Morocco | Page 9

the groves that perfume the ancient town of Jaffa at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean. Now I have one more impression to cherish, and the scent of a blossoming orange tree will recall for me El Araish as I saw it at the moment when the shroud of evening made the mosques and the kasbah of Mulai al Yazeed melt, with the great white spaces between them, into a blurred pearly mass without salient feature.
[Illustration: MOORISH HOUSE, CAPE SPARTEL]
You shall still enjoy the sense of being in touch with past times and forgotten people, if you will walk the deck of a ship late at night. Your fellow-passengers are abed, the watch, if watch there be, is invisible, the steady throbbing movement of the screw resolves itself into a pleasing rhythmic melody. So far as the senses can tell, the world is your closet, a silent pleasaunce for your waking dreams. The coast-line has no lights, nor is any other vessel passing over the waters within range of eye or glass. The hosts of heaven beam down upon a silent universe in which you are the only waking soul. On a sudden eight bells rings out sharply from the forecastle head, and you spring back from your world of fancy as hurriedly as Cinderella returned to her rags when long-shore midnight chimed. The officer of the middle watch and a hand for the wheel come aft to relieve their companions, the illusion has passed, and you go below to turn in, feeling uncomfortably sure that your pretty thoughts will appear foolish and commonplace enough when regarded in the matter-of-fact light of the coming day.
D��r el Baida, most Moorish of seaports, received us in the early morning. The wind had fallen, and the heavy surf-boats of the port could land us easily. We went on shore past the water-gate and the custom-house that stands on the site of the stores erected by the society of the Gremios Majores when Charles V. ruled Spain. D��r el Baida seemed to have straggled over as much ground as Tangier, but the ground itself was flat and full of refuse. The streets were muddy and unpaved, cobble stones strove ineffectually to disguise drains, and one felt that the sea breezes alone stood between the city and some such virulent epidemic as that which smote Tangier less than ten years ago. But withal there was a certain picturesque quality about D��r el Baida that atoned for more obvious faults, and the market-place afforded a picture as Eastern in its main features as the tired Western eye could seek. Camel caravans had come in from the interior for the Monday market. They had tramped from the villages of the Zair and the Beni Hassan tribes, bringing ripe barley for sale, though the spring months had not yet passed. From places near at hand the husbandmen had brought all the vegetables that flourish after the March rains,--peas and beans and lettuces; pumpkins, carrots and turnips, and the tender leaves of the date-palm. The first fruits of the year and the dried roses of a forgotten season were sold by weight, and charcoal was set in tiny piles at prices within the reach of the poorest customers.
Wealthy merchants had brought their horses within the shadow of the sok's[6] high walls and loosened the many-clothed saddles. Slaves walked behind their masters or trafficked on their behalf. The snake-charmer, the story-teller, the beggar, the water-carrier, the incense seller, whose task in life is to fumigate True Believers, all who go to make the typical Moorish crowd, were to be seen indolently plying their trade. But inquiries for mules, horses, and servants for the inland journey met with no ready response. D��r el Baida, I was assured, had nothing to offer; Djedida, lower down along the coast, might serve, or Saffi, if Allah should send weather of a sort that would permit the boat to land.
[Illustration: A PATRIARCH]
As it happened, Djedida was the steamer's next port of call, so we made haste to return to her hospitable decks. I carried with me a vivid impression of D��r el Baida, of the market-place with its varied goods, and yet more varied people, the white Arabs, the darker Berbers, the black slaves from the Soudan and the Draa. Noticeable in the market were the sweet stores, where every man sat behind his goods armed with a feather brush, and waged ceaseless war with the flies, while a corner of his eye was kept for small boys, who were well nigh as dangerous. I remember the gardens, one particularly well. It belongs to the French Consul, and has bananas growing on the trees that face the road; from beyond the hedge one caught delightful glimpses of colour and faint breaths of exquisite perfume.
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