The Sanatori Internacional de la Palmera was a sort of hotel of the next century. Everything in it was “en construction.” The managers, two little Marseillais, of the bull-dog type, spent almost all their time either in practising la boxe Marseillaise, in playing on the concertina, an instrument which, when I am in Europe (dans les pays policés), I fancy obsolete, but which, in days gone by, set my teeth often aching in the River Plate and in Brazil. After so many years when first again I heard its wheezy tones, upon a moonlight night in the Palmera, with camels resting under the great palm tree, and Arabs lying asleep, their faces covered in their haiks, horses and mules champing their corn, hyenas growling in the distance, jackals yelping, and the frogs croaking like silver cymbals, as they never croak to the north of latitude forty, it set me wondering why men must go about on a calm, clear night grinding an instrument to make their unoffending fellows’ stomachs ache. Besides the concertina and “la boxe” (Marseillaise), the brothers, curly-headed and pleasant little sons of La Joliette or La Cannebiere, devoutly entered everything into a ledger, large enough for Lombard Street, by double entry; and besides that had an infinity of talents de société, kept chameleons, understood botany, were cooks and linguists, speaking most languages including “petit nègre” quite fluently; were civil, educated, ignorant, and thoroughly good fellows to the full length of their respective five feet four and five feet seven inches.
The hotel was on a hill and had a view over a sand hill, on which grew oceans of white broom, dwarf rhododendrons, gum cistus, thyme (which in Morocco is a bush), and mignonette, and in whose thickets wild boars harboured and from which sand grouse flew whirring out. The owner of the place, a mighty sportsman, having slain more boars, and had more adventures in the slaying than any one, since Sir John Drummond Hay laid down his spear. Born in Mogador, of English or Gibraltarian parents, and speaking Spanish, English, Arabic, and Shillah quite without prejudice of one another, Mr. Ratto, known to his friends as “Pepe,” fills, in South Morocco, the place that Bibi Carleton fills in the north. No book upon Morocco is complete without a reference to both of them. How the thing comes about I do not know, but not unfrequently the sons of Europeans born in hot countries turn out failures, either in person or in mind, or both, but when the contrary occurs and the transplanting turns out well, the type is finer than is common in the mother country. Both of my types would, walking in a crowd in any town of Europe, attract attention. Tall, dark, brown-eyed, erect and lithe, clear brown complexions, open-handed and quick of apprehension, good horsemen, linguists, and yet perhaps not fitted to excel in England or in France, or any country where continuous work is necessary, they have had the sense to stay at home, and become as it were “Gauchos,” that is a sort of intermediate link between the Arab and the European, and at the same time to incorporate most of the virtues of the two races. Put them in Western Texas, Buenos Ayres, or South Africa, and they must have made fortunes; as it is both are as rich as kings when mounted on a good horse, a rifle in their hands, and a long road to travel for no special cause.
Not far away begins, sporadically, the district of the Argan Tree, [52] in fact, outside the door of the Palmera stands a small specimen, the roots almost uncovered and bent towards the east by the prevailing wind.
Not far away, still lives a patriarch of this restricted family, flat topped and gnarled and like a Baobab, its branches taking root all round the stem, and running on the ground for fully fifty feet, goats climbing on its limbs, snails clinging to the leaves, pieces of rag tied to the boughs by passing Arabs, reminding one of the Gualichu [53] tree in the South Pampa of Buenos Ayres. After long years of life it seems to rest, putting forth leaves and shoots, and bearing fruit, as if it were by habit, and as a protest against the decay which has overtaken all its fellows. The passing Arab, though he may break a branch to light his fire, still reverences it in a vague way, never forgetting as he passes to praise God for it, as if Allah had set it there to tell him of his power.
The choice of guides became a difficulty. Few men in Mogador cared to attempt a journey to Tarudant in company with a European, even though disguised. Arabs who knew the way were terrified at venturing alone into the territory of Berbers, and Arabs feared to be found out upon the road and put in prison by the Sultan’s governors.
All were agreed the journey was hazardous, although to what extent they were not sure. Sometimes in travelling in Arab countries it is possible to take a guide into a certain part, and then to get some tribesmen to accompany you. In our case this was impossible, as I could not speak Arabic sufficiently to pass off as a native of the place. Even to say I was a Georgian, a Circassian, or Bosnian, for any of which I might have passed as far as type goes, would have aroused suspicion, for why should an inhabitant of such a country journey to Tarudant?
Although the place I wished to visit is tabooed for Europeans, still Arabs, like other men, delight in doing what they know they should not do, with the full consciousness of doing wrong.
To the illiterate Moor or Arab nothing seems so wrong as to eat bacon, pork, or touch a pig, and yet at times they say “I ate some pork the other day, it was magnificent,” after the fashion that boys smoke at schools, pretend to like it, and are sick behind a hedge. An Arab says no wonder Christians are so red in the face and look so well, do they not feed on pork and drink strong wine? It seems to be implanted in the human mind that anything a man is bidden not to do, must, of necessity, be the one thing that if he did it, would make him happy all his life. If this be so, and clergymen (all of the highest moral standing) have assured me that is the case, surely the general consensus of the opinion of mankind is towards doing everything they like, and if that is the case it must be right, for anything which can secure a majority of votes is sent from heaven, for God himself is quite uncertain of the justice of his acts till men have voted on them.
Still, guides for such a journey did not abound. One was too old, a second too religious to go with Christians, or a third too big a rogue even to go with Christians; till at the last a man, Mohammed el Hosein, came forward of his own accord.
Report averred he was a slave-dealer, but the best muleteer in the country. In person he was thin and muscular, age thirty-eight, just married, a first-rate horseman, cunning and greedy, but to be depended on if once he gave his word. All his delight, as he himself informed me, was to drink green tea and smoke tobacco, and, therefore, like the old Scotch lady, who, when a cook was recommended to her for her good moral character, exclaimed, “Oh, damn her morals, can she mak guid broth?” I did not boggle at his slave-dealing, but took him on the spot. Strangely enough he had been employed by missionaries, who spoke well of his capacity touching his muleteership, but lamented over the hardness of his heart. By nationality he was a Berber, with the thin face, small eyes, and high cheekbones of all his race. He sang in Shillah, in a falsetto voice, a quavering air, both in and out of season, and seated on a mule, a packing needle in his hand to act as spur, got over more mortal leagues of country in a day than any other mule driver whom I remember this side of Mexico.
After the muleteer, came choice of roads, for three were open to us; the first along the coast passing the town of Agadhir. [55] This road is flat and sandy, and follows close to the coast right down to Agadhir, and by it Tarudant can easily be reached within five days from Mogador. The disadvantages of following this road were three; firstly, we had to pass the town of Agadhir, in which the Sultan had a governor; and secondly, Agadhir once passed, we had to traverse the country of the Howara tribe, which bears an evil name for turbulence. Journeying, as I proposed to do, in Moorish dress, two difficulties lay in my path. Firstly, I might be recognised, and if so recognised by an official of the central government I should have been turned back at once, as has already happened to other travellers