Lästext
V. Among the Nomads of the Plains
After a few days, we were ready. My company consisted of both shereefs [ ̔Abdsslam], [̔Abdŭlkrim] and a couple of muleteers. In [Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb], I had bought myself a mount for my personal use, but the other animals were rented. Although not for long. My intention was to first stop in a village in [Ṣáhel], near [Laraiche], to await the arrival of a new tent that I had ordered from London. After I had waited there in vain for three weeks, I was able to buy an old Arab tent, which could just barely provide my servants with a roof over their heads, and I took off southward towards the nomadic Arabs on the Atlantic coast. We were now at the start of December, and a winter’s journey in Morocco is no laughing matter. It can rain as though the heavens have burst open, and the temperature sometimes falls to zero; even in the second half of April, the temperature in my tent has at times been barely five degrees in the morning. This is why it was a happy surprise when I eventually found the long-awaited tent in Casablanca, after it had travelled between London and Morocco two or three times, stowed in the hold of an English steamboat.
The Arabs south of [Laraiche] are very seldom visited by strangers, and are certainly among the poorest and most primitive of the tribes in the entire land. Just like the inhabitants of the plains in most other parts of Morocco, they live in blackish brown tents, made from a weave of goat and camel hair, as well as dwarf palm and other plant fibres. The villages consist mostly of a large or small number of tents, which are set up either in a circle or a row; but in addition, in many villages, there are beehive-shaped straw huts, which I have mentioned earlier. When the pasture begins to run out or the harvest is over or the vermin in the tents become far too plaguesome, the village breaks up camp and erects its tents in another place; but it always stays within a specific area and returns after a while to its old dwelling places. While the people of the mountains dress in a short and comfortable cloak ([jellâba]), equipped with a hood, the people of the plains bundle themselves up in an oblong shawl ([ḥaik]) made of white woollen cloth. They also differ from one another with regard to their inner man: the first is fearless and proud, while the latter is more scared and ingratiating. This difference is also easy to explain. The mountain folk are free people who have nothing to do with the Moorish government other than the occasional war. The inhabitants of the plains are for the most part entirely in the clutches of their governors. The post of governor is sold to the highest bidder and whoever has come into possession of such a post can then line his pockets at the expense of his subjects, however he wishes. Poor people are extorted to their last coin and the wealthy man runs the danger of being thrown in prison and being robbed of all he owns – it is always easy to find some kind of pretext for this. A regime such as this is not exactly a school for character. Some, in return for cash compensation, have managed to gain the protection of a European merchant and have thus become free of all taxation other than that imposed by their protector, which also can be very heavy, however. And one fine day, the governor may approach the merchant and offer him a sum for his protégé, and woe to the wretch if the merchant heeds the offer and revokes the letter of protection.
These inhabitants of the plains are the most curious people I have come across. Sometimes the village men assembled outside my tent early in the morning to wait for it to open; they then closely followed my every move with keen eyes and asked to see or touch everything in the tent. Their questions were never-ending and their appetite for drops, powders and pills was bottomless. By consuming the miraculous medicaments, they hoped to not just be rid of the complaints they already had, but to also protect themselves against illnesses in the future. Alongside quinine and other medicines, I took with me a bottle of effervescent powder – for the more complicated ailments. The Arabs say that as Christ made so many people whole, his followers must be capable of the same, and if a Christian claims that he cannot cure an illness, it is only out of meanness. In one village, I used small slices of a sausage that I happened to have at hand to cure backache. An old lady was the first patient; but suddenly the entire village was complaining of backache. And the sausage began running out. I explained then to those who still stood waiting outside my tent that, as much as the sausage helps one who is ill, in equal measure it makes a healthy person sick. If he should eat of it, he would get backache. The backache then disappeared from the entire village at once – and they began to complain of other ailments.
The first village I stop at on my way southward is located in the vicinity of the grave of the great saint [Mûläi Būselham]. There, I am warmly welcomed by one of the [shereef of Wazzan’s] protégés, who, nevertheless, steadfastly refuses to accompany me to the shrine. After much negotiation, we were eventually successful in convincing another man in the village to show us the way there, but when we came within a couple of stone’s throws from the sepulchral chapel, he halted and explained that he would under no circumstances come any further with me. [Sīdī ̔Abdsslam] secretly takes my camera and goes to photograph the large, white-washed building with its domed roof; but the attempt fails – when it is time to develop the picture, there is nothing at all on the film. This is no wonder as [Mûläi Būselham] is an important saint who performed significantly more curious miracles in his day. Once, when he was fishing at the same shore where his grave now lies, [Sîdi ʿAbdljl͞il] – whose sepulchral chapel lies opposite that of [Mûläi Būselham] – wished to teach him how he should proceed with his fishing: he dipped his hand in the water, and when he pulled his hand up, a fish was hanging from each of the hairs. But [Mûläi Būselham] did not allow himself to be upset. He made a gesture with his burnous and called on the sea to follow him, and so the water flowed up towards the shore and created the large lagoon that is now located south of his grave. And he has continued with his miracles after his death. At a feast given in his honour, he transformed seawater into fresh water so that his worshippers could quench their thirst with it. Day upon day he allows the sea to lie as still as glass. And when the wind picks up again, it is he who is the reason for it.
When we continue the journey, we are forced to take a long detour around the lagoon with its muddy beaches; and it is not, in truth, so easy to avoid, as the marshland reaches quite a distance inland. We then come to farmed and populated areas and a long lake stretches out in front of our eyes. Its surface is positively black with birds – ducks, snipes, lapwings etc. – which are allowed to flourish and multiply in peace here, as the natives do not have guns to shoot them with. Here and there we can spot small boats or canoes made of bundles of bulrushes – there is no wood available in nearby climes – and in the boats there are fishermen, one in each, who are surely very busy. For the shallow water is teeming with fish. I found this out a year later when I spent a few days on the shores of the same lake: one morning, when the people had been out fishing, four hundred eels lay writhing on the shore. The lake is approximately three miles long and at its upper end is a couple of kilometres wide, but further south it becomes decidedly more narrow. It extends parallel with the seashore and is separated from it by a plateau one kilometre in width. It does not have a direct outlet to the sea, as far as one can see; but it is possible that this water has found its way under the dunes. It is called, together with its surrounding area, [Ras d-daura].
I pitch my tents in a village inhabited by privileged shereefs. They are exempt from all taxation and also clearly consider themselves to be exempt from all obligations towards a travelling stranger. They steadfastly refuse to sell me food and grain for the animals. I show them a letter that I am carrying to the governor in [Rabat], but they laugh at it. I allow them to read the recommendation letter from the shereef of Wazzan, but they say that they have no direct dealings with him. Finally, I take out a missive addressed to the grand vizier in [Marráksh], but this also comes to nothing – he is so far away after all. I order my tent to be taken down so as to depart immediately. But remember, dear shereefs, that I will now head to [Marráksh]! There, I will complain about you to the grand vizier and then you will have to deal with the sultan. Just as we were about to depart, the village’s leaders appeared and bade us welcome. ”Too late,” I answered. They then resorted to pleading and implored us piteously to stay. This was what I had been waiting for, as it would have been unpleasant to have had to feel one’s way forward through unknown parts in the dark of the night. They gave us food and grain in abundance and generously declined the payment we offered.
The next morning, we set off long before sunrise. In the glow of a lantern, the caravan crawls forward through the dark and fog that has blanketed the area. It is not until midmorning when the fog lifts that the lake appears to our left. We follow the entire length of the shore, pass [Sîdi Muḥammed l-Manṣōr]’s shining white shrine, which sits on a small island in the lake, and arrive after eleven hours of travel in a village where we take lodgings for the night. A large portion of the following day is spent crossing the mouth of the river [Sebû], not because it is so immensely wide, but due to the miserable transportation. On the other side of the mouth of the river, rising like an amphitheatre, is the old city of [Mehdîya], most likely the ancient [Thymiaterion], the first Carthaginian colony in the country. Many thousands of residents could fit inside the dilapidated walls, but now there are at most five or six hundred people living there in poverty, although the city, on account of its location, could be one of Morocco’s most prosperous merchant cities. As with [Azila] and a few other coastal areas, ships are not permitted to visit it.
As it is already four o’clock in the afternoon, it would be wisest to spend the night in [Mehdîya]. But I decide, nevertheless, to immediately continue our journey in the hopes of reaching a village before sundown, where I can then settle down for longer and free myself of the horses I had rented in [Laraiche]. Meanwhile, no villages appear along the way. We follow a path that deviates into the thickets, but lose it again. Night falls and a thick fog settles around us. Now our situation is dire. We find ourselves in the [Beni Ăḥsen] tribal area, which is notorious for its robbery and rebelliousness. To stop feels unnerving, but to continue seeking a village would likely be futile. We therefore decide to spend the night among the bushes, even though we do not have a morsel to eat and no other protection than our own rifles. But hush! Is that not someone speaking? At that very moment, two shepherd boys appear out of the fog. Hello, is there a village here? Yes, it is not far away. A few minutes later I ride onto a round field that is surrounded by tents, packed full of people and livestock and lit up by blazing fires. I hear astonished cries: [naṣrâni, naṣrâni]! I wonder how this will all turn out. But then an old man approaches and offers me his hand with a [marhabâ bik], ”you are welcome”. He takes us to the centre of the village and asks us to pitch our tents there, among the cows and sheep. As luck would have it, my tent bed had just broken, so I slept that night, literally, on a pile of dung.
The next morning, I asked the old man if he would allow us to move the tents outside of the village and stay there for some time. Yes, it was alright. Unlike usual, the [Beni Ăḥsen] were, for the time being, on good terms with their dangerous neighbours, the [Zemmūr Berber], so we were in no danger from that direction. The men from [Laraiche] could therefore return with their animals, and the village men could do with us what they wished.
They fully earned the trust we placed in them. They provided us with provisions for modest compensation, watched over my camp at night, welcomed me warmly into their tents, unreservedly answered all of my questions. The village consisted of approximately thirty households, which largely supported themselves by raising livestock, but at the present time, the women were busy collecting acorns from the big [Mʿamora] forest along the edge of which the village was located. I rewarded the kind people by curing their illnesses. A man came to me with his wife and complained that she had for seven years carried a foetus that would not come out. I took the jar with the effervescent powder and prepared a drink, which she drank with reverence.
After staying there for more than a week, it came time to think about departing. They were, in fact, soon going to move the village and for that they needed all of their pack animals. Now they could loan me eight donkeys to take my things to [Salli], but later this would not be possible. When we were meant to be leaving, the men who had promised to join me went on strike. If they were to go to [Salli], the governor would throw them in prison; ”and if he comes here,” they added, ”we will shoot him”. Instead, a few women and children would come with me, but I must first promise to follow them back out the city gates. I promised that nothing would become of them and was in the end able to convince a couple of men to join us. The women were very curious. ”Does it also rain in the land of the Christians?” ”Are there illnesses there just like here?” ”And is it true,” one of them whispered to [Sīdī ̔Abdsslam], ”is it true that the Christians live on sour pig’s milk?” I told them that women in my country are very well off. They are always allowed to begin eating first and choose the best bits for themselves, while the men must make do with what is left. ”Coo!” they sighed; ”That is more like it!” ”And where I come from, men only have one wife,” I said. ”That is good! Here, the wives scratch one another and pull each other’s hair.” ”And in my country the man is always kind to his wife, and when they go out together, he takes her by the arm.” But I should never have said that. For my female companions became dead silent all of a sudden, dropped their gazes and blushed; and even the two men looked quite embarrassed, as they giggled at the Christians’ impropriety. I had probably never said anything more inappropriate in my entire life. According to the Moroccan idea, a man must appear, in the eyes of the world, fully indifferent to his wife. Once when I travelled from Tangier to Genoa, there was a young man from Fez on board. He had just married and was now off on his honeymoon – but had left his wife at home. That was the ideal of a married Moroccan man.
If a Christian traveller arrives at [Salli], he is expected to stop outside the city gates and inform the governor of his arrival. The governor will then send one of his soldiers to escort the stranger through the city to prevent him from becoming a target for the stones and invectives of fanatical citizens. As we were well-armed, we thought, however, that we could omit this procedure. Of course we heard some hissing here and there, but we reached the other side of the city unmolested and set up camp on the sands that lie between [Salli] and the nearby river. [Sîdi ̔Abdsslam] then accompanied our friends from [Beni Ăḥsen] and their donkeys back through the city and declared my arrival to the governor. The citizens of [Salli] are good patriots who do not allow any [naṣrâni] to live in their city or even to spend a night within its walls. But no-one could stop me from settling down on the sands outside it; and as the governor was, nevertheless, responsible for my safety, he sent six soldiers to guard my camp.
[Salli] existed already in Roman times when it was called Salaconia. In more modern times, it has made a name for itself as the world’s most feared den of pirates. In the 1600s and 1700s, hardly a month passed during the season stretching between April and September without the Salli pirates capturing a number of European ships of various nationalities and selling their crews into slavery. The piracy continued into the early 1800s and beyond, with several countries, including Sweden, paying an annual tribute to Morocco to ensure safe passage for their ships along its coast. In the 1850s, a French man-of-war bombarded [Salli] as punishment for the local population’s plundering a stranded ship. The city decided to capitulate, but when its envoy went out in the morning fog to hand the French admiral gifts and keys to the gate, he could not find the ship. It had left in the night, its onboard provisions having run out.
The location of my camp was considered to be very unsafe. The intractable [Zemmūr] Berbers, who lived just a short distance from there, quite often extended their raids all the way to [Salli’s] city gates. One morning, the governor came and asked me not to stay any longer, but to move over to [Rabat] on the other side of the river; he could not sleep peacefully as long as I was out there on the sands, he said. Indeed, it was also my intention to set off on my way, as soon as I had managed to find myself some pack animals. On the fourth day after my arrival, I was able to buy four horses, and the next morning we were to set off. But before that could happen, quite a funny episode occurred. Just after midnight I was awakened by voices and noise. The soldiers on watch claimed that they had heard robbers whistling outside the camp – they naturally wished to get to my horses. But what could the soldiers do? They of course had rifles, but they had not brought any ammunition for them. However, everything went well. Such incidents of assault – whether they are real or imagined is not so easy to decide – seldom develop into disasters.
A ferry takes us and our odds and ends over the broad mouth of the [Bu Rägrägs] and puts us ashore below [Rabat]. Although I am carrying a letter to the governor from the Moorish government’s representative in Tangier, the old honourable Torres, they say that they are unable to assign us a house to live in and take us instead to the large graveyard between the city and the ocean. There, we erect the tents between the graves. The place is not too bad, although I would have been happier had the bodies been buried slightly deeper in the ground.
[Rabat] is one of Morocco’s most interesting cities. It is surrounded by city walls, an outer one and an inner one. Between them there are two imperial palaces where many of the country’s sultans have lived for long or short periods, and where two of them lie buried. Outside the city stands the unfinished [Ḥasan] tower, close upon fifty metres high, which, like the Giralda in Seville or [Kutubîya] in [Marráksh], were erected by the [Alhomad Yaʿqūb el-Manṣūr] in the late 1100s. Nearby lie the ruins of the marble pillars and walls belonging to a mosque which would have been immense had it ever been completed. Not far off lie the ruins of the old Chellah, with magnificent portals, a beautiful minaret, Marinid graves from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and minor relics from Roman times. But [Rabat] has more to offer than just its monuments from times past. It has delightful orchards both inside and outside its walls. It has a booming industry; nowhere in Morocco are more beautiful and durable carpets woven than in [Rabat], its pottery is known for its colours and its leather slippers are exported as far as the Orient. It also has an unusually beautiful setting, with the ocean in front of it and the [Zemmūr] mountains in the background. Its climate is temperate and even; even though it could be eight or ten degrees in my tent in the morning, later on in the day it became moderately warm, although it was the coldest time of year. However, [Rabat] has the worst harbour on the entire coast; when there is a westerly or northerly wind, it is usually impossible to make land there. Yet they have sought to turn even this to their advantage. The tradesmen in the city import all of their sugar in the winter – when making port is most perilous – in order to profit from the insurance. During my stay there, an entire cargo of sugar was lost – and there was great jubilation.
My intention was to stay in [Rabat] for just a week, but an incident occurred which caused me to remain there significantly longer. One afternoon, the shereef [ʿAbdsslam] and [ʿAbdŭlkrim] went up to the city to perform an errand. A few minutes later, [ʿAbdŭlkrim] comes running back and tells me breathlessly that they were assaulted on the street. He had been able to save himself by pulling out his dagger, but the shereef had been dragged away by a mob, he did not know where. I immediately ask [Sīdī ̔Abdsslam II] – the cousin – to grab a rifle and follow me. On the street, a mass of people is moving, all in the same direction; and outside of the city prison we find the shereef with his clothes almost torn off his body, seething with anger and hurling the most exquisite curses at a pair of soldiers holding on to him. I ask that he calm himself, take him by the hand and lead him through the crowd of people, which with discernible surprise makes room for our armed intervention. I then go straight to the governor’s house and bang on the door, but it is not opened. Someone shouts at me from inside the house that the governor cannot see me today. ”But I must absolutely meet with him.” No answer. The next day, I visit the Spanish consul, who promises to take the matter into consideration and try to gain for us reparations and indemnification. They had robbed the shereef of everything he carried on himself – a watch and a bag and money, both his own and mine. But before I leave, the consul asks me, slightly abashed, whether it is true that I had gone to the governor’s house with a revolver in each hand. The entire city was saying that I had wished to shoot the governor, and that is, naturally, why he could not let me in.
The reason for the commotion had been an impudent boatman who had come to my camp and demanded money and had been chased away. He then took his revenge on the shereef and the people on the street naturally took his side. In Morocco, there is generally tension between the populations of the different cities, and the citizens of [Rabat] are especially infamous in this regard. They could not stand even their nearest neighbours across the river. A saying goes: ”Before the sand becomes raisins and the river becomes milk, the people of [Rabat] and [Salli] shall not be friends.”
Two or three weeks passed without the governor lifting a finger to punish the guilty parties or giving us compensation for what was stolen. I then grew tired of waiting any longer, and one fine day at the end of January, I continued my journey. As I now had my own pack animals, I had to increase my staff. An Arab boy from [Ras d-daura] called [Thämi] was engaged to help [ʿAbdŭlkrim], who now became the groom. The vacant servant’s post was filled by [Tousi], a clean and decent youth of the highly-respected family [Raḥḥâli], which has much holiness running through its veins. He first asked to accompany us no further than Casablanca, where his family was, but he became so attached to us that he stayed in his new post close to two years, until I returned to Europe.
The journey between [Rabat] and Casablanca, which usually takes two days, offers nothing of interest. It passes through parts that are considered to be somewhat unsafe, but anyone fearing robbers can pitch their tent in one of the small forts that the government has had constructed here at reasonable intervals. River crossings can be slightly difficult if one does not pay attention to the tides, as there are no bridges or ferries here. There are no trees whatsoever. But they are not required now as the air is cool and we prefer to rest our limbs stretched out in the sunshine among the grass and flowers.
In Casablanca, the governor assigned me lodgings in an old barracks, where, at night, the rats performed the wildest dances around my mattress. The following nights I kept them away by burning candles, but as the candles that could be bought in the city were very short, I had to awaken at two in the morning to light new ones. Already at that time, Casablanca was a significant trading city, it had a slightly better port and far more European merchants than [Rabat], and was the most uninteresting region on the entire Moroccan coast. Following the French bombardment of the city a few years ago, together with the resulting annexation, the city has likely seen development in all of these areas. I have also heard tell that nowadays it is possible to see young Moorish beauties sitting in open coffee-houses, carousing with their Christian lovers.
After a further two days of travel southward, we reached [Azemmur], amphitheatrically located on the western shore of Morocco’s largest river, the [Umm r-Rbéʿă]. I have little to report about this journey, other than that we passed numerous white-washed sepulchral chapels of dead saints, in one place five clustered together. The saints that were buried there had been [mujahédīn], in other words hero-saints who had fallen in the holy wars against the Christians. In contrast to the other saints, these heroes of faith do not rest in their graves, but are taken immediately to Heaven by angels. This has been known for some time, but was recently further confirmed during the[R͞if] Berbers’ war with the Spaniards. It became known that a young man, who had fallen in battle and been buried as he stood, had just prior received ten dollars from his mother. When the grave was later opened in search of the money, both it and his clothing were found, but the body had vanished.
Of all the cities on Morocco’s western coast, [Azemmur] appeals to me the most. The little town has a beautiful location, is clean and completely free of Christians, for, just like [Azila] and [Salli], it is closed to all ships. But in contrast to [Salli], it hospitably opens its gates to travellers. The governor gave me a decent house for my accommodation and sent to me his [caliph] with two sugarloaves, a bag of tea, bread, chickens and candles. Such a welcome sweetens life for the travel-weary foreigner. It still warms my heart when I think back upon it.
I could not resist the temptation to stay here for a day and went to visit [Mûläi Bushʿaib]’s sepulchral chapel, which, together with its surroundings, forms a suburb to [Azemmur] proper. [Mûläi Bushʿaib] is one of Morocco’s biggest saints. He has a reputation of being an excellent physician, and while most of the other physician saints are specialists in certain afflictions – fever, swellings, skin diseases, rabies etc. – he is purported to understand all types of illnesses. But he is not only able to improve the health of the sick and give new life to the dying, but also to visit illness and death upon those who incur his wrath. In this way, he punished one of Azemmur’s former governors for allowing a person who had taken refuge in the saint’s shrine to be shackled. And it was [Mûläi Bushʿaib] together with his colleague [Mûläi ʿAbdllah] – another mighty saint in [Dukkâla] – who, for a similar offence, took the life of the grand vizier [Baḥmed], despite his attempt to placate the saints by sending them twenty-eight oxen. I was warned to keep an appropriate distance from the dangerous saint and to leave as quickly as possible.
After three hours of travelling from [Azemmur], I saw [Mazagan], which I had visited earlier, but then continued my journey almost immediately to a village in [Dukkâla] where, after seven hours of travel, I drove my tent poles into the ground so as not to have to pull them up again soon. I had now travelled approximately six hundred and fifty kilometres since leaving Tangier, and I longed to be able to take the time to study the lives and customs of the people of the plains. [Dukkâla] is divided into four districts with a total of approximately ten governors, whose primary task is to collect taxes and exploit the people. [Ulad Râfa], where I had settled, lies in a district that luckily only has one governor and is inhabited by the [Ulad Buʿăzîz] tribe. [Dukkâla]’s population originally consisted of Berbers, but at the end of the 1100s, Arabs were settled here by the [Alhomad Yaʿqūb el-Manṣūr] – the same ruler whom we previously learned was the man behind Morocco’s most beautiful buildings. A mixed race resulted, which, as was often the case, became fully Arabic in language and largely Arabic in its customs. They are a very handsome people, these [Dukkâla] dwellers. The men are well-formed and tall, passionate riders and hunters and carry their [ḥaik] with both dignity and grace. The women are quite coquettish, almost immodest. Some old ladies came one day to my tent with a young beauty and proposed that I should marry her. I answered that I already had a dozen wives and was no longer approached with marriage proposals.
The [Dukkâla] dwellers’ erotic temperament is reflected in their marriage customs. The bridegroom does not have the patience to wait until the bride is brought to his home, instead he visits her the evening before in a tent or a straw hut that has been arranged for the purpose in the vicinity of her father’s tent – a custom that I have not come across anywhere else in Morocco. And if he discovers that she has lost her virginity, it is by no means certain that the marriage will come to nothing: he is often content with giving her a good thrashing and then forgetting about it altogether.
I immediately made many friends in the village. The first of these was a middle-aged man named [ʿAli], who had been informed of my intended stay in [Ulad Râfa] ahead of time by a mutual acquaintance – a merchant in [Mazagan]. He seemed happy at my arrival but quickly assumed an anxious, almost tearful expression, which he maintained for the duration of my stay in the village. He namely lived in constant fear that his protector, the merchant, would leave him in the lurch and that the area’s governor would lay his hands on his wealth. This naturally increased his kindness towards me, and every morning and evening he provided us with as much milk as I and my people and my dog could drink. Other friends in the village came to my tent now and then with small presents of freshly churned butter or eggs. And since the shereef visited the nearest marketplace once a week, returning with the horses fully loaded with food, I lived in luxury. Of course the butter was mixed with hair from the goatskin churn (see the photograph on page 142) and the aroma was sometimes too strong, as they seldom bother to clean the churn, but it did not do to be too fussy. I had not, in fact, seen any milk or fresh butter all autumn and winter, for the plains have such fare only in the springtime. The prices were also quite reasonable. Butter cost approximately one mark per kilogramme; for a large sheep the shereef paid five or six hundred marks, and goat meat was even cheaper.
A useful acquaintance was the village schoolmaster whom I appointed as my teacher. He came to me each day and taught me about the area’s traditions and customs. The reader may be wondering how this took place. I created a plan for the lessons as systematically as possible, asked the schoolmaster about one thing after the other in turn, and carefully wrote down everything he said. In the beginning, it was not so easy to know what to ask, and my notes from [Ulad Râfa] proved to be quite incomplete. But later, I was given the opportunity to complete and even expand them many times over. Three years later, I spent nearly six months in [Mazagan], and during that time had as my teacher a scribe from [Ulad Râfa], a close relative of [ʿAli]. At that time Morocco was in a state of total anarchy, and to settle in [Dukkâla] was entirely impossible for a European – there was even a fear that [Ulad Buʿăzîz] would attack [Mazagan]. Of course a researcher should try to see as much as possible with his own eyes, but what he can gather in that way is altogether quite limited, and he must resort to the interrogative method as the only way of filling the countless holes in his knowledge. When I first came to Morocco, I heard Europeans in Tangier and Tetuan claim that it was impossible for a foreigner to stay more than a couple of days in the same village, and that it was equally impossible to obtain reliable accounts from the natives. Both of these claims luckily proved themselves to be entirely false. In most regions, I have found reliable and forthcoming teachers without great difficulty, and I have often been surprised by how interested they have been and how attentive to small details. To check the accuracy of a teacher’s statements, I have sometimes sneaked in some small inaccuracies when repeating them back to him, and he has corrected me immediately. Only a couple of times during my travels have I felt that I had reason to suspect that I was being purposefully deceived; but even in those cases I have afterwards found that my suspicions had been largely unwarranted. It is natural for a person to speak the truth if he has no reason to lie, and my teachers had every reason to stick to the truth as I could, generally speaking, easily verify what they had told me. It was with the schoolmaster in [Ulad Râfa] that I first tried this method on a larger scale, and I found him to be open-hearted and reliable. However, he was much given to pinching my pencils, candle stubs and other small items. In the end, I had to intervene and ordered a raid on his leather bag, and there I found a neat little museum. But this did not embarrass him in the least, and we remained just as good friends as before.
And in this way, week after week were spent in assiduous work, and one day was much like the other. It is hard to imagine life being more mundane than it was in [Ulad Râfa], and its nature was equally monotonous. The village was situated on a bare hill overlooking an immense, treeless plain without a trace of running water, and at its edge, my camp was located on a stony fallow field strewn with yellow marigolds. At times, it rained as though the sky had burst open and thunder rumbled; but halfway through March, the weather began to settle. Towards the end of the month, I therefore decided to depart after having stayed in [Ulad Râfa] for more than five weeks. It was also high time to leave the region. One family after the other had already moved away and pitched their tents somewhere else, and of the entire village, only a few tents remained near to mine. Safety became an uncertainty. One night, one of the Arab tents was robbed, and the master of the tent was badly hurt by the assailants, and it almost seemed as though they had harboured ill intentions toward my camp as well. One evening, close to nine o’clock, [ʿAbdŭlkrim] runs aghast into my tent, shouting that he has seen men lying in ambush behind a nearby cairn. Just then, some gunshots go off outside the tent; other than that I can only hear the howling of the storm, and I can see nothing for it is as dark as the grave out there. However, it was not as dangerous as it had sounded: the shots had been fired by my own people in order to scare away the robbers. [ʿAbdŭlkrim] bragged that he had shot one of them, but no-one believed it. Who knows if they had even existed outside of his imagination? In any case, we were compelled to stay awake until dawn; and a few days later we set off on the journey to [Marráksh].
Upon my arrival there, I was initially forced to pitch my tent in the very spot where I had been robbed three years before. I was then shown to a place in a small, out of the way marketplace, but it was just as hot and intolerable there; the heat in the tent rose to around forty degrees and the only delicacy that I brought with me, butter from [Dukkâla], flowed like oil. And there was nothing I could do before the sultan gave me permission to travel to the Great Atlas Mountains, the final destination on my journey. If I attempted to go there without such permission, I would in all certainty be apprehended by the first governor that heard speak of me and then sent back to [Marráksh]. That is what had happened a few years ago to the Englishman Cunninghame Graham, who had travelled of his own accord to the Atlas Mountains dressed in Moorish garb.
After a wait of ten days, I was finally ready. The Moorish foreign minister assigned me a mounted soldier, [Si Muhammed], as an escort, equipped with nine letters for the various places I intended to visit. The letters were written by the governors to their respective caliphs or deputies and sealed with the sultan’s seal; at the time, the governors themselves were assembled in [Marráksh] to offer their customary tribute to the sultan at the big sacrificial feast that was then under way. [Si Muhammed] brought with him a groom – a fairly mischievous youth – and so we formed a troop of eight persons in all, some on horseback and some on foot, which, on the afternoon of 8 April, set off through one of [Marráksh]’s city gates in the direction of the snow-clad chain of the Atlas Mountains.