuff, richly embroidered with silver. There is a stair-case at each corner of the court, and, on the first floor, the great rooms, marble-paved, with gorgeous ceilings and painted walls, run one into another. The furniture consists of modern carpets, chiefly the work of Rabat looms, with mattresses covered in gay prints and the cushions peculiar to Arab houses, which always seem to be stuffed with small potatoes. At present Raisuli’s nephews, Mulai Ali, Governor of Beni Aros, and Mulai Mustapha, are living in the palace, and the walls of their rooms are hung with the newest maps of Morocco, in strange contrast to the riot of colour on the floor.

Wherever we went in the great house, it seemed that we followed in the footsteps of invisible women, who fled, whispering, before us, hurried away by their master’s Khalifa from the contamination of European eyes. Once or twice we almost caught up with them, and dark-skinned slave- girls, purposely the last of the scuttling throng, hid behind columns and peeped at us in a swirl of rose-red kaftans and muslin draperies.

The long gallery has a glazed-in front and, from it, we looked down the 90-ft. drop, over which it is said the Sherif forced the murderers, taken red-handed, to walk to instantaneous death upon the rocks. It is also said that one of them turned, unflinching to his judge and exclaimed, “Thy justice is great, Sidi, but these stones are more merciful than thou!” At one end of the cliff, half natural, half masonry, a bastion runs out to the sea, and on the top of it is an ancient cannon blest for all time, according to the devout Azeila, because the Sherif once sat upon it and, his beads in his hand, prayed from dawn till high noon.

“While I was Governor of Azeila,” said the Sherif, “there was no one hungry in the town. I gave bread and oil to anyone who asked for it, and in the court of my house there was always a bin full of loaves and jars brimming with oil from my olives. Men complained that I was severe, but never that I was unjust. It is sometimes wise to spend the lives of a few in order to buy the safety of many. The Arab has a short memory. He forgets his own troubles in a few days, and other people’s at once. You think, if you imprison a man, it will stop others committing his crime. I tell you, the reason of a man’s absence is never remembered, but the presence of his head on the gate is a constant reminder!

“Even in those days the gun was not long out of my hand, for suddenly my cousin, Mulai Sadiq, whom I had appointed Kaid of Al Kasr, wrote to me that Ermiki had gathered together the tribes of Kholot and Telig, and was advancing on the town. ‘Before my messengers are with you, they will have surrounded it,’ he said. ‘They are 3,000 men, and I have but 500, and no walls to protect me.’

“Now Al Kasr is an old town and the streets are very narrow, so the people throw everything out in great heaps beyond the houses. There is a wall of mud-heaps which are a good protection for a man shooting. So I sent other messengers to Mulai Sadiq and mounted them on fast horses. I told him to post some soldiers at intervals along these mounds, and that they must keep up a great show of firing, so that Ermiki would think the whole force of the town was concentrated to resist an attack. After this he was to divide the rest of his people into three parties, and two of these were to leave the town secretly by night, so that the flank of the enemy might be cut off. Then I summoned a force of my cavalry without notice, and told them we should start at once against some farms that would not pay tribute. There was no opportunity for news to be carried to Ermiki, for no man knew where we were going. We started at midnight, and rode for four hours. Then, when I knew that Al Kasr was in front of me, I told them my plan. It is 70 or 75 kilometres between Azeila and Al Kasr, and our horses were tired, but I sent one man on to the town to warn Mulai Sadiq, and, when a cannon was fired as a signal, the third party issued from the city and we all ate up the camp of Ermiki, which was still asleep. Many were killed and the rest fled—the Kaid jumped on his horse without his jellaba, and so escaped, but Ibn Jellali, who was with him, was captured and brought to Azeila. The Beni Kholot were so much surprised when bullets came from all sides that they carried away nothing in their flight. We found even the tea apparatus and the washing-basins and ewers.

“When I returned to Azeila, I sent for Ibn Jellali and said to him, ‘Is it not better to serve the lion than the fox?’ and he answered, ‘I cannot serve both.’ I kept him in my house and treated him as a guest, saying to him, ‘You are free to go. My horse is at your disposal.’ He said, ‘I have no gun, and so I am blind before my enemies.’ We were sitting together in a room upstairs, and I told a slave, ‘Go and fetch me a rifle, and see that it is loaded.’ He brought me one, and I gave it to Ibn Jellali, who placed it across his knees. Then I said to the slave, ‘Go away and tell the men at the gate that my guest departs.’ When we were alone Ibn Jellali said to me, ‘You have put your life in my hands!’ and I answered, ‘It is in the hands of Allah.’ So he stayed with me for days, and became my friend and, in the war with Spain, he was commander of my cavalry. Truly a man’s life is the least of his possessions. If he keeps his religion and his honour, he need not concern himself with guarding his life.

“A year afterwards I was at Akbar Hamara, and news came to me that el Ermiki was in camp some hours distant. The Kholot tribe had given me much trouble, for their Kaid had become a friend of Abdul Aziz, so I thought that this was my opportunity to make an end of matters.

“I took with me ten men and the two slaves whom you know, Mubarak and Ghabah, and we went quickly across the hills. It was a very dark night. There was no moon, and the way was difficult. We went so fast that the horses were exhausted and fell, but we had brought two extra animals with us, which was good, for I killed four that night with the pace and the roughness of the road. Allah was with us, for we rode with a loose rein and the spurs driven in, and what should have been a two-days’ ride we accomplished in eight hours. We came out on the top of a hill, and saw the tents of Ermiki below us. Then we urged our horses downward, and, Ullah, they went because they could not stop, and the two men who had none held to the stirrups and ran. We fell on top of the camp and went through it, and certainly the ‘baraka’ was on us, for the men thought we were jinns, and none fired a shot, till we had surrounded Ermiki, and he cried out my name.

“We took him back to Azeila, and he was my prisoner for eight days, and then Mulai Hafid wrote to me, asking me to release him, for his family was large and had much influence. So, though he was my enemy and was always plotting against me, I set him free because of the oath which I had sworn to the Sultan. In the same way, whatever I asked of Mulai Hafid, he did.” After the Sherif had left, Badr ed Din told me that Ermiki, who is now in the Riff, had offered 50,000 douros to the Pasha of Azeila if he could arrange his peace with Raisuli.