The Innocents Abroad

Chapter 9

About the first adventure we had yesterday afternoon, after landing here,

came near finishing that heedless Blucher. We had just mounted some

mules and asses and started out under the guardianship of the stately,

the princely, the magnificent Hadji Muhammad Lamarty (may his tribe

increase!) when we came upon a fine Moorish mosque, with tall tower, rich

with checker-work of many-colored porcelain, and every part and portion

of the edifice adorned with the quaint architecture of the Alhambra, and

Blucher started to ride into the open doorway. A startling "Hi-hi!" from

our camp followers and a loud "Halt!" from an English gentleman in the

party checked the adventurer, and then we were informed that so dire a

profanation is it for a Christian dog to set foot upon the sacred

threshold of a Moorish mosque that no amount of purification can ever

make it fit for the faithful to pray in again. Had Blucher succeeded in

entering the place, he would no doubt have been chased through the town

and stoned; and the time has been, and not many years ago, either, when a

Christian would have been most ruthlessly slaughtered if captured in a

mosque. We caught a glimpse of the handsome tessellated pavements within

and of the devotees performing their ablutions at the fountains, but even

that we took that glimpse was a thing not relished by the Moorish

bystanders.

Some years ago the clock in the tower of the mosque got out of order.

The Moors of Tangier have so degenerated that it has been long since

there was an artificer among them capable of curing so delicate a patient

as a debilitated clock. The great men of the city met in solemn conclave

to consider how the difficulty was to be met. They discussed the matter

thoroughly but arrived at no solution. Finally, a patriarch arose and

said:

"Oh, children of the Prophet, it is known unto you that a Portuguee dog

of a Christian clock mender pollutes the city of Tangier with his

presence. Ye know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses bear the

stones and the cement, and cross the sacred threshold. Now, therefore,

send the Christian dog on all fours, and barefoot, into the holy place to

mend the clock, and let him go as an ass!"

And in that way it was done. Therefore, if Blucher ever sees the inside

of a mosque, he will have to cast aside his humanity and go in his

natural character. We visited the jail and found Moorish prisoners

making mats and baskets. (This thing of utilizing crime savors of

civilization.) Murder is punished with death. A short time ago three

murderers were taken beyond the city walls and shot. Moorish guns are

not good, and neither are Moorish marksmen. In this instance they set up

the poor criminals at long range, like so many targets, and practiced on

them--kept them hopping about and dodging bullets for half an hour before

they managed to drive the center.

When a man steals cattle, they cut off his right hand and left leg and

nail them up in the marketplace as a warning to everybody. Their surgery

is not artistic. They slice around the bone a little, then break off the

limb. Sometimes the patient gets well; but, as a general thing, he

don't. However, the Moorish heart is stout. The Moors were always

brave. These criminals undergo the fearful operation without a wince,

without a tremor of any kind, without a groan! No amount of suffering

can bring down the pride of a Moor or make him shame his dignity with a

cry.

Here, marriage is contracted by the parents of the parties to it. There

are no valentines, no stolen interviews, no riding out, no courting in

dim parlors, no lovers' quarrels and reconciliations--no nothing that is

proper to approaching matrimony. The young man takes the girl his father

selects for him, marries her, and after that she is unveiled, and he sees

her for the first time. If after due acquaintance she suits him, he

retains her; but if he suspects her purity, he bundles her back to her

father; if he finds her diseased, the same; or if, after just and

reasonable time is allowed her, she neglects to bear children, back she

goes to the home of her childhood.

Muhammadans here who can afford it keep a good many wives on hand. They

are called wives, though I believe the Koran only allows four genuine

wives--the rest are concubines. The Emperor of Morocco don't know how

many wives he has, but thinks he has five hundred. However, that is near

enough--a dozen or so, one way or the other, don't matter.

Even the Jews in the interior have a plurality of wives.

I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several Moorish women (for they

are only human, and will expose their faces for the admiration of a

Christian dog when no male Moor is by), and I am full of veneration for

the wisdom that leads them to cover up such atrocious ugliness.

They carry their children at their backs, in a sack, like other savages

the world over.

Many of the n*****s are held in slavery by the Moors. But the moment a

female slave becomes her master's concubine her bonds are broken, and as

soon as a male slave can read the first chapter of the Koran (which

contains the creed) he can no longer be held in bondage.

They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The Muhammadans' comes on

Friday, the Jews' on Saturday, and that of the Christian Consuls on

Sunday. The Jews are the most radical. The Moor goes to his mosque

about noon on his Sabbath, as on any other day, removes his shoes at the

door, performs his ablutions, makes his salaams, pressing his forehead to

the pavement time and again, says his prayers, and goes back to his work.

But the Jew shuts up shop; will not touch copper or bronze money at all;

soils his fingers with nothing meaner than silver and gold; attends the

synagogue devoutly; will not cook or have anything to do with fire; and

religiously refrains from embarking in any enterprise.

The Moor who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is entitled to high

distinction. Men call him Hadji, and he is thenceforward a great

personage. Hundreds of Moors come to Tangier every year and embark for

Mecca. They go part of the way in English steamers, and the ten or

twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all the trip costs. They

take with them a quantity of food, and when the commissary department

fails they "skirmish," as Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way. From

the time they leave till they get home again, they never wash, either on

land or sea. They are usually gone from five to seven months, and as

they do not change their clothes during all that time, they are totally

unfit for the drawing room when they get back.

Many of them have to rake and scrape a long time to gather together the

ten dollars their steamer passage costs, and when one of them gets back

he is a bankrupt forever after. Few Moors can ever build up their

fortunes again in one short lifetime after so reckless an outlay. In

order to confine the dignity of Hadji to gentlemen of patrician blood and

possessions, the Emperor decreed that no man should make the pilgrimage

save bloated aristocrats who were worth a hundred dollars in specie. But

behold how iniquity can circumvent the law! For a consideration, the

Jewish money-changer lends the pilgrim one hundred dollars long enough

for him to swear himself through, and then receives it back before the

ship sails out of the harbor!

Spain is the only nation the Moors fear. The reason is that Spain sends

her heaviest ships of war and her loudest guns to astonish these Muslims,

while America and other nations send only a little contemptible tub of a

gunboat occasionally. The Moors, like other savages, learn by what they

see, not what they hear or read. We have great fleets in the

Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African ports. The Moors have a

small opinion of England, France, and America, and put their

representatives to a deal of red-tape circumlocution before they grant

them their common rights, let alone a favor. But the moment the Spanish

minister makes a demand, it is acceded to at once, whether it be just or

not.

Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, about a disputed piece

of property opposite Gibraltar, and captured the city of Tetouan. She

compromised on an augmentation of her territory, twenty million dollars'

indemnity in money, and peace. And then she gave up the city. But she

never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten up all the cats.

They would not compromise as long as the cats held out. Spaniards are

very fond of cats. On the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as

something sacred. So the Spaniards touched them on a tender point that

time. Their unfeline conduct in eating up all the Tetouan cats aroused a

hatred toward them in the breasts of the Moors, to which even the driving

them out of Spain was tame and passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes

forever now. France had a minister here once who embittered the nation

against him in the most innocent way. He killed a couple of battalions

of cats (Tangier is full of them) and made a parlor carpet out of their

hides. He made his carpet in circles--first a circle of old gray

tomcats, with their tails all pointing toward the center; then a circle

of yellow cats; next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones;

then a circle of all sorts of cats; and, finally, a centerpiece of

assorted kittens. It was very beautiful, but the Moors curse his memory

to this day.

When we went to call on our American Consul General today I noticed that

all possible games for parlor amusement seemed to be represented on his

center tables. I thought that hinted at lonesomeness. The idea was

correct. His is the only American family in Tangier. There are many

foreign consuls in this place, but much visiting is not indulged in.

Tangier is clear out of the world, and what is the use of visiting when

people have nothing on earth to talk about? There is none. So each

consul's family stays at home chiefly and amuses itself as best it can.

Tangier is full of interest for one day, but after that it is a weary

prison. The Consul General has been here five years, and has got enough

of it to do him for a century, and is going home shortly. His family

seize upon their letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them over

and over again for two days or three, talk them over and over again for

two or three more till they wear them out, and after that for days

together they eat and drink and sleep, and ride out over the same old

road, and see the same old tiresome things that even decades of centuries

have scarcely changed, and say never a single word! They have literally

nothing whatever to talk about. The arrival of an American man-of-war is

a godsend to them. "O Solitude, where are the charms which sages have

seen in thy face?" It is the completest exile that I can conceive of.

I would seriously recommend to the government of the United States that

when a man commits a crime so heinous that the law provides no adequate

punishment for it, they make him Consul General to Tangier.

I am glad to have seen Tangier--the second-oldest town in the world. But

I am ready to bid it good-bye, I believe.

We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in the morning, and

doubtless the Quaker City will sail from that port within the next

forty-eight hours.