Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Full Ebook of White Lady Lost 1St Edition Maggi Andersen Online PDF All Chapter
Full Ebook of White Lady Lost 1St Edition Maggi Andersen Online PDF All Chapter
Andersen
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/white-lady-lost-1st-edition-maggi-andersen/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
https://ebookmeta.com/product/a-lost-lady-willa-cather/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/digital-afterlife-and-the-
spiritual-realm-1st-edition-maggi-savin-baden/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/t-helper-cells-francesco-
annunziato-laura-maggi-alessio-mazzoni/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-king-1st-edition-christopher-
andersen/
Cryptid Club 1st Edition Sarah Andersen
https://ebookmeta.com/product/cryptid-club-1st-edition-sarah-
andersen/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/tales-from-hans-andersen-pearson-
english-readers-level-2-2nd-edition-hans-andersen/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-dinner-lady-detectives-dinner-
lady-detectives-1-hannah-hendy/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/wolf-laws-1st-edition-lacey-carter-
andersen/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/dragon-lady-1st-edition-alex-fox/
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
signet of Joab, who was sent to collect tribute from them in the time
of the son of David.
In 1844 there still existed an ancient inscription in Hebrew graven
on a stone in the Dra country, which was said to be as follows: עד כאן
הגיץ יואב בן צרויה לקבל המסwhich is interpreted thus, ‘So far as this
place came Joab Ben (son of) Serruia to receive the tribute.’
Joab, chief of the army of King David, is called in the recognised
translation of the Bible ‘the son of Zeruiah.’
A drunken Rabbi, named Judah Azalia, called on me the other
day; he has been travelling for three years in the southern districts of
Morocco, and he visited also many of the towns and villages
bordering on the Great Desert beyond Dra, which province you will
find marked in the map. Judah was half intoxicated, as usual, when
he visited me, and he left Tangier before I could entrap him in a
sober moment. Judah had travelled much in the East, had read a
number of curious old books, and was full of traditions he had picked
up in the interior of this country; but all he told me was in such a
jumbled state that I could not retain it, but requested the learned and
drunken Rabbi to commit to paper the subject-matter of our
conversation.
I send you a translation of the Hebrew original.
From the preface you will expect much; but, alas! there is only the
phantom of a skeleton, whose doubtful apparition leaves us big with
fancies and uncertainty. The man knows nothing of geography or
history, except the Bible.
You will be struck with the tradition of the Jews of the interior
respecting the tribe of Naphtali, the tombs, &c. I regret he has
curtailed greatly his verbal statements; for, amongst other curious
matter, he told me of a burial-ground of the Jews in the interior—
some mile or mile and a half in circumference.
The story about the Israelite warriors is curious, but the staining of
the hair before battle looks more like the Goths.
Judah supposes that Wadan is much nearer the Red Sea than it
really is; but if the Naphtali tribes fled from captivity, through Central
Africa, towards Dra and the South of Morocco, one of the first towns
or villages at which they would have found means of subsistence,
would have been Wadden or Yaden.
The names of the places and towns are so different from those
given in our maps, as indeed they always appear to be when
mentioned by natives of the interior, that I can hardly recognise
them, and have no time just now to refer to my maps of Africa.
Judah has promised to send me a further memorandum, but the
fumes of ‘agua ardiente’ will, I fear, stifle all recollection of his
promise.
Mulai Hashem, a native of Tafilelt, tells me that the Jews are very
numerous in his country. He says there are two races of Jews
among them, one race has been in Tafilelt since eight years previous
to the Hegira of Mohammed, the other having been brought in by a
chief named Mulai Ali, the son of Mulai Hassan.
Mulai Ali, says my informant, had purchased these Jews from
some distant country of the East—where he found them in great
distress—and he gave fifty pieces of money for each: what money
he does not know.
Mulai Hashem says that these two races are thus distinguished.
The older race have the whole head shaved. The colony brought by
Mulai Ali leave a small segment of a circle unshaved on the top of
the forehead. These latter also wear a black cap, somewhat pointed
at the top, where it is made to curl down on one side of the face.
The Jewesses are not dressed like those that live in Tangier, but
in the costume of the Moorish woman, and wear rich dresses with
jewels. They are however to be distinguished from the Moorish
woman by the arrangement of their hair, which the latter draw
backwards from either side of the forehead over the temples to the
back of the head; whereas the Jewesses (unmarried) twist their hair
in circles on the top of the head. The married Jewesses are not
allowed by the law to show their hair. This law, by the way, is not
from the Bible, but is an invention of the Rabbis.
The Jews, said Mulai Hashem, are well treated in Tafilelt, whilst
they behave well and according to the rules laid down for them;
which, by the specimen of one that he gave, appear sufficiently
humiliating—viz. that should a Jew pass or be passed by a Sheríf,
he, the Jew, must take off his shoes; or, if mounted, must dismount,
unless specially absolved by the Sheríf.
He tells me that they exercise all the crafts which are practised in
the country, except tilling the soil. It appears that the Jews
themselves seldom, if ever, accompany the ‘kafilas’ (caravans), but,
he says, they have commercial dealings with the Sudan country.
It would appear that the Tafilelt Jews are much at their ease, if
one may judge from the joking adage—according to Mulai Hashem
common in Tafilelt—that ‘forty Mohammedans work for one Jew.’
Mulai Hashem said that the Filali Jews, or Jews of Tafilelt, speak the
Shloh tongue as well as the Arabic, and whenever they wish to say
what they would not have known to Moors or others they speak in
Hebrew.
A learned Jew of this country tells me that all Arabs and Moors
whose names are composed with Ben are of an Israelitish origin.
Mulai Hashem tells me that the following oath is administered in
his country to the Jews, and that they will rather give back anything
they may have come by unjustly than take so grave an oath:—
‘By God, there is no other God but He, the Eternal and Just—who
uttered His word upon the mighty hill—and by the truth of the
existence of the two palm-trees which meet together over the river
Sebts, and by the Book of Moses—peace be upon him—and by the
Ten Commandments delivered unto Moses, and by all that is
contained in his Book, the Gadi, God forbid that I should add or
diminish in this affair, else may God destroy my memory, and may
the name of my family be never mentioned in the world.’
Sebts is the Arabic for Sabbath, and is here applied to the fabled
river called by the Jews Sabbatyon.
It is not clear what is meant by Gadi.
A Jewish Rabbi, named Benshiten, tells me that two and a half
tribes of Israel are the portion which make up the number of Jews
that are found in Europe and Africa—and the remaining nine and a
half are found to exist on the East of a river which is named
Sabbatyon, and is said to be to the East of Mecca. This river, said
he, has the peculiarity of the stones in its bed fighting with each
other all the week excepting the Sabbath, on which day Hebrews
cannot travel; so that the nine and a half tribes cannot communicate
with their separated brethren.
Mr. Hay, it may be added, was the first to break through some of
the despotic rules imposed by the Moors on the Jews. On his arrival
at Tangier in 1844 the Hebrew interpreters attached to the different
Consulates were obliged to remove—as did their brethren—their
slippers on passing a mosque or other sanctuary. When he paid his
visit of ceremony to the Basha, on succeeding his father as Consul-
General and Political Agent, Mr. Hay went, according to the custom
of those days, in full uniform. He was accompanied by his staff, of
which one member—the Interpreter, Mr. David Sicsu—was a Jew, a
shrewd and able man, who had been attached for some years to the
British Consulate. On their way to the Basha’s residence they
passed the great mosque. Mr. Hay noticed that Sicsu stopped and
took off his shoes; so turning, he called out to him in a loud voice,
that all might hear, ‘What are you doing? Put on your shoes.
Remember you are an English employé and, as such, have all the
privileges of British subjects. If ever you do that again, I shall dismiss
you.’
Also, on his first visit to the Sultan’s Court, in 1846, Mr. Hay
insisted on his Jewish interpreters being allowed to ride about the
capital on mule-back, and to enjoy the same rights and privileges as
granted to other members of his staff.
It is only within the last thirty years that Jews in Morocco—not
foreign employés or protected subjects—have been allowed to
assume the European dress, or to wear yellow slippers or red caps
when in native costume. Formerly they were compelled to confine
themselves to black slippers and caps and the Jewish gaberdine.
CHAPTER X.
The Moors have returned, delighted with their visit to the land of the
Nazarenes. Around my house, groups of respectable men may be seen listening
to the wondrous tales of Kaid Abd-el-Kerim or of my groom. The old chief hunter,
Hadj Abdallah, sits in his village—amidst a motley crowd of Arabs and Rifians—
telling them of the magnificence and wonders of London, and the kindness the
poor Moors received, from the Queen down to the servants that assisted them. He
proclaims loudly to the astonished fanatics that power, wealth, honesty, and charity
are to be found in the land of the Infidel and not in the land of the Moslem.
The Hadj tells me that at one time he had almost lost his reason in thinking
over what he had seen. His stories have amused me as much as they do the
Moors, and I have been almost inclined to publish the ‘Travels of the Hadj,’ or get
my brother to do so, as I am rather lazy about writing when it is not a duty.
All the Moors talk much of the Queen and Prince Albert, who they declare sent
for them more than once. So England and the English are in the mouth of every
Moor since the return of the travellers.
When relations between France and Morocco were in a critical condition and a
declaration of war seemed imminent, the Sultan sent for Abd-el-Hadi, the Kadi of
his Capital, said to be the wisest man in Morocco, and asked him what he was to
reply to the demands of the French.
‘Refuse the infidel,’ said Abd-el-Hadi. ‘Order the destruction of all your ports;
blow up the fortifications; let every man arm and become, as were his ancestors, a
wandering Arab, and then tell the French to do their worst!’
When Abd-el-Hadi had retired, the Sultan turned to his Uzir and said, ‘The Kadi
ought to have added—Abdicate, encourage anarchy and revolution, and destroy at
once the Empire.’
It may be surmised, however, that Abd-el-Hadi was a wiser man than he
appears. Desirous of humouring his lord and master by recommending war, he yet
put his advice in a light which would show the Sultan the folly of resisting the
French.
Not only was the residence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs at El
Araish most inconvenient at all times to the Representatives—all of
whom lived at Tangier—but it necessitated, as has been seen,
frequent hurried journeys on their part to that port.
On one such occasion, Mr. Hay had proceeded to El Araish by
land to interview Sid Buselham, and had succeeded in getting from
him a reply, which he desired to forward at once to head-quarters by
one of the rare steamers to England due to leave Tangier next
morning. In expectation of this he had, on his way to El Araish,
arranged that four relays of horses were to await his return at
different points of the road between that town and Tangier, a
distance of sixty miles—and, as soon as he had obtained the
Minister’s signature, he mounted and dashed off homewards.
The Governor of El Araish, anxious for the British Agent’s safety
in those troubled times, had given orders that a mounted escort
should also await him with every fresh horse and follow him on the
road. These, however, were unable to keep pace with him. On arrival
at the little town of Azaila, situated about halfway between Tangier
and El Araish, he found no horse prepared for him. Riding at once to
the British Consular Agent’s house, Mr. Hay demanded his horse.
The Agent, a Jew, explained that it was locked up in the stable of the
Basha, who was away, and that the groom was not to be found.
‘Take me to the stable,’ said Mr. Hay, and, calling to four men of the
little crowd of idlers that had gathered, he ordered them to lift a large
log of wood which lay near and direct it as a ram against the door.
‘Now, all together,’ said Mr. Hay. Down came the door with a crash,
and quickly putting his saddle on the fresh horse, and throwing
money to the Agent to repay the damage to the door, he mounted
and rode on.
Before reaching the river Mishra-el-Hashef, some miles to the
west of Tangier, he found his own sturdy pony awaiting him, and
riding this, his favourite mount, he galloped to the river bank where
the ferry, rowed by two men, awaited him. Shouting to them to stand
clear, he jumped his pony into the boat, and out again on reaching
the further side. He arrived at Tangier having ridden the whole
distance in five hours.
The escorts appointed to accompany him returned to their
quarters, having failed to keep Mr. Hay in sight. ‘It was useless,’ said
they. ‘We galloped along behind him but he ran away from us, and
as soon as he had gone a little way ahead he spread large wings
and flew away with his horse!’
As Mr. Hay wore a loose Inverness cape, to protect him from sun
and weather, the fluttering of this may have suggested the idea of
wings.
An account of a curious and unpleasant adventure which befell
Mr. Hay, and which points to the unsettled and fanatical state of the
inhabitants of Tangier at that time is given in the following letter to his
wife’s sister, Mme. Marcussen.
I am glad to find that the straightforward course I have always pursued with this
Government—though often not very flattering to their vanity and fanaticism—
begins to be understood and appreciated, rather than the cajolery they are
accustomed to meet with from others.
The French bombarded Salli on the 25th ult., without giving any notice to us
here or to the Sultan or his Government. Not much harm is done to the town: some
thirteen persons killed in all, and the French have five killed and thirty wounded.
One of their steam frigates was compelled to retire from the combat. After the
bombardment they came here, and all the petty affairs they had to settle were
settled at once—as they would have been before the bombardment if they would
only have been inclined to arrange matters amicably. They saluted the town and
peace was concluded. A reference was then made to the Sultan. His Majesty
accepts the peace, but asks for explanations about bombardment; so B.[22] has
taken umbrage and embarks with all the French subjects, or most of them, leaving
the French flag flying and the Sardinian Consul-General in charge. It has been
mere bullying; the strong trampling on the weak.
I have been very busy, and have been compelled to suspend all relations with
the Moorish Court—though I do not strike my flag. I have given them ten days in
which to give way, and have no doubt they will. My demands have reference to our
rights in trade in this country, which we are anxious to place on a better footing, not
only for Great Britain but for Morocco itself and all countries.
The Moorish Government have announced that they send an Envoy to
England; and his object, it is reported, is to complain of the insistance and audacity
which I have shown in this negotiation. I am delighted at this manœuvre because it
will only tend finally to show these people I am acting up to my instructions and the
views of Government. So much for Moorish politics.
LIFE AT TANGIER.
Mr. Hay had married, in 1845, a daughter of Mr. Carstensen, a
former Danish Consul-General to Morocco. Except when the
exigencies of a climate which proved very trying in summer for
children of northern race compelled him to send them home, he, with
his wife and young family, resided either at the old Government
House in Tangier or in a villa called by him ‘The Wilderness,’ outside
the walls, which had belonged to his father-in-law. This existence
was only varied by missions to the Court or occasional visits to
England. Beyond the very small European society, composed chiefly
of the various Representatives and their families, residence in
Tangier offered no occupation for the leisure hours of a young and
active man. Thrown therefore on the resources of sport, he mingled
constantly with the wilder natives of the hills as well as with the less
uncivilised farmers and agricultural peasantry of the plains. His
interest in these folk grew, and he gained their respect and even
affection.
Justice amongst these people, when regarded from a purely
personal point of view, as Mr. Hay found, often took rather a romantic
than a strictly logical form. But his hope was to gain the hearts of the
natives, and he knew that such an aim was best attained by bending
in some cases to such national prejudices and customs as those
which are illustrated in the following letter to his mother.
The promise made by the robber was faithfully kept, and Mr. Hay
reaped the reward of his leniency in after years, as, by this clan at
least, his property was always respected.
An indefatigable sportsman, Mr. Hay delighted in expeditions into
remote districts of the country in pursuit of game. It was thus in part
that he acquired his intimate knowledge of the character of the
people. Brought into personal contact with the wild tribesmen, in
circumstances which strongly appealed to their natural chivalry, he
gained an influence among them which he was often able to turn to
useful account. A good illustration of his power of dealing with the
native races is afforded by his suppression of piracy among the
Rifians. The story is told in his own words.
Before the year 1856, vessels becalmed on the Rif coast between
the Algerian frontier and the Spanish fortress Peñon, which is
situated about sixty miles to the eastward of the Moorish port of
Tetuan, were frequently captured by Rifian ‘karebs,’ large galleys
manned by thirty or forty men, armed with long guns, pistols, and
daggers.
When a vessel becalmed, drawn by the current, approached the
Rif coast, especially in the vicinity of the village of Benibugaffer, near
Cape ‘Tres Forcas,’ about fifteen miles to the westward of the
Spanish fortress of Melilla, the natives launched their ‘karebs,’
hidden in nooks on the rocky coast, or buried under sand, and set
out in pursuit, firing volleys as they neared the vessel. The crew, if
they had not escaped in the ship’s boats when the piratical craft
hove in sight, were made prisoners, but were not in general ill-
treated unless they attempted to offer resistance.
On landing, they were compelled to labour in the fields, receiving
a daily allowance of very coarse food. The captured vessel was rifled
of cargo and rigging, and then burnt, so as to leave no vestige.
In the year 1851 a British vessel was taken by the ‘karebs’ of
Benibugaffer.
In pursuance of instructions from H.M.’s Government, a strong
representation was made by me to the Sultan of Morocco, then Mulai
Abderahman, demanding that the pirates should be chastised, that
compensation should be given to the owner of the vessel, and that
energetic steps should be taken by His Sherifian Majesty to put a
stop to these piratical acts of his lawless subjects of the Rif.
The Sultan, on the receipt of this demand, dispatched officers
from his Court to the Rif country with a Sherifian edict to the
chieftains, directing that the sums demanded for the destruction of