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IN MOROCCO
WITH GENERAL D'AMADE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A SUBALTERN'S LETTERS TO
HIS WIFE
(THE BOER WAR)
Seventh Thousand. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
THE NIBELUNGEN RING
By Richard Wagner. Done into English Verse
by Reginald Rankin, B.A.
Vol. I. RHINE GOLD, AND VALKYRIE.
Kcp. 8vo, gilt top, 4s. 6d.
„ II. SIEGFRIED, AND THE TWILIGHT
OF THE GODS. Fcp. 8vo, gilt top,
4s. 6d.
LONG.MANS, GREEN AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
Xa^ ,<1^/^— ^
'^-/^i-*-^*^^
IN MOROCCO
WITH
GENERAL D'AMADE
BY
REGINALD RANKIN, F.R.G.S.
LATE WAR CORRESPONDENT FOR THE TIMES
AUTHOR OF "A SUBALTERN'S LETTERS TO HIS WIFE," ETC. ETC.
WITH 35 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
AND A MAP
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1908
All rights reserved
Id k.
K
TO
M. LE GENERAL
COMTE D^AMADE
COMMANDANT DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR, C.V.O., ETC. ETC.
LATE MILITARY ATTACH^ IN LONDON AND IN SOUTH AFRICA
THESE PAGES ARE, BY PERMISSION,
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
" The Government not only had every confidence in
General d'Amade, but was grateful to him for his
hrilliant campaign, and for the services he had ren-
dered." — M. PicHON, Minister f
;
::;
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2
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hH
W
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r-i
THE TAKING OF SETTAT r.9
little horse I watched standing sadly beside a
master who had mounted him for the last time.
In the middle of the firing-line, refusing to
be driven away, a baby donkey was gambolling.
The doudr he knew was a charred ruin ; his
human friends were gone ; I saw him poke his
nose into a Tirailleur's hand. The town now
lay below us on the left, but the fire from the
entrenched camp on the ridge in front was heavy.
While the infantry gained the near kasbah,
fluttering with white flags and deserted by all
but greybeards and women, whose shrill ululalus
— a long tremolo on a high note — sounded above
the noises of the fight, the cavalry were sent on
to the ridge, and charging they cut down forty
of the fugitives. A lad of fifteen was among
them ; a Chasseur was about to despatch him
when his officer humanely intervened, wishing
to spare a boy's life. The latter pulled a dagger
from beneath his cloak and hurled it at his pro-
tector. Fortunately no harm befell him ; the
weapon went through his clothes, grazed his ribs,
and stuck out behind his back ; while half-a-dozen
sabres made an end of his assailant.
I went down the hill into the town with the
firing-line, and here it was that M. Rdginald
Kann, the well-known war correspondent of the
Temps, so narrowly escaped death. Within a
hundred yards of the walls, from behind which
the enemy still kept up a hot fire, his saddle
70 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
shifted, and he got off to put it right. A native
marksman saw his chance, and took three de-
liberate shots at him. They missed M. Kann,
but the last struck and mortally wounded a
soldier who was passing within a foot of him.
His many friends all over the world will rejoice
at the escape of so brilliant a journalist and so
brave a man.
Then the bugles sounded the pas de charge;
the infantry fixed bayonets, and cheering rushed
into the city. All the men except the Jews
had fled. Great numbers of these swarmed out
of their dens, with servile bows and smiles, and
their w^omen came and kissed the hems of our
garments.
The gallant Colonel Passard, always in front,
hoisted the French flag over the central kasbah,
while from the hills on the east the discomfited
Arabs fired aimlessly into their lost city. It was
now two o'clock, and the troops had to march
twenty miles before they had finished their
work. General d'Amade had been hard pressed
in his advance up the valley of the Mousa with
his four hundred ; and the enveloping fire of
the enemy had lost him eight men in a quarter
of an hour. To support the General, therefore,
the conquerors of Settat were withdrawn down
the valley, and there it was that the Zouaves
charged up hill against a fort full of tribesmen,
and put them all to the bayonet. The day was
THE TAKING OF SETTAT 71
now won ; Settat was taken ; the Arabs were
everywhere put to flight ; at least a hundred and
fifty of their dead lay upon the field. It was
four o'clock in the afternoon, the troops had been
marching and fighting since eleven the night
before; " mangez vos sardines" came the order,
and the force rested for ten minutes on the
heights white with sparaxis. Then the home-
ward march began ; the great square re-formed,
and the gallant French troops set out across the
darkening fields towards Ber Kechid. No enemy
ventured to molest them : at one in the morning
of Thursday, the 16th of January, with none but
wounded men in the ambulances, the French in-
fantry, after twenty-six hours' continuous marching
and fighting, rejoined their comrades.
It was a great performance, of which France
may well be proud.
THE TRADE OF CASABLANCA
During the whole of the first part of the nine-
teenth century the trade of Casablanca was in
French and Spanish hands. It was not until
about 1855 that English traders began to settle
there, but by 1870 England had won the place at
the head of the trade of the first port in Morocco
whicli she still retains. It is true that Germany
has made great advances here during the last
thirty years ; but though, according to the latest
official reports, the bulk of the exports from Casa-
blanca go to German ports, they are often sent
thither by English houses. The reason is that
the cereals which form the staple of the export
trade have of late years fetched better prices at
Hamburg than in England. In the case of barley
more especially it was the imports from Morocco
which in 1907 kept down the price of Russian
barley on the German market.
As regards the import trade, it may be said
that there is little or no competition between
France and England. The French hold the mono-
poly for sugar and silks, the English for tea and
cotton goods ; Belgium rules the iron market, and
divides that for candles with England. The Ger-
mans, on the other hand, here as elsewhere, deal
72
THE TRADE OF CASAREANCA 73
in every class of cheap manufactured goods, and
consequently would be hard hit were the French
to introduce a preferential tariff in their own
favour. The Spaniards, whose oil and wines com-
pete with those of France, would also feel the
effects of any such policy. The German houses in
Morocco are, as a rule, only agencies, and do not
trade with their own capital. They, moreover,
give the natives very long credit in order to work
up a business, but as they have to do with very
litigious customers, who are also far from being
prompt payers, the German traders are placed at
a comparative disadvantage.
It is true that the young Germans who come
out to Casablanca as clerks to acquire a thorough
knowledge of the country and of the language,
form a nucleus of youths who are well pre-
pared to found firms throughout the land, and
thus bring into being tendencies which, in time,
will give Germany a very appreciable commercial
advantage. There are only two Englishmen under
thirty years of age in business at Casablanca at the
present time.
In this connection it should be remembered that
to the Moors the buyer is the most important per-
son in the firm, and that he ranks in their eyes far
above its principal. A countryman who has come
in to sell his grain will ask for Don So-and-so, who
is the agent of an English firm, and if he cannot
come to terms with him he will go on to another
74 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
buyer, instead of addressing himself to the agent's
employer. Consequently the German youths who
are now commencing their business life in Casa-
blanca in subordinate positions have far better
opportunities of getting into touch with the natives
than any man trained in England and coming out
in later life possibly can have, and thus it is pro-
bable that, unless the condition of Morocco became
such as to induce large investors to interest them-
selves in Moroccan undertakings, far more small
businesses will in future be started there by Ger-
mans than by Englishmen. This is the real reason
which induced Germany to stand up for the open
door in a country where Germans can settle as well
as trade. Count Tattenbach, now German Ambas-
sador at Madrid, must have the credit for having
pointed this out to his Government at least sixteen
years ago ; and it must not be forgotten that this
determined the line of policy which Germany has
subsequently followed in Morocco.
We must remember that the Hinterland of
Casablanca, which forms the province of Chaouiya,
is an agricultural and ranching district. Cereals,
skins, and wool form the staples of its export trade,
which also includes coriander seed, cinnamon, fennel,
canary and linseed, as well as maize, lentils, and
chickpeas. Until the Act of Algeciras the export
of wheat and barley from Morocco was prohibited,
for the reason that it was absolutely necessary in a
country where communications are difficult and the
THE TRADE OF CASABLANCA 75
inhabitants void of foresight to prevent the distant
districts being stripped by an excessive export of
the stock of grain which they absolutely require.
The same reasons induced the Sultan up to 190G
to forbid the exportation of transport animals and
cattle, a rule which, owing to various circumstances,
had in practice fallen into abeyance at Tangier for
years. The Act of Algeciras, by expressing a wish
that the export duties on cereals may be reduced,
has given encouragement to the grain trade ; and by
the same treaty his Shereefian Majesty has agreed
to increase the number of cattle which each Power
has the right to export from Morocco, through
any open port, from 6000 to 10,000 per annum.
He, however, reserves the power of temporarily
prohibiting such exports from the ports of any
district in which there may be a dearth of cattle.
Of the animal products, exported wool goes to
France, Germany, Italy, and England, and hides,
sheep and goat skins to these countries and to
Spain and Portugal.
The Chaouiya, with its Black Earth or " Tirs,"
which forms the first of the series of terraces
separating the coast from the foothills of the Atlas,
and which rivals the central districts of Russia in
fertility, is, as has been said, a country of agricul-
ture and of ranching.
Experiments have shown beyond all possibility
of contradiction that the soil of Morocco, and more
especially that of the Chaouiya, can grow every
70 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
kind of produce, and that all the plants of the
temperate and subtropical zones can thrive in it.
Up to the present time, however, the insecurity
of the country districts and the weakness of the
Kaids has made it impossible for any European to
undertake farming or cattle-breeding in person.
Such is the state of things which led to the
establishment by the Treaty of Madrid in 1880
of the system of " Protection " which has played
so great a part in the modern history of Morocco.
Though the European cannot carry on such
undertakings himself he can do so through a native
partner. Since 1880 the Sultan has allowed a special
code of legislation to be established which pro-
tects an Arab to whom a European has entrusted
his business interests against his own Govern-
ment. The foreign firms established in the country
have not failed to take every advantage of the
system. Some advance money to the Moors in
return for a share in the produce of their harvests ;
but it is more usual for them to send at the proper
season a native agent into the interior to buy up
cereals on the markets, or from the growers them-
selves. The grain is then brought into Casablanca
to be cleaned and prepared for export.
It must be remembered that the statistics of
the grain trade in any given year do not give the
slightest clue to the productivity of the harvest.
The Arabs take every precaution to escape the
extortions of their Kaids, and after every harvest
THE TRADE OF CASABLANCA 77
they bide the greater part of their wheat in under-
ground cellars or " silos," where they often keep it
for years.
This is one reason why it is, at present,
difficult to predict what will be the future of
Morocco as a grain-growing country under a new
order of things. It is equally difficult to form any
true conception of the results of the Protection
system as a whole, without speaking of Casablanca
in particular.
It is only natural, of course, that the protected
and extra-territorialised Arab should attach himself
closely to his employer. He, however, lives in
security from the arbitrary exactions of the Kaid,
and can, as a rule, obtain capital at a cheaper rate
than his unprotected fellows ; for at Casablanca the
natives usually borrow from the Jews and from rich
Arabs at 60 per cent., whilst lenders in the interior
charge their debtors 5 per cent, from market day
to market day, or more than 260 per cent, a year.
Too much importance need not be attached to the
fact that the employers are constantly receiving
little presents in kind from their proteges ; for in
Morocco, as in India, where the " Nuzzer " is still
presented at state ceremonies, inferiors never ap-
proach their superiors without a gift. The richest
European merchants used to be in the habit of
accepting presents which were practically forced
upon them by the manners and customs of the
country, and to refuse which would, generally, have
78 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
been a lack of tact. On the other hand, it cannot
be denied that, in some cases, unscrupulous Euro-
peans have not hesitated to do a trade in Protec-
tions, or have even used the system as a means
to acquire landed properties by foreclosing on
mortgages which they have forced upon their
protdg^s.
However, the system had grown to be indis-
pensable in a country where life and property are
at the mercy of a Sultan's whims, and where a
favourite, after being loaded by his master with
wealth and honour, can at a moment's notice be
stripped of them again and plunged into the depths
of poverty. On the other hand, it is to the dis-
advantage of the Protection system that it has
given foreign powers pretexts for unduly inter-
fering in the internal administration of Morocco,
and that, by falsifying the basis on which taxation
is imposed, it has shifted the burden from the backs
of the richer natives to those of the poorest section
of the population.
If the French take over the administration of
the Chaouiya, introduce the Common Law, and
institute a regular revenue survey, they will soon
efface the last relics of a system which will then
have outlived its usefulness. Morocco can only be
the gainer by its disappearance. It is well known
how the development of Egypt was hampered by
the capitulations before the conclusion of the
entente cordiale ; although it nmst be added that
THE TRADE OF CASABLANCA 79
advocates of the " Mixed Tribunal " system are still
to be found there.
To return to the economic resources of the
Chaouiya. Its second great source of wealth is
derived from cattle-ranching, for the province sends
thousands of beasts to the ports of the Western
Mediterranean, whilst the wool from its sheep
farms supplies the markets of France, Germany,
and England. In the Casablanca district sheep-
farming is a most important industry.
As free grazing rights are the law in Morocco,
Europeans are able to place their flocks in the
hands of Arabs whose villages are in suitable
localities. These Arabs are usually paid by being
given a certain number of lambs, and the right of
disposing of the milk, butter, and cream. At
certain times of the year sheep are very cheap, and,
in a few months, the sale of their fleeces often
repays the purchaser a quarter of their prime cost ;
whilst, owing to the free-grazing law, they have
cost next to nothing to rear. If the Arab is
honest, and, as he has an interest in the trans-
action, he has every reason to be so, and if the
grazing land has been properly selected, such
undertakings yield very good results. But, as
always where the mdtayer system is in force, the
employer is entirely in the hands of his native
partner, since it is almost impossible to carry out
any eflective supervision.
There are scarcely any manufactories at Casa-
80 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
blanca. A steam saw-mill, a flour-mill, and two or
three other small and primitive establishments
exhaust the list of the European concerns. The
water in the neighbourhood is scanty and brackish,
and it would, therefore, be very difficult to run
either a tannery or a wool-washery, although any
one interested in the latter subject would do well to
study what has been done by Englishmen in that
direction in the Cape and in Natal.
Natives make poor factory hands. The native
women make woollen carpets, remarkable for their
crude colouring and inartistic patterns ; and, un-
fortunately, they have begun to use imported
aniline instead of the old vegetable dyes, and have
thus still further depreciated their products.
Slippers, and reed and alfa-grass mats, are also
made. The reed matting, which is very cheap, is
used to keep the grain in the granaries from contact
with the damp soil and walls.
But the whole future of the Chaouiya depends
on the answer to two questions of paramount im-
portance : —
Are the French going to occupy the province
permanently ?
When the terms agreed upon by the entente
cordiale expire in 1934, will the door be kept open
to the trade of the world ?
So far as an outsider can see, it would appear
that France will have to occupy the country per-
manently for exactly the same reasons as those
THE TRADE OF CASAHLANCA 81
which have forced England to put off withdrawing
from Egypt. It is true that both France and
Spain are doing their best to organise the police
on the lines laid down by the Act of Algeciras, but
even when they have accomplished a task which is
made still more difficult by the mode of thought of
the Arab recruits, it cannot be supposed that a
force of 400 to 450 men will be strong enough to
keep order in a province which is torn from top to
bottom by religious and racial hatreds. It may be
said, on the other hand, that the Act of Algeciras
was only intended to preserve order in the coast
towns open to trade, and in their immediate en-
virons. It was not foreseen that if the French
received the submission of the tribes they had
been forced to punish for the share taken by them
in the sack of Casablanca, they would necessarily
be forced to protect them from being massacred by
their co-religionists who had not laid down their
arms. Yet, unless the whole province of Chaouiya
is permanently occupied, it will be a seething sea
of anarchy ; the trade routes will be cut, transit
trade will go elsewhere, and those who have already
suffered so much by the bombardment and its con-
sequences will have no security for their compen-
sation. Thus the French cannot shirk the task of
pacifying the province ; their withdrawal will spell
the ruin of the European colony.
If we can draw conclusions from what has taken
place in Algeria and Tunisia, it is clear that a
82 GENERAL D'AMADE IN IMOROCCO
system of ultra -Protection in Fiscal matters tends
rather to prevent foreign merchants and professional
men from settling in such a country than to re-
strict the importation of non-French goods. In
1882 the whole of the trade between Germany and
Algeria amounted to 1,480,000 francs. In 1906
the total amounted to 12,000,000 francs, the
Algerian wines being paid for by German leaf-
tobacco, chemicals, and machinery. Everywhere
in North Africa the labourers, the small farmers,
and the market gardeners are Spaniards, Italians,
and Maltese. Thus Fiscal Protection does nothing
to check the immigration of the working classes.
The one measure which could prevent Morocco
being developed by foreign as well as by French
capitalists would be the introduction of any kind
of sur-tax, or increased payments for permission to
reside there, which would place foreigners at a
disadvantage as compared with Frenchmen.
On the other hand, it is certain that if the world
of trade can be assured that the French occupation
will be a lasting one, and will not close the open
door, there would be an immediate influx of capital
into the country. Englishmen, even under the
conditions actually existing in Algeria, have created
there, with the help of French auxiliaries on the
spot, some very important businesses, and would
certainly not be the last to come forward with
their capital and take their share in opening up
its neighbour. Thus the question of immigration
THE TRADE OF CASABLANCA 88
has little importance for ourselves. The Germans,
on the other hand, have always looked on Morocco
as a country in which they can settle as well as
trade. The experience of the colonists from Wur-
temburg, who have been established on the sea-
board of Palestine since 18G9, justifies their idea
up to a certain point.
It would, however, be impossible for Germany
to take possession of Morocco politically except at
the risk of a war with France and England. All
the leading German statesmen, such as Prince
Billow, say that the only interest they have here
is to keep the door open to commerce and coloni-
sation. If this is the real state of things, it should
not be difficult to strike a bargain.
Public opinion in Algeria seems to be that
France, in order to secure the right of occupying
the Chaouiya, should agree to do so on the terms
on which England occupies Egypt. The Algerians
would even be willing to agree to the creation of
an effective Customs frontier between Algeria and
Morocco provided the actual produce of the two
countries was reciprocally admitted free under
some such arrangements as were established by
the treaty of 1875 between Mozambique and the
Transvaal. Even though a permanent occupation
of the Chaouiya by the French were to lead to an
increase in the number of German immigrants, it
must be remembered that such emigrants have
readily been absorbed elsewhere by the populations
84 GENERAL D'AINIADE IN MOROCCO
on the spot. It Is only since 1870 that French
civilisation has lost its attractions for the South
Germans and the Illiinelanders.
The French Colonial Party could not feel hurt
by an occu})ation of the Chaouiya undertaken under
such conditions, and could have no reason to cry
out that their system of Fiscal Protection had not
been introduced there. French trade would lose
nothing by such an arrangement, as every day sees
new arrivals from France, every one of whom serves
to increase French imports into Casablanca. Before
August 1907 there were under 20 French subjects
established there. There are now between 600
and 700. It must not, however, be forgotten
that for many years our fellow-subjects from
Gibraltar have been in the habit of emigrating
to Morocco, and that they as a rule prefer
English goods.
It seems clear that the French must have
already made up their minds to leave tlie door
open, and that they will occupy the Chaouiya at
least until the Act of Algeciras expires in 1911,
Is this province destined to be the "Spot of Oil,"
which will eventually spread over the whole country
outside of the S})anish sphere of influence ? " Old
Morocco " is dead, never to rise again. The system
on wliich trade was based until the introduction of
wireless telegraphy is crumbling away, for small
traders will now have to bow before the decrees
of the markets of the world, and all that has
THE TRADE OF CASABLANCA 85
taken place within the last few years has opened
the eyes of capitalists to the possibilities of the
country.
Will the riches of Pactolus be found in Morocco ?
I hardly think so. The Moroccans are content
with little, not to say stingy, and do not greatly
benefit by what they put by. It will be a diffi-
cult matter to make them abandon their old
habits. All the pasture land is owned by tribes
who hold to it strongly, and will not be very
ready to part with it. The agricultural land is
broken up into small holdings, and, consequently,
it will be difficult to buy up large tracts of
country. The natives are farm hands, not factory
hands.
If a network of good roads is laid out, if some
experimental farms are set up, if wireless telegraphy
is introduced more generally, all the spade-work
of development which is required for the moment
will have been achieved in the Chaouiya. Going
softly means going surely, and those who are in-
terested in the future of the province should never
forget this maxim, if they wish to avoid a break-
down which at this moment might compromise it
for many a long year.
But France dare not withdraw her troops from
the Chaouiya, for their departure would be the
signal for an outbreak of anarchy which might in
the end bring about a European war. If she con-
tinues to conduct her policy on the lines laid down
80 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
ill the Act of Algeciras, and if she keeps the door
really and not merely nominally open, she will in
the end see herself the mistress of a territory
which will eventually prove the richest amongst
the provinces of her African Empire.
THE FIGHT AT M'KOUN
On Friday, the 17th of January, the day after
his return to Ber Rechid from the battle of Settat,
General d'Amade led his troops back to Mediouna.
Between these two derelict fortresses, or kas-
bahs, the green illimitable plain of Chaouiya
stretches for fifteen miles ; here and there the
black earth, studded with asphodels in bloom,
shows where the ploughman has done his rude
task ; but for the most part the richest soil in the
world lies untilled, and enormous wealth awaits
those future dwellers in this farmer's paradise
whose rulers can secure to them the harvest of
their toil.
Mediouna itself is an abandoned fortress of the
type universal in the land — a rectangular miniature
city protected by a great battlemented wall eighteen
or twenty feet high, three hundred yards long, and
two hundred yards wide, divided into two equal
parts by a wall pierced in its centre by a door,
and entered by a single white-arched gate on its
northern face. The outer walls of every one of
the kasbahs I have seen resemble the cast habita-
tion of the snail. The shell stands bright and firm,
and seemingly untouched by time; but within is
88 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
desolation and decay. The ochre-coloured, flat-
topped houses are crumbling in every stage of ruin ;
the mallow waves in the deserted streets ; in a
grass-grown court you may perchance happen on
the keel-like tents and conical straw wigwams of
some wandering Arabs. The anarchy which has
culminated in the massacres of Casablanca and the
proclamation of a rival to the reigning Sultan is
nowhere more clearly shown than by the abandon-
ment of those once prosperous agricultural cities ;
the robber from the hill has driven out the peaceful
plain-dweller, and the fields where he laboured are
yellow with charlock. Yet to the tired pricker
over unending vistas of prairie the yellow square
of Mediouna is a welcome sight. The Raid's house,
standing alone outside the southern wall, looks at
a distance for all the world like some homely Nor-
man church with squat tower surmounting the
fabric, A large pool gleams in the evening light ;
the rosy sunset touches the fine lines of the Moorish
gate ; the figures of men and horses shine reflected
in the glinting water. You enter by the line of
booths where enterprising merchants have set up
a trade in oranges, cigars, eggs, chickens, and
the hundred and one things sought after by the
soldier; on your left a sentry is pacing up and
down before a narrow den. There lie half-a-dozen
Arabs, prisoners of war, waiting in quiet dignity
for the news of life or death. Now there is nothing
to remind you of the ruin the French found when
THE FIGHT AT M'KOUN 89
they occupied the place at the beginning of January.
The ruined houses have been cleared away ; the
neat huts of the infantry are ranged in lines ; order
has taken the place of chaos. In one corner the
balloon careens over its heavy carriage ; in another
a fine fig-tree guards the entrance of the solitary
house as yet untouched by the sappers. For else-
where the French have demolished and levelled
and cleared and flattened until the whole area
within the walls is as open as the Place de la
Concorde, and very nearly as smooth. Tied by
the leg- to a tent were several ferocious-lookinjx
falcons, in reality as tame as canaries, which the
soldiers had caught by thrusting their hands down
into the deep holes in the wall where these birds
make their nests. Mediouna, a bare twelve miles
from Casablanca, and the earliest outpost of the
French arms, is at present the first link in the
chain of communication with the hinterland. The
avowed object of the French Government in main-
taining troops in Morocco is to avenge the mas-
sacres and to police the ports. However inadequate
such a policy may seem to those whose desire is
the permanent pacification of the country, in the
scheme of operations hitherto carried out Mediouna
plays an important part. The lawless tribes of the
Chaouiya must be chastised ; and Mediouna, on the
road to Ber Rechid and Settat, is the first depot on
a line of advance hitherto hampered by want of
transport. And so the camels pour in supplies,
00 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
and daily couvoys troop across the limestone, pot-
holed ridges between Mediouna and the sea. But
the place is low and feverish, the water is bad ;
and the bulk of its garrison are long since trans-
ferred to posts further inland. The road between
Mediouna and Casablanca is absolutely safe, and
a stream of camp-followers, including parties of
commercial gentlemen in their shirt-sleeves shooting
larks, ebbs and flows unceasingly. Nowhere else
have I seen so many sorts of flowers in a narrow
compass. There I found the beautiful pink Cheronia
exifera, a rare greenhouse plant at home, and a
white sparaxis with a subtle scent, hanging its
head like a snowdrop, and only opening to the
midday sun.
There I first came on a drift of lupins, just
opening into blue, hard by a fold in the plain
crimsoned by a colony of plantains. Our familiar
little friend the Virginia Stock is at home in the
rocky clefts ; the glorious blue of Veronica anagallis
is a rival to the sky ; here is a clump of scarlet
pimpernel ; there, by the reed-grown pool where
the snipe are flushed, is a belt of yellow broom ;
the tall lavatera fills the hollows ; and camomile,
liidden by aspiring snapdragons, wafts you a
greeting as you ride by.
Birds, excepting larks, are not numerous. The
water- wagtail runs defiantly in front of one's horse
whenever the intruder is sighted, but that is not
as often as one would like. There is a plover,
THE FIGHT AT M'KOUN 91
rather heavier iu its flight than our peewit ; and
the white ibis, here called cowbird, something
between a seagull and a duck, extraordinarily
tame, which picks over the newly-turned fallows,
and is friendly with the dun and brindled kine.
Once a flock of starlings came swishing over
the sky-line into a grove of prickly pears ; I have
counted three brace of partridges, and two couple
of quail. The commonest bird-note of the plain is
the raucous croak of the carrion crow as he flaps
sullenly away. The commonest creature is the
tortoise, in every gradation of size ; but, like Brer
Rabbit, he lies low, and hardly counts as a friend.
Flocks of dark sheep are few and far between ; the
cattle seem to have deserted the low ground for
the hills ; on the whole it is a lifeless country, this
fertile plain of Chaouiya.
On Tuesday, January 21, General d'Amade
left Casablanca with a force of 1100 infantry,
two squadrons of cavalry, one battery of field-
guns, and, alas, a balloon. Nearly everybody
hoped, and a great many people believed, that
the force was bound for Rabat, there openly
to espouse the cause of Abd-ul-aziz. They were
wrong. We certainly marched north-east close
to the long line of dunes; close to the blue sea
that thunders on the strand, and throws its surf
in jewelled fountains high into the air ; we came
to the mouldering yellow Moorish bridge that
92 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
spans the Cued Mellah, or salt stream, and camped
outside the kasbah of* Fedallah.
Fedallah lies upon the sea ; its bastioned wall
is unbattlemented and loopholed, roughly a square
of 150 yards.
A tall, square minaret, surmounted by a phallic
emblem, stands sentinel over its mosque, whose
green-tiled, triple-gabled roof at a distance re-
minds one forcibly of an engine-shed. That is the
only building intact inside the wall ; the stones
that still remain one upon another are broken and
defaced ; the greater part of the ground is green
with weeds, broken by the black circles of a few
Arab camps. White-turbaned sullen Moors squat-
ting in the tall grass; a gleam of snowy arches
against the gloom of dark aisles ; laughing children
among yellow ruins ; ten acres of lupins beneath
a long white wall ; that is my impression of
Fedallah.
The next day the force reached Bou Znika,
crossing the shallow Cued Neffifikh a stone's
throw from its mouth ; the men took off their
boots and waded through, and the sun dried them
again. Hereabouts the country grows more arid ;
the corn -lands give way to rocky slopes ; the once
frequent fig-gardens are seen no more, and dark
lentisk bushes take their place. Here the myrtle
was in flower, and a long-bearded clematis wandered
over the wild olives ; the pale green leaves of an
arum formed the common undergrowth.
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THE FIGHT AT M'KOUN 93
At Bou Znika we were within fifteen miles of
Kabat and far-famed Sallee ; but we were not then
destined to see them. On Thursday, the 22nd,
with a force augmented by the six companies of
Tirailleurs garrisoning the place, we turned almost
to the south and forsook the sea. Divided into
two squares, the guns with the first, the convoy
with the second ; attended always by that traitor
balloon, which warned the tribesmen fifty miles
ahead, we marched over ridges flecked with a
pink heronsbill, and found several rough entrench-
ments newly thrown up by the Moors. Presently
a dark, dotted line showed on the horizon ; we
entered the southern fringe of the great cork-
forest of Sehoul. A more delightful country can-
not be imagined. The sun shone ; the breeze still
reached us from the sea ; against the dark back-
ground of the cork-oaks stretched a waving mass
of paper-white narcissi. Directly you get into the
forest the cistus takes possession ; here and there
an opened snowy bloom foretold the brilliance of
the future ; but in the open, sun-swept glades the
cistus disappears, and the yellow glory of the
common broom reigns paramount. The gnarled
boles of the cork-oaks were blackened by some
recent fire ; but no trace of its ravages marked
the undergrowth ; tall and pale grew a yellow
vetch. Suddenly the balloon carriage, weighing
2000 kilos, and drawn with difficulty by eight
wiry French horses, sticks between two trees ; far
94 GENERAL D AIMADE IN MOROCCO
above them the balloon and its attendant spare-
cover rub one another with a gasping sigh ; one
desperate struggle, and our bane is free. Beyond
the forest there is a rocky pool wherein the pink
flamingoes stand preening ; a flight of wild duck
streams away towards the distant blue hills.
Every now and then you come across a curiously
artificial-looking oval hollow in the rocky ground ;
there it is as flat as a polo-ground, and covered
with short grass ; you might imagine that the
Hurlingham authorities had spent several thou-
sands over the business. One of the loveliest
flowers I have ever seen was growing in one of
these rain-basins — a marsh-marigold in leaf, a
single chrysanthemum in flower ; golden, inde-
scribable.
Our midday halt was at the white shrine of
Sidi ben Sliman, guarded by twin palms, land-
marks in the huge plain ; but soon the country
changed, and the path led down into a rugged
defile between green hills, red where the soil lay
naked on the steep escarpments. Then, at A'in
Rebbah, a spring at the head of a wide valley, we
camped in a field of young wheat ; and the cavalry
came in and reported that the enemy was not far
ahead ; and those of us who had forgotten the
balloon hoped for great things with the morrow.
On Friday, 24th January, we went on south-
wards, through little valleys meandering about
flat-topped hills ; where fig-trees grew and water
THE FIGHT AT M'KOUN 95
ran, and Salisbury Plain somehow suggested itself.
At last we debouched on the summit of a vast
plateau, where for mile after mile grows the
asphodel, untouched even where the wooden plough
has scratched the surface of the black soil. In
the middle-distance rose a clump of bushes ; the
cavalry hovered and stopped ; they had come on
the enemy's camp. The Arabs had left in such a
hurry that nothing but the balloon could have
saved them. All sorts of precious things were left
behind — sleeping-mats of straw, barley, maize, new
panniers, long wooden spoons, cooking-pots, beauti-
fully shaped earthen pitchers, saddle-bags stuffed
with treasures such as an egg-shaped black stone
used to assay gold, and European knives and forks.
Among all this debris hundreds of tiny chickens
were clucking for mothers hanging alive and head
downwards to saddles now many miles away. A
score or so of puppies, brindled, prick-eared, and
snarling, wandered friendless. A big yellow bitch
rushed savagely at my horse ; I heard the faint
wailing of new-born pups ; in another second I
should have trampled them to death.
And now there is the boom of guns ahead ;
Colonel Boutegourd, marching from Mediouna to
join General dAmade, has got in touch with our
flying enemy. We press on ; the plateau sinks into
a narrow red gorge ; the guns are sent forward,
and debouch into a flat valley bounded by flat hills.
Major Massenet is in command of the guns ; he has
96 GENERAL D'AINIADE IN MOROCCO
a i^rudge against the Arabs, for they put a bullet
through his shoulder in the September fighting.
He fainted ; resumed command till the day was
done ; and then again fainted. Off dashes this
brilliant soldier to look for the enemy and a posi-
tion for his battery. The hills in front shut out
everything except the dull thunder of Boutegourd's
guns ; the attendant gunners were left dotted
across the plain to carry back orders with the
utmost speed. On went the tall man in command,
with only two gunners left ; he rose the far slope,
through a cleft in the hills, and suddenly two
Arabs were seen riding down the gorge. " Where
is my revolver ? " says the Major to his gunner ;
" you are on foot, load it." But the Arabs see the
troops below, and sheer off. Massenet rides on and
finds the leading section of Tirailleurs of Boute-
gourd's force on a promontory jutting out into a
hill-encircled plain ; to the west Boutegourd's guns
were supporting his infantry ; to the south and east
the Arabs were swarming, M'Koun is the name
of this place, and the Arabs are of the Oulad Ali
tribe. Wherever you find the prefix Oulad (" son
of") the people are of Arab stock ; Beni (also " son
of") implies Berber or Kabyle origin. Colonel
Passard with his two battalions of infantry
(Legionaries and Tirailleurs) pressed on eastwards
in an endeavour to outflank the Arabs on the far
ridges ; Major Massenet brought his guns up on
the promontory beside Boutegourd's advanced sec-
THE FIGHT AT JM'KOUN 97
tion. There came all who wanted a bird's-eye view
of the battle ; a correspondent carrying a loaded
Mauser pistol pointed fiercely towards a foe about
a thousand yards away filled his confreres with a
deep sense of the frailty of the bonds that hold us
to the earth. The arrival of Massenet's battery
concentrated the enemy's fire ; the bullets began
to fly about. Presently my friend, Mr. Black
Hawkins, who was sitting in the plough about a
yard from me, said calmly, "I'm hit!" He took
ofi' his cap, and a huge red lump appeared where
the hair grows on the forehead. The line of the
scar gave the direction of the spent bullet ; we
looked for and found it. About this time a
lieutenant of artillery in Boutegourd's force, look-
ing through his glasses, got a bullet through his
wrist and through his lung. Then on the east
the Chasseurs d'Afrique crept up and charged, and
the enemy lost about twenty men.
All this time Massenet's battery were firing
shrapnel into the scattered groups of darting
Arabs ; the enemy could not stand against the
fire, and sheered off over the distant ridges to the
south, taking their dead with them.
But they had not gone for good. D'Amade's and
Boutegourd's forces united on the western ridge,
and there, after superhuman struggles with balloon-
carriage and transport wagons on the steep slopes,
they formed up in a square to pass the night. The
process was impeded by the Arabs, who fired from
6
98 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
afar into the packed masses of men and animals.
I heard a non-commissioned officer shout to a mule-
driver, " Get on ; what are you stopping for ? " The
man replied, " I can't get these brutes to move ;
the bullets keep falling under their noses." That
hour before the sun set was an uncomfortable one ;
we all thought the Arabs meant to snipe us all
night long. But the unexpected always happens.
After dark not a shot was fired ; the next day
General dAmade marched unopposed through Dar-
el-Aidi — a kasbah deserted like the rest — into
Mediouna, and thence to Casablanca on the 25th.
THE HYGIENE OF THE FIELD
FORCE
The French " Corps de Debarqueinent," as it is
officially styled, is in one most material particular
very fortunate ; the scene of its operations has an
admirable climate.
The malaria which ravages Gibraltar and other
Mediterranean ports is in Casablanca almost un-
known ; among the natives phthisis is non-existent ;
even the filthy cesspool drainage of the town fails
to provoke any real epidemic of typhoid.
About 15 inches of rain fall in the year, dis-
tributed over the months from October to March ;
the winter temperature varies in the day from
55° to 60° F. ; just before dawn it falls to
40° and under ; the hottest months, August and
September, are tempered by the constant breeze
from the Atlantic, and the most delicate Europeans
spend the summer in the country without discom-
fort. Even though in January the midday sun is
as powerful as in England in Jnly, the nights are
always cool, not to say chilly, and in Casablanca
you sleep under a blanket nearly every night of
the year. As Sir Joseph Hooker found when he
vainly tried to dry his botanical specimens, the
100 GENERAL D'AjNIADE IN MOROCCO
great humidity of this air is in many ways incon-
venient. Tunts packed sopping with the terrific
dews remain wet and heavy all day ; men find it
difiicult to get their clothing and bedding dry ; the
burdens of pack animals are enormously increased.
But against such trifles you must set a climate
of unsurpassed salubrity, in which European chil-
dren thrive even better than in their northern
homes ; a climate that knows nothing of snow,
little of frost, and less of thunderstorms, and that
gives you nearly every day a cloudless blue sky,
and a sea breeze, and a sense of abounding health.
Consequently the death-rate, notwithstanding the
loss of life involved in the fighting, has been lower
among the troops than in many a French garrison
town, and the proportion of men in hospital from
all causes has rarely exceeded 2 per cent.
The excellence of the climate is not the only
factor which has contributed to this happy result :
the men are some of the toughest material to be
found in any army.
Although the gunners and the balloon section
have no heavy packs to carry and very little ex-
hausting work to do, they have sent more cases of
fever and jaundice to the hospitals than the rest of
the army put together. Perfect as the climate is,
it cannot obviate the effect on young soldiers of long
marches, bad water, damp bivouacs, and youth.
The transport (piestion is at Casablanca the
one which above all otliers has taxed the resources
HYGIENE OF FIELD FORCE 101
of the authorities, and no one more than the head
of the Medical Department, Colonel Bassompierre.
In civilised warfare a wounded man is cared for,
if need be, by his foes. To fall wounded into the
hands of the Moors is to die by torture. The
Hed Cross of Geneva does not fly in Morocco ;
men wounded in action must travel on within
the square, and halt and march with the column
until it returns to its nearest advanced post. Of
these there were four, each roughly twenty miles
from one another, garrisoning the great plain of
Chaouiya — Bou Znika and Fedallah on the coast
to the north of Casablanca, and Mediouna and
Ber Bechid inland to the south-east. In each of
them a field hospital was organised, but serious
cases necessitating operation were at once sent
on with a returning envoy to the base hospital
at Casablanca. A man wounded in action is first
of all attended to by his regimental surgeon and
stretcher-bearers, and then carried by them to the
column organisation, which consists of a dozen in-
Jirmiers or ambulance men under the orders of a
senior medical officer, twelve mules carrying two
cacolets or two litieres apiece, and two others carry-
ing chests of medical material. Boughly, the cacolet
is a chair, the litiere a bed. The former is an
iron frame about 18 inches square with a wooden
padded seat ; on one side the metal uprights with
their attachments are curved to fit the lines of
the huge wooden pack-saddle, weighing 32 kilos.
102 GENERAT. D'AMADE IN MOllOCCO
On tlie other side is a metal rail ; in front and
behind the patient is held in by straps; his feet
rest on a sus})ended strip of board. Each cacolet
weighs 7 kilos.
The Jitiire is an iron bfedstead al)out 7 feet
long, divided into three almost efjual parts by two
transverse sets of hinges, which enable the bed,
when not in use, to be folded upwards from its
ends into three sides of a square. The bed is of
canvas attached to the frame by cords running
through eyelet holes. Like the cacoleis, the
liticre,<; are fixstened to the saddles by chains fixed
to two central bars curved to fit the wood ; the
same saddle is used indifterently for both cacolets
and litiercs.
On the litiere the patient's head is close to
the mule's ; there is a folding hood on metal
supports to protect him from sun and rain ; the
lines of the construction ensure that his head is
always higher than his feet. Each litiere weighs
15 kilos. By the kindness of M. le Commandant
Zuml)iehl, in charge of what is in reality the base
hospital of Casablanca, although it calls itself the
" hopital de campagne," or field hospital, I was
permitted to examine every detail of the working
of tlie excellent French system.
Near the southern or Marakesh gate of the
town, just within the walls, stands the large white
building formerly the town-house of the Kaid of
Mediouna, now the nucleus of the hospital. Right
HYGIENE OF FIELD FORCE 103
up to the wall of the city the rabbit-warren of
his late retainers' dwellings has been cleared away,
and in their place large tents stand in two separate
courts, each surrounded by its trench, which drains
the rain away under the city wall.
In one court are the infectious cases, here
practically limited to typhoid ; in the larger are
the non- infectious fever cases ; in the house are
the officers and the wounded. The French divide
their cases into three classes: (1) Blesses; (2)
Fievreux ; (3) Contagieux. Fievreux are sub-
divided into bronchitic, gastric, malarial, and
jaundice cases ; Contagieux into typhoid, measles,
scarlatina, and smalljDox.
From the beginning of September 1907 up to
the middle of January 1908 there were 120 cases
of typhoid, none of measles or scarlatina, and one
of smallpox. Of the 120 tyjihoid cases, 14 have
terminated fatally, or 12 per cent, of those
attacked by the disease — a mortality below that
of many garrisons in France, where a percentage
of from 14 to 25 per cent, is not unknown.
The proportion of deaths from typhoid to the
number of troops engaged in the operations can
be represented by the figure "0023 ; that of those
attacked as 2 per cent. ; the field force previous
to General d'Amade's arrival being about 6000
men. Typhoid is treated by the Brandt or cold
bath system. When the patient's temperature
exceeds 102° F. a cold bath is given; an interval
104 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
of three hours is then allowed to elapse ; If at the
end of that time his tenn)erature still exceeds
10:2 , he is given another cold bath, and so on
initil his temperature falls. Malaria is treated
with su])Cutaneous injections of quinine, from J
gramme to 2 grammes daily. Three sorts of tents
are used. The one preferred by M. Zumbiehl is
the Herbet — a double canvas gable-roofed tent
about 15 yards long by 5 wide, with top ventila-
tion throughout its length, and four sun-blinded
windows on each side. It holds 18 beds, and is
floored with wood covered with linoleum.
In this tent the temperature can be kept down
to from GO to 70' F. even in the hot weather.
The Toilet tent, also holding 18 beds, differs from
the Herbet in having a domed roof and only two
windows on each side ; it is somewhat more difficult
to keep cool.
The Decker tent is a structure of "carton"
or })apier-mache panels held in place by a wooden
skeleton. The chief objection to it is the difficulty
of keeping it cool.
The Raid's house lends itself admirably to its
new functions. In the centre of its court or patio
is a well, used only for cleansing purposes ; the
white colonnade of Moorish arches that surround
it, covered with green creepers, give a grateful
shade to the rooms wherein the wounded lie look-
ing out into the sunshine. The maze of small
offices near the patio have all been turned to
HYGIENE OF FIELD FORCE 105
account. In one is the operating-table ; in the
next the dressing-table ; here is a great store of
sulphate of iron and phenic acid — the disinfectants
chiefly used ; there the kitchen turns out most
savoury food for 200 men daily. Macaroni,
ragout of chicken, vegetable soup, legs of mutton
and beef were cooking ; in another room were the
tisanes or drinks for the fever patients. Fresh
beef- tea is the staple diet of the sick ; 63 kilos
of beef are daily bought by the non-commissioned
officier d'Administration responsible for the victual-
ling of the hospital. Fresh milk and tea are given
to the more seriously ill ; and chicken, fish, and
cutlets to the convalescents. One small room was
piled high with tins bearing the legend " Swiss
Milk," but the " Triumph " brand is the one in
general use. Another cell was piled to the ceiling
with mineral water — Vichy and others, which are
sold to sick officers at a nominal price. All the
water used for drinking and cooking purposes
comes from the distilling plant on the seashore
to the north of the town, which turns out between
50,000 and 60,000 Htres daily. This distilled
water is reserved entirely to the use of the troops.
The hospital ship ViiMong leaves Casablanca
fortnightly for Oran, taking away the men in-
valided, and bringing drafts on the return voyage.
The staff at the hospital consists of 4 doctors,
10 nurses, and 51 mjifmiers or medical corps staff.
On the day of my visit there were 152 cases under
ion GENERAL D'AIMADE IN MOROCCO
treatmeiit, out of a total force of over 9000 men.
Of these 50 were suff'erino- from injmMes, of whom
20 were wounded in battle, and 102 were fever
patients.
The French are debarred by the joint control of
the Powers from putting in force a Contagious
Diseases Act. If a man comes to hospital suffering
from venereal he is questioned as to the locality
where he contracted the disease ; a sentry is then
posted at the door, and no French troops are
allowed to enter. A ver}^ small number of this
class of patient has, however, been under the hands
of tlie French surgeons.
Tiie proximity of the sea helps the sanitation of
the camps. Tubs, disinfected with sulj)hate of iron,
are used in the latrines, and are emptied daily on
the sliore.
The French have done much to effect a change
for the Ijetter in the superficial cleanliness of the
town, but to suppress the foul emanations of its
reeking soil is beyond them. Perhaps it is just as
well that here again the joint control of the Powers
renders radical drainage operations out of the ques-
tion, for any tampering with the subsoil would
inevitably induce epidemics of diphtheria and
typhoid. The perfect cleanliness of the French
liospital-camp rejoices the soul of the visitor emerg-
ing from the dirty kennels and malodorous slums of
the town : tlie neat walks ; the gleaming linoleums ;
the white stone flags; the trim garden; the laundry
HYGIENE OF FIEED FORCE 107
where the Jewesses are scrubbhig ; these breathe a
spirit quite alien to their surroundings.
The order, smoothness, and method of the work-
ing of the hospital arrangements strike the most
casual observer as implying long experience and
complete grasp on the part of those responsible for
their organisation ; mistakes were made in Mada-
gascar, in Tongking, and in China ; but here so far
not a hitch has occurred.
In another respect the sick French soldier on
foreign service is better oif than his predecessors ;
he is now looked after and devotedly nursed by
ladies. For the first time the Red Cross Society of
France has been authorised by the Minister of War
to send nurses to the front.
Mme. la Gendrale Hervc arrived at Casablanca
in September last with fourteen nurses, all of whom
have gone through regular courses in the hospitals
and medical schools, and who have gained practical
experience by working among the Parisian poor.
These ladies all live together in a small Moorish
house in the centre of the town ; that is to say,
they eat and sleep there ; but from morning to
night they are hard at work in the hospitals, ten in
the base hospital I have tried to describe, and four
in that known as " Ambulance No. 2 " — an overflow
hospital for non-infectious fever patients, situated
within sound of the swish of the great banana trees
in the Belgian Consul's garden. These ladies work
anonymously ; they will not divulge their identity ;
108 GEXEUAI. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
they adore their work, and the soldiers adore t'hem.
So keen is the coin petition among the ladies of
France to come out to the front as nurses that the
present batch are reluctantly forced to retire at the
end of six months' service, in order to give place to
others. They love to talk to you about the boys
tliey work for ; what unselfish, ungrumbling, merry
fellows they are ; tlieir faces light up when you
speak of their countrymen's magnificent qualities
as soldiers — of their pluck, their endurance, their
never-failing cheeriness.
Tlie white-robed ladies are there, and so all
that matters of religion comes to the bedside of the
dying man.
By a singular clause of the Madrid Convention
of 1864 no French priest is allowed in Morocco. If
the patient asks for an aumonier, one of the half-
dozen Sjmnish Franciscans in the town is sent for ;
and every day you may see the brown-clad rope-
girdled figures gliding about the camp on their
errands of comfort and of peace. At the grave-
side it is usual for a comrade of the dead to read
a passage of the burial service.
At Ber Rechid in January took place the fune-
rals of a Legionary and of a Zouave who had died
of the wounds they had received the previous day.
The still figures, wrapped in canvas shrouds,
with wreaths of orange marigold and purple
linaria lying on their breasts, were carried by their
friends along the great ditch without tlie wall, into
HYGIENE OF FIELD FORCE 109
a quiet corner by the angle of a bastion. The
General and his staff headed the procession of
mourners ; then came the other officers ; then
hundreds of the rank and file. At the graves
General d'Amade stepped forward and spoke of the
glory of a soldier's death ; of the valour of the dead
lying there ; of the gratitude of France. Then, in
turn, the captains of the companies in which the
dead men served came out from the throng and
pronounced their elegy. They briefly told their
history ; they spoke of their good qualities as sol-
diers and comrades. And then, last of all, a little,
red-faced, spectacled Legionary took his place
before the crowd, and in a loud, clear voice pro-
nounced the Lord's Prayer. The soldiers had stood
seemingly unmoved till now; but when the "Amen"
of the blue-coated priest was said the tears were
trickling down the bearded cheeks of a hundred
veterans.
SIDl EL MEKKI, AND THE SECOND
SETTAT
On February 2 Col. Boutegourd, commanding the
Tirs (Black Earth) column at Ber llechid, fought
the most determined and critical action of the
campaign. Never did the Moors attack with
greater confidence ; never did the French troops
display to greater advantage their qualities of
coolness, of courage, and of discipline.
It was a day when danger assayed men's
mettle ; and the heroism of Ricard, of Kergorlay,
and of Bosquet was the outcome of the test.
Boutegourd left Ber Rechid soon after mid-
night on the 2nd with a small force composed of
a squadron of Chasseurs, a battery of field-guns,
four companies of the Foreign Legion, and two
companies of Tirailleurs. His objective was a large
herd of cattle assembled in the neighbourhood of
Sidi el Mekki, some twelve miles to the south-west.
It appears (for no correspondents were with the
force, and consequently this brief outline of the
fight has been patched together from the narra-
tives of officers and men) that the French, by
seven o'clock in the morning, had achieved their
purpose, and that the five thousand head of cattle,
110
SIDI EI. MEKKI 111
abandoned by their few score of guards, were at
their mercy. But Col. Boutegourd, who is nothing
if not a fighting man, was not satisfied. He had
got cattle, but he wanted Moors. So, leaving
the plunder very inadequately protected, he moved
off with the bulk of his column further south,
apparently in the hope of coming upon the
enemy. He was not disappointed. The mounted
cattle-guards had galloped straight away to the
hills about Settat and warned the tribesmen of
the coming of the French. Five or six thousand
Moors jumped on their ponies and swarmed across
the plain to recover their commissariat bullocks ;
and no one fights better than the carnal man
who sees his next three months' ration of beef
being shepherded towards his enemy's camp.
The Moors were not slow to grasp the situa-
tion ; they seized the advantage of the interior
lines, and swooped in between the main body of
the French and their comrades with the beasts.
They realised their numerical superiority of at
least five to one, and fought with the dogged-
ness which they reserve for encounters in which
victory seems assured.
Boutegourd saw the danger to which his
Chasseurs guarding the cattle were exposed, and
retired his square, fighting as he went, towards
them. The cavalry, on the other hand, saw the
futility of trying to retain possession of the
herds, and leaving them charged galjg.ntly down
112 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
on the advancing Arabs, Eye-witnesses agree
that in all the campaign there was never a fight
like this.
The Kaids had brought with them every in-
centive to the valour of their followers. The
long white lines were flecked with the ensigns
of the tribes — green, yellow, red, and blue ; the
exhortations of holy men sounded above the
fanatical yells of the Faithful ; foot soldiers,
armed only with bludgeons, were there to drag
the screaming barbs still nearer to the bayonets.
At one time it looked as though a troop of
Chasseurs must be annihilated, but the devotion
of Ricard, of Kergorlay, and of Rousseau saved
them ; at another it seemed hopeless to think of
checking the rush of Arabs on the eastern face
of the square, Ijut Bosquet, working his mitrail-
leuse alone, his men all killed or wounded,
succeeded in doing so ; of the coolness of the
Leerionaries when the Moors were within a
hundred yards of them, stopping to fondle pet
kids and dogs between two deadly shots, their
officers spoke afterwards with natural pride.
Bosquet's fight was Homeric. He was on the
most exposed face of the square, in command of
a machine-gun, and in a very short time all his
men were either killed or wounded. Bosquet,
now separated from a surging mob of Arabs by
only a few dozen yards, continued to pour a
stream of bullets into the dense masses of the
SIDI EL MEKKI 118
enemy, until the ground in front of him rose up
in a wall of dead and dying men and horses.
How lie himself escaped is a miracle. Asked
what his sensations at the time were, he said :
"Curiously enough, I felt no fear; I kept think-
ing to myself, ' What wouldn't I give for a
camera ! '" At last his ammunition ran out, and
Bosquet, now apparently an object of super-
natural awe to the Moors, hoisted his gun on
his back and retired unmolested. The other
heroes of the day are dead ; General d'Amade
himself has written their panegyric ; their names
are already inscribed on France's roll of fame.
But Bosquet, the quiet, blue-eyed, yellow-bearded
Bosquet, no less a hero, still lives, and life must
not be allowed to obscure the greatness of his
valour. Bicard's charge was a desperate venture
against overwhelming odds — " une chevauchee
audacieuse," as General d'Amade styles it, where
half-a-dozen brave men rode to certain death
in order to extricate their comrades. Lieutenant
Ricard, close upon the Arabs, had his horse shot
under him, and got on to his feet to be the
taro;et of a hundred rifles.
Up to him galloped Corporal de Kergorlay
and Trooper Rousseau, and seizing each a hand,
pulled him along with them as they cantered
back. Presently a bullet struck de Kergorlay
in the back, and he fell dead. A moment after-
wards Rousseau was hit in the wrist, and Ricard
H
114 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
ordered liim to gallo}) on into safety. The gallant
fellow refused to go, and was killed as lie spoke.
Then Ricard seized his carbine, and turned to
face his foes, and killed two of them before he,
too, died. The Frencli got back to Ber Rechid
tliat night at half-past seven, after nineteen hours'
fifi^htina and marching;, with a loss of eleven
killed and forty-one wounded. Amongst the
latter was Passard, Colonel of the mixed regiment
of Legionaries and Tirailleurs, hit by a spent
bullet on the right shoulder.
" The brutes wanted to stop me shooting,
curse them ! " cries Passard the indomitable from
his mattress. For when Passard cannot get bigger
game he condescends to feathered bipeds.
The death of the Clievalier de Kergorlay, a
scion of one of the oldest Breton families, and a
Corporal of Chasseurs, was a real grief to me, for
I had seen more of him than of any other man
in the force. A fortnight before, on the march
towards Settat, I heard myself addressed in per-
fect English by a handsome young Chasseur of the
General's escort ; and every day thenceforward I
rode with him for a couple of hours, rejoicing to
hear my native tongue in a strange land. One
of the last things he said to me was : " I'm fed
up with this job of holding officers' horses ; I
wish we could liave two or three good fights
and then go back to Paris!" Well, my brave
and kindly friend, you have your wish ; you have
SIDI EL MEKKI 115
fought the good fight, and your memory has gone
home to France, to be honoured there for ever.
His headless, naked trunk was recovered, and
over him and his mutikited conu'ades General
d'Amade pronounced the following oration : —
Ber Rechid, le 14 Fe'vrier 1908.
Corps de D^barquement de Casablanca.
Colonne du Littoral Etat Major.
" Je viens ddposer une couronne sur ces tertres
de pierre qui perpdtueront, en attendant un monu-
ment plus digne de leur bravoure, le souvenir de
trois vaillants cavaliers francais —
Le Lieutenant Ricard,
Le Brigadier de Kergorlay,
Le Chasseur Rousseau,
du 3 Chasseurs d'Afrique qui dans une che-
vauchee audacieuse ont voulu se sacrifier pour
degager leur peloton serre de pres par I'eimemi.
lis succomberent ici meme, le 2 Fevrier, nous
donnant a nous et aux generations qui nous suivront
I'exemple de leur h^roisme.
Autant que la puissance de nos armes cet ex-
ample frappera nos adversaires. II leur manque
sans doute la culture qui ne peut naitre qu'au
contact de la civilisation. Mais nous savons qu'il
est une vertu qui ne leur fait pas defaut et qui
deja les rapproche de nous, c'est le courage.
lis sauront comment les francais aussi bono-
116 GENERAL D'AIMADE IN ^MOROCCO
rent le courage et rendeiit a ceux qui ont succombe
daus le combat rhommage qui leur est du.
Mon hommage s'^tend aux braves soldats qui
ont tentd au peril de leur vie de sauver leur Chef
et leurs camarades, S'ils ne rcussirent pas dans
leur gcnereuse temerite c'est que la tache depas-
sait les forces humaines. L'impossible a ete tente.
De tous temps la Cavalerie a eu h, payer son
glorieux privilege d'etre toujours le plus pr^s de
I'ennemi. A elle la gloire, a elle aussi le sacrifice.
Vaillants Camarades, reposez en paix. Vous
avez donne k la France ce que vous aviez de plus
clier : votre jeunesse, vos espoirs, votre vie. Sur
une terre arrosee d'un sang aussi genereux que
le votre, la moisson est certaine.
Grace ^ vous croitront un jour prochain, sur
le sol du Maroc les memes fleurs que celle de
France."
The moment General d'Amade at Casablanca
with the Littoral column was informed of the auda-
cious behaviour of the tribesmen at Mekki he
determined to unite the Littoral and Tirs columns
and give the Moors a lesson.
Accordingly on Monday, February 3, the Littoral
marched out of Casablanca to Mediouna, en route
for Ber Rechid.
On the previous march I had gone (such was
the hurry of departure and so great the difficulty
of obtaining mules for transport) for a ten days'
STDI EL MEKKI 117
campaign without a tent, witliout provisions, with-
out a bed or blanket, and without a servant. I
had my black horse Maroc and a fur coat, and
managed somehow. But on the present occasion
I was royally equipped. All the camp outfit I
was obliged to leave behind before was now packed
on two excellent mules — Zahara and Ayesha, the
Beauty and the Jasmine Flower ; and two men
had been engaged — Abd-el-Kader as cook and
Abdullah as horse-keeper.
The morning of the start dawned. Abdullah
and I loaded up the mules ; better tempered or
more tractable beasts I never wish to own. But
the wheels of Abd-el-Kader's chariot tarried, the
appointed hour arrived and passed, and still Abd-
el-Kader, with a month's pay in advance in his
pocket, was nowhere to be found. The truth was
that Abd-el-Kader, as I learnt afterwards, was
then inhiding on board a boat in the bay, having
listened to tales of bullets and discomforts which
convinced him that he was by temperament un-
fitted for a quasi-military career.
However, Morocco has its compensations. People
there do not take days to make up their minds
whether they are going to bolt or whether they
are going to war.
Packing and leave-taking likewise are cere-
monies which in that man-ruled land do not
necessarily consume the best part of a week. I
had lost one cook ; I had to find another. In
118 GENERAL D'AISIADE IX MOROCCO
ten iiiiuutes after putting agents to work a grave-
faced, rather good-looking, green-turbaned Moor
appeared, talking a little French and declaring
himself ready to face anything for the remunera-
tion of eight francs a day. It was a huge price,
but I paid it and never regretted it. Hadj
Mohammed (he had been to Mecca) was, and I
hope still is, a first-rate cook, a quick packer, civil,
honest, and willing. We never had any troubles,
and my dinners were considered the most recherche
in the army. I remember when we came in tired
and wet to the skin at midnight after the long
day against Bou Nuallah, Mohammed had a most
excellent hot supper of liver and bacon, fried to
a turn, ready the moment we had changed.
So without further ado Hadj Mohammed spread
one of his beautifully clean garments on the fold-
ing table between the two provision-boxes balanced
on the back of the breedy Zahara, and, being
given a leg up by Abdullah, rode proudly out
of the town in command of my caravan. As for
me, I discovered that Abdullah had managed to
lose one of my stirrup-leathers, and presently found
it displayed for sale in the shop of a Hebrew
gentleman, who wanted quite a large sum for it,
aud seemed annoyed when I affixed it to my
saddle and rode off without offering shekels in
exchange. The ride to Mediouna over the rolling
downs was not a pleasant one. Every hundred
yards or so you came upon a dead horse in vary-
SIDI EL MEKKI 119
ing stages of putrefaction. The air was heavy
with the horrid stench, and my steed first jibbed
and then bolted as each new corpse was encoun-
tered. The saddest sight of all was a dying
camel, sitting in the road slowly waving an injured
foreleg from side to side.
Sleep that night at Mediouna was out of the
question. Packs of ravenous dogs barked inces-
santly ; a pertinacious donkey made four separate
determined attempts to enter my tent ; a couple
of amorous camels got their legs entangled in the
guy-ropes ; and the owners of these and other
errant beasts ran yelling and cursing through the
darkness.
The next day the force marched to Ber Rechid,
which had responded to the labours of the troops,
and wore a much tidier and smarter air.
Kuins had been levelled on the exposed side
towards the east, and litter cleared away ; the
ditch and rampart had been improved ; neat gun-
embrasures had been made with sods in the para-
pet ; the gates of the town had been walled up ;
the camp was ranged orderly behind the eastern
ditch ; and already a little village of hucksters'
wooden shanties, contemptuously indifferent to
possible Arab raids, stood unprotected on the plain
beyond.
On February 5 the united Littoral and Tirs
columns sallied out to find the Moors. Across the
flat, black, uninteresting ploughlands we marched
120 GENERAL D'AMADE TN MOROCCO
to Zaouia (Shrine) Sidi el Mekki, the centre of the
fight of the 2nd.
There was no need to be told the area of the
battle ; the air reeked with the sickening smell of
decaying horseflesh, and scores of the unfortunate
animals lay dotted about the springing barley-
fields.
Mekki is a considerable doudr of conical straw
huts, enclosed by a wall and protected by a hedge
of cactus, whose fantastic, reptilian habit silhouettes
against the pale blue of the distant M'Zab hills.
Without the cactus-grove stands its eponymous
shrine — the usual white, domed, square-walled
Koubba, and beyond it, towards the north, a
large enclosure, apparently in more prosperous
times a corral for flocks and herds, but now given
over to the plough.
As we neared the village, dots upon the far
horizon showed that we were at last coming up
with the enemy ; the intrepid Bertrand, most
dashing of cavalry leaders, is dispatched with a
squadron to reconnoitre. A procession of grey-
beards files out of the village and advances as
though somewhat dubious of the reception they
will meet with, but when tiiey have arrived within
a few paces of the General, and find themselves
still alive, one old gentleman takes heart of grace,
and makes up in violence of gesture what he lacks
in veracity.
A tame Moor, one of Huot's intelligence people.
SIDI EL MEKKT 121
dashes by in wild pursuit of an animal that looks
in the long grass like a hare, but turns out to be
a lamb ; he has a long gallop, and the lamb beats
him. But now the enemy are advancing in some
force ; the artillery teams, feeding within their
square of rope attached to four limbers, are in-
spanned again ; the Tirailleurs rush to their piled
arms ; staif-officers bustle about ; correspondents
reluctantly abandon their lunch.
The enemy were firing a mountain-gun, and
several of the shells fell close to the walls of the
enclosure whose southern face Legionaries were
busied in knocking down to within five feet of the
ground, in order to gain a better field of fire. On
a slope to the east two batteries of field-guns
opened on the Moors, and three sections of mitrail-
leuses kept a continuous stream of bullets whizzing
in the direction of the shifting groups. Out on
the stony, asphodel-dotted plateau wounded horses
struggled to their feet, and hobbled painfully out
of the danger-zone.
At length the word came to advance. Divided
in two, with a wide interval between its eastern
and western portions, the infantry went south-
wards, nine companies on the east, six companies
on the west, the two batteries of field-guns massed
on the eastern flank. Extended in line, the six
companies of the eastern firing line advanced alter-
nately, three of them covering with their fire the
advance of the others — a formation which the
122 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
French had not hitherto ado})ted, and whicli I do
not think they made use of again. As usual, the
guns kept close up to the three companies in sup-
port, and, as usual, their fire was the chief factor
in determinino: the retreat of the Moors. About
two miles from Mekki the line was halted, the
enemy was disappearing into the hills. We had
hap})ened on a village of nuallahs, and everybody
was poking about for loot. I found a lot of millet,
and pounced upon it as provender for Maroc, but to
my surprise he would not touch it.
Most of the tiny round skep-like huts had
the primitive loom stretched across their whole
diameter ; how to get into a hut without knocking
the loom down, and how to work it without lifting
the roof off when you had set it up again, are
problems which, one would think, must daily tax
the ingenuity of Moorish spinsters. Nothing of
any value, except wood for fuel, was discovered.
One Legionary got hold of a clumsy wooden batten,
and, crying, " O mon cventail ! " fanned himself
affectedly. The best-made tools were the wooden
pitch-forks, their three prongs beautifully smooth
and pointed ; several acres, as it seemed, of thorn
hedging got impaled on these and were carried off
in triumph, the Legionaries beneath resembling
haymakers in search of a wagon rather than
soldiers returning from a foray. Then fire was
set to everything ; the relics of the thorn zaribas
and the beehive huts flared up crackling noisily ;
SIDT ET. IMEKKI 123
a huge pall of yellow, stinking smoke came down
and blotted out the distant hills. That night the
force was subjected to the most irritating and try-
ing of all the operations of war — a night-attack ;
but, quite apart from the night-attack, the hours
of darkness were the most uncomfortable some of
us ever spent in our lives.
The column camped as usual in a square, with
guns and horses within it, to the north-west of,
and about a quarter of a mile from, the village of
Mekki,
About 9 o'clock orders came that at 12.30 a.m.
the force would march. Kann and I decided that
it was absurd to go to bed ; packing and loading in
the dark would take a good two hours ; for there
was a strict order that not a match was to be
struck, or light shown. So we were sitting
smoking a final pipe under cover of canvas,
before turning out to work in the bitter night,
when a heavy burst of firing broke out on the
left, towards Mekki.
" Messieurs les M'Dakra ! " grunted Kann, and
we went outside. There was absolutely nothing to
be seen, so dark was it, and the restfulness and
order of the camp seemed undisturbed. We were
immediately behind the line of Tirailleurs forming
the northern face, and had exceptional opportunities
for judging of their behaviour under what is un-
doubtedly a very trying ordeal. Not a whisper
came from the line ; not a man stirred. You might
124 GENERAL D'AxAIADE IN MOROCCO
have fancied them asleep. But no, every man was
at his post in front of liis tent, grasping his rifle,
and waiting for orders.
Nowhere was there the slightest sign of dis-
quiet or alarm ; the French troops behaved as
though night-attacks were tlie commonplaces of
manoeuvres.
The Moors had crept up by way of Mekki, but
the Frencli piquet on that Hank detected them,
retired on the main body and gave the alarm.
The south-eastern angle of the camp came in for
the brunt of the fire, but very little damage was
done.
Passard, as always, was in the thick of it, and
got a bullet through his tent. A couple of his men
were wounded, and after three-quarters of an hour
the Moors retired.
It was now time for us to pack for our mid-
night march, and my experience is that few opera-
tions take more years off a man's life than that of
breaking camp and loading mules on a pitch dark
night. Tents cannot be properly folded ; it is
impossible to find the next indispensable rope ;
the half-loaded mule moves five yards and is lost ;
the soul is racked by the knowledge that the ground
is littered with small irreplaceable valuables that
almost certainly will be left behind. At 12.15 a.m.
we had finished the terrible task, and stood waiting
for the men to move. Up comes a groping orderly :
"On account of the disturbance of the men's rest
SIDT EL MEKKl 125
by the night-attack the force will not march
till 3.30."
This was the culmination of our woes. Were
we, on a freezing night, without tents, without
beds or blankets, condemned to stand for three
mortal hours in the mud, denied even the last
solace of tobacco ? The idea was uiithinkable ;
we must unpack, partially, at any rate. So off
came the blankets and the folding beds, and for a
couple of hours we dozed, half-frozen, beneath the
moonless sky.
The French troops in the Chaouiya are admir-
able under all the various difficulties of war, but to
my mind no one operation more conclusively tests
the efficiency of all ranks than the marshalling of
a force of 5000 men, without confusion or noise, in
its proper order in column of route on a pitch-dark
night. There was something almost magical in the
confidence with which the long silent files marched
out into the blackness, in the certainty with which
the drivers got their guns up to the appointed
starting-place. It is true that, to the relief of
smokers, several officers condescended to the use
of lanterns, but they only served to accentuate the
gloom.
The ground was very wet and slippery, and
the headlands of the plough were invisible and
steep.
There was a warren of lurking silos in the
neighbourhood of Mekki ; and the sensible horses
120 GEXERAT. D'AMADE TX MOROCCO
went on gnintiufr and snorting their displeasure at
human recklessness.
Kann and I, after handing over the mules and
servants to the baggage train, managed to strike
a battery, and by sticking like leeches to the tail
of a limber we finally triumphed.
At six the dawn came, and the force, marching
due south towards Settat, saw the mist hanging
over the plain and banking out the lower flanks of
the dark M'Zab hills. Above them the sky was
violet and gold with stormy clouds, and the French,
deploying into their fighting square, moved like
spectres through the foggy twilight.
Almost before the formation was complete the
boom of a mountain-gun came from the hills, and
the little shell fell not far from the General and his
staff. Then, as the sun broke through the mists,
the serried lines of the enemy loomed ghostly in our
front — an enormous shadowy host, 10,000 horsemen
at the very least.
That day the Moors looked as though they had
European drill instructors in their ranks ; their
squadrons kept a line and wheeled and retired with
astonishing precision. For three hours the fight
was very hot, and the French, in order to deceive
the Moors as to their objective, which was really
Settat, and in the hope of cutting them in two,
pushed on towards the east, and then suddenly
changed direction and went due south again. It is
no easy matter, even on a parade ground, simul-
STDT EL MEKKI 127
taneously to change the direction of a square whose
faces are between a thousand yards and a mile in
length ; and when the evolution is carried out with
absolute precision in the middle of a battle it is a
very pretty sight.
At the beginning of the fight the cavalry were
fully employed in defeating an enveloping move-
ment of the Moors on the northern flank ; but
when the direction of the square was changed they
came over to the west, and thundered down upon
a group of Arabs firing from behind some houses.
I happened to be not far off'; a heavy bullet sang
so close past my horse's nose that he stopped and
nodded his head ; the Chasseurs galloped on ; the
Moors fired a last volley ; with a loud cry Bouchard
fell dead, shot through the heart ; the next moment
the Frenchmen were among them.
From seven till ten the Arabs fought well ; but
by that time they had had enough of it. The scene
was a weird one. The district we had passed
through is one of the most populous of the Chaouiya,
or indeed of agricultural Morocco, and well-built
farms of whitewashed mud, with their satellite
doudrs of thatch, are thickly dotted over the great
ploughlands. Whatever would take fire the French
burnt. And so in every direction geysers of yellow
smoke rose high into the air, and the roar of flames
sounded above the rattle of firearms. It was some-
times a difficult matter, in passing through a
homestead, to avoid the Scylla of a colony of silos
128 CxENERxVL D'AMADE IN JMOROCCO
ou the one hand, and to get one's horse to face the
Charybdis of a scorching blast on the other.
At last we reached the hills ; the enemy was
streaming aAvay to his strongholds further east ;
we climbed the steeps and marched on unopposed
over the high plateau to Settat. For the second
time some of us looked down upon the town ; but
now there was no defence ; the place seemed abso-
lutely deserted. Prettily it lay in its hollow in
the hills, its white houses clear cut against the
ochre earth, and its soft, pale setting of olives, figs,
and aloes relieving a flashing bank of orange mari-
golds. Then the force was treated to a spectacular
display — a most unnecessary performance. A
battery of field-guns and a battery of mountain-
guTis were drawn up on the crest, and proceeded,
first alternately and then simultaneously, to throw
melinite shells into the town. They made a great
noise, and fortunately did very little damage. Very
little damage materially, but much mentally to many
poor Jewesses and their children.
When the bombardment (which only lasted a
quarter of an hour) was complete, and we were at
liberty to take our half-dead horses down to water
in the stream that flows through the town, certain
of us on whom tlie bonds of discipline sat lighter
than on others wandered into the city, some to
plunder, others to see what had been done by the
melinite, all to get a new sensation. For a few
minutes I watched three Goumiers attacking: the
SIDI EL MEKKI 129
huge wooden door of one of the largest houses in
the place ; they had let their horses go where fancy
led them, and with a heavy piece of timber were
ramming in the gate. After stupendous efforts the
loud cracking of the wooden bolt nerved them to
still more frantic exertions ; at last the gate flew
back, and with yells of exultation the Algerians
rushed in. As I turned away, wondering whether
the Goum and their horses would ever meet again,
the door of a large building close by opened, and
the most pitiable collection of human beings it has
ever been my misfortune to see poured out into
the roadway. Thirty or forty women, with their
children, half- naked, half- starved, their teeth
chattering with fear, their eyes drawn with sight
of recent horrors, crowded round, kissing my boots,
holding up supplicating hands, and imploring in
tearful voices, thin and husky with weakness. The
older children were crying out for bread ; the in-
fants wailed upon their mothers' milkless breasts.
With the help of a Goumier I managed to gather
the main facts of their story.
When the French entered the town a fortnight
previously the Jews were the only section of the
population who remained to greet the conquerors.
This had greatly angered the Moors, who in revenge
had put twenty-five of them to death — the hus-
bands and fathers of these poor women and children.
The latter were then treated as pariahs and out-
casts ; they were brutally handled, and brought to
I
130 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
the very verge of starvation. Finally their miseries
culminated in the terror of the bombardment. They
said that when the French went away again the
Moors would return and kill them ; they begged
to be allowed to go with the force to Casablanca.
General d'Amade was the last man to be deaf
to sucli an appeal. The little cortege climbed the
hill, and liuddled together betM^een the columns of
wondering soldiers.
The long black hair of the women fell matted
on their shoulders ; some of them Avore patched
rags which left half their bodies naked ; others
made shift with bits of sacking ; the feet of all
were bare ; the babies on their backs, unclothed
for the most part, were cr)'ing with the cold. And
the sun was now setting ; it was five o'clock, and
there were more than twenty miles between Settat
and the camp at Mekki, which must be reached
that night. The kindness of the French to the
outcasts they had taken under their protection
was unbounded. Everything that could be done
to mitigate the rigours of that bitter march they
did. The women were jDcrched on limbers and
ammunition carts and cacolets, but when every
possible means of conveyance had been utilised
there were still many wht) had to walk. Officers
and men alike gave their little provision for supper
to the starving children ; but when all that could
be done for them was done it was horrible to think
of the sufferings of those poor creatures.
SIDI EL MEKKI 131
Their naked feet were cut by the sharp stones ;
the quick pace of the infantry forced them almost
to a run ; inost of the women wore carrying babies
on their backs ; the strength of the children was
utterly inadequate to such a march, and the
piercing wind scourged those who did not walk.
There was one old woman who was blind ;
another led her by the hand ; it was terrible to see
her stumbling among the rocks on the hills ; at last
she was given a seat by a bombardier.
Then the darkness fell, and the interminable
march went on over the bogged and slippery fields.
Far away in the .distance burned two immense
fires ; they were signals at the camp at Mekki,
The men blessed them when they saw them first,
but their blessings changed to cursings as the
hours wore on and those will-o'-the-wisps seemed
further away than ever. One little boy was
dragged along by his mother at a jog-trot ; he
could not stand or walk ; and when the ten
minutes' halt came at the end of every hour he
fell to the ground and lay there. But the whistles
blew and the troops moved on ; his mother pulled
him up, and again for another long hour the child
trotted, dazed and speechless, by her side. A gallant
Major of Artillery saw this ; he got off his horse
and set the woman and her boy in the saddle, and as
he trudged beside them tears ran down his cheeks.
The column got in at midnight, after twenty-
one hours' continuous work.
EDUCATION AT CASABLANCA
Education has more importance in Morocco than
might ordinarily be supposed. Go where you will
amongst the new huts of the native quarters of
Casablanca, the low, monotonous tones of boys
chanting the Koran, as they sway their bodies in
unison, mingled, it may be, with the sharp whack
of the tawse — an implement as dear to the Moorish
hedge-schoolmaster as it was to the Scottish
Dominie — strike upon the ear. Moorish learning
is confined to the Koran and its commentators,
but the beautiful caligraphy in which extracts
from those works are written in a rich brown ink
on whitened boards would make an Eton Master's
mouth water with envy. Arithmetic, too, is taught
for commercial purposes, but any foreign learning
is, as a rule, eschewed. Moors who wish to learn
modern languages, and few races can be better
linguists when they get the opportunity, must
resort to Christian or to Jewish schools.
The former are directed by the Franciscan
Monks, who are under the protection of Spain,
and who by the Madrid Convention of 1864
have the exclusive right of directing the Catholic
Missions in Morocco. The buildings lie behind
their Monastery, and are small but tidy.
EDUCATION AT CASiVin.ANCA 133
Spanish is the language used in instruction,
the younger children being taught by a certifi-
cated Mistress, the elder, ranging from seven to
thirteen years of age, by two of the Fathers. A
few Jews and French are amongst the number, but
the l)ulk are Spaniards and Gibraltarians.
The languages taught are Spanish and French.
In History the pupils first study that of Morocco,
whence they proceed to general and Biblical History ;
Geography, Commercial Arithmetic, Sewing and
Embroidery, the latter both in the Moorish and in
the European style, are also taught. Unfortu-
nately, the scholars look dull and heavy, and their
teachers say it is most difficult to get them to
take any interest in their studies, more especially
in French. The books used are those employed
in Spain, and as their methods are much criticised
by Spanish experts possibly some of the failures
may be due to this cause. The material, such
as maps, seems somewhat antiquated, but it was
pleasing and perhaps surprising to see on the
walls placards inculcating kindness to birds.
It was a great contrast to enter the schools
of the Alliance Israelite presided over by M. Pisa,
a gentleman descended from a Smyrniote family,
and by Mme. Benzakan, a native of Casablanca,
who has taken the highest certificates open to
Schoolmistresses in France.
The Boys' School is in a large and somewhat
gloomy building near the Banque d'Etat, and was
134 GENERAL D'AIMADE IN MOROCCO
founded in 1897 as an establishment where boys
could be fitted to take the Certificat des Etudes
Priniaires, which is, perhaps, most nearly equiva-
lent to that of the Junior Oxford and Cambridge
Local Examination.
But, as M. Pisa, who might well be taken
for the Rector of a flourishing French Lycde,
pointed out, his one object is to make men of his
boys ; and, so far as a casual visitor could judge,
he has most fully succeeded.
What a contrast the scholars in his class-rooms
present to the dirty ragamuffins in their black
caps and foul purple, brown, or yellowish gaber-
dines who hold horses, run errands, or keep open-
air gambling-hells where vagabonds of all religions
and nationalities lose their debased Hassani copper
at primitive roulette or rouge et noir in the neigh-
bouring Mellah ! And yet in many cases the
boys, seated in class-rooms by no means inferior
either in cleanliness or equipment to some of the
older ones at Eton, are the brothers and cousins
of the street loafers aforesaid. Unfortunately
only £400 a year is available for the support
of the school, but if the means could be pro-
vided, M. Pisa said lie could civilise the Ghetto
in ten years.
There are 250 scholars on his lists, nearly all
of them natives of Casablanca, who are divided
into nine classes, and range in age from seven to
fifteen years.
Not all of them are Jews. It is one main
EDUCATION AT CASABLANCA 135
object of the school to teach tolerance, and not
only do Jews of all classes and nationalities send
their boys there, but Catholics, Protestants, and
Mussulmin take advantage of it. All are treated
alike by the Professors, and the crusted 2:)rejudices
of centuries are worn away in the daily intercourse
of the schoolroom.
The schools are under the protection of France,
but receive no grant from the French Government.
The language used in instruction is French, except
in the two junior classes, where the two Pabbis,
who are Professors of Hebrew, use Spanish with
the younger children. Two other classes are
directed by monitors, one of whom was wholly
trained at the school. Later on he intends to
take the higher diplomas at Paris. The other
classes are taught by Professors, but unfortu-
nately for the moment no one can be procured
to teach English. An enterprising Board School
Master who had some knowledge of Frenoh might
tind an opening here, since, unless the French
occupation comes to an end, Casablanca is bound
to prove the most rising port in Morocco, and a
knowledge of English is in demand.
All children in the Casablanca Mellah speak
Spanish as well as Arabic from their earliest years,
and so have a great advantage over our English
schoolboys when they begin their linguistic studies.
Hebrew is the first language taught, and urchins
of ten translate Deuteronomy into Spanish with a
fluency which would awaken the wonder of Upper
136 GENERAL ITAMADE IN IMOROCCO
Division. Portions of the Talmud, in an abbre-
viated form, are read with the text.
In the more advanced classes the pupils seem
to be excellent French scholars, and to be well
versed in geography and history. No attempt is
made to convert them to any special political
ideas, and to judge by a theme on the Holy War,
expressed in very correct and elegant diction, some
of them must be Moroccan patriots.
All are taught sufficient French and Spanish
for the purposes of business correspondence. The
course of arithmetic includes decimal fractions, the
Metric System, practical Exchange, problems in-
volving questions of Capital and Interest, the ele-
ments of surveying (a subject which is all-important
in a country where disputes as to land form the
staple of the legal business), and the theory and
practice of book-keeping, so as to enable them
to enter commercial houses as soon as they leave
school.
The history of Morocco is taught in detail,
serving to introduce them both to Ancient and
General History, whilst in Geography also they
begin with the study of their own country.
From Biblical History they go on to Post
Biblical History and Modern Jewish History, in-
cluding some general no^tions as to the Talmudic
literature. All receive lessons in morals, but re-
ligious instruction is given to the Jews only by a
Rabbi. Literature as literature is not dealt with,
for the students only read the lives of great men
EDUCATION AT CASABLANCA 137
of all nations, such as Corneille, Molicre, Shake-
speare, and Dante.
Science is taught practically, beginning with
Nature lessons, which are given as far as possible
in the open air, and which are designed to awake
that habit of observation the want of which is one
of the greatest defects in the Moorish mentality.
Early marriage is not encouraged, and, in fact,
few of the pupils of the school marry in Moroccan
Mellahs.
To the Jews of the interior, who in many ways
are far more akin to the Moors than they are to
their fellow-countrymen in the Coast Ports, such
schools are strange and wondrous portents.
Boys trained in them are the instruments by
which France hopes to secure the peaceful pene-
tration of Morocco, for they will act as the bridge
by which civilisation will pass from Europe to the
Jews and Moors. But for them, it would have
proved a very diiScult matter for French settlers
to establish themselves at Casablanca.
Before the bombardment there were, perhaps,
twenty French residents registered at the Con-
sulate. Now there are nearly six hundred, and
nearly every clerk, interpreter, or employe who
has been engaged by them come from M. Pisa's
school. Plis pupils manage the local branches of
the Banque d'Etat and Compagnie Algdrienne,
and are found as book-keepers in the leading-
English houses.
Such men are far cheaper and better suited to
138 CxENERAI. D'AMADE IN MOTIOCCO
these employments than would be new-comers from
Euroj)e. They have a thorough knowledge not
only of the languages in daily use, but of the
Moorish character, and are not disliked by the
natives with whom they have grown up side by
side. From amongst them the subaltern employes
of the French administration of the future will
probably be recruited. Fear of the Moroccan is
engrained in the Moroccan Jew, and he will there-
fore remain supple and cringe to his former master,
where a new-comer would trample on the prejudices
of a conquered race.
M. Pisa has also organised an Apprentices'
School, in which the dislike of manual labour in-
herent in the Jewish nature is overcome, and where
those unfitted for commercial life are trained as
upholsterers, cabinetmakers, masons, blacksmiths,
and gardeners, the last being an occupation in
which Jews are pre-eminent.
An " Old Boys' Association" is also connected
with the school, which not only provides situations
for those leaving it, but had also a library in which
they could find books and periodicals. Unfortu-
nately this library, as well as the funds connected
with it, was pillaged after the Ijombardment, and
the work of the Association has had to be tem-
porarily suspended.
M. Pisa is an enthusiastic admirer of Arab Art,
and would gladly train the pupils both of the Boys'
and Girls' Schools in its elements, not only as
applied to Architecture and to Design, but to
EDUCATION AT CASABLANCA 139
Weaving and Embroidery. When the school moves
into its new buildings, space could be found for a
workshop, and as carpet weaving is one of the
great occupations of Casablanca, and as far as its
mechanical side is concerned, better done even than
at Rabat, he thinks that if funds could be found
to ]3ay a Professor of Design and Weaving, who
could ground his pupils in the theory as well as
in the practice of Moorish Art, it would give them
a means of procuring their livelihood in the future.
The French occupation has already caused a great
rise in the price of carpets and of embroideries,
and as the carpets of Rabat with their vegetable
dyes and pure Arabic designs are extremely scarce,
those of Casablanca, which are more closely woven,
are beginning to supplement them. Unfortunately
the weavers are not only employing cheap aniline
dyes, but are cojDying the worst European patterns,
and are at the same time flooding the market with
machine-made edgings and embroideries from Ger-
many. Hence it is necessary, if an important
industry is to be preserved, that its elements
should be thoroughly taught to the rising genera-
tion, and I would recommend the matter to the
attention of the lady patronesses of the Alliance
Israelite. As Casablanca rugs have risen in value
since August 1907 from 50 francs to 130 francs,
their manufacture is worthy of consideration.
It may be added that in order to encourage
neatness amongst the boys the more necessitous
are provided with European clothing twice a
140 GENERAL D'AMxVDE IN MOROCCO
year from a fuud bequeathed by the late
Baroness Hirsch.
Not three hundred yards away from M. Pisa's
school is the Religious School where those Jews
who still cling to their old traditions, and even
some of M. Pisa's own pupils, receive instruction
in the Law, the Prophets, and the Talmud.
Here, in a cavernous-looking room with horse-
shoe arches and a timbered roof, where the green -
painted argan-wood rafters are set as thick as
those in Leonardo da Vinci's " Last Supper," the
sunlight falls through the open door upon three
benchfuls of boys clothed in the gaberdine of
their forefathers and the djellaba whose pointed
hood resembles the dress of the kobolds on
German Christmas cards. Their master, a vener-
able, white-bearded figure, coiffed in a bird's-eye
handkerchief and robed in flowing white, is
squatting cross-legged in the corner nearest the
door, with a fair-headed little child nestling by
his side. In a monotonous chant in a shrill
minor key, accompanied by that swaying motion
of the trunk which seems inseparable from religious
instruction in Morocco, they are chanting the
Torah from printed books. From time to time
the master, nodding and swaying, gives the
pitch. A bright-eyed boy in European dress
and lycden's cap, who has seen us at M. Pisa's,
in excellent Spanish serves as our interpreter to
the Dominie, who is guiltless of any languages
save Hebrew and Arabic. I hand him a small
EDUCATION AT CASABLANCA 141
coin, which he passes on to his preceptor, and
the clianting which my appearance has inter-
rupted begins anew. Such are the schools in
which Israel in Mogreb has handed down her
traditions and her law since the time when the
Vandals ruled at Carthaoe.
No words can express the eager desire of
the Jewish parent to give his son some kind of
education. In Mogador a father has been known
to pawn his djellaba to pay his son's school fees.
It might be thought that the pupils of the
Alliance Israelite would have been admirably
fitted to carry European civilisation into the
Mellahs of the interior, but such has not hitherto
proved to be the case. Not only are the Jews
gradually deserting Fez Marrakesh and Mequinez
for the coast towns, but there is a great emigration
of their educated men to South America, where they
are founding large colonies, and whither they are
followed by their fiancees. Kecent events will, how-
ever, provide them with openings at home.
The Jewish Girls' Schools at Casablanca are,
in most respects, fully as well equipped as that
for the Boys.
That directed by Mme. Benzakan has 250 pupils,
many of them i\Ioorish subjects, ranging in age from
seven to fifteen years. She is assisted by pupil-
teachers trained by herself, two of whom will, she
hopes, go to France this year to compete for the
entrance diploma in the School Mistresses' Course.
The subjects taught and the method of teach-
142 GENERAT. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
ing are, on the whole, nearly the same as those
of the Boys' School. Three hours a day are
devoted to French, and three to sewing and
embroidery. So far as the mechanical part is
concerned both are excellently done, but Mme.
Benzakan complains that tlie u;irls, who say tliey
can learn Moorish embroidery at home, will only
use European patterns. She thinks that a few
may be able to earn a franc a day as dress-
makers, but as the whole Jewish population of
Casablanca does not exceed 5000, and as they
would liavo to compete with French and Spanish
milliners, the market will soon be glutted. She
is endeavouring to teach them the principles
of art historically, and thinks that with en-
couragement she could interest them in Moorish
Art if a market could be found for their pro-
ductions later on. History, Literature, the Bible,
and Morals are carefully taught, as is Geograpliy,
the maps used being excellent. Domestic Economy
is taught only theoretically, for owing to the
smallness of the buildings and the want of appli-
ances no lessons can be given in practical cookery.
Science is also taught, as is Drawing, and great
pains are taken with French recitation. The
fees paid by the majority amount on an average
to only half a douro Hassani — say one shilling
and threepence a month, but many are so j)oor
that tbey often have to be remitted.
Girls taught in the school marry early, and
often go away into the Mellahs of the Interior ;
EDUCATION AT CASABLANCA 143
but many of them keep up their European
training and habits, and such marriages must
do much to raise the standard of civilisation
amongst the Moroccan Jews.
The Alliance Israelite practically supports eight
schools for boys and seven for girls in Morocco,
including Fez and Marrakesh, but not Saffi or
Mazagan. The total Jewish population of these
towns is given as 5G,500, and the schools, which
cost in all about 50,000 francs a year, are attended
by 1859 boys and 1139 girls, about half being
paying pupils.
For Europeans Casablanca has a small French
school — a private venture run on the lines of a
Lycee, but now that the English secondary school
has been suspended owing to the consequences
of the bombardment there are no means for
procuring instruction in English.
Such are the facilities for education open to
the rising generation, who as men and women
will in the future mould the destinies of Morocco,
which are to be found in its chief port. The
human material which the teachers have to work
upon is better than might have been expected,
for neither the Moors nor the Jews are deficient
in natural abilities. That the results of this
education will be favourable to the progress of
civilisation cannot well be doubted, but it is
possible that they will not prove equally favour-
able to the Europeanisation of the country. The
Moroccan Jew, educated on modern lines, will
144 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
prove a formidable competitor to the middle-
class immigrant from Europe or from Algeria, and
the sympathies of the Moroccan Jew are by no
means wholly with the French, Unless edu-
cated immigrants of small means can find a foot-
hold in Morocco, France will find herself called
upon to repeat her experiences in Algeria, and
this is the more to be regretted since what is
passing in Casablanca at this moment seems to
show that Frenchmen are to be found who are
prepared to emigrate from their country for
other reasons than to fill posts in the Govern-
ment service. Only the French trader, the
French clerk, and the French firmer can bring
Morocco under European control. France cannot
afford to waste her blood and her treasure merely
to set up a Morocco for the Moroccans. Her
sentimental interest in Mohammed Kamel Pasha's
dreams will not extend to those of some Moroccan
Mazzini. Hence, perhaps, her reluctance to enter
on a forward policy. The little-realised power of
the Jews is thus cryptically summarised in a letter
from a Casablanca friend: "I believe that Kings,
and Governments, Uniforms, Wars, Ideals and
many things, are only incidents and uses of the
Jews, who control and are at the real bottom of
all ; and that is deeper than we can go."
A RAZZIA (FORAY)
Early in the morning of Sunday, February 9, the
French column left Zaouia Sidi el Mekki, marching
in column of route in a south-westerly direction.
Through the dripping asphodel, soaking them
above the knees, trudged the sturdy swarthy-
visaged Tirailleurs, chattering and shouting to
one another in perpetual chorus audible a mile
away.
To the south lay the low line of the hills guard-
ing Settat ; in front three abrupt, rocky knolls
stood out on the horizon ; to the west there was
nothing but the immense stretch of the plain,
dotted by a few white koithhas. Presently from
the right came the sound of distant firing. The
General, attended ])y his tricolour pennon and his
stati', trotted on to the head of the column ; but the
cavalry were out of sight. For half-an-hour or
more the persistent tick-tack of rifle fire showed
that the cavalry were still in touch with the Arabs.
By this time the column had reached a culti-
vated dell, where a clump of huts stood beneath a
tall date-palm, near two wells of excellent water.
To the right rose a ridge covered with a thicket of
cactus, below which blue and yellow lupins were
146 GENERAT. D'AMADE IN .AIOROCCO
just coming into flower. Beyond, a field of beans
filled the air with their entrancing fragrance.
Presently in the distance a dark horde loomed
in sight ; the sun Hashed on the swords of the
encircling horsemen. The mass came nearer ; the
bellowing of cattle mingled with the bleating of
sheep and goats ; the red cord-bound head-dress
and flowing white robes of the Goumiers stood out
against the dun herds.
Waving their swords and shouting they shep-
herded tlieir booty between the long lines of
transport carts — camels, horses, cattle, sheep, goats,
and donkeys — two thousand at the very least.
At the head of the procession marched the
prisoners, Arabs of both sexes, most of the women,
nearly all of whom carried babies, being mounted
on donkeys.
Then came a crowd of triumphant, sweating
Algerians, their saddles, their horses' rumps and
necks, even their own backs bulging with multi-
farious loot ; dashing hither and thither, like angry
bees, in futile eflbrt to corral the terrified stam-
peding beasts.
Carpets and rugs, in colour and design markedly
superior to anything made in Morocco to-day,
formed their principal prizes ; besides these tliere
were all sorts of artistically striped coverlets, camel-
hair tents, kettles, brazen dishes — all the domestic
paraphernalia of wealthy Arabs.
The Goumiers were proud of themselves; they
A RAZZIA 147
said the wretches had dared to defend their
property ; they had been obhged to run ten of
them through. The gunners and the Spahis and
the Legionaries crowded round to see the spoil and
hear the tale, and while panting Goumiers, having
deposited voluminous armfuls of upholstery, hurried
away to find a camel on whicli to stow it, comrades
dashed in, seized a rug or so, and made off, to be
pursued and captured by the returning Goum, and
forced to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. Mule-cart
drivers seized sheep and tied them by the legs to
the summits of their loads ; delicious fox -terrier-
like lambs, with white bodies and black or tan-
marked heads, speedily were ravished from their
bleating dams ; black, sensible-eyed goats sat on
many a limber ; and yellow puppies might be
seen poised on the backs of surprised artillery
horses. All the French officers who had seen
service in Algeria (and there are few who have not)
were licking their lips at the prospect of meshivi
once more — sheep roasted whole, and torn to pieces
with the fingers, after the native manner — "the
only mutton worth eating," was the unanimous
verdict. The Chasseurs had their story to tell.
Firing at Moors about six hundred yards away,
they were surprised to find bullets whizzing past
their ears with an accuracy of aim they had long
ceased to expect from Arabs at that distance.
Suddenly the captain in command spied something
dark in the green barley a hundred yards away.
148 GENERAI> D'AMADE IN MOKOCCO
He and his men charged down, and found a dozen
Arabs, their rifles still hot, shamming dead. In a
very few seconds the sham became reality.
The bnitality of the Moors has often been
written about ; but only the sight of their cruelties
really brings home to the mind the depravity of
these wretches.
When the French cavalry had surrounded the
flocks and herds, and the Moors saw that their
wealth was lost, they seized the nearest animals
and broke their legs, cut ofl their hoofs, hamstrung
them, gashed them, mutilated them.
Something tangible will have been done for
civilisation when, under the control of France, such
dastardly acts are no longer possible.
But here comes a black - bearded captain,
galloping up to see the fun ; his horse falls into
a ditch, over his head goes the captain ; when he
gets up his sword describes a correct right angle.
Camp was pitched near the wells ; and nearly
everybody's thoughts were on mutton and on
nothing else.
I sat down to eat a frugal lunch near some
officers similarly employed ; their cases and boxes
were littered about round them. Out of one
wooden box came a great clucking.
" Where is my picketing-rope ? " cried a huge
veterinary surgeon in red-velvet cap.
His batman produced a rectangle of fine string,
about three feet square, attached to four small pegs,
7k a
•^>Ct. ^<\'^ "ik-S/f^
t bW'ftc -J 'i- 1 ■-.•■•:■-:
Aftkj; Tilt; Kouav in xhk C(ii:m'i;v hk xiiio uulau Zih
Guu.Mji;u Locating
A RAZZIA 149
and solemnly drove theui into the ground. Then
out of the case came a dozen hens, each with Its
tiny string hobble ; at correct intervals they are
tied to the gigantic plcketing-rope ; and there they
dab about in the grass, witli an occasional vicious
peck at the leg-detaining string.
The capture of the animals illustrates the mental
limitations of these Arabs. For two whole days
the French had remained within ten miles of them,
and they must have known of their whereabouts ;
they could easily, if they had wished, have driven
off their belongings to some safe place far away in
the hills. But since the French had hitherto made
a three or four day expedition and then returned to
their base, these confiding people argued that they
would never do anything else, and sat still under
the pleasing conviction that the Nazarenes were
going home to Casablanca. The vagaries of an
invading army are an educative process. On Feb-
ruary 11 the column marched almost due south,
from seven till one, covering about sixteen miles.
Huge blocks of tumbled limestone rose like gigantic
dolmens towards the west ; in front a sea of waving
asphodel-heads gave a faint lilac tinge to the
plain, be37'ond which rose the gentle slope of the
furthest verge of the Atlas. We gained the sum-
mit, and saw a rolling plateau green with a sea of
barley. Here and there in the distance an isolated
clump of palms or a dark patch of cactus broke the
undulating line. Nuallahs — the conical straw huts
150 GENERAL D'AMADE IN ISIOROCCO
of the natives — were dotted about at frequent in-
tervals ; but all their inhabitants had fled. Then
we sank a slope golden with charlock, and the
derelict kasbah of Sidi el Aiachi lay suddenly
beneath us.
The warm red of its mud walls contrasted with
the gleaming white of its ruined houses ; its silent
courts were emerald with mallow. Half-a-dozen
walled forts crowned the slopes about it ; it is a
place admirably designed for defence. This was
once the flourishing capital of the Oulad Said, one
of Chaouiya's twelve tribes ; and now it is a ruin,
like all the other cities of that tyrant-ridden
plain.
In the distance, as the column halts, something
white is fluttering ; a couple of flags are borne by
tottering aged crones with covered mouths behind
half-a-dozen white-robed chiefs coming to make
their submission. Then the host forms square ;
the little tents go up as though by magic ; horses
are led off to water ; the wells are surrounded by
joking crowds ; there is mutton over from yester-
day, and every one is happy.
Presently groups of officers collect in front of
the tents of the staff ; correspondents, nosing some-
thing in the wind, pant in from every quarter of
the compass ; a fair-complexioned man, in flowing
blue robe and white turban, is the centre of attrac-
tion. It is the intrepid M. Houel, correspondent
of the Matin, who has, at no small risk to his skin,
A RAZZIA 1.51
attached himself to Mulai Hafid and his mehallah,
now encamped at Meshra ech Chair on the Oum er
Rebia about fifteen miles away.
That M. Houel was an emissary from Mulai
Hafid to the French General there is no shadow
of doubt ; but only the correspondents were posi-
tive as to the exact nature of the proposals he
conveyed. Probably Mulai Hafid did request
General d'Amade not to intervene on Abd-ul-Aziz
behalf in the fraternal dispute as to the sovereignty ;
but the correspondents had the figures pat, and with
bated breath assured all and sundry that he was
offering France two million five hundred thousand
francs to evacuate the Chaouiya. General d'Amade
gave Mulai Hafid no immediate answer ; he took
his ambassador with him to Casablanca, which was
reached, without fighting, in three days.
THE FIGHTS OF FEBRUARY 18
The operations which cuhninated in the distinct
fights of February 18 resembled in plan, if not
in scope, the "drives" for which Lord Kitchener
was chiefly responsible in the South African War,
and they illustrate the extreme difficulty of con-
ducting these combined movements successfully over
an area small enough to enable a well-informed
and mobile foe to concentrate his attention wholly
on one or more of the weaker columns engaged.
On this particular occasion the failure of the
scheme and the severe handling received by
Brulard's and Taupin's columns in their attempt
to realise it, led to two important results. The
first was the total abandonment of the drive
strategy, and the massing of every available man in
one strong column ; the other was a temporary panic
in Casablanca which, reflected in France, occasioned
the sending of M. Regnault, the French Minister in
Morocco, and General Lyautey, the very successful
Algerian administrator, on a mission to the Chaouiya,
ostensibly to devise measures for pacifying the dis-
trict, in reality to buttress by direct and expert
evidence the confidence of the Government in
General dAmade. The intention of the scheme
FIGHTS OF FEBRUARY 18 153
was that two relatively weak columns marching
southwards and eastwards respectively, should
at a given point on a certain day unite with a
strong column advancing northwards, and thus en-
velop and crush between them all the scattered
forces of the enemy within the limits of the
operation.
The point of concentration was Abd-el-Kerlm,
near the foot-hills of the Atlas ; the day was Feb-
ruary 18. Colonel Taupin was to leave Bou Znika
early on the l7th and march southwards a two
days' journey ; Colonel Brulard was to leave Ber
Bechid on the night of the 17 th and march nearly
due east ; General d'Amade with the united Littoral
and Tirs columns, arranged to leave Ber Bechid
on the 16th, go south to Settat, turn north-east
on the 17th, and bring his force to Abd-el-Kerim
the next day.
In the event Taupin got so knocked about on
the 17th that the same day he had to put in to
Fedallah with a loss of five officers and thirty-four
men. Brulard certainly managed to effect his junc-
tion with the General on the 18th, but after pro-
longed fighting in which he had by no means the
best of it, for he had thirty casualties, while the
united Tirs and Littoral columns never fired a
shot till the 18th and then encountered so little
opposition that their total loss amounted only to
two killed and three wounded. The Moors, indeed,
formed a most intelligent appreciation of the situa-
154 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
tiou ; they devoted their whole strength to Taupin
on the 17th and forced him to retire; they then
on the 18th attacked Brulard with the great bulk
of their forces, leaving a few men to make a feint
on the line of the Littoral and Tirs column ; and
so on two successive days attacked the two weak
columns in detail, holding the strong column to
its ground on the only day when it could have
been any hel}) to the others.
The whole proceeding proves how tactically
ineffective any force becomes when it is tied
down to the execution of some preconcerted plan.
" Marchez au feu," said the great commander.
But if the Littoral and Tirs columns had marched
to Brulard's cannon when they first heard them,
they would not have gone to Abd-el-Kerim ; and
Abd-el-Kerim was the rendezvous.
So first they went to Abd-el-Kerim, where
neither Taupin nor Brulard were, and then they
marched to the sound of Brulard's guns, and got
liim out of his difficulties, which were not incon-
siderable.
Of the details of the two principal fights it
is impossible for one who was not present to give
any connected account. Taupin got without diffi-
culty through the cork forest of Sehoul, and past
the little shrine at Sidi-ben-Sliman on the plateau ;
his wily enemy was waiting for him in the steep,
broken ground about Ain Rebbah, where the
French had camped the night before the battle
FIGHTS OF FEERITARY 18 155
of M'Koun. There is a narrow road in a valley
between two overlooking hills that leads on to
the high plain of M'Koun, and up this road the
advanced guard, consisting of one company of
infantry, was winding. Suddenly a strong body
of Moors dashed from behind cover upon the French,
who fought till their ammunition was expended,
and then retired upon the main body. The Moors
swooped down in determined fashion on the little
square : bayonets were freely used ; one officer,
unhurt, had his field-glasses torn off him in the
scrimmage. Finally the Moors were beaten off;
but there was difficulty in getting the guns up
the hill ; the enemy was certain to renew his
attack next day. Tauj)in deemed it wiser to
make for Fedallah than to go on and risk being
cut up by an overwhelming force.
Brulard started from Ber Rechid at ten o'clock
on the night of the 17th, and from dawn on the
18th till five in the evening when he effected his
junction with General d'Amade, he was continu-
ously engaged. The terrain was flat, and emi-
nently adapted to the enveloping cavalry tactics
dear to the Moor — " locus aptus equis, ut planis
porrectus spatiis et multae prodigus herbae," the
converse of Ithaca as described by Telemachus
when he refused Menelaus' gift of horses.
Brulard was about four miles from Abd-el-Kerim
when the combined column from the south got
there ; the General sent on two batteries of field-
150 GENERAL D'AIMADE IX MOROCCO
guns and four companies of infantry to help him
through, and he brought into camp a very tired
lot of men.
The doino^s of the Littoral and of the Tirs
are very easily summed up. Their march from
Ber Rechid to Settat on the 16th was entirely
uneventful. There lay the pretty town, bowered
in its groves of olives and of figs ; the Moors were
gone, the Jews were gone ; only a few diseased
and crippled wretches sat in the sun in the wide
market-place. One of these, on all fours like a
beast, writhed across the square, as though he
held his right foot with his right hand. I went
nearer and examined him ; the right hand and
foot were in one piece.
The place had now all the appearance of an
abandoned home ; it had fallen to the level of the
rest of the cities of the plain. Every scrap of
woodwork had been torn down and carried off —
doors, shutters, lintels, posts, and beams.
On the 17th we marched, still without firing a
shot, to the Oued Tamazer — a little stream issuing
from the green M'Zab hills, near which some
Arabs had pitched their tents. Going to this
village to ])uy eggs I saw a hen of very peculiar
appearance. On either side of her head, just
Ijoiiind the eyes, protruded wing-like feathery
growths, in shape like the wings of a dragon-fly,
and about the same size. I tried to make the
Arab who had conducted my extensive egg-pur-
PLIGHTS OF FEBRUARY 18 157
chases understand that I wished to add that hen
to my collections ; but he was so invincibly obtuse
to the clearest sign -language that I was forced to
go without her, realising, not without a certain
pleasure, that her unique attractions had made her
sacrosanct in the eyes of a grich-loYiiig generation.
The next day we made for Abd-el-Kerim. The
Littoral in square, was in the plain on the west ;
the Tirs, on the east, entered the hills, and soon
got in touch with a few hundred Moors, who played
their delaying game with great skill.
The country in which the Tirs found itself is
very like the Cots wolds, except that old red sand-
stone and not oolite appears to be the geological
formation. There are the same abrupt, isolated,
flat-topped hills, reminiscent too of the tafel kops
of South Africa ; the same contrasts of verdure
against outcropping rock ; the same sheltered
basins between the long escarpment and its out-
liers ; the same sudden valleys and sudden, chang-
ing views. Indeed, not far from Abd-el-Kerim
there are two hills which have their exact counter-
parts twice over in England — the long flat hog's-
back flanked by a treeless cone which occur near
Dursley in Gloucestershire and again near War-
minster in Wiltshire,
On the frequent points of vantage conferred by
such country the Moors posted themselves, in front
and on the flanks and in rear of the French, For
the greater part of the time the square marched
158 GENERAL DAMADE IN MOROCCO
on without troubling to reply to the snipers, but
occasionally a battery would unlimber, and while
two guns cleared the hills in front the other two
warned the Moors in rear to keep at a respectful
distance. During the whole day heavy firing was
heard on the left in the plain ; we of the Tirs
thought it was Littoral ; in reality it was Brulard
hammering his way from Ber Lechid,
Only once did the attack get to anything like
close quarters. There was a narrow cutting be-
tween large groves of cactus, commanded by a hill
a quarter of a mile away, and the thick column of
men pouring through the defile made a mark which
even Arab marksmen could hardly miss. Two
Legionaries were killed there, and three more were
wounded before the hill was cleared. About one
o'clock the column reached Abd-el-Kerim, where
the Littoral and the transport had already arrived.
For hour after hour tired men and animals stood
waiting in the plain, while guns and a few com-
panies of the Legion were sent to the west to
reinforce Brulard, now faintly distinguishable on
the far horizon. At five he got in with his four
dead and twenty-six wounded ; and it became
fairly obvious that something unpleasant must
liave happened to Taupin. The " drive " had not
been a success. That night at Casablanca there
was a scare, due chiefly to the needless precautions
taken by the colonel commanding the garrison.
Marines were landed from the warship in the bay ;
FIGHTS OF FEBRUARY 18 159
the Mohammedan troo})s were sent on outpost
duty ; the Spaniards patrolled the road to Azem-
mour ; the Jews shut up their shops, and got
upon their roofs ; refugees, with flocks and herds,
rendered the streets impassable ; the balloon
made agitated ascents ; it was rumoured that the
European head of the Customs had sent his wife
off to the man-o'-war.
This was the only direct effect of Taupin's
reverse ; the Moors were much better employed
that day with Brulard ; and never did they display
any desire to knock their heads against forts Ihler
and Provot.
But there can be no doubt that the panic in
Casablanca transmitted something of its fears to
France, where to-day a casualty list of sixty is
regarded by many people as a quite adequate
reason for a change of General.
The Regnault-Lyautey Mission was the sop
thrown to this section of opinion ; but before those
eminent persons met General dAmade had practi-
cally conquered the Chaouiya.
COINAGE IN MOROCCO
The coinages in use in Morocco are the English,
French, Spanish, and Moorish or Hassani, the latter
being so called because it was issued by Mulai
Hassan, the predecessor of the present Sultan.
Few or no Moorish gold coins are in circula-
tion, the native coinage consisting of silver and
copper, and in nomenclature being modelled on
the Spanish.
Thus 1 douro (called at Casablanca a " dollar ")
= 5 pesetas; 1 peseta =100 centimos de peseta,
divided into 4 grich (called reaux at Tangier) of
25 cts. each.
The exchange between English, Spanish, and
French coins is regulated by the rates of Paris
and Madrid.
In comparison with all these coinages the
Moorish is greatly depreciated. Its ratio to the
French and English coinages is fairly constant ;
but the value of the Spanish currency in Hassani
has steadily fallen since the French occupied Casa-
blanca, for the reason that the Banque d'Etat and
the Compagnie Algcrienne, which regulate the
local rates, are doing all in their power to intro-
duce the French currency.
COINAGE IN MOROCCO 161
The Table of the Rates of Exchange current at
Tangier on January 20, 1908, as published in the
Dej^eche Mai^ocaiue, showed that the Spanish peseta
stood to the franc as 114 per cent, to 100, and to
the £1 as 114^^ to 100; whilst Hassani money
stood to Spanish as 138|- to 100, to French as
157i to 100, and to English 158;^ to 100.
Thus the Moorish douro on that day was equi-
valent to pesetas 3.G1 Spanish, francs 3.17.5 French,
2s. 5.99d, English. The Moorish peseta would
equal centimes 72.2 Spanish, centimes 0.63,7 French,
5.99d, English. The grich would have been cen-
times 18,04 Spanish, centimes 0.15.924 French,
1.498d. English.
The Spanish dollar or douro = douro Hassani 1, pes. 1, cts. 9
French Napoleon (20 francs) = „ „ 6, „ 1, „ 50
English £1 sterling . . = „ „ 7, „ 4, „ 65f
In ordinary life £1 is usually taken as equal
to 8 douros or 40 pesetas Hassani, making the
douro = 2s. Gd. and the peseta Gd.
THE BATTLES OP^ R'FAKHA AND
MTvARTO
On Friday, February 28, General D'Amade marched
towards the east with a larger force than he had
hitherto led against the Moors ; Bou Znika and
Ber Bechid were practically denuded of their
garrisons, and every available man was taken
from Casablanca. With seven battalions of in-
fantry, three batteries of 7 5 -millimetre field-guns,
five squadrons of cavalry, a battery of mountain
guns, and a section of quick-firing 37-millimetre
naval guns, the total amounted to about 5500
men. The country between Mediouna and Sidi
Ahmed el Medjdoub abounds in sudden rifts and
hollows ; cultivation is frequent, and the popula-
tion ofiered no resistance. Towards evening we
came on the deep gorge wherein the Oued Mellah,
a much attenuated stream, flows between distant
green-dotted red cliffs. A couple of doudrs on
the heights made a pretence of friendliness ; one
flew an extemporised Frencli flag, probably com-
posed of the uniforms of French soldiers stripped
on the battlefield of Ain Kebbah, where Colonel
Taupin met with his reverse on the 17th. About
9 P.M., when all was dark and quiet, sniping began
from these doudrs, and lasted for an hour or two.
162
R'FAKHA AND IM'KARTO 163
The next morning the bivouac was broken up
at 3 A.M., and, as usual, there was a long tiring
halt after the column had got under weigh, in
order to wait for a gleam of liglit to enable the
drivers to avoid accidents on the hilly track above
the river. ^
Our direction was south-east, parallel to the
Meilah on our left, along a well-defined track
passing through miles of young wheat and barley
thickly studded with asphodel.
About eight o'clock the first shots were fired.
The cavalry had reached the deep, narrow red
sandstone valley through which the Oued M'Koun
flows north into the Meilah. All the cavalry, a
battery of field-guns, a battalion of Zouaves and
a battalion of the Legion, the mountain battery
and the naval quick-firers were at once pushed
across the stream, at this point a shallow ford
five-and-twenty feet broad.
The country hereabouts was a pleasing contrast
to the flat sameness of the plain of Chaouiya.
Dotted clumps of date-palms grew beside the
stream ; plantations of figs lay beneath the shelter
of the high banks ; a little square white building
at the top of the far incline was alive with blue
and brown pigeons.
To the north the ground rose for a quarter
of a mile in a gentle slope, which ended abruptly
in the steep southern flank of the gorge of the
Oued Meilah.
164 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
In front, towards the east, the green plain
undulated for miles ; the broken, serrated outlines
of distant blue hills stood out boldly against the
sky. To the south the ground fell away towards
a dry watercourse and tlien rose gradually ; a
douch' stood on the slopes ; it was here that the
charges of the Chasseurs were made.
That the fight of R'Fakha was mismanaged
there can be little doubt. A convoy was expected ;
the authorities were anxious to get it unloaded
and sent back again. To effect this an un-
necessarily large portion of the force was ke})t
behind on the heights to the west of the M'Koun
unloading and guarding ; a totally inadequate
number were sent across tlie stream to hold the
enemy in check.
The action, in fact, was intended to be a
defensive one, with the usual results. Where
vigour and dash were imperatively needed to eftect
this object, halts were called and reinforcements
were refused. The cavalry, unsupported by either
guns or infantry, were told to hold the right of
the line : that they speedily found themselves in
a very awkward position is not surprising. The
object of the French would have been better
secured, with vastly enhanced moral effect on the
minds of the Moors, if the western and nearer
bank of the M'Koun had Ijeen made the line of
defence.
As it was, the Moors realised that the French
R'FAKHA AND M'KARTO 165
were halting between two opinions. With a large
force at their command they seemed willing to
wound and yet afraid to strike. If ever these
hillmen are to be crushed, it will be as much by
the resolute attitude of their foes as by the amount
of the losses which they may inflict.
This fight showed very clearly that the Moors,
however undisciplined in the European sense the
rank and file may be, are led by men who have
a fine eye for the tactical possibilities of the situa-
tion. On the right of the French line the un-
supported cavalry were at once singled out for
attack ; and when the tardy arrival of two com-
panies of Tirailleurs enabled the French to hold
their ground, the Moors at once changed their
objective, and by galloping across the whole length
of the French front under cover of a ridge they
arrived unnoticed in the bed of the Mellah, and
thence made a determined attempt to turn the
French left, which hitherto had hardly fired a shot.
There was an order, too, in their dispositions,
which had been absent from the previous fights.
Foot soldiers played a much more important part ;
between each horseman and his neighbour walked
two infantrymen ; when the cavalry trotted the
footmen trotted, when the cavalry cantered the
infantry still kept their places in the ranks. The
fight, then, resolved itself into two parts : the
first, the determined attack on the three squadrons
of Chasseurs on the French right early in the day ;
16G GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
the second, the attack from the valley of the
Mellah beaten ofi* by the Zouaves on the left.
The cavalry soon found that they were in a very
tight place. If they had retired the French flank
would have been turned, and retirement was
therefore out of the question. The Moors were
posted in and near the doudr on the slope, and
found the massed horses, for which there was no
cover, an easy target. Then the Chasseurs charged,
but when they wheeled and retired the line of
Arabs had filled up its gaps, and still held on to
the ground with desperate courage. Three times
did the gallant Chasseurs spur their grey chargers
against the yelling foe, and only the arrival of the
Tirailleurs simultaneously with the last charge
saved the situation. Twelve of them were dead ;
twenty -five were wounded ; more than thirty
horses were killed. The Tirailleurs had two men
killed and four wounded, all by French gunfire,
which in itself shows how utterly unsupported the
cavalry had been left.
Wlien the Tirailleurs were alongside the cavalry
an officious brigadier came riding by the guns on
the French left, and ordered the very capable
major in command to fire on them. The latter
denmrred, saying that he was by no means sure
they weren't Frencli troops. But the brigadier
insisted, and the only happy thing about the
incident was the accuracy of the French shooting
at 5400 yards — a distance at which some
R'FAKHA AND M'KAllTO 107
critics had maintained that shrapnel would be
ineffective.
The behaviour of the cavalry in their difficult
position was beyond all praise ; fine material, well-
horsed and gallantly led, they show the same dash
and resource that has ever characterised the light
cavalry of France.
Two brothers in different squadrons were hit
that day : one died instantaneously ; the other got
two bullets from different directions at the same
moment in the lower part of his face, which carried
away the whole of the lower and part of the upper
jaw. As he lay thus on the ground the rear
squadron sw^ept over him, and the undaunted fellow
sat up and clapped his hands. A sergeant's horse
was killed under him, pinning him to the ground ;
he was found with all the chambers of his revolver
fired, and four dead Arabs round him. As the
Chasseurs swept over the ground for the third
time they indeed saw sights which made them
little inclined to grant the quarter prayed for by
the wretches on whom they were spurring. Naked
lay all their fallen comrades ; one poor fellow had
had his eyes gouged out ; the blood was streaming
from their sockets ; he was still alive. Another
had been disembowelled ; a third was found with
bound hands beside a fire, his head charred to a
cinder. As the cavalry came on, maddened with
rage, the Arabs saw that flight was useless ; they
fired their guns for the last time and then seized
168 GENERAL D'AINIADE IN MOROCCO
their heavy-headed knobkerries. I saw one, picked
up from amid a group of mingled dead — French-
man, Arab, and negro — whose knob was crimson
with French blood. The ground was like a
shambles. Horses were dead there by the score,
and white man and dark lay close together as
they died from shot and sabre-thrust delivered
on the instant.
A Moor, a mass of wounds, still lived ; a corre-
spondent put two revolver bullets into him. But
that did not suffice ; a bullet through the head
from a carbine was needed before that tough
savage departed for his Paradise.
The Moors left forty of their dead here, and
no doubt they took by far the greater part away
with them.
Whatever they may think of the general con-
duct of the engagement of R'Fakha, they will in
future have a holy horror of the cold steel wielded
by the Chasseurs d'Afrique.
While these desperate encounters were taking
place on the right, the French centre and left were
firing in a desultory way at any of the enemy
who might appear on the ridge a tliousand yards
in front. No attempt to outflank the Moors
engaged with tlie cavalry by a turning movement
was made.
It was not until the Chasseurs and the Tirailleurs,
liampered by the shrapnel of their own guns, had
beaten off the Moors that the latter turned their
UFA K HA AND M'KAUTO 169
attention to the left flank. By this time the
French had begun to beheve that there was no
enemy within a mile of them. The Zouaves came
swinging along in column of sections ; suddenly a
dark line rose up fifty yards in front of them and
fired a volley into their ranks. Twelve of the
French fell wounded ; a sergeant was killed. The
Moors retired down the steep face of the gorge
of the Mellah, and wave after wave surged on
again to the attack against tlie Zouaves on the
crest.
I was at this time standing watching a moun-
tain gun at work two hundred yards behind the
Zouaves ; and below in the red-soiled valley red-
cloaked Kaids led on hordes of infantry, whose
loud shrill yells urged one another on to death
and its certain reward. The Zouaves were now
supported by a couple of companies of the Legion,
and the Arabs began to drop fast. But they were
not daunted. Across the ravine, hidden among
the huge brown boulders on the steep slope, marks-
men picked off exposed men on our crest, while in
front of them their comrades rushed shouting on to
death. Moors generally fire too high. If a quarter
of the bullets that sing over one's head came a yard
or two lower, fighting in the Chaouiya would be
more dangerous than it is. But occasionally one
comes at the right height. I was watching the
vagaries of the little mountain gun, which journeys
on tlie back of a mule, and behaves as though it
170 GENEllAT. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
greatly reseuted being fired, for at each discharge
it runs back about ten or fifteen yards. On this
occasion it was at the top of the slope of a steep
hill, and the gunners had hard work to prevent
it charging down into the Ooumiers' horses and
the ammunition mules. The bullets were flying
pretty thick, and suddenly there was a " phit,"
which told me that one had found a billet close
by. I looked at my saddle ; I fancied it had
struck there. But the gunner next me, wearing
in front of him a leather bag containing some spare
parts of the gun, was fumbling in it, and presently
produced a twisted metal disc, and then a bullet,
with the impress of the thread it had struck on its
torn and battered head.
After about an hour's sharp fighting the attack
on the French left slackened ; the red-clad Kaids
led their diminished following into tlie sharp-
pinnacled hills towards the east.
The French now advanced the eight companies
of infantry and the battery wdiich alone had taken
part in the fight. A kasbah three miles ahead,
standing solitary in the green plain, was tlieir
objective, and the troops reached it without much
opposition.
But directly they were within the walls tlie
enemy reappeared, and advancing witli loud yells
made a last desperate effort. Here it was that 1
noticed a non-commissioned officer carrying a rifle,
which is not customary for one of his rank. I
R'FAKHA AND M'KARTO 171
asked him why he did so. " Because I am a good
shot," was the modest rejoinder.
There was a man riding about six hundred
yards from the kasbah ; the sous-officer was invited
to bring him down. He took a long aim, and then,
almost before the report of the rifle was heard, the
four hoofs of the Arab's steed were sticking up into
the blue sky.
Then the sun went down, and everybody felt
that it was about time to camp. We had been
marching and fighting since 3 a.m., and the ground
had been broken and difficult. But there was much
marching and counter-marching to be done before
the troops lay down to sleep. The " Black Earth "
column (Tirs) was told to bivouac at the kasbali,
the " Littoral " column was to return to where the
baggage was assembled on the heights overlooking
the wide valley of the Mellah. When the latter
got there they were told that the camp would be
down in the valley by the stream ; so down again
went the troops, and the horses and the mules,
and when they were fully two miles down the
steep and slippery road another order came that
they were to bivouac on the heights. So back
again toiled the weary men, cursing the staff by
all their gods. At the same time a message was
sent to the "Tirs" column at the kasbah that
they were to return to the bulk of the troops
on the hill.
These unfortunate men toiled over ridges and
172 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
waded through streams till eleven o'clock at night,
and tlien they had to cook their food. They went
to sleep after twenty-two hours continuous work.
Such are the joys of campaigning. However, these
things do not happen every day, for February 29th
only comes once in four years.
On March 1st we woke to a drenching down-
pour. The hills M^ere blotted out ; a pall of mist
obscured the view. The silent rain crept stealthily
into men's clothes and animals' packs, made the
steep banks as slippery as ice. and quadrupled
the toils and difficulties of the march. From hour
to hour the start w^as delayed, and the men stood
moodily in the puddled plough, longing to see the
sun. At last the word was given, and down into
the broad green bed of the Mellah slithered the
long cavalcade, across the narrow stream, and up
a narrow defile leading to the north.
A party of Legionaries, in whose company I
found myself as we sank the slope, were in charge
of a small herd of cattle and a few sheep — beef and
mutton for the following day.
The sheep were troublesome ; they refused
to follow the track ; and the Legionaries found
running after them a course attended with many
a fall in the mud. So with their usual genius
they devised a labour-saving plan.
If the sheep strayed a little from the track,
" Bellez ! " cried the corporal; and a perfect tor-
nado of " baas " issued from the bearded throats
R'FAKHA AND IM'KARTO 173
of the escort, so marvellously and unutterably
sheep-like that the errant muttons were momen-
tarily convinced of the presence on the road of
a large party of their species, and so thitlier, with
gregarious instinct, they at once returned.
In the narrow steep defile only a couple of pack
mules could go abreast ; the guns and carts passed
up in single file ; and the whole force took three
hours to reach the summit of the plateau. A
couple of batteries took up their position on either
side of the exit to the pass, while the rest of us
waited shivering in the huge barley-fields that
stretched away on three sides in unending mono-
tony of dulness.
After an uneventful day, except for the firing
of lialf-a-dozen shots by the rear-guard at a few
Moors who came down from the hills to watch our
departure, the column arrived at Sidi-ben-Sliman,
with its familiar palm and fringe of jagged rocks
on the outskirts of the cork forest.
There we camped in the bright grassy flower-
strewn plain presided over by the little snow-white
koiibha.
The next day (March 2nd) a reconnaissance in
force was made towards the south-west, to a point
on the Neftifikh a few miles to the north of that at
which we had crossed it the previous day. The
low rocky hills on our left looked like the chin of
an unshaven man, so mean and puny are the
stunted cork trees which sparsely dot their crests.
174 GENERAL D'AMADE IN iMOROCCO
The column marched about ten miles to the river
bank, and then we heard shots fired by the cavalry
on the ric^ht.
The Tirailleurs formed line ; but no enemy ap-
peared above the high bank that hid the Mellah.
The Goumiers came in ; they had seen three Arabs,
who had fired on them. They killed two and took
the third prisoner. That was the end of the affair ;
we marched back to Sidi-ben-Sliman.
On March 3rd we marched through the cork
forest of Sehoul to Bou Znika. I had hoped to
see the cistus, which forms an undergrowth thou-
sands of acres in extent, in the perfection of its
bloom ; but I was disap})ointed. A few flowers
here and there were out ; but the harvest of beauty
was still to come. The yellow broom was at the
zenith of its glory ; it flashed like fire in the shafts
of sunshine that lit up the forest glades.
The place teemed with game — partridges, quail,
and hares. There was a noise as of ten thousand
fiends let loose from Hades ; and I saw a company
of Tirailleurs swarming like bees in May. Then a
huge fellow hurled himself on his face on the hare,
and at once the ranks closed in, and a fight for tlie
prize became imminent. But an officer intervened,
and the hare-killer swaggered off with his booty to
find a friend with a knife, so that '^ hallal" might
be properly accomplished. The hare's throat w^as
duly cut, but the hare still lived. Then the friend
raised his mighty hand and smote the hare behind
.xl^l
A Halt at 8idi Aissa
Pancakes on Shkovk Tuesday at lioi; Znika
R'FAKHA AND INIKARTO 17.5
the ear, at the junction of the neck, even as game-
keepers in Britain are wont to smite rabbits, and
so great was the force of the blow that the head of
the hare fell from its body, and rolled away under
the shade of the ground-orchids beneath the cork tree.
It was one of those delicious mornings when the
heat of the sun is tempered by a little breeze, and
the larks are singing in the blue for joy. Every
one I passed was singing too — Tirailleurs and
Legionaries and even officers of severe deportment.
We emerged on the dell beyond the forest where
formerly the paper-white narcissi made a carpet of
snow ; but, alas, their day was past. The ground
hereabouts is strewn with huge boulders, and tufts
of lentisk are dotted about between myrtle-bushes,
which vary extraordinarily in the season of their
flowering, some being covered with bloom, while on
others the buds were still small. Suddenly a dis-
tant blue line appeared beyond the shimmering,
lichen-covered stones beside the jmth. " La mer,
la mer ! " cried the Zouaves ; thinking, like Xeno-
phon's men before them, of the road that leads to
home.
In this flat and sandy plain are to be found
more ground-orchids than in any other part of the
Chaouiya. Here I found two very large species —
one of a dark Turkey red with hairy lip, a curious
and not altogether pleasing flower ; and another of
a light crimson, one of the handsomest plants I
have found in the country.
17« GENERAT. D'AINIADE IN MOROCCO
The column was Ijoiuid for Sidi Hajaj, a place
lyin^i^ to the south of Fedallah, and on March
4th orders were issued that the force should
march strai^^ht thither. But the difficulties of the
country soon brought us back to the flat track
behind the dunes on the shore. Inland hereabouts
deep scrub-covered nullahs wind unseen amid the
levels of the plain, and several of these were crossed
with the utmost difficulty by the guns and mule
carts. The unfortunate sappers were forced to ply
their spades and picks under a grilling sun ; many
were the carts upset and many the delays by reason
of the blocking of the road. Thus we came on the
Neffifikh, two hundred yards above its confluence
with the sea ; and since the tide was coming in
there was some difficulty in getting the baggage
carts across the flooded ford.
We passed the ruined kasbah of Mansouriya
with its mosque and tower, on the summit of which
storks had built their nest — a prodigious structure
four feet in diameter, which gave the slender
minaret the appearance of having donned a straw
hat. That night we camped north of Fedallah, on
the slope of the sandy grass-grown dune, close to a
little fig-orchard all red with marigolds, in which
was a well of good water.
Never have I heard a sound so impressive, so
terrifying, as the thunder of the surge that night.
For a time there would be a lull ; and then the
long rolling roar would swell into a crescendo
RFAKIIA AND M'KARTO 177
culminatii\i^ in a furious bellowing that seemed to
threaten the existence of the narrow barrier that
lay between us and its rage.
Hajaj, like many another place in Morocco, has
a name which may recall departed glories, but is
difficult to associate with any existing local habita-
tion. A wide stretch of cornland ; a little valley ; a
walled, ditch -surrounded fig-orchard — such is Sidi-
Hajaj, where the column rested for a day.
On March 7th we marched again. We were
bound for the M'Dakra, and so due south we
steered towards the low line of blue hills wherein
those redoubtable ruffians have their strongholds.
Still it is a fact that the M'Dakra are the best
agriculturists of all the tribes of the Chaouiya, and
the most given to solid masonry. As we neared
the end of our twenty-mile march the flat plain
was one immense green cornfield studded with tlie
ugly white square enclosures and flat-topped houses
of the cultivators.
The force, as is its wont nowadays, marched
in column of route, and directly the boundary line
which marks the entry into M'Dakra territory was
passed our course was beaconed by the blaze of
straw stacks and abandoned huts.
In Morocco we always know when there is
going to be a fight ; surprises and chance rencontres
are very unusual. The French march into a hostile
country ; not a soul is to be seen ; there is no un-
profitable sniping, no progressive retirements from
M
178 GENERAL D'AMADE IX IMOROCCO
crest to crest. The next day dawns peacefully ;
the lazy Arabs will not rise before their usual hour,
even for the pleasure of fighting the Nazarenes ;
about ten they sally forth, as to a day's partridge-
shooting ; about five they go home to tea. So on
the morning of 8th March one saw the lines of
white-clad, red and blue-sashed men pointing their
rifles all in the same direction, while a continuous
rattle betokened the charging of the magazines.
About nine o'clock the first shots came from the
front, and the force deployed into battle array.
The long, thin line covered a front of about a mile,
and moved across the immense corn-plain towards
a ridge, on the summit of which stood a large
wall-enclosed homestead, strongly held by the
Moors. I rode forward with the General to a
farm which commanded a good view of the attack,
and it was with difficulty that we threaded our
way between a deep ditch and a mass of burning
huts and stacks, which threw huge jets of fire into
the sky, and roared and crackled in a manner very
alarming to the horses.
On the right the cavalry were making a turning
movement ; the guns, as usual, were close on the
heels of the infantry supports. Along the crest-
line a mile away groups of Moors were riding
defiantly, occasionally firing at the dots which
moved on steadily towards them. Then the guns
opened on the farm, and wreaths of reddish dust
whirled up and hid the crest.
3Il'n:AlLLKlSK OF J-IKLT. IMjilSON JN ACTJDN uMAI;( 11 N, I'JOS)
C'AI'T. HUOT ANJJ A.N AlCAIl Kn\(i\
R'FAKHA AND IM'KARTO 179
The infantry gained the ridge and took the
farm, not without trifling loss, and then the flanks
of the line were turned outwards, thus extending
the front to about two miles. To right and left
lay deep valleys, into which, and up the lillls
beyond, the Moors from the ftirm were making
their way. Against them the field and mountain
guns were turned ; and for half-an-hour we watched
the cannonade, and admired the contemptuous in-
difference to shell fire of the slowly retreating foe.
From this height an enormous tract of country
was to be seen. Behind us the plain stretched
brown and green to a misty horizon covered with
white fortified farms ; in front a plateau of downs
melted into a fringe of stony, sharp-peaked hills ;
on the right rose the flat top of the tafel-kop
by Abd-el-Kerim.
Then the line advanced again, and fought its
way slowly on towards the hills. Presently a
Goumier of my acquaintance came riding up with
a saddle and bridle in front of him. " They have
killed my good little mare," cried he disconsolately,
showing two holes in his white burnous, through
which the bullet had passed quite close to his
knee. "All of a sudden I heard a 'phit' as we
were going at full gallop, and the mare gave a cry
and stopped, and rolled unsteadily, and then fell
dead. I'm glad it didn't hit my knee as well ;
five of my comrades in the Goum have had their
legs amputated since this war began, and that
180 GENEKAL D'AMADE IN ISIOROCCO
might have been my ikte. Tliis makes tlie thir-
teenth horse we have lost."
As we marched on, not meeting with much
resistance, the look of the country in front showed
that we had almost reached the limit of our for-
ward movement. Peaks, two and three thousand
feet high, rose steeply above the plateau, their
lower flanks dotted with green scrub ; the rocky
deliles that here and there broke their line were
clearly impassable by guns.
I rode on with the Chasseurs on the right
flank, who were in support of the firing-line of
Tirailleurs, and we ^valked on across acre after acre
of barley, until we rose a ridge, and came suddenly
into the very heart of the savage wildness of the
hills. Immediately in front of us was an immense
plantation of prickly pear, fenced by a low wall,
beyond which towered spires and buttresses of
jagged rock, outlined against the steep mountains
beyond.
On the left appeared the entrance to a narrow
gorge, towards which the ground where we stood
fell almost perpendicularly two hundred yards aAvay.
On the right the land sloped gradually to the hills.
Hidden by the cactus grove lay the camp of the
Mehallah. When the Moors had seen that they
were powerless to arrest the French advance, and
that the General evidently knew the whereabouts
of their lair, they had hurried back and tried to
remove their belongings.
R'FAKHA AND M'KARTO 181
But the French were too quick for them. The
guns were brought up with admirable despatch,
and two batteries opened on the long stream of
white-clad fugitives that poured from the rocky
heights into the ravine.
o
The din was awful ; the carnage was gruesome.
The eight guns fired as fast as the gunners could
ram in the shells, and through the narrow valley
rolled their thunder, and struck the great wall of
mountain beyond, and came volleying back to meet
a fresh discharge, so that the air was a very vortex
of sound.
M. Reginald Kann, the correspondent of the
Temps, who was all through the Russo-Japanese
war, told me that even at Liao-yang he never
heard anything to equal the noise of this salvo.
The main body of the fugitives were penned in
the valley beneath the fire of the guns, but a few
dashed out through the tall cactus plantation, just
as the leading battalion of Tirailleurs came up.
The fugitives had a start, the corn was high ; the
Tirailleurs were excited, and most of the Arabs
got away into the gorge. Then the troops turned
to the steep hill across the gorge, now covered
with white figures riding among the boulders,
clambering up the narrow paths — all in the most
dignified unhasting way. The cannonade had now
lasted about half-an-hour, and those of the Arabs
who were not dead had turned up a little side
valley where they became, if anything, more ex-
182 GEXEllAI. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
posed to gun-fire from the right than they pre-
viously had been from the rear. But now the
cease-fire sounded ; the echoes of the guns died
away in the recesses of the violet hills ; the long
stream of flying Arabs escaped the annihilation
which only General d'Amade's humanity averted.
He is reported to have said : " Enough are killed ;
there are women and children amongst them ;
sound the cease-fire." So the bloodthirsty Tirail-
leurs reluctantly obeyed their shouting, storming
subalterns, and turned their minds to the not
unprofitable subject of looting.
Behind the tall cactuses, and entirely sheltered
by them, perched on the very edge of the steep
escarpment, was the dismantled camp of the
Meliallah commanded by Mahmoud, Mulai Hafid's
cousin.
The tiny paths which led through the forests
of fleshy leaves opened suddenly on a ledge almost
enclosed by huge lichen-covered crags. All about
lay tlie scattered debris of the camp. Circular
trenches showed where the bell-tents of the Kaids
had stood ; camel's-hair tents were lying on and
under the thorny stems of the cactus ; the ground
was a litter of boxes, jars, rugs, and mats ; among
which hundreds of fowls and dozens of dogs were
enjoying a new-found and somewhat embarrassed
liberty. The Tirailleurs are good shots with stones,
and can shy a stick with wonderful precision, so
that in a very short time the chickens of mature
R'FAKHA AND M'KARTO 183
age were no more. As I wandered through tlie
tangled wreck on the ledge of rock, I came on a
huddled bundle of rags, which at first sight looked
like a corpse. A closer inspection revealed an aged
woman on all fours, calmly picking up barley from
tlie ground, and putting the corns one by one into
lier mouth, between times muttering to herself in a
low voice.
Her friends had deserted her ; she was too old
and feeble to be of any use. There she would stay
in the cold and the rain until the scanty store of
barley was exhausted, and release came. Thus
the Arabs towards their grandmothers. A pair of
beautiful little black kids, tied together by a string,
came bleating up to me ; I wished I could have
taken the pretty creatures away. Puppies were
to be had for the picking up ; but I had had too
much experience of the ungrateful fangs of Arab
dogs.
As I retraced my steps towards the opening of
the valley, and towards the guns, the ground grew
flatter, and cavalrymen were riding about in search
of loot. One of them had got a fine collection of
the conical, woven grass dish-covers used to keep
hot the daily Kesksoo, things inevitably recalling
the hat of a Chinaman.
I was examining these particularly well-made
utensils when I heard a voice say, " II n'est pas
encore mort, le salaud, le charogne ! " And then
there came the report of a carbine fired just behind
184 GENERAL D AINIADE IN MOROCCO
jne. I turned and saw a miserable wretch of an
Arab lying on his side, with blood spouting from a
wound on his forehead, his thin black legs stretched
out stark, his body covered by a mass of filthy rags.
The Chasseur fancied he had done the job ; but it
takes a good deal to kill a Moor. The blood poured
into his eyes and into his mouth ; he breathed ster-
torously, and moaned in a low voice ; once or twice
he raised his skinny hand, and shifted the red
turban a little higher off his face.
In the main valley the ground was a mass of
dead horses and littered household goods, with here
and there a corpse which the survivors had not had
time to remove. But for the most part the dead
had been carried off; the struggling line of white
figures in the little valley to the north moved slowly
and painfully ; they were hampered by the numbers
of their dead.
While these events were taking place in front
the Moors were attempting to pass round the flanks
of the French and to take them in the rear. Owing
to the excellence of General d'Amade's dispositions
the manttiuvre was completely foiled. Colonel Pas-
sard, in command of liis composite battalion of
Legionaries and Tirailleurs, liad l)een kept in re-
serve to defeat any similar movement ; and he
concealed his men with such skill that the usually
wary Moors walked straight into his arms. The
French lay liidden on the far side of a ridge at
the head of a little nullah ; the Moors crept up
R'FAKHA AND M'KARTO 185
the near side, knowing that the French were not
far off, but Httle reckini^ that they were within
fifty yards.
Suddenly the French hne rose uj) and charged
with the bayonet, and eight Moors died. The rest
fled the way they had come, and the Frenchmen
fired at them with the rifles of the men they had
just bayoneted ; " to make bigger holes " as they said.
Thirteen more Moors were shot as they dashed
down the stony bed of the nullah ; and Colonel
Passard — the Wild Boar, as his men affectionately
call him — added another success to the list which
entitles him to be considered • the ablest infantry
leader in the force.
The moral effect of this battle of M'Karto on
the minds of the Moors was very great. They
seemed to have looked on the arrival of heavy guns
within a stone's-throw of their mountain camp as a
sheer impossibility, and when it became evident
that the guns were coming the extraordinary
rapidity of the march of the infantry gave them
no time to get away.
The Tirailleurs must receive their due meed of
praise for their work that day ; the pace they set
was wonderful. I was ridino- beside them on a
o
horse who is by no means a slow walker, but he
cannot walk as fast as a mule, and yet the ammu-
nition mules were continually being urged into a
trot to keep them up with the firing-line. Great
credit is due, too, to the artillery under Major
18G GENERA r. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
Massenet, who had his guns ahnost level with the
infantry supports, and brought them into position
at the decisive moment with magnificent effect.
It is difficult to decide so soon after the event
whether the order to cease fire when the enemy
was in his grasp was a politic move on General
d'Amade's part or not. Those who know the
Moors best agree that a complete and overwhelm-
ing defeat is the only way to bring home to them
the superiority of their foe.
It may be that the signal humanity displayed
by General d'Amade may have no other effect than
to prolong the tribe's resistance.
The sun sank behind the pinnacled hills, and
the long and weary task of collecting the scattered
units of the force was still unfinished.
The staff were examining a mountain -gun
carriage which Mahmoud had left behind him in
his hurry ; four hundred yards away the prickly
pears formed their impenetrable hedge.
Suddenly a bullet sang close over our heads,
and a report came from the thicket ; then another
bullet closer than before. The Tirailleurs formed
line, and poured a volley into the fleshy-leaved
forest. But the sniper had set a bad example,
and dozens of Moors riding on the sky-line to the
north harassed the tired troops as they marched
back in the dark to their bivouac on the little
Oued Aceila.
Thus ended the battle of M'Karto.
THE POSITION OF SPAIN IN THE
MOORISH QUESTION
No one who has conversed with the Spanish
officials at Casablanca can have failed to have
been struck by the quiet way in which they
emphasise the fact that Spain at the Conference
of Algeciras received a mandate from Eurojoe
equal to that given to France to restore order
in the Moroccan ports. By that Act the Staff
of Instructors of the Shereefian police (officers
and non-commissioned officers) were to be mixed
at Tangier and at Casablanca, Spanish at Tetuan
and Laraiche, and French at Rabat, Mazagan,
Saffi, and Mogador, whilst if France was given
the exclusive right of arranging with Morocco
to enforce the regulations respecting the illicit
traffic in arms on the Algerian frontier, which
may roughly be taken to mean Morocco as flir
as the river Mouliya, Spain was accorded similar
rights as to the Riff Country, that is to say
from the neighbourhood of Tetuan to the Mouliya,
and in the regions adjoining the frontiers of her
possessions generally.
Accordingly Spanish troops hold that section
of the defences of Casablanca which extends south
188 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
of the town from tlie Marakesii Koad to the sea.
A Spanish inspector has been appointed to co-
operate with the French in the organisation of
the Moroccan pohce, and until the force can he
raised, a body of 100 Riffians recruited near Ceuta
and trained there assists under Spanish officers
in preserving order inside the town.
It is true that certain regrettable incidents
marked the co-operation of the French and
Spaniards in the early days of the occupation,
but these are now at an end, and the dis-
tinguished Commander of the Spanish forces,
Colonel Bernal, whose regiment (the 69th) has
been sent to Casablanca from Ceuta, spares no
pains to ensure a good understanding with
General d'Amade. The force at his disposal
does not exceed (including the Riffians) some GOO
men; Init, though his instructions for the present
forbid him to take any part in the operations
in the field, these men are admirably officered,
armed, equi})ped, and housed, and if, owing to
the Spanish system of service, they are mostly
youths of from twenty-two to twenty-four years
of age, they look fit to go anywhere and do
anything, and should the chance arise, will most
certainly give a good account of themselves.
The Spanish Government have show^n their sense
of the imi)ortance of the mission confided to
them by Europe by sending a picked regiment
to Casablanca, and though they have been much
THE POSITION OF SPAIN 189
hampered by waut of* funds, yet thoy are doing
their full share in co-operating in the defence of
the town.
It will be a great pity if English and French
public opinion, as distinguished from those re-
sponsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, fails
to recognise that for good or for evil Spain is
now a third partner in the Anglo-French entente
cordiale so far as everything connected with the
Mediterranean is concerned.
Hecent events have shown but too clearly that
the old English Alliance with Portugal is exposed
to grave risks, for it is only too certain that a
Portuguese Ilepublic would not co-operate with
England as the Monarchy has done under the
Braganzas, with but slight interruption, since
Charles II. married Catherine in 16G2. To
France, as her wisest statesmen have always
seen, a friendly Portugal is almost as important
as it is to their English neighbours. Lisbon and
Lagos have almost the same significance in the
ears of a French Minister of Marine as they
have in those of a First Lord of the Admiralty,
and there is no need to emphasise what it might
mean to our Empire if the Azores, Madeira, the
Cape Verdes, and Delagoa Bay were in unfriendly
hands. But it cannot be denied that England
is not popular in Portugal, and it is, therefore,
well worth while for us to bethink ourselves that
we may yet have to find a substitute for that
190 GENERAL D'AiMADE IN MOROCCO
country in the friendship of Spain. So long as
we have that friendship, Ferrol, Vigo, and Arosa
Bay may possi])ly replace Lagos as bases for our
navy ; we can use our harbour at Gibraltar
without fear of hindrance, and Las Palmas may,
in case of need, replace Santiago as a coaling
station on our road to South Africa.
But, unfortunately, it cannot be denied that
public opinion is slow to recognise this. It is,
of course, a misfortune that political considera-
tions have prevented Seiior Maura allowing Colonel
Bernal to take his share in the task of policing
the Chaouiya, for had the French and Spaniards
served together on active service there can be
no doubt but that they would have co-operated
admirably. However, as things are, it would be
well if both the French and English Press would
remember the fact that Spain has an equal man-
date from Europe with France in Morocco, and
that if any friction arose between the two forces,
that friction would aiford a very convenient loop-
hole for outside intervention.
It nmst not be forgotten, however, that Spain
through the mouth of her Prime Minister has
enunciated the policy which she intends to pursue
in Morocco when circumstances permit. She has
marked out tlie country from the Mouliya to
Tetuan, in other words the Mediterranean Coast
of Morocco, as her sphere of influence, and not
only have several of the most prominent Kaids
THE POSITION OF SPAIN 101
of the Riff already sought lier protectorate, but
the Biff Coast was especially reserved as open
to Spanish penetration by the eyiteiite of 1904.
Spain has every right to have a sphere of
influence reserved to her in Morocco, for not
only are there very large Spanish interests in
the north of the country, but she is admirably
fitted for the task of bringing those regions
under the control of European civilisation. The
peasantry of Andalusia even to-day are Moors
in all but name ; they are far better fitted than
any other race in Europe to work the Moroccan
soil, and on the whole, the Spanish troops get
on excellently with the natives, chiefly because
they are so closely akin to them. Jews also, as
a rule, get on well with Spaniards,
It will be a great mistake to try and force
the pace in opening up Morocco. Property is
much split up and held tenaciously by owners
without much capital, who may be able to use
improved ploughs if they can be drawn by their
own draught animals, but who would not be in
a position to work with steam machinery. The
produce of the country does not necessitate the
use of railways, and roads and bridges, as less
costly, would therefore be much more suitable
as means of communication. Wireless telegraphy
and telephony might well serve the purpose of
the usual telegraph lines, and if the ports could
be improved by the construction of moles and
192 GENERAL D AiMADE IN JMOROCCO
wharves, the streets of the towns properly paved,
and roads constructed on whicli auto]nol)ile omni-
buses and wagons could travel, Morocco could
well wait awhile before more expensive methods
of communication were provided, at least in the
interior, for a coast railway is indispensable. The
money saved might be usefully emi)loyed in the
promotion of education, possibly on the lines of
the Gordon College at Khartoum,
Such methods as these would suit the Spanish
temperament, although they might be laughed
out of court by an official from Paris or Algiers.
They would be above all adapted for opening up
the north of Morocco, which might justly be
reserved as a sphere of Spanish influence, and
des2)ite the objections which as a rule apply to
buffer states, England at least should have no
ol)jection to see a Spanish sphere of influence in
the hinterland of Tangier, as it might seem to
obviate the risks of friction to which the entente
cordiale with France might otherwise, in time,
become exposed.
By doing anything which may enhance the
prestige of the reigning dynasty in Spain we
shall be doing good work not only for England
but for France, and there is no j^ower so well
fitted as England to act as a bridge between
France and her neighbour beyond the Pyrenees.
All three countries have equal interests in the
Mediterranean regions, and in these Morocco
THE POSITION OF SPAIN 193
alone would appear to be the spot where a
breach might be made in their present close
friendship.
Let Spanish sentiment and Spanish interests
be respected in Morocco and another buttress will
be added to the entente cordiale. A contented
Spain is a necessity to the world's peace.
THE DAILY ROUND
On March Dtli the force marched to Sidi Abd-el-
Kerim, the centre of the fight of February 7th — a
white koichha and a single palm beside a little
stream between low hills. The cavalry on the left
fired a few shots, but there was no organised resist-
ance. The chief event of the day was the arrival
of the French journalist, M. Houel, from the
enemy's camp, dressed in his Muslim garb, and
riding his scarlet-caparisoned mule. The dawn
had shown some of us what we had not known in
the murk of the previous night — that our camp lay
in a depression between two steepish escarpments.
From the rearmost the Moors kept up a desultory
fire, to reply to which the cavalry moved out into
the plain, and behind them a battalion of Tirailleurs
was deployed in line. The guns with difficulty
got up the hill in front, and pointed their muzzles
menacingly at the distant Arabs. I was watching
the retirement beside a little cemetery on the
height when a white fiag hove in view below in
the green plain. It was M. Houel, attended by a
negro. He rode up to the General, and a few
words passed between them, and then down the
hill again went the French intermediary and
disappeared slowly into the shimmering distance.
191
THE DAILY ROUND 105
His embassy was not fruitless. Later in the
day, as we wended our way over tlie undulating,
marigold-strewn uplands, M. Houel appeared again,
this time attended by twenty-one Arab chiefs, all
carrying rifles, as though bent rather on a desperate
venture than on unconditional surrender.
I learned from M. Houel that on the day of the
battle at R'Fakha he had made an attempt to pass
through the French lines in order to interview
General d'Amade. Several Moors were with him,
and their advance was not unperceived by the
ever vigilant French gunners, who sent a shrapnel
over them with such beautiful precision that a
Moor riding on Houel's right was instantly killed,
and the same shot so frightened his own mule that
it reared and fell backM^ards, throwing him to the
ground. The mule then galloped away in the high
green corn, and Houel came under the fire of the
advanced battalion of Legionaries. He was fortu-
nately not hit, and managed, by creeping stealthily
on all fours, to recapture his mule and get into safety.
The Arabs he brought in were all M'Zamzas.
Through their chief Kaid, a venerable, white-headed
old man in immaculate white, they had a colloquy
witli the Staff Interpreter, and then they rode
away with M. Houel. This enterprising French-
man, who has been awarded the medaille cVkonneur
for his conduct as a civilian in Casablanca at the
time of the massacres, is playing a very useful and
for him a very risky part in thus acting as an
lOG GEXERAI. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
envoy between the French and the Moors. But, of
course, his conduct is hable to misconstruction by
the narrow and bigoted of his own race. A certain
French correspondent once openly assailed him in
abusive language as a traitor, but his philippic
was speedily cut short by the Intelligence Officer,
who informed liim that his ignorance was only
equalled by his want of manners, and forbade him
to discuss political matters which did not concern
him.
The baggage train was despatched across the
plain in a westerly direction, and the orders
for the day were that the force would march due
south to the Kasbah ben Ahmed, and then turn
north-west and rejoin the transport at Sidi Haidi
on the Oued Mils.
The villagers in the doudr.s that we passed
during the first few miles of the march were
extremely friendly ; they brought out butter and
eggs and fowls ; they even condescended to badinage.
I was with the Tirailleurs, and heard a woman with
butter for sale make some stinging remark to the
troops. A native officer told me she was asking
whether they were all Jews, as she'd heard that
most of the French soldiers belonged to that
accursed race. A few yards further on an old
native sprawled on the ground with a bit of sacking
near him, begging for alms. The Tirailleur, even
when his pay is doubled on active service, receives
the magnificent stipend of a penny a day, yet of
THE DAILY HOUND 107
their poverty dozens of these generous fellows
threw down coppers on to the sack in front of the
beggar.
Just after this little episode, the road ran
through a large garden of figs ; a dondr stood on the
summit of a little hill beyond ; in front lay a plain,
leading up to a white house set in a grove of trees,
and beyond it a range of low hills swept round to
the right in a northerly direction.
As the cavalry scouts reached the middle of the
plain the hills in front were suddenly covered with
careering Arabs, who crossed the ridge and came
boldly down the slopes to meet us. Little puffs of
smoke and the heavy report of their large-bore
rifles came thicker and thicker ; the Zouaves were
sent on to support the advanced guard, and the
guns threw shells on to the summit of the ridge.
The pennon of the General always has a great
attraction for the adventurous Arab. One of these
gentry had wormed his way up in the grass to
within a couple of hundred yards of where the
Staff were watching the fight, and managed to get
in half-a-dozen shots before the cavalry drove him
out of his lair.
The population of the doudrs behind us took
full advantage of the spectacle afforded them.
Men, women, and children, huddled in their long
wrappers, were crouching like brooding birds in
crescents near their tents and huts, and doubtless
watched their friends and relations on the hills
198 GENERAL D'AMADE IN :M0R0CC0
ahead with many a prayer to Allah that their
bullets might speed true.
The Zouaves were firing volleys at the enemy,
a singularly ineffective way of meeting the attack
of isolated horsemen ; and from the constant crash
of the guns and the persistent dull boom of the
Arabs' large-bore muskets it might have been
expected that the losses on both sides would be
considerable. But the lie of the ground — the
steep slopes of the position held by the Arabs —
made accurate shooting very difficult, and the
French losses were absolutely nil. I met a Goum
on the top of the ridge, after the enemy had been
driven back, who was very proud of a native gun,
about six feet long, which he had on his saddle.
" I cut off his head with one sweep of my sword,"
said he, ])lucking at his fierce black w^hiskers.
The skirmish which took place for the posses-
sion of the ridge proved the end of the battle.
Down in a little hollow of the rolling plateau
beyond it lay the Kasbali ben Ahmed — the place
we had come to take. The brown walls which
encircled the central white building were broken
and decayed ; the l^astions were crumbling into
ruins; grass and mallows made the courts a sea
of green. Not a soul appeared to defend the
citadel ; but across a dip, on high ground towards
the east, were two large doiidrs, all round which,
in little knots, our enemies were riding.
A battery and a battalion of the Legion were
THE DATT.Y HOUND 109
sent forward into the dip below the kasbah ; the
rest of the troops stayed on the nearer ridge. The
Arabs were holding a palaver ; should they fight
or should they submit ? With the French, riding
always with the Staff, is an old grey-faced Moor,
in a purple djellaba, by name L'Arbi ben Sharki,
whose long-maned, long-tailed stallion is neither
chestnut nor brown, but an extraordinary com-
pound of those colours. This worthy, not long
ago, was lord paramount of Kasbah ben Ahmed ;
but his subjects rose when he was on a journey,
seized his children as hostages, and took possession
of his lands and flocks and herds.
No one, probably, in the host felt happier than
he when the Council on the hill declared in favour
of submission. At least forty chiefs came riding
down the hill into the dip, and up the slope to
do obeisance to their conqueror ; and for each of
them, as they stood in a row, Ben Sharki of the
grey face had a grim jest. Some of them laughed ;
a Moor sets little value on his life ; but Ben Sharki
was enjoying one of the most exquisite moments of
his existence.
While the interpreter and the Kaids were talk-
ing- to the General there was a sudden clatter of
hoofs, and a squadron of Chasseurs with swords
drawn dashed up and formed a square round the
group. It was a pretty scene ; one that will long
remain in the minds of those who saw it. The
sky was overcast with clouds, and the colours of
200 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
the landscape blended with a softness unusual in
this land of brilliant sunshine. The dark green
of the corn was flecked with patches of old rose,
where the bare earth stood out on tracks and
ledges ; for thousands of yards the gilded mari-
golds turned the mountain slope to orange ; the
ochre and brown walls of the derelict kasbah were
topped by snow-white towers ; the red and blue
uniforms of the Chasseurs were set off by their
grey horses ; they hedged about a group of men
in whom a sense of colour seems innate. There
was a white horse whose bridle, reins, and blinkers
were the palest blue ; his high-peaked, chair-backed
saddle was covered with lemon-yellow leather. A
black with flashing eye and enormous mane was
decked out in vermilion ; his breastplate fastened
to the saddle by large silver brooches ; it would
be impossible to improve upon the contrasts which
the Moors devise to enhance the effect of their
caparisons. Most of the men wore the dark blue
burnous with its white hood thrown back behind.
Some few were all in white ; on their feet were
either red or yellow slippers, and beneath their
robes you caught glimpses of orange, blue, and
violet skirts.
At last the conclave broke up ; fifteen of the
Moors were kept as hostages ; they rode off in
line, surrounded by their guarding square of Chas-
seurs. The long column of the force wound like
a black snake down the track between the walls
THE DAILY ROUND 201
of marigold ; the men were singing ; it had been
a good day's work ; I could hear them afar as I
rode on the tops of the hills.
There I found the rock -roses in bloom — pink
and white and yellow ; and, best of all, an apple
tree a mass of delicate green and flashing blossom,
standing lonely in a fig orchard in a protected dell.
That night we camped at Sidi Haidi.
On the morrow the four months of the Goums'
voluntary service came to an end ; and a review
was held in their honour before they rode away
to Casablanca, to take ship for their country of
Alo-eria.
o
The whole force, with the exception of the bag-
gage 'train, took up position in the shape of the
letter "E" without the central bar, the cavalry
forming one flank, the guns the other ; down the
long side were ranged the seven battalions of in-
fantry — four of Tirailleurs, one of Zouaves, and
two of the Legion — in a line of company columns.
A French battalion consists of four companies, each
divided into four sections. I counted several of
the sections, and found they averaged forty men,
bringing the total of a battalion up to about six
hundred and fifty men. With three squadrons of
Chasseurs, one of Spahis, and three batteries of
seventy-five mm. field-guns, two mountain batteries,
and a section of naval small-bore guns, the total
force on the ground was about five thousand five
liundred.
202 CxENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
First the General made his inspection, and then,
standing in the centre of the ground, with buglers
and drummers on either side of him, he distributed
rewards. A white-robed, black -bearded Goum,
witli red handkerchief wound tightly round his
head, was the first recipient of the Cross of the
Legion of Honour, The buglers blew a fanfare, the
drummers rattled their drums, and the grave-faced
Oriental came forward.
General d'Amade pinned the decoration on his
breast, and then shook him warmly by the hand.
Next it was the turn of an officer of Tirailleurs, a
Frenchman.
Him the General kissed rapidly on l)oth cheeks.
Next a Legionary got his " mddaille militaire," for
meritorious war service, and he received a hearty
handshake.
Meanwhile instructions had been issued to the
commanders of units, and the long line rapidly
formed square. When all w^ere in their places
the General took off his cap and cried, " Pour la
France ! " whereon the bugles blared and the drums
beat, and every man in the force cried " En avant ! "
"Pour le President de la Ptdpublique ! " cried the
General. " En avant ! " cried his troops. " Pour
les morts pour la pa trie ! " " En avant ! "
A march past ended the ceremony. Immediately
behind the General, in the post of honour, rode the
newly-decorated officers. In the line of march, just
in front of the leading section of the Legion, was a
THE DAlT.y ROUND 203
heap of stones, in which were stuck a couple of
dirty little white flags. Three or four industrious
Legionaries, seeing how prejudicial this monument
would prove to their dressing, began throwing the
stones and flags to the four winds of Heaven.
Presently a Staff Officer, who prided himself on his
knowledge of native customs and his respect for
native prejudices, perceived what was happening.
" Mon Gdndral, c'est une place de priere ! " shouted
he, and spurred ahead to repair the desecration.
So the monument was painfully reconstructed, to
the amusement of old Ben Sharki (whose face
twitched, and who must be, I fancy, a Dissenter),
and the flags drooped at melancholy angles and
entwined themselves in the legs of the cursing
infantry.
The latter marched past in columns of sections,
and very well they did it, to the music of tootling
bugles. The gait of the Tirailleurs is not graceful ;
they shuffle along with bent knees, but they keep
a good alignment, and not a single man was out of
step. However, it is not on the parade ground
that they shine ; but rather in carrying fifty or
sixty pounds on their backs at four miles an hour
for any number of hours you please. Of the Euro-
pean troops the Legion seemed to be rather smarter
than the Zouaves, and both have a swing and elan
in their marching: which the Tirailleurs lack.
After the infantry came the guns in battery
column, beautifully dressed — as useful and smart
204 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
a lot of men as you could find in any army. The
horses are gaunt and bad in their coats. They
suffer from lack of water, and many of them die
in consequence from nephritis. Last of all came
the cavalry — Goums, Spahis, and Chasseurs — at a
gallop, preceded by trumpeters trumpeting gallantly
and in excellent time too, considering that the
ground was very rough, and that half their horses
were running away. The Goums' line was exe-
crable, but what they lacked in precision they
made up in picturesqueness. The further to the
rear the greater the number of stampeding
chargers ; these barbs are awkward beasts to hold,
especially when there is a squadron of mares flying
away in front of them.
With the cavalry charge the review ended ;
the column got into the track and skirted the low
hills that dip to the Cued Tamazer, where a single
palm grows by the bank of the clearest stream we
encountered in this land of muddy waters.
-?
.i:.
2 !H
THE ROUTING OF BOU NUALLAH
The "Father of the Straw Hut"
The French camped on March 14th at the derelict
kasbah of Sidi bou Chaib el Aiachi, the stronghold
of the Oulad Said, and the southernmost pomt yet
touched by them in the course of their wanderings
through the Chaouiya. Thence, at seven in the
morning of the 15th, they betook themselves north-
wards, over rolling downs yellow with spurge and
intersected by narrow hidden brooks, until at noon
they reached the battered ruins of Dar ould Fatima.
Along the line of march were frequent doudrs,
and crescents of brooding, white-robed figures sat
watching the passing of the long cavalcade.
Nothing escapes Captain Huot of the Intelli-
gence Department. It appeared to his observant
eye that pacificated villages ought to provide their
due quota of men spectators ; and he put his native
spies to work. These came back, after a few
minutes' talk with unsuspecting greybeards, with
the news that all the fighting men for miles around
had gone to join the notorious Bou Nuallah at his
camp near Zaouia Sidi el Ourimi. So when the
troops reached Dar ould Fatima at noon an order
came that the column would march at two, with-
206
206 GENERAT. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
out knapsacks, and that every sixteenth man would
remain in camp to guard the baggage. Zaouia
Sidi el Ourimi lies about seven miles north-west
of Dar ould Fatima, but the marabout's camp was
at least ten miles further on. The force had
hardly gone a mile outside the camp, the Spahis
scouting on the left, the Chasseurs on the right,
before shots came from the front, where fig-
orchards hedged with aloes gave cover to the
lurking Arab marksmen. The cavalry pressed on,
driving the enemy in front of them ; the French
infantry, fast as they ordinarily march, excelled
themselves that day. At the end of an hour a
low line of gigantic rocks broke the skyline, and
the bullets of the enemy concealed behind them
came whistling over the Spahis' heads. They put
their horses into a gallop ; a troop wheeled to
the left as though to outflank the foe ; when we
reached the rocks the Arabs had gone. Below us,
in a little dell, lay the Zaouia of Sidi el Ourimi —
a white-domed kouhha, or shrine, nestling against
a thicket of aloes. On every side the plain
stretched in great levels, uncultivated, save where
a fig-garden made a grey-brown patch in the sea
of yellow flowers. Across the plain rode thousands
of Moors — separate, undisciplined, disunited ; stop-
ping to fire, then riding on, some towards us, some
away fi:"om us, some across the two-mile line of
our front. Here for the first time the French guns
opened fire, and then the rout began. Often, as
ROUTING OF BOU NUAI.LAH 207
at R'Fakha, the tribesmen have stood bravely
against the shrapnel of the French guns ; but on
this occasion they made not the slightest pretence
at any organised resistance. They often stopped
to fire, but those were but momentary pauses in
a continuous retreat.
" Ce n'est pas une bataille ; c'est une course,"
said a French officer. So terrific was the pace
of the infantry that the guns had the utmost
difficulty in keeping up with them ; they fired
until the infantry were half a mile ahead, and then
the sweating horses had to gallop to get into a
position which was not masked by the swiftly
advancing foot soldiers. " Let me get a chance
at these ' Bou Chaibs,' " said a Legionary, refer-
ring to the Arabs under a name whose common-
ness has made it a generic term, " and I'll pay
them out for this infernal foot race."
A company of Zouaves in open order passed
through a plantation of figs ; suddenly a Moor
rose up out of the further ditch ; a single shot
rang out and the Moor fell in a heap. An officer
walks up to him and then pulls out his revolver ;
he waves me to one side, for I am in the line of
fire. That was one of the few Arabs who that
day died bravely at their posts. The Frencli line
was noAv at least two miles in extent ; the Foreign
Legion in the centre, the Tirailleurs on either
flank, supported by the Spahis and the Chasseurs.
Presently, beyond the dark dots of the flying
208 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
horsemen, rose a low serrated line, like a ridge of
little conical hills. I put up my glasses ; could
it be a village ? At first it seemed impossible ;
no village could stretch across the horizon for
thousands of yards. But a village it must be, for
white bell tents are ranged orderly on the right
of the great encampment — the homes of the Kaids
who lead the enormous host gathered under the
black waves of that camel-hair sea. The men saw
their goal ; they fixed bayonets and dashed on,
cheering. The din was terrific ; the guns were
pouring shrapnel over the heads of the infantry,
who paused here and there to fire a volley, and
then pressed on. From the great town of tents,
red-streaked with the fires lit by French shells,
came the loud exhortations of the Arab leaders,
and the shrill cries of frenzied women. Red-
saddled horses, bleeding and foaming, dashed out
towards the line, which now advanced its flanks
and surged round both sides of the doudr.
Through my glasses I saw a crowd of Arabs
standing beneath the hail of shrapnel that was
filling on the northern corner of the camp. In
their midst a wild figure raised his arms and
swung them downwards again and again, as though
in passionate entreaty : the crowd was thinned,
but not by flight ; I lost sight of the speaker.
Forward the French infantry were racing up the
slight incline that separated them from the enemy,
some of whom galloped away, firing as they went.
ROUTING OF BOU NUALLAH 209
whilo others got beneath the shelter of the tents,
and discharged their rifles as the French passed
them. I got on my horse and galloped on to
catch up the firing-line 150 yards or so ahead,
in the midst of the main doudr.
The bullets were flying in all directions from
beneath the tents ; in quick succession two shots
were fired at me from behind, and both bullets
whizzed close past my head. I jumped off my
horse, cocked my revolver and hurried on. Just
in front of me was a Spahi ; another shot rang
out close by, he fell dead from his horse. The
firing-line was here composed of the Legion, who
stood in a well-dressed line, as though on parade,
firing at the Arabs in front of them, some of
whom were making for the two doudrs ahead,
whilst others galloped out into the plain towards
the west.
The Spahi fell close behind the Legionaries,
and still the report of rifles came from the tents
in their rear. So the order was given to fire a
volley into them, and the Legionaries faced about
right willingly and let drive at the ruffians hidden
in tents flying the white flag.
The line had now reached the limit of the main
doudr, and a little grassy strip, edged with rocks
towards the south, intervened between it and the
two villages beyond. Across that strip the Legion
had driven their hissing sheets of lead, and the green
of it was stained with crimson patches. A loose
210 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
horse already wouuded in the shoulder had hobbled
within twenty yards of the line ; and now he lay
dead, pierced by a dozen bullets, his four legs
])ointing to the sky. In the doorway of a tent
right in the line of fire, yet quite unharmed, stood
a boy of eight or nine, gazing with placid eyes at
the hedge of flashing bayonets. A little beyond
him a woman sat with a smile on her face, talking
as though to herself in a low musical voice, whilst
she wrapped closer round her a thin garment red
with the blood that was gushing from a wound
in her thigh. Beyond her another woman, evi-
dently wounded to the death, raised herself with
difficulty on her elbow, gave one look at the
oncoming line, folded her ha'ik over her face, and
turned on her side to die.
The Arabs now threw away their arms and
pretended they had taken no part in the fight.
The French went forward ; a group of men on
the left crouched with some women beneath the
shelter of a tangle of rocks. They expected
quarter ; the French drew nearer ; and still they
sat quietly on. But the Frenchmen's blood was
up ; they had been treacherously fired at under
cover of the white flag ; with a shout their bayonets
were levelled to the charge. The Arabs fled yell-
ing in every direction ; within two yards of where
I stood one enormous fellow fell pierced by the
simultaneous thrusts of two Tirailleurs ; he rolled
on to the bayonet, bending it inside hun, so that
ROUTING OF r>OU NUALLAH 211
his assailant could not draw it out. He called
his comrade to his aid ; they set their feet against
the body ; and at last the bayonet came out,
twisted like a bent pin. Another of the group
rushed by with a Tirailleur — liis weapon out-
stretched to its full extent — close upon his heels.
The pursuer spurted and lunged ; the bayonet
came back reddened ; the Arab screamed and ran
still faster. Seeing that he was surrounded by
his foes he determined to kill one at least of them
before he died ; an engineer officer, with no weapon
in his hand, was standing near. On him the
Arab hurled himself with all his force, jumping
into the air with bent arms, which twined round
the Frenchman's neck with the grip of a bear.
The Sapper was carried off his feet by the shock,
and Moor and Frenchman rolled on the ground
toc^ether. But the latter was in the midst of
friends ; the Moor was alone ; he was bound to
die, but he had done his best to take a foeman
with him to the shades. A lieutenant of Spahis
made a cut at him with his sword — a thing hard
to do witliout hurting his comrade. But he did
it ; the Arab relaxed his hold, and a Legionary
plunged his bayonet into the writhing body.
The long blue line surged on ; the sun sank
behind a dark pall of violet clouds ; the air was
thick with the cries of dying men and the stench
of burning tents.
The twilight was illumined by the flames, and
212 GENERxVL D'AMADE TN INIOROCCO
while the last pale gleam of the sunset flickered
on the bayonets the faces of the men who wielded
them glowed red and black in the flashing fires.
The far-flung hedge of steel swept through the
brown camel's-hair villages ; every man was put to
the sword. Outside a tent sat a young and very
pretty woman, with uncovered face and naked
breast, suckling her baby. Beside her sat a man,
presumably her husband ; a gigantic, black-bearded,
savage-eyed Arab, whose thick lips betrayed a dash
of negro blood.
A Spahi, not forgetful of the treachery which
had lost liim a comrade half-an-hour before, killed
by a bullet fired from a tent flying the white flag,
raised his sabre and spurred his horse at the man.
The horse, unwilling to trample on live flesh,
reared and swerved ; his hoofs flashed in front of
the mother's face, and passed within a few inches
of her child. Yet she never moved, nor did a cry
or a prayer escape her. The Spahi turned his
horse again, while the Arab half rose, begging for
mercy in Allah's name.
The Spahi muttered a curse, and his sabre fell
across the man's head, and drops of blood be-
spattered the white robe of the silent woman at
his side.
The Arab staggered to his feet ; the ferocious
blow availed nothing against his vast strength ;
he was yelling with fury now. The Spahi, mounted
and armed as he was, would have fared ill had he
ROUTING OF BOIJ NUALLAH 218
been alone, but two Tirailleurs came runnint,^ up,
their crimsoned bayonets at the charge, and while
one lunged from the front at the Arab's privy parts,
the other thrust his weapon deep into his side.
The dying man sank back, calling on Mo-
hammed, his black beard pointing to the sky ;
his mouth writhing, his teeth gleaming, his eyes
rolling ; like some huge wild boar who feels his
death-wound. The red stains on his white gar-
ments grew bigger and bigger ; one moan and he
lay dead. And still the woman never stirred, nor
cried ; as the line passed on I looked back ; there
she sat still beside the bloody corpse, her child
asleep upon her breast.
The sun had now set ; the moon and the stars
were blotted out by heavy clouds ; and soon the
rain began to fall in torrents. For miles the plain
was aglow with fiery rings, the relics of Arab
homes ; and amid the billowy wreaths of smoke
the dark figures of the soldiers dashed hither and
thither in pursuit of terrified fowls.
Bullets from the front, where at last the enemy
had stayed his flight, whistled over our heads ; the
rattle of cartridges exploding in the flames was
mingled with the loud hissing of ignited powder,
where geysers of grey smoke rose majestically
high into the gloomy sky.
At last the bugles sounded the Assembly, and
the troops moved slowly, unit after unit, towards
the Staff* in the open space between the doudrs.
214 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
I was on the outskirts of the furthest village.
The pillaging soldiers had all fallen in and marched
away ; I too turned to go.
A cold wind had sprung up ; the wrack of
clouds blew fitfully across the moon ; the rain
drove with a cutting slant. The lines of tents
were nothing now but a series of fiery disks.
Beyond one of these, on the outer confines of the
village, alone in the dark and the cold and the
rain, sat a woman with folded hands.
I passed her ; she did not turn her head ; she
sat like one in a dream, gazing at the red circle
that had been her home.
The force, silhouetted against the expiring
flames, filed slowly away, drenched by the pelting
rain, and sliding and falling in the greasy mud.
Now and then the moon broke from the domi-
nation of the clouds, and turned the pools along
the track to gold.
Far away to the north a huge fire burned
steadily, like some great lamp : there the refugees
were making their bivouac. For hour after hour
the march went on ; the leagues that passed un-
noticed in the pursuit seemed interminable now.
At last the moonlight showed on the silvered
spires of the aloes about el Ourimi, and on its
snowy shrine ; beyond, the horizon was broken
by black tumbled rocks, and the men knew that
the long day's work was nearly done. Two
artillery horses, with broken backs, lay here side
ROUTING OF BOU NUALLAH 215
by side ; together they had toiled ; together they
fell ; together they died. As the head of the
column reached the camp on the stroke of mid-
night a terrific burst of fire came from down the
line. Some men had fancied in the dark that
they saw the enemy approaching ; but it was a
false alarm. The rear of the column got in at
2 A.M. : the force had marched and fought, with
a rest of two hours, since 7 a.m. the previous day.
This expedition, which cost the French only
one Spahi killed and one Tirailleur wounded, must
be regarded as the most brilliant stroke of the
campaign. Conceived on the instant, the outcome
of acute observation, effected with prodigious speed
and crowned with unqualified success, the defeat
of Bou Nuallah has done more, perhaps, to bring
the superstitious Arabs of the Chaouiya to their
senses, and to hasten their submission to the
French, than all the rest of the beatings they
have had put together. Bou Nuallah may be
alive or he may be dead ; his power is gone
for ever.
He was a Shereef, a descendant of the Prophet,
and possessed of all the influence which his birth
confers. He openly aspired to the Sultanate,
telline: his followers that Mulai Hafid was as
pro-Christian and unfitted to rule as his brother
Abd-ul-Aziz ; but the grandeur of his ambition
paled before the powers by which he was to attain
it. He was able, he said, by a wave of his hand
21G GENERAL D'AINIxVDE IN MOROCCO
to transport Casablanca and its hated Nazarenes
to the bottom of the sea ; and he warned the
Musalmin there of their fate if they remained.
Many of these credulous fanatics joined him ; and
when the news of his discomfiture was brought
to Casablanca the streets rang with the wailings
of women. He asserted that he could turn the
bullets of the French to water ; there was no lie
too gross to impose on his adherents. The force
he had gathered round him must have amounted
to at least five thousand fighting men ; there were
more than twelve hundred tents in the doiuh's.
About eighty bodies were found killed by shell
fire ; perhaps fifty men were bayoneted by the
French. Hundreds of corpses must have been
carried away ; the fate of the Marabout himself
is unknown.
LIFE AT CASABLANCA
Until the Couference of Algeciras Casablanca,
although of late years it has been the most flourish-
ing port in Morocco, lay outside the current of the
world's progress, and passed on its way undisturbed
by the changes and chances of the time, save when
a quarrel between two tribes whose very names
were all but unknown to European gazetteers
closed the trade routes. Long strings of camels
laden with wheat, with barley, and with canary
seed paced into its gates, and long strings of
camels laden with cottons, with candles, and
with sugar paced out of them, whilst the handful
of traders who had established themselves on its
sun-cracked plains saw their banking accounts
swelling every autumn. Thus traders lived in
the factories of the Levant, exiled from their
homes for years, laying the foundations of the
fortunes which have covered England with stately
manor-houses rich in Grinling Gibbons' carving,
and glowing with the masterpieces of Lely and
of Kneller. There were moments when in winter
no mail could cross the barrier of surf for three
weeks at a time, and the nearest telegraph ofiice,
that at Tangier, was cut ofl" from Casablanca by
217
218 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
many a weary mile of mud. Now the advent of the
wireless telegraph and the coming of the French
has swept the sleeping city with a rush into the
mainstream of the world.
Casablanca is cosmopolitan. European infants,
if they are not to remain dumb, must prattle in
three languages ; their mother tongue ; Spanish,
which, until 1907, was the lingua franca of the
European community ; and Arabic, which is the
dialect of the kitchen and of the stable. As is the
case in every Moorish port, there is a large consular
body which recent events have raised to diplomatic
importance, and, thanks to the regulations which
in nearly every European Foreign Office control
the Eastern branch of their service, most of its pro-
fessional members have a wide knowledge of men
and things in all Mohammedan lands. Next to the
Spaniards, the Germans are numerically the most
important, in some degree thanks to the policy which
leads the great trading centres to found travel-
ling scholarships whose holders are thus enabled
to study foreign countries on condition that they
do all that in them lies to promote the interests
of their native place. The English traders, on the
other hand, are as a rule, in bearing if not in years,
grave and reverend seigniors, whose fathers lived
at Casablanca before them, and who in many cases,
as indeed may likewise be said of the Germans, are
" Mauris ijms Mauriores."
Amusements are few. There is no racecourse ;
IJFE AT CASABLANCA 219
cricket and football are unknown ; and an attempt
to establish a golf-links was put an end to by the
war. A few birds, here and there, of varying sizes
and culinary properties, invite the Sunday si)orts-
man to the fields round the town ; there are,
perhaps, three bicycles to be found in the whole
place ; motoring is out of the question ; only one or
two residents have tennis courts or sailing boats.
The amusements consist in rides up and down the
sandhill-bordered beach, in lawn-tennis parties at
the houses which possess cement or gravel courts,
and in the dances which are got up impromptu in
private drawing-rooms or by subscription at the
Club. Bridge, dominoes, skat, or billiards consti-
tute the every-day recreation of the average resi-
dent ; the caf^s chantants may be visited if any
special attraction has arrived from Tangier or some
third-rate provincial theatre in Andalusia.
His garden is the chief interest of the consul or
merchant at Casablanca, for, in that land of glare,
the sight of a tree and the cool dark shadows be-
neath its branches are even more precious to the
Englishman or to the German than they are to the
Moor, lover of flowers though every native is.
Most of the villas were destroyed in the fighting
which followed the landing of the French, but, for
the most part, their gardens remained uninjured,
and more than one new one is now being laid out.
In style they are, as a rule, Italian, with wide
shady alleys hedged with roses or geranium, whilst
220 GENEKAT. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
in the old Moorish fashion, which is to be seen in
perfection at the Alcazar in Seville, the beds are
surrounded with raised walls and banks of earth, to
retain the water led into them through tile-lined
channels from the noria- filled cisterns. Every-
where the creaking of the wheel, the splash of the
water falling from its pitchers, and the trampling of
the eternally-circling donkey call up memories of
cooler climes, but the ruts and dust of the road
which is hidden by the creeper-tapestried boundary
wall too soon remind the traveller that he has not
yet reached the gardens of the Hesperides.
Mr. Lamb's garden, with its Bougainvilleas,
is the goal of every tourist who, with sun-helmet
and kodak, lands at Casablanca water-port from
Messrs. Forwood's steamers ; but before the bom-
bardment it must have been excelled in beauty by
that of the Quinta, which Mr. Fernau had trans-
formed from a Moorish farmhouse into a very
handsome villa. The Quinta is now a ruin, loop-
holed and garrisoned as a French outpost, but
though its woodwork is torn down and its court-
yard a desolation. Nature was awakening in its
orchard, and pear and apple trees were just
putting forth their buds. The flower-beds were
a jungle of mallows, but the palm-tree and
geranium hedge in the kitchen garden, which
is traversed by a wide alley leading up to the
house, survived uninjured, although an outer hedge
of aloes which separates it and a small vineyard
LIFE AT CASABLANCA 221
from the fields had been cut down by the sappers.
From the terrace the eye ranges over the rolling
downs which extend in a semicircle round the
plain of Casablanca from sea to sea.
The Quinta has, however, other memories than
those of flowers. A friend and I were taken there by
a black-mustachioed Zouave from the Point d'Appui
camp. As we tramped through a wilderness of rape
and marigolds our conductor held forth at length on
the dreadful outrage which, shortly after the bom-
bardment, had been committed by Arab marauders
on a young English girl, the only member of her
family who had escaped death. With an eye made
tender by the prospect of the coming tip he expatiated
on the rage and horror which had filled his comrades'
hearts when they learnt of the injury done to one
of a nation so dear to every true Frenchman : he
described in detail the vengeance to be taken by
the Tirailleurs and Zouaves on the guilty wretches,
and proposed to show us the upper room which
had witnessed the agonies of the guiltless martyr.
We accepted his offer, and after trampling over the
mutilated remnants of a grand piano whose case
bore traces of fire and whose keys had once been
touched by the victim's fingers, we ascended a
staircase of which the balustrades had vanished
into the cooking fires of the outpost. At length
we stood on the hallowed spot. A broken bath, filled
with miscellaneous rubbish, and other remnants of a
lavatory added to the impressiveness of the scene.
222 GENERAL D'AMADE IN INIOllOCCO
On the walls were inscriptions in French and
Arabic.
They ran as follows : "A cette famille noble
d'Angleterre en proie aux cruautes d'un peuple
barbare Nous addressons le vif regret de n'avoir
point (3 to la pour la defendre."
2. A la Pucelle de Casablanca livree si atroce-
ment aux mains sacrileges laissez-vous lui crier bien
pr^s a son chevet d'hopital " Tes parents et toi, vous
aurez vengeance." Un caporal du ler Zouaves.
3. C'est ici dans ce bien paisible au milieu de
ces plaines que perit une famille ddvoree par les
Marocains Fan 1907.
4. " Vengeance " encircling a heart pierced with
a dagger.
My companion, overcome by his Francophile
emotions, took out his pencil and added a forcible
apostrophe addressed to the French in their own
tongue, interspersed with somewhat dubious Vul-
gate Latin applauding their noble sentiments and
invoking superhuman vengeance on the murderers.
We walked away between the geranium hedges,
and as a broken water-wheel creaked and groaned
in the wind, in a frenzy of composition I thought
out eloquent paragraphs describing " how the wheel
turned with a harsh grating cry, as if demanding
vengeance for those who are gone."
We rewarded our guide profusely ; but when we
got back to the Club and l)egan to make further
inquiries as to the particulars of a tale not the
LIFE IN CASABLANCA 223
less horrid or interesting because it had escaped
the stylographs of all our predecessors, we were
presented to the departed family consuming a
whiskey and soda, and were informed that the
victim in question had never existed in the
flesh.
Amongst the trees at Casablanca are the
banana, pine, palm, cypress, juniper, pepper-tree,
cardb, and ilex. The creepers, shrubs, and flowering
plants include geraniums, ipomea, hibiscus, Bougain-
villea, arum, Montbretia, carnations, oleanders, a
huge yellow senecio, New Zealand flax, bamboo,
abutilon, lantana, Weigela, the castor-oil plant,
and Choisya.
In Mr. Harris' beautiful garden at Tangier grow
Mandevillea suaveolens, Antholiza, Tritonia, orchid-
flowering caunas, Lagostroemia indica rosea, Melia
asdarak, Melianthus with its dark red flower,
papyrus, Cupressus macrocarpa, Judas trees, the
Banksia or " Bottlebrush " (remarkable for the
adhesion of its seeds to the stem), arums, water-
lilies, polygala mixta, bamboo, roses, mimosa, and
ornithogalum.
One of the prettiest sights near the town is
the Catholic cemetery, shut out from the world by
high white walls. A small Moorish-looking chapel
stands at one side of the entrance ; a wide walk
bordered by tall cypresses runs down the centre ;
graves with inscriptions in many different languages
show that all nations meet at last in peace under
22 4 GENERAL D'AMADE IN INIOROCCO
the shadow of the cross. Some of the monu-
ments would attract attention even in a European
cemetery ; but to me the beauty of this God's
Acre were the flowers, for the heaving turf was
briglit with iris and mesembryanthemum. Appa-
rently the Avhite iris is to the Moor what rose-
mary is to the German, for at Rabat in the
INlussulman burial-grounds it grew in sheets, and
elsewhere very rarely.
Death had been busy around Casablanca, and
wooden crosses loaded with wreaths of wild
flowers showed where brave soldiers rested from
their labours. Many a rudely-executed legend
in the mother tongue of him who lay keeping
his last watch below told how some man of
alien birth had given his life for France in
the ranks of the Foreign Legion. It may com-
fort those who mourn to know that they were
laid to rest in honour under the folds of the
tricolour, and that the accents of the holy burial
service sounded as the earth fell upon their coffins.
In simple words their deeds are told ; and the
inscription placed upon the cross which marks the
grave of Lagadec, that brave Breton sailor who
lost his life in trying to carry a hawser ashore
from the stranded transport Nivc, is specially
affecting. Striking is the monument to a German
Legionary, beautifully carved by his comrades in
some red wood.
But it must not be thought that the Protestant
V
•/.-v
LIFE AT CASABLANCA 225
dead are forgotten. The English community at
Casablanca is not numerous, but it has erected a
very pretty little chapel in the Early English style,
round which lies a small cemetery, fragrant with
stocks, and gay with pink mesembryanthemum.
Here the Protestant Legionaries are buried beside
the corpse of the unfortunate French farmer, whose
fool-hardiness in making an expedition alone to
Alvarez' Farm against the wishes of General
Drude cost him his life in October 1907. Thanks
to the efforts of the Red Cross Society of Paris
there is now a French pasteur at Casablanca who
ministers to the Protestant sick ; before he came
out the burial service was read by Mr. Edmund
Fernau, who has been licensed as a lay reader by
the Bishop of Sierra Leone. The English chapel
at Casablanca marks the northern boundary of his
diocese, and is the one spot where services are held
in an English church between Tangier and the
Gambia. The building was badly damaged during
the bombardment, and the expense of restoring it
has thrown a heavy burden upon the congre-
gation.
The European houses in the town are better
than might be expected. Several Jews have
erected lofty blocks of buildings, such as would
not appear out of place in Tubingen or in the
suburbs of Cologne, containing suites of handsome
apartments looking out over the harbour, and
furnished in the style of Stuttgart or of Bremen.
226 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
Moorish curiosities are more rarely to be seen
than might bo suj)posed, although several of the
reside] its possess a specialist knowledge of the
archaeology and history of Morocco rivalling that
of Mr, Walter B. Harris ; and various learned
societies in Europe have received with applause
papers written at Casablanca. In f^ict most of
the older inhabitants take far more interest in
the country and in the people than is displayed
by the average merchant in India or China, and
the Anfa Club owns a small but valuable library
of works upon Morocbo,
To the Casablancan the Anfa Club is indeed
the centre and hub of the universe. Tlie building
is in the old Moorish style, a glass-roofed cloister
gay Avith Rabat tiles and flanked by card and
reading rooms. Here the news of the day cir-
culates in the tongues of Babel.
It would be a good test for those competing
in the Indian Civil Service Examination if they
could be asked to give an account of a general
meeting at the Club. Every one speaks in a
different language, and nobody seems to under-
stand any one else.
Society at Casablanca is, of course, composed
mainly of the male element, but there are several
European ladies, and very pleasant drawing-rooms
are not lacking. The wide galleries and lush
green gardens of the English Consulate, with its
heliotropes, its covered arcades, its arums, ranun-
LIFE AT CASABLANCA 227
cuius, and daffodils, clustering' round a moss-grown
fountain ; tlio banana-shaded tennis courts of the
Belgian Vice-Consulate, where the French oliicers
found themselves once more at Paris ; the Dutch
Consulate with flowers bloominix over the remains
of Iloman pavements, stiff Norfolk Island j)ines,
and walls hung with clever water-colours of street
scenes sketched in the native town, are unfading
memories.
But European civilisation is but a thin veneer
superimposed on the life of Casablanca. Every-
where the houses showed the marks of bullets,
stains of blood were to be seen on peaceful terraces,
and nearly every resident had his own story to
relate of what had befallen him during the bom-
bardment.
Possibly the most interesting of these histories
was that of Domingo Perea, a Spaniard by birth,
who, after an adventurous life, had become
naturalised in Cuba, and who had finally settled
at Casablanca as the proprietor of an hotel. He
was kind enough to dictate his experiences, which
are here reproduced as nearly as possible in his
own words : —
"On August 5, 1907, between two and three
in the morning the Consuls sent for all their
subjects living in my hotel to come to their re-
spective Consulates.
" I did not wish to leave my house, as I
thought nothing would happen.
228 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
" At 5 A.M. the French began to land, and
firing commenced at the gate.
"At 6.30 A.M. a crowd of Moors, about fifty
in number, attacked my door. They broke it
open, Imt when they entered the passage leading
into the 2)atio, I began to fire at them from my
upper gallery through the fanlight over the
inner door with a sporting gun, carrying car-
tridires with No. 14 shot. I had also a sword
and a revolver which had been the property of
the Cuban Ceneral Bandera.
" Their attacks continued during thirty-five
consecutive hours with only three intermissions,
one of half-an-hour, one of a quarter, and one of
five minutes.
" When the critical moment of the fight came,
they fought me hand to hand, and though I had,
for a time, kept them back by firing from the
stair-head at those who were trying to break
down the door leading into the gallery, I was
driven back into the saloii after narrowly escaping
a knife which was hurled at me by a gigantic
Moor, whom I cut down. Mr. C. Hands after-
wards bought this knife from me.
"Just as I had been driven back into the
salon the French troops and the French Consul
arrived at the corner of the street. I had been
able to hoist the Cuban flag on my belvedere on
a flagstaff which I extemporised out of a bench,
and they had seen it flying. Whilst I was hoist-
LIFE AT CASABLANCA 229
ing it I was under a rain of shot from the
neighbouring houses, and was nearly hit on tlie
head, but, at last, my assailants were kept down
by the fire from the English Consulate, a bullet
from Avhich all but struck me. As you see, that
Consulate is behind my house.
" During these thirty-five hours I killed about
sixty Moors. Some of them were firing from tlie
rooms round the courtyard and others from the
wall of the belvedere of the Cercle de V Union,
which adjoins this hotel.
" The Moors, when they first saw that they
could not break into the jxUio, occupied the
houses to the right and left and in front, and
fired from them. I killed two Moors in the
passage leading from my scullery, into which
they had broken through a side door, and many
others in the corner which is formed by my
house and the front of the Cercle de l' Union, by
firing down upon them from behind a shutter in
the little bedroom which commands that wall.
Some of them were trying to break through the
window of the ground-floor room which faces
the same way, and thus enter the jmtio.
" I was bare-footed and almost naked, and during
all the thirty-five hours which the fighting lasted,
had not a moment to eat, drink, or dress myself.
The Moors also tried to break into my house from
behind, but were driven off by the fire from the
Ene;lish Consulate, which commands that side of it.
•230 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
"This is all that happened. I suffered great
privations, great hunger, and great thirst, and was
expecting death at every moment.
" I wish it to be known that I, Domingo Perea,
killed with my own hand more Moors than were
slain by all the other Christians in Casablanca put
together."
More dead Moors were taken from his house
than from anywhere else. Blood was everywhere
on the walls and pavement, and ran down the
street gutter. Many Moorish corpses were found
in the ixitio and carried into the dining-room,
which, to judge from the evidence of our noses,
still retained unfragrant memories of the unjust.
There were blood-stains visible on the walls of
the hostelry, and splashes of bullets were every-
where, especially on the belvedere and in the lower
room, into which the marauders had fired through
its wooden grating. The outer door was badly
splintered.
The French force which escorted Domingo Perea
to the American Consulate, where, after all, he only
slept one night, had to enter his house from be-
hind, as so many Moors were still firing on the
street in front. After returning home he used to
go out at night with the patrols.
For some time the governor of the town })osted
guards at each end of the street to prevent the
natives from passing the hotel on their way to the
Marrakesh Gate. Wlien at last this restriction
LIFE AT CASARI.ANCA 231
was removed, the Moors used to get by it at a
run, ducking and dodging as if to avoid being
shot.
Don Domingo liad only five revolver and twenty
gun cartridges left when the troops at last
arrived, though he still retained his sword. On
his way to the American Consulate — for, as a
Cuban subject, he is under the protection of the
United States Consul — he was so dazed that he
lost the scabbard, and has never since been able
to recover it.
Such is the story of the defence of the Hotel
Continental, which may well rank with that of
the house at Arrah during the Indian Mutiny.
Our own quarters were, save in name, by no
means palatial. The " Palace of Varieties " — so
nicknamed by some friendly wag — closely resembled
the descriptions I have read of a jail in some bank-
rupt South American state.
Bare white walls, pierced high up with small
square loopholes of a very prison-cell-like aspect,
and doorways blessed with a pleasing absence of
doors may keep out the heat, but they certainly
do not exclude the air. After a certain time they
are apt to remind the inmate of that last long
home to which the perpetual draught seems to be
swiftly hurrying him. The sole furniture of our
bedrooms consisted of camp-beds and pigeon-holed
boxes, and Mohammed, our cook, was in the habit
of keeping the remnants of last night's dinner
232 GENERAT. D'AMADE IX MOROCCO
in the bath-room, which greatly exercised the
faculties of the bather desirous of having dry
chicken for lunch. There, too, were stored the
jars of thin, sour Spanish wine, which lent a con-
vivial touch to our Barebones feasts. Another
drawback to the bath-room — indeed, to Casablanca
— was that it did not contain a bath. Each dawn
found the inmates fighting for the possession of a
somewhat exiguous tin basin.
Harris came to stay with us, but it was re-
markable in how short a time he recalled a previous
invitation, given at some very indefinite period, to
the English Consulate ; while his sleek Tangier
body-servants, before swiftly proceeding to remove
his traps, scanned their surroundings with ill-
concealed disgust.
Owls were our constant visitors. They had
their home in the garden of the English Consulate,
but passed their nights in making rounds of visits
to neighbouring houses. Frequently loud flappings
would be heard in the small hours of the morning,
and an unfortunate bird would be seen beating
itself against the wire-netting of our hall skylight,
whilst excited gentlemen in pyjamas were trying to
chase it through the narrow opening with the long
ljam1)00s which we used to open our port-lioles.
One direful night I never shall forget. My mules
and horses were stabled in a nmddy yard adorned
with weeds and rotting loot, which lay beside our
house, and which also contained, besides tlie horse,
LIFE AT CASABLANCA 233
mule, and donkey of an English merchant, a M'Dakra
puppy of the native breed, which had followed my
caravan from a doudr on our return from Bou Znika.
Poor Frances — so called from a native name Fran-
soz, bestowed on her by my men in honour of the
French — was a dubious joy. A brindled lurcher
with white feet and a white-tipped tail almost
as long as her body, she was, when she first
arrived, the fiercest little beast I ever saw.
Curled up in her corner, nominally asleep, the
slightest movement in the room provoked a fierce
growl and a display of gleaming white teetli.
Later on, thanks to our host's skilful treatment,
Frances became quite friendly, and I should be sorry
to think that she is now reposing at the bottom
of Casablanca Harbour. One night, however, the
merchant's horse broke away, and after wandering
round the yard, proceeded to assail my mules, who
were tethered to the opposite wall. A fearful din
ensued ; the mules screamed, the donkey brayed,
the horse neighed, sounds of hoofs resounded, and
Frances filled the air with piercing yells. For two
hours Pandemonium was let loose, but human
patience has its limits, and at last the row was
intermingled with frequent crashes. I ran up to
the roof, and to my horror found a lightly-clad
friend, lantern in hand, bombarding the court-
yard with a succession of stone gin-bottles which
had accumulated near our poultry-house under
the ausjjices of a medical neighbour who, by his
2.34 GENERAL D'AINIADE IN MOROCCO
own account, never drank anything but water.
My thoughts flew to my precious mules, whom I
fully expected to see stretched dead in the mud,
and whose very existence my friend had apparently
forgotten. I was scarcely appeased by his explana-
tion that he was merely trying to relieve us of
Frances. I retired again to my camp-bed, only
to be reawakened by a succession of awful bangs,
which I discovered were the result of my friend's
efforts to force back the rusty bolt of a skylight
in order to liberate an owl, who had taken this
opportunity to pay us a visit. A caterwaul is,
indeed, the only form of nightly noise which was
spared us at Casablanca, mainly because most of
the cats had been killed or scared away during
the bombardment, although, as French and Algerian
soldiers are well known to be fond of such deli-
cacies, it is quite possible other reasons may have
accounted for their disappearance.
Our roof, open to the sea breezes, and command-
ing a view over the tow^n and the French camps
as far as the rolling downs which separated us
from Mediouna, was our chief resort. Spanish
troops had been stationed on it during the bom-
bardment, and had engaged in a lively rifle duel
with the defenders of a house with green shutters
some three hundred yards off, whose walls were
still white with the splashes of the bullets whose
empty cartridge-cases were strewn around us.
From our house-top we could study the life of
LIFE AT CASAIU.ANCA 235
the town ; we could become familiar with the linen
of a neighbouring Consulate ; we could survey the
women who were squatted in the square l^ofore
our door winnowing wheat from dawn to sunset ;
and it was easy for us to understand how David
became intimate with Bathsheba. Had firearms
existed at the time, Uriah could easily have been
annihilated without the formality of a letter to
Joab. From the roof we watched the incoming
mail being rowed ashore from a cruiser or a
torpedo-boat destroyer in the offing ; and from
the roof could be seen the serried columns of the
Frencli marching out on some expedition down
the Mediouna or Fedallah road. At the time of
the panic my friends might, indeed, have thought
themselves in the Ariel of old, for all Israel was
gone out upon the house-tops.
If the roofs are pleasant at Casablanca, the
roadways are the reverse. Previous to the
arrival of the French they were, save for a few
sharp-edged cobbles, innocent of paving, and the
horrid attempts at sanitation were manifested
solely by a succession of reeking gully - holes.
A sea of mud in winter and a desert of dust in
summer they, as a rule, required careful naviga-
tion to avoid sundry abysses which rendered a
walk home in the dark a thing of danger. Since
the landing of the French much has been done
to improve the roadways, but after a heavy storm
in February we saw half the inmates of the
286 GENERAL D'AMADE IN ISIOKOCCO
Mellah busily engaged in bailing out the muddy
water which lay in pools on the tracks between
their miserable huts of old packing-case boards
and flattened paraffin tins. A few lamps had
been installed in the neighbourhood of the Con-
sulates, but everywhere else the nocturnal way-
farer was bound to be provided v/ith a lantern,
covered with fantastically -pierced tin, through
which the light within cast weird shadows on
his path. The shops, with but few exceptions,
were mere holes in the wall, although they were
far better stocked than might have been expected
from their surroundings ; but, as is the case all
over the East, many handicrafts were carried
on in the street, and carpenters planed, tinsmiths
hammered, and rope - makers paced to and fro
in every open space. The cafes, always crowded
with French and Spaniards, would not have
looked out of keeping in any sous-prefecture in
Provence.
The chief trade of the place, so far as tlie
natives are concerned, is done in the "Souk" or
market, inside and outside the walls. Imagine
a narrow street of broken-down huts, in which
grave and bearded traders are squatting on low
platforms. Some are poorly clothed in torn brown
djellabas, others are resplendent in their blue cloth
cloaks. On Fridays a few may he seen studying
illuminated manuscripts with devout attention ;
on other days these same scribes will be casting
IJl E AT CASABLANCA 237
up accounts and inditing correspondence for their
less literate brethren. A large string of beads
figures at every girdle. Up and down the street
moves a miscellaneous crowd. Strings of camels
are picking their way through the mud, donkeys
half hidden in bundles of brushwood of thorny
quality, jostle the wayfarer into the shop fronts.
Spanish officers and their orderlies are catering
for the mess, ladies in Marseilles toilettes are
chaffering for eatables ; Jew boys in ancestral
gaberdines, toned by dirt to a protective like-
ness to the gutters, are squatting before rudely
painted roulette boards, where an unevenly balanced
skewer revolves over divisions encircled with a ring
of nails, and rake in the coppers which a mixed
public of street boys and loungers are staking
with all a gambler's earnestness. The following
wares seem to constitute the staple of the contents
of the shops ; oranges, lemons, beans, potatoes,
onions, brushes of palmetto, walnuts, eggs, butter,
sugar, candles, slippers, cigarettes, olives, prunes,
carrots, radishes, turnips, rapeseed, soft soap, clay
pipes, beetroot, lettuce, matches, salt, chxxrcoal,
sultanas, spices, figs, sheeps' heads, chilies, and
sweetmeats. Money-changers are haggling over
a startling variety of coins, of varying ages and
origin, and to judge only from their outward
expressions are fully qualified to join their fellows
in Malebolge at a moment's notice.
In the Souk outside are squatted large rings
238 GEXEKAT. D'A]MADE IN MOROCCO
of forage merchants ; restaurants of boards and
tent-cloth are doing a roaring trade in strange
fragments of meat and slices of odoriferous fish,
although they are subjected to a lively competition
from the ambulant hawkers on whose stoves, glow-
in o; with charcoal and redolent of oil, fritters and
wafers are spluttering and spitting. Story-tellers
are amusing a listening throng with the deeds of
Haroun-al-Raschid or with the latest exploits of
some native saint. Everywhere the French police
are keeping a vigilant watch on the crowd, and
forcing new arrivals from the interior to dismount
from their steeds before they enter the town.
Occasionally their persons and saddle-bags are
searched for concealed arms, but, as a rule, tlie
Arab is prudent enough to have left his rifle
hidden in some secure place outside the line of
outposts.
As Casablanca is comparatively speaking a
modern town, there is little that is remarkable
in its architecture. It is only within the last
forty years that stone buildings have begun to
replace the native huts of reeds with their court-
yards shut in with matting. One or two of the
mosques have doorways adorned with coloured
plaster - work which feebly carries on the tradi-
tions of the Alhambra. In some instances the
Moorish arches and pilasters are in appearance,
if not in construction, reminiscent of our own
later Norman style, and a courtyard in the Kaid
LIFE AT CASABLANCA 289
of Mediouna's town house, which the French have
turned into a field hospital, would not seem out
of place at Romsey. But, as a rule, the streets
in the better quarters of Casablanca are a succes-
sion of square white blocks of different heiglits,
pierced here and there with loophole-like windows,
varied by an occasional balcony, and resemble
nothing so much as the town backgrounds seen
in Masaccio's pictures. Indeed when, at the festival
of the Eed, the holiday crowd in its bright djellabas
of green, pink, blue, and orange, flecked here and
there with crimson, was bustling down the Rue
du Kaid to pay homage to the Maghzen, one
might well have fancied oneself in Dante's Florence.
Flags and flagstaffs are a great feature. Bags
of faded green or pink calico adorn the court-
yards before the tombs of saints ; the mos(|ues
announce the hours of prayer by hoisting a square
of white, blue, or green ; on the Consulates the
ensigns and pennons of nearly ever}'- European
and American state are fluttering in the breeze.
When seen from the roadstead Casablanca well
deserves its name. The long line of white houses
bordered by the yellow wall pierced with cavernous
gateways is broken only by the square towers
of the mosques, ornamented with outlined tiers
of half - flamboyant arches of mystic meaning,
with fanciful finials and interlaced tracery ; by
the outlooks of the Spanish, German, and English
Consulates, and by the red belfry of the Franciscan
240 GENERAT. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
Church, surmounted by a lofty cross of iron to
remind the traveller of home.
But to the weary soldier plodding through the
night Casablanca is an unreality ; for the violet of
her plain merges in the violet sea, and her vv^hite-
ness is the whiteness of the surf
RABAT
They call Rabdt the Pearl of Morocco. It stands
high on the steep southern bank of the Bouragrag,
where the green river lashes the blue sea, above
cactus-grown ochre rocks, a long, rambling line of
white and yellow, everywhere dominated by the
huge grey Tower of Hassan.
Across the river, on a flat sandy shore, lies
Sallee, a compact town protected by a mighty
bastioned wall, and treeless, save for a solitary
palm. No two places, so close together, could be
more unlike. Sallee, grim, dusty, arid, crouches
in the sand like a beast of prey ; Babilt, aloft
amidst her orange-groves, decked with emeralds
and gold, looks out smiling on the world like a
queen.
The winding river fades into rolling, grassy
hills ; not far away the sea thunders ; a great
wall joining the guardian waters, and the raging
surf of her bar, keep Rabdt inviolate. The cross-
ing of the bar, always an experience, is sometimes
a peril, and often an impossibility. Vessels have
lain for twenty days outside the port, waiting in
vain foi the opportunity to land their cargo.
The cities are linked by the long white lines
Q
242 GENERAT. D'AINIADE IN MOROCCO
of foam cresting the Atlantic rollers ; and the de-
scendants of the Rovers are hardy, skilful mariners,
always ready to urge their great barcasses into the
maelstrom, singing antiphonally as they wield tlie
long sweeps, and utterly untinged by the "sadness
of farewell."
They are a picturesque crew, bare - legged,
resplendent in colour, tunic, knickerbockers, and
twisted rag of headgear all differing in different
individuals, constituting what on the luciis a non
Incendo principle must be called the uniform of the
Sultan, whose soldiers they are when they have
nothing better to do.
These town-bred men, unlike the country Arabs,
are pale-complexioned, and pride themselves on the
purity of their race ; those who know Tintoretto's
" Pirates," at Madrid, will recognise the type.
Their captain is the steersman, who unceasingly
yells objurgations at the ten pairs of rowers chant-
ing their weird song ; Mohammed is sugaring ;
Bou Chaib stojjs to hammer in his thole-pins with
unnecessary frequency ; Abdullah, son of a dog, is
never in time — let him look to it, or his pay is
forfeit. Sometimes, incensed to a pitch where
words avail nothing, the skipper throws the tiller
to the waves, darts along the benches, and punches
the offending head.
When tlie dangerous zone is reached, and tlie
Imge barcasse shivers as the screaming flood thrusts
her head down into the green caverns, the din on
RABAT 243
hoard rivals that of the sea. Tlie crew repent of
their misdeeds, aud hellow invocations to their
patron saints, while the skipper, \s'itli a more
lively faith in salvation by works, adds some
telling paragraphs to the Commination Service.
And so the black ship glides on, out of the
hurly-burly of the breakers into the calm waters
beneath the maidenhair-clad cliiFs, where the
brown walls of the dismantled kasbah rise sheer
above brown rocks, and laughing girls peep down
from flower-framed windows.
Beyond the quay, stacked with such stuff as
the Moor condescends to buy from the Nazarene
— candles, sugar, and cottons— a little flotilla of
boats rides at anchor, while others ply to and fro
across the stream, and a snaky coil of white- robed
travellers weds the two cities with its living bond.
This is the great ferry of Morocco, the high-road
from north to south, by which every man who
values his skin journeys from Fez to Marrakesh.
At Babat the choosing of his hotel does not
long delay the visitor. There is only one in the
place, and its proprietor, hands deep in pockets,
receives you with the cool aloofness of the bored
monopolist. But he is an excellent fellow, mine
host of the Hotel de la Douane ; and as he pre-
sides at his sorry dinner- table, ladling out greasy
soup to bagmen and talking politics with felicitous
eloquence, you feel that he would adorn a higher
sphere.
244 GENEKAI. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
For tliu place is not exactly a llitz. Down a
dark and narrow passage the way leads over a
little wooden drawbridge across a deep gully. The
tiny house has the universal patio open to the sky ;
you are offered, and refuse, a windowless bedroom
on the ground - floor ; on the verandahed, balus-
traded, twelve-foot-square first-floor, reached by
gloomy steps nearly as high as the Pyramids, are
more bedrooms, the dining-room, and kitchen ;
above again is the fiat roof.
A peaky Jewess, wrinkled with toil, accom-
plishes the impossible feat of cooking a dinner of
four courses and waiting on the six eaters thereof
at one and the same time ; her assistant, a
heroically tall Amazon of an Arab, whose henna-
dyed hair flows far down her back, floods the
corridor with cabbage-water as the guests open
their doors on the stroke of seven. There per-
force they stand, doomed inhalers of the gale,
until the horrid flood subsides down holes where
wall and floor meet.
Mine host emerges slowly from his den, a carbine
in his hand. " Cats are a nuisance," he murmurs
reflectively, and points his weapon skywards.
The bullet flies true through the cat's head, f
and wings on its way amid the piled-up roofs.
It may hit somebody else, or it may not ; this is
Morocco, where the lives of cats and men are
alike held cheap.
It is Friday, the day the Sultan goes in state
RABAT 245
to mosque. The road leads through tlie long,
twisting streets of the business quarter of the
town, where every house is a httle shop, protected
by a wooden penthouse set on at a different angle
to its neighbour's. Here, as in London city, the
merchant works by day, and goes home in the
evening.
The narrow, raised sidewalks are utterly inade-
quate for the stream of passengers ; the villainous,
hollow, pool-flecked roadway is filled with a jostling
crowd of animals and men, where everybody, except
the asses, shouts to all and sundry to clear out of
his way.
In some streets is built a kind of pergola, roofed
with matting, to protect the shopkeepers from the
sun : dark as Erebus on starlit nights, and not a
place to linger in. Through a narrow gate the
road leads into the great market-place, full of dun
cattle and brown-headed, fat-tailed sheep, enclosed
by walls of yellow sun-baked mud, on which rosy
snapdragons, six feet high, lift their graceful spires
into the blue. Then through the cavernous outer
city gate into a broad, sandy road, with a high,
yellow wall on one side, and on the other a bristling
aloe hedge, over which the ethereal pink convolvulus
trails her beauty. Above them both stretches the
glittering green of vast orange-groves, laden with
their golden harvest.
The mosque, close to the gate in the wall
guarding the Sultan's domain, is a barnlike, almost
246 GENETIAT. D'xVMADE IN MOROCCO
wiiidowless, three -aisled, wagon - roofed building;
the Nazarene takes care not to endeavour to ascer-
tain with accuracy the proportions of its interior.
Gaudily-dressed soldiers, now handling muskets
instead of oars, but otherwise unchanged, chat
with the crowd as they slouch in badly-dressed
line ; fat negroes on scarlet-saddled mules dash
about importantly. Suddenly there is a fanfare of
trumpets, discordant, out of time ; the soldiers
present arms with glorious irregularity ; a bright
array of notables and courtiers, very dignified and
imposing, ride through the gate ; the din of bugles
redoubles ; the guard of honour marches in, fol-
lowed by the six led horses with saddles of red
and blue ; and then, uiider the great crimson
umbrella on tall golden stafi, rides Sultan Abd-ul-
Aziz, robed in white, a very stately figure.
In April 1908, Kaid Sir Harry Maclean,
military adviser to Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz, lived in a
solitary house, in a great grove of oranges, not
far from the Sultan's demesne. My friend Mr.
Walter B. Harris, the well-known correspondent
of llie Times in Morocco, was kind enough to
arrange, through Sir Harry's mediation, an
audience of the Sultan for the little party of
Englishmen then in llabat. Sir Harry had only
to prefer his re(piest for it to be granted ; and
so one fine day Mr. Harris, Mr. Hubert Reade,
Mr. N. Black-Hawkins, and the writer went forth
from Rabdt to lunch with the ever-hospitable
The Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz
A sketch, from memory, by Mr. W. B. Harris
RABAT 249
Kaid, before going on to be received by his
Shereefian Majesty. Through the cattle-market
within the city we rode, and, by the southern of
its two gates, out into a noisy crowd of marketers
and the sickening stench of stale blood ; for here
is the town abattoir, and about its slimy fringe
the noseless chafferers haggle unoffended. Tlience
the broad sandy road stretches straight into a
perspective of fine aspens, through more orange-
gardens, hedged with Arundo (io7iax ; and the
gorgeous scent of the white flowers obliterated
recent memories.
The orange-trees in the Kaid's garden grow
tall ; their boles and branches, like apple-trees in
Herefordshire, are hoary with lichen — the tribute
of the circumambient sea. Blue flax and yellow
trefoil carpeted the ground ; quinces and pears
were in flower beside the grassy avenue that
leads up to the house.
Kaid Sir Harry Maclean is a man about sixty
years old, short, long-armed, immensely strong,
and a fine horseman. He has a venerable white
beard, and wears the baggy Turkish breeches
tucked into brown butcher boots, a Zouave jacket
of brown, a red kummerbund, and a red tarbvsh
bound with a white turban, which he wears
indoors and out. Once he took it off, and
showed us that he is completely bald. His ruddy
face beams with kindliness and good humour, and
though one of his eyes is a glass one the stranger
250 GENERAL DA MADE IN xMOROCCO
would scarcely detect it. When working at his
favourite pastime of carpentering, not very long
ago, a splinter struck him ; he asked leave of the
Sultan to go to Europe to have it taken out ;
the Sultan refused to part with liim, and the
result was the loss of the eye. At this time,
although he looked very well, he said he was
suffering from the effects of five months' ill-
treatment by Raisuli — the brigand who only
managed to capture the Kaid because he was
travelling on a mission for the Sultan, and re-
fused to listen to the counsels of those who
urged him to avoid the danger and return.
Kaisuli half-starved him, and kept him in
irons in a filthy den in which he could not
stand upright ; he was poisoned with bad water
and very nearly died.
Yet here he was, a few weeks later, looking
the picture of robust health, and galloping his
bay barb at break-neck speed over the rocky
plains.
The affection of the Kaid for his master Abd-
ul-Aziz is unbounded ; from first to last he has
refused to despair of his fortunes ; and the
reality of his downfall will be to him a personal
sorrow.
What happy hours we spent as the Raid's
guests in the little white windy house amongst
the oranges ! We were in Rabdt a week ; we
lunched with him every day ; played bridge till
close on dinner-time, and several times dined
there too. Once, I remember, the gate of* the
city was locked on our return, and the sleepy
guards either could not, or would not, fetch tlic
key. We waited a long time; after a while
kicks and shouts were greeted with a long
crescendo of snores ; we abandoned the unequal
contest, and rode back to the Raid's. He gave
us dinner, was delighted to get another rubber
or two, and made us uncommonly comfortable on
the floor of his own bedroom.
Just beyond the Raid's garden is the central
of the three great walls that protect Eabilt on
the landward side. Outside it lies a grassy
plain, in April blue with bugloss, and yellow with
trefoil, rock roses, and dwarf chrysanthemums.
Close by on the south the turquoise of the sky
is jewelled with the diamonds of the sea ; the
rollers break on the dark rocks with incessant
thunder. Away to the north lies the little city
of the Palace, aloof amid its wide spaces,
guarded by tall intersecting walls, shut off* by
deep orchards from the hurly-burly of E-abdt.
Above the far brown line rose the gabled,
green-tiled roof, prettily broken by a lantern, of
the main building of the Palace ; and nearer, in
one of the endless huge enclosures, were dotted
the tents of the Sultan's mehallah, soldiers kept
under lock and key, so Harris declared, in order
to prevent their deserting. As we cantered along
252 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
through the flowers, bee-eaters, loveHest of birds,
with brilhant chestnut heads and bodies of green
and gold, darted round us on their quest. Against
the eastern wall of the Palace, near a postern, is
a little vulgar lean-to, which might be a bicycle
house, or is possibly a potting-shed. It looks un-
commonly out of place and ill at ease does that
plebeian little match-boarding erection, adhering to
the ochre grandeur of the Palace wall like some
stranded limpet to a mighty cliff. Yet within
it sits the Majesty of Morocco, when at Rabdt
ho deigns to give private audience to foreigners.
Abd-ul-Aziz is a big, powerful man, about
thirty. His face is broad and fleshy ; the nose
thick, the chin receding, the mouth good-humoured,
smiling often to disclose enormously large white
teeth. His beard is very thin, and does little to
hide the weakness of his profile. The eyes are
his distinctive feature. They are extraordinarily
intelligent, piercing, and vivacious with the look
that betokens the ardent searcher after knowledge.
The red line of the tarbush comes low over
the thick, straight eyebrows ; that is the only
touch of colour in his dress ; the hood of the
snowy haik frames the dark face. His hands
are as well shaped as a woman's, and he has a
nervous trick of biting his lower lip.
The Kaid and Harris did most of the talking,
and the latter elicited many a hearty laugh from
the Sultan, who is very fond of a joke. He was
RABAT 25.J
particularly amused at tlie story of* liis female
subject who asked a Tirailleur if it was true that
the French were all Jews. lie asked a great
number of questions as to military affairs — how
many French there were in the Cha6uiya, how
many guns, how many colonels, and how many
of the French troops were Moslems. In the
midst of the audience the door opened, and in
rushed a little black boy, carrying a huge docu-
ment, which he gave to the Sultan with elaborate
bows. And so it would seem as though the
cares of State sit heavy even on the ruler of so
little ruled a people as the Moors.!
At the end of about three-quarters of an
hour the Sultan made a sign with his hand, and
we all rose to go. It was a little difficult for
five people to back, bowing three times, out
of so cramped a space, without collisions and
some small loss of dignity ; but on the whole we
managed very creditably.
It is impossible not to like Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz.
Every one who has ever come in contact with
his Majesty will feel real regret that qualities,
which in another clime would have made him
a liberal and enlightened ruler, have, in hide-
bound Morocco, been the very instruments of his
downfall.
Even then Abd-ul-Aziz was doomed.
About a week later (April 22 or 23, 1908)
Harris, whose guests we were in his beautiful
254 GENERAI. D'A^NIADE IN MOROCCO
new house, oii the Marshall at Tangier, designed
inside and out by himself, took us to see Menebhi,
the Sultan's former Minister for War, and the
most fascinating and the strongest personality in
Morocco. Still quite young, lithe and handsome,
playing lawn tennis with a twist of the wrist
that Mr. Miles himself might envy, it seemed hard
to believe that this man had been a War Minister and
a special ambassador to England, was a G.C.B., and
would be soon the power behind a throne. He
talked to us freely, interpreted by Harris, about
the political situation, and immediately afterwards
I made a note of what he said. It may be
of interest, in view of subsequent events, to give
his words almost verbatim ; for they prove how
long ago the minds of educated Moors were
made up as to the issue of the struggle between
the rival brothers.
Menebhi said that all Morocco was agreed that
Mulai Hafid was the de jure Sultan, since Abd-ul-
Aziz had been deposed by the Ulemas of Fez and
Marrakesh.
All the Moorish tribes, like those all over the
Mohammedan world, have assemblies of Ulemas, or
hierarchical corporations, whose decision is final in
all matters concerning the Koran. The Ulemas of
Morocco have delegated their powers to those of
Fez and Marrakesh, and no example has been
known during the thirteen centuries since the
Hegira, of a Sultan deposed by those bodies
RABAT 255
regaining his position. " Every Moor," went on
Menebhi, " in his heart recognises Mulai Ilafid as
his sovereign dcjiir'c, and if he gets to Fez, nothing
w^ill restrain him from recognising him as such (h
facto. It is by his express orders that tlie tribes
in the neighbourhood of the coast towns have re-
frained from attacking Europeans. His object is
to avoid a colHsion with the French, with whom
he is only too anxious to treat. The proclamation
of the Holy War is no proof of his hostility to
Europeans, whom, on the contrary, he likes, and
whom he would be willing to allow to trade and
travel throughout Morocco. Though it would be
imprudent for Europeans to go to Fez at present,
their commercial interests there have not suffered.
For instance, the last caravan from Fez to Tangier
brought down 300,000 dollars in specie, which be-
longed almost entirely to European merchants.
" Abd-ul-Aziz was deposed mainly because he
had allowed the country to be governed by Euro-
peans ; Mulai Hafid wall not allow them to inter-
fere in those matters. The fact that the Spaniards
have met with little opposition on the Riff coast
counts for nothing. The Riffians are hardly part
of the country. What counts in Morocco are Fez,
Marrakesh, Mequinez, and the coast tribes. If the
French continue to support Abd-ul-Aziz they are
in for fifty years of war.
" Every Moor who supports Abd-ul-Aziz knows
in his heart that he is a traitor to his religion, and
256 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
his one excuse for doing so would vanish if Mulai
liatid were installed at Fez,"
Only the portrayer of the "Wapiti with the
mange, and the perpetually perspiring polar bear,"
who took us to a review of the Sultan's troops, can
do adequate justice to the scenes of comic opera we
witnessed.
The Minister for War and the Army Council
were squatted in a semi-circle in the middle of a
grassy plain ; near them a brass band emitted the
most heart-rending noises. Between the legs and
the music-stands of the bandsmen a madman,
stark naked, was turning somersaults : on our ap-
joroach some one huddled him into a sort of yellow
dressing-gown, in which he continued somersaulting.
Past the War Minister the troops marched in fours,
their brown legs twinkling merrily out of step, some
with their rusty muskets at the trail, some at the
slope, the privates conversing cheerfully together,
the otHcers roaring unregarded orders.
Up and down the column ran vendors of sweets,
also soldiers, but without their arms, and Ser-
geant Balding sat by on his grey barb trying to
look serious.
The Mehallah had nearly gone by, but the War
Minister was still unsatiated ; the head of the
column, close on the city gate, was ordered to wheel
round and repeat the performance. Whether from
a desire to gratify the Minister as soon as possible,
or in order to get back quicker to lunch I cannot
RABAT 2.57
say, but the leading tatterdemalions set snch a
slashing pace that soon the column was moving at
a run, and round it came, liustling and jostling,
until it caught up its tail, and then round again,
like the millers in the toy, and round and round,
until, I suppose, the delighted War Minister had
performed the unrivalled feat of reviewing twenty
thousand men with only four thousand on the
ground.
Sheila is the crown of a visit to Rabat.
Few would expect to find on the Atlantic coast
of Morocco ruins whose counterparts are only to be
seen in the frescoes of some great Italian master o±
the fifteenth century. Sheila, save for the char-
acteristic tracery of its gates, might be the work
of some designer who had studied in a Florentine
workshop.
The coincidence is not a chance one, for the
relations between Italy and Morocco from the thir-
teenth to the fifteenth century were close, and
there was, indeed, a moment when a Pope believed
that the ruler of Fez would adopt the Christian
faith, whilst Florence and Genoa drew much wealth
from their Moroccan trade.
Even the track leading to Sheila from the Tower
of Hassan is Italian rather than Moorish in its charm.
To the left the Bouragrag rolls its turbid waters in
long snaky windings through mud flats flecked
with gleaming pools, and covered with dwarf rushes
and a growth of salt-loving vegetation. Beyond,
R
258 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
grass-clad hills broken here and there by splashes
of warm red earth roll up into olive and cork woods.
To the right a rain-furrowed cliff is covered with a
tangle of oak-scrub and brambles, interspersed here
and there by a bush of feathery mimosa. Behind
are the cornlands and vineyards which lie between
the first and second walls of Rabdt, and help to
lend that touch of Rome which seems so strangely
out of place in the Sultan's town.
Winding in and out of little bays in the cliff,
which form the mouths of glens down which streams
half hid in fern are leaping, at last we see a brown
square tower perched high above our heads, round
which the tumbling rollers, a blaze of sapphire,
white, and green, are circling in their curious flight.
It is the extremity of the outer wall of Rabdt.
The path turns inland, passing between walls of
loose stones above which the grey limbs of fig-trees,
just tinged with sprouting green, peer out into the
world ; limestone cliffs, tapestried with creepers
and terraced with little patches of bright green
wheat are crowned with the dark square mass of
a saint's tomb ; below, a stream is welling out from
a cavern hung with maidenhair, and shaded by
ancient, twisted trees. Crossing the stream and
mounting a narrow flight of steps we emerge into
a square l)ounded on the one side by a wide-arched
watering pool, on the other by a fondak where
brown-coated muleteers are smoking cross-legged.
The stairs lead on to low- domed mosques through
RABAT 259
whose open doors, latticed screens, swinging censers,
and tasselled ostrich -eggs can be seen.
We are treading on holy ground, for these
tombs, which early travellers believed to be Roman,
are the monuments of the saintly Sultans who ruled
Morocco in the fourteenth century.
Beside them stands a mosque, now in ruins,
which might be the jewel-casket of some queen of
the genii. The minaret, low but exquisitely pro-
portioned, of white stucco yellowed almost into
ivory by time, is pierced by tiers of double
windows whose columns show in their capitals
the influence of Byzantine art. The walls above
the first story are inlaid with coloured tiles,
blue, green, and orange, blended into matchless
harmony by the action of the air, and arranged in
the lozenges so dear to Saracenic builders.
The minaret is almost a miniature of Giotto's
Campanile, but is about half a century older. Be-
hind it rise slopes of green, studded thickly with a
rare vermilion bugloss, and rounded mounds mark
the sites of the houses of the vanished city. Be-
yond again are the long old-rose lines of the walls,
battlemented, and pierced by three gates. Through
one of these the road makes a right-angled turn,
and its strength for defence was increased by win-
dows commanding the passage from above. The
whole of the wall surface above the outer arch is
covered with intricate patterns of projecting bricks.
Through the gate you enter on the plateau, where
260 GENERAL D'AMADE IN INIOROCCO
the iris blows amid the boulders, and the wind
blows salt from the sua. High aloft sits Sheila,
gazing down upon her river : so the walls of Jeru-
salem rise from the gorge of Hinnom above the
fountain of Siloam.
One day we rode from Sheila to the great Tower
of Hassan, by sandy tracks between hedges of cactus
bounding fig- and apple-orchards, in which the
farmers were busy with the hoe, preparatory to
planting pumpkins and melons. There were vine-
yards, too, and barley-fields ; hardly a foot of the soil
between the outer wall and the city but yields its
crop abundantly.
The Tower, built in 1195 by the architect of the
Giralda at Seville and the Koutoubiya at Marra-
kesh, is an immense unfinished square, brown-red
on three sides, and grey where the briny wind
strikes it from the sea. At a distance the brick
lozenges which form the keynote of its decoration
look like Spanish lace ; its tiers of pillar-divided
windows remind the Englishman of Tewkesbury.
A ramp, up which mules conveyed the bricks for its
building, runs inside it to its very summit. The
Almohad who built it was trying to rival the
grandeur of the mosques at Damascus and at
Cordova ; and there are still standing eighteen
truncated pillars of the vast abandoned aisles.
Beyond them rise huge fragments of an outer wall,
distinct, isolated; looming up like concrete monoliths
from their cyclopean platform.
RABAT 2r,i
Some vandal of a vice-consul made a hideous
white tennis-court in the very middle of the sacred
enclosure — a concrete abomination through which
no flower or green thing can pierce its way ; a
plague-spot on the fair face of Nature. All about
it brambles are covered with dazzling bloom, and
above the long waterless tank snap-dragon eight
feet high raise their rosy spikes. Close by came the
sound of gunshots, and we found a Spaniard sitting
near the tower with two very English fox-terriers,
waiting for the scared blue pigeons to return to
their home.
That evening Rabdt was given up to religious
festival. The Hamachi, a sect which, like the
Aissoua, believes in mortifying the flesh, and
translates its opinion into practice with great
thoroughness, held possession of the main street.
To pass through them was impossible. For some
time we watched them and the immense throng of
spectators. In a circle, taking up the whole road-
way, with linked arms, these fanatics leapt up and
down to the beating of drums, chanting wildly.
Every now and then a man would unlink his arms,
seize an iron bar, hit his forehead, and catch the
stream of blood in a wooden bowl. Several of
them fell fainting to the ground. But we had
looked long enough ; the crowd became threaten-
ing ; there was a cry of " Nazarene ! " and we found
it was high time to vanish quickly down a side-
street.
2r,2 CxENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
April 14tli was the great feast of Meiliid, the
hh'thday of the Prophet, on which it is customary
for loyal chiefs to do homage to the Sultan. For
days previously the roads were blocked with them
and their retainers ; and the open spaces of the city,
especially the plain between the rocky cemetery
where the white iris grow and the Atlantic, were
dotted with their tents. The ceremony was extra-
ordinarily impressive. The huge plain beyond the
Palace was a sea of moving colour ; four thousand
motley soldiers formed a rough square, w^ithin
which the serried ranks of tribesmen, blue and
white, were ranged in long lines.
At length the Sultan's procession, amidst im-
mense cheering and bugle-sounding, filed out
through the gate ; the great crimson, green-striped
umbrella comes nearer ; galloping horsemen surge
round the square. A path is opened for his
Majesty, who lialts within ; the scarlet-clad Masters
of tlie Guns, with pride of place, advance first in
line, bowing as one man to the ground ; then, two
in line, the tribesmen gallop up, bow to the Sultan,
and wheel out right and left. In half-an-hour the
ceremony is over, and the huge crowd troops back
through the city gates.
The next day was the ceremony of the Hediya,
or giving of presents. It was held in one of the
vast grass courts that abut on the Palace. The
rallying-point of every eye was the little door in
the wall beyond the five-arched colonnade through
RABAT 2G3
which the Sultan would come to receive his tribute.
In the meantime the great square of* soldiers wlio
kept the ground felt that to stand would Ije a
useless waste of energy. They lolled at ease on
the short turf, talking merrily, and })uying sweets
from hawking comrades, who somehow had man-
aged to evade their sergeants. In the centre are
grouped the wild-looking tribesmen from the in-
terior, with their gifts, consisting of liorses ; with
the exception of one nice-looking chestnut, with
light mane and four white stockings, it might prove
disappointing to the Sultan to look them in the
mouth.
Round the square was packed a dense throng.
Every one who could beg, borrow, or steal a quad-
ruped had done so ; men of small means had one
son perched up behind them, and another little
chap in front ; rich men came with half-a-dozen
delightful tiny urchins, solemn and grave-eyed,
sitting with native horsemanship on vicious little
stallions, on saddles so large that their fat little legs
made right angles with their bodies. Bigger boys
raced each other on lean Rosinantes without saddle
or bridle, kicking their rawboned nags with naked
heels into the parody of a gallop. Foreigners were
there too, though not many. A few Tirailleurs ;
an old bearded Italian colonel who had commanded
the artillery at Fez, probably no very arduous
duty ; a dark lady riding in Moslem garb, with
white haik floating gracefully from head to feet ;
204 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
another lady, a tremendous tln^uster in orthodox
habit who galloped at full sjjeed across the ground,
upsetting all and sundry in her path ; Dr. and Mrs.
Verdon, the Sultan's English doctor and his wife ;
and Sergeant Balding. Presently the soldiers get
up and stretch themselves ; there must be some-
thing coming. It is the Minister for War, ambling
up on a fat mule, and bursting with importance.
The soldiers present arms ; the Minister joins the
privileged group in the centre ; there is a buzz
of expectation. At last the small green door is
opened, and to the sound of trumpets six atten-
dants lead forth the red - and - blue caparisoned
bays ; then come two soldiers carrying lances ten
feet long, and behind them rides the Sultan, all in
white on a white horse, whose bridle and saddle
and breastplate are of Mecca green. Beside him,
on either side, walk two men with large kerchiefs,
which they flick rhythmically to drive away pre-
sumptuous flies from the Shereefian nose. Behind
comes the umbrella-carrier, and behind again a
crowd of gorgeous courtiers. The bands outvie
each other in din ; the troops salute ; the Sultan
rides into the centre of the square. Then the
chiefs are presented to his Majesty by the Minister
for War ; " May you live for ever ! " cry the tribes-
men in unison ; the Sultan touches his breast with
his forefinger, but his answer " May you have
peace ! " is inarticulate. So the function proceeded
witli a repetition which might have proved mono-
RABAT 2G5
tonous had not an opportune madman intervened,
and by mimicking the War Minister to a nicety
flung the whole assemblage into laughter.
Afterwards there was a powder-play. The Moors
are fonder of this diversion than of almost anytliing
else in the world ; and the most unlikely rap-
scallion will produce two or three dollars for the
hire of an old musket in order to take part in the
game. The whole affair is intensely puerile and
boring to a degree. A line of horsemen forms up,
and at a signal dashes off at full speed, the riders
firing off their guns in every direction and in
every position, some leaning over their horses' ears,
others lying back over their saddles, others again
taking cover behind their horses' shoulders, and
astonishing their imaginary foe by winging him
with a shot fired round their horses' necks.
There is a great deal of yelling, and at the end
of a two hundred yards' scurry the unfortunate
ponies are pulled up so short that they sit on their
haunches and drip blood from their mouths. Crow
Indians do the same thing, and do it better. But
it was amusing to a European to hear the cate-
gories into which the competitors were divided.
" His Majesty's cooks " gave a performance ;
and a more unculinary set of individuals it would
be impossible to conceive. " The keepers of his
Majesty's Zoo " next paraded ; leaving the mangy
wapiti still unsulphured, and the perpetually per-
spiring polar bear still ungroomed.
26G CxENEUAL D'AMADE IX MOROCCO
"The Carpet-beaters," the "Lady Whippers,"
the "Tent-pitchers" and a host of others followed,
whose names sounded strangely familiar in con-
nection with English Polo Tournaments.
The Sultan is watching the powder-play from
an upper window ; it is the last Hediya in which
he will ever take part. Perhaps he knows it ;
those eyes of his see far. We ride home with the
crowd, and near the dark tunnel leading to our
hotel a mob is collected. Presently a man, white,
ghastly, bleeding from a dozen wounds, his burnous
soaked with blood, rushes unhindered from a house
and vanishes. What happened there we shall
never know ; perhaps a brutal murder, perhaps a
righteous vendetta. This is Morocco, where the
issues of life and death are hidden from the
stranger.
THE REGNAULT-LYAUTEY MISSION
AND THE BATTLE OF FEKKAK
About the middle of March M. Regnault, tlie
French Minister in Morocco, and General Lyautey,
who came over from Algeria, met in Casablanca.
Their mission was to discover the appropriate
methods for mitigating the hostility of the well-
thrashed Chaouiyans, and for the introduction of
Arcadian harmony into a land where inter-tribal
feuds and raids are the very breath of the inha-
bitants' nostrils. It must be confessed that the
mission was a redundant futility.
The French Government must have been aware
that the only thing to do with a mehallah of
fanatics is to fight it ; indeed, the mission was
expressly precluded from interfering with General
d'Amade's military plans. On the other hand, the
Government knew that over the greater part of
the Chaouiya the villagers had already returned
to their homes, were occupied as usual with their
agricultural pursuits, and were being encouraged,
by every inducement in General d'Amade's power,
to bring in those of their friends who still remained
intransigent. A priori it was difficult to see what
useful purpose the mission could serve ; and in the
208 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
event its sole contribution to the settlement of the
Chaouiya was a report which the French Govern-
ment ought not to have needed — to the effect that
General d'Amade had done, and was doing, every-
thing humanly possible to establish not merely
normal conditions, but a reality of peace and
security in the Chaouiya.
General d'Amade was certainly fortunate in the
choice made by the Government of the personnel
of the mission. General Lyautey was slightly his
senior at St. Cyr, and they have remained close
friends ever since. An ambitious and unscrupulous
man in General Lyautey's position might have
used it in order to obtain for himself the reversion
to the Chaouiya command ; but General Lyautey,
as senior officer, scrupulously refrained from im-
pairing General d'Amade's authority even by taking
part in the fighting ; and when the column moved
out from Ber Rechid to its last considerable fight
at Fekkak, General Lyautey, much, it may be
surmised, against his inclination, refused to be
present even as a spectator, and stayed behind to
practise his administrative persuasiveness on sub-
missive Kaids.
The difficulties the mission had to contend with
were not inconsiderable. Their object was to
restore the jxarden of flowers between Casablanca
and Mediouna to its former status of ploughland,
and to eflect this it was necessary to set up new
tribal executives in the place of those dispersed and
REGNAULT-LYAUTEY IMTSSTON 269
deposed by their share in recent events. To this
end Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz had chosen certain of his
adherents as governors of districts, and with a list
of them in his pocket General Lyautey held a series
of palavers with leading tribesmen. He insisted
that the desolate country should be forthwith re-
peopled ; that the sacked and battered homesteads
should be rebuilt ; that the camel and the donkey
should plough their way through the mallow. The
tribesmen, apparently, had no objection to return-
ing and to carrying out General Lyautey's instruc-
tions ; but when the question of administration
was broached, and Abd-ul- Aziz's nominees were
propounded as their governors, they became ex-
ceedingly recalcitrant. Indeed, they all declared
they would have none of Abd-ul-Aziz or his nomi-
nees ; they were Hafidists to the backbone, and
would sooner go on fighting than accept such
conditions.
Here was a dilemma. If the Mission insisted
on an executive of Abd-ul- Aziz's nominees, they
were driving tribesmen already submitted into the
ranks of the militant, and indefinitely postponing
the realisation of the Arcadia they had been sent
out expressly to achieve. If, on the other hand,
they admitted Hafidist rulers into their scheme,
they were playing into the hands of the Prince
who was responsible for preaching the Holy War
against Christians, and for organising mehallahs
to fight French troops. This was, perhaps, the
270 GENERAL D'AMADE IX MOROCCO
first definite intimation that the French had of the
probable trend of political events in Morocco ; and
when the provocation they had received from Mulai
Hafid is considered, the subordination of their own
impulses to the opinion of their enemies, displayed
in this and in subsequent negotiations, marks a
very high level of moderation and insight.
Amongst all the tribesmen who came to sit
outside General Lyautey's little tent, and to talk
to the big, bluff, vigorous soldier, there were no
M'Dakra.
There were the Kaids of the Mediouna tribe,
and of the Oulad Zian ; the Oulad Hariz, who
dwell round about their capital of Ber Rechid,
had long been quietly working on their farms.
It was hoped that a short campaign against
the M'Dakra might induce them, too, to fall into
line with the rest of the tribesmen, and to submit
themselves to the good ofiices of the Mission.
While the latter remained at Ber Rechid,
General d'Amade, on the 27th, led the Littoral to
the Oued Ai'ata, the march between the Oulad
Hariz and M'Dakra tribe-lands, where, the same
evening, he was joined by the Tirs from Mediouna.
On this expedition Kann and I had the plea-
sure of the society of Walter Harris, who had come
down from Tangier to lay bare the secrets of the
Mission. He brought with him two of his servants,
a capital camp outfit, and a large but invertebrate
tent, which depended for support chiefly on the
REGNAULT-LYAUTEY MISSION 271
heads of its occupants. Ho bouglit my black liorse
(for I could not resist a small prolit), and conse-
quently I rode my mule Ayesha, who was so fond
of the horse that no efforts on my part could ever
induce her to leave him ; so after Harris I always
went, willynilly, like iron to a lodestone, to an
accompaniment of deafening brays.
The 27th was the wettest and coldest day I
experienced in the Chaouiya. The rain fell in
torrents, and made travelling exceedingly difficult
in a country where small streams with steepish
banks were not infrequent. One of our mules fell,
and did some damage to its load ; the transport
animals all came in dog-tired. It was instructive
to listen to Harris's account of his journey through
this very district with the Sultan a few years pre-
viously, and to contrast the orderly and peaceful
progress of the alien French with the trail of rapine
and desolation left behind him by the Father of his
People.
Harris, as usual, made friends in a minute with
sundry natives, who gave him sour milk to drink,
and made no secret of their political views. The
story was the same all along the road. The Faithful
were the Nazarenes — the Nazarenes were the truly
Faithful, for their own countrymen ground them
down and pillaged them, while the French main-
tained order and stole nothing. Many of them ex-
pressed the fervent wish that the French might
never go away ; it would be so hard to go back to
272 GENERAL D'AIMADE IN MOROCCO
the old days of iusecurity, of blighted hopes, of
terror. Let those who urge France to withdraw
from the Chaouiya ponder these things, and let
France consider whether it is not the highest
mission of civilisation to bring peace to the rude
hearths of a down-trodden peasantry.
On Saturday, March 26, the force rested at the
Oued Aiata. Its strength amounted to thirty-five
companies of infantry, four batteries of field-guns,
four mountain-guns, two naval quick-firers, four
squadrons Chasseurs, one squadron Spahis, and 120
Goumiers.
During the day natives came in with the report
that the M'Dakra had been strongly reinforced by
Hamara Akka, the independent Kaid of the Zezian,
a hundred miles away to the east, through whose
territories the Sultan himself dare not go.
On Sunday the 29th the force marched in two
columns, the Tirs due east, the Littoral slightly
north-east, a distance of perhaps three miles sepa-
rating them when the action began about noon.
For fifteen or twenty iniles we went through a
country of which not a yard was uncultivated ;
vast fields of wheat, barley, flax, and chickpeas
succeeded one another in limitless abundance. But
by noon the force had reached the uncultivable
hills, on whose summits the cavalry had already got
in touch with the M'Dakra, where sheets of delicate
convolvulus turned their faces to the sun, pale to
the pursuing stranger, and deepest blue when he
REGNATJI/r-LYAUTEY MISSION 27;i
looked into thuir oyes. Here for two lioiirs tlie
Littoral, with whom was the General, halted, while
away on the rolling downs to the right (south) tlie
Tirs could be descried deploying into battle array.
The fight resolved itself into two parts — that in
which the columns fought separately, and that in
which they converged and drove the enemy across
the Oued Fekkak.
Against the Littoral on the left (north) a con-
siderable body of Moors, who made a fortified
farm their pivot of manoeuvre, employed their
usual enveloping tactics. Holding the French to
their ground by sending clouds of horsemen across
their front (east) at a most respectful distance,
they directed their chief efforts to getting on a
ridge in their rear (west), and in this they were
successful. This movement forced the General to
send up reinforcements, and the somewhat un-
usual sight was seen of two bodies of troops, back
to back, at a distance of some two hundred yards,
firing in opposite directions at their common
enemy.
At this time, about three o'clock in the after-
noon, the fight was pretty. The two batteries
with the Littoral were kept hard at work, and
there were plenty of casualties in the long line
of Tirailleurs, just below the crest line, who were
beating back the rear attack.
A tremendous fusillade was coming from the
Tirs, and about four o'clock General d'Amade,
S
274 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
who had by that time completely beaten off the
Arabs on his rear and left, marched eastwards to
rejoin it. The Tirs had borne the brunt of the
fighting, for the bulk of the Ai'ab force had fol-
lowed the deep valley of the Fekkak southwards,
and suddenly hurled itself over its western heiglits
on to the advancing French. Early in the day a
squadron of Chasseurs and a squadron of Spahis
had ridden into a body of Moors concealed in the
high grass, and two officers, Silvestre of the 6th
Chasseurs, and Du Boucheron of the 1st Spahis,
who gave his name to the place, and six men
fell. After some smart collisions with the Arabs
on its left the Littoral, about four o'clock, effected
a junction with the Tirs, and the combined columns
united to drive the Arabs down the western heights
of the Fekkak ravine, across the narrow stream,
and up and beyond the frowning wall of moun-
tain beyond. That was incomparably the finest
view I saw in Morocco, and it lost nothing from
the fact that we were the first Europeans who
had ever looked across the rolling sea of the
Achacli hills.
Below us lay the gloomy gorge, hundreds of
feet deep, through which the narrow streak of
river glittered. Sheer from its further bank rose
a steep wall of crag and boulder, dotted with
lentisk-bushes where the red earth gave them
foothold, and away in undulating endlessness to
right and left rose hundreds of isolated rounded
REGNAULT-I.YAUTEY iAIISSIOX 275
hills, light green with barley on their lower flanks
and pink-topped in the evening glow.
But it was not the moment to admire the
scenery ; the Arabs, still on the near heights, dis-
puted every inch of ground, and the fight was
carried on hotly over a two-mile front. Every gun
was in action shelling the natural fortresses across
the gorge, to which the fainter-hearted of the
Moors were already retreating ; the thunder and
the din are unforgettable.
I was with a company of Tirailleurs ; a dip in
the ground, and a cactus-covered ridge beside a
little slirine, presently shut out the view, and
forced the line to defile in column by the road-
way through the cactus. As it deployed on the
far side a heavy fire came from Moors lying
on the crest, and five Tirailleurs fell in half a
minute. The company lay down and returned the
fire, and then again advanced. It was here that
an unwounded Tunisian Tirailleur lay prone and
took no notice of the order to go on. He said he
was ill and could not walk ; his officer thought he
was shamming, and, shortening his sword, he put
two inches of it into him. The Tirailleur got up
with a yell, but he only went a few yards and
then fell, vomiting blood. No one could have been
nicer to the man than his lieutenant, who apolo-
gised freely for what he had done, and was jubilant
at the thought that the proud record of his com-
pany was still unbroken.
276 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
The French had now cleared the western heights
of the enemy, who made their way in the little
parties characteristic of Arab fighting across the
stream, and up the steep paths beyond into the
safety of the hills. The French occupied the line
of the heights, but made no attempt to pursue the
enemy into the impossible country to which they
were retreating. Every gun and every mitrailleuse
turned its attention to the white dots straggling
up to the rocky pinnacles and towers across the
gorge, and the now familiar presence of Mahmoud's
Hafidist mehallah was betokened by the whiz of
shells from his mountain gun.
One or two of these came uncommonly close
over Harris, sitting on his horse enjoying the
spectacle, with Ayesha and me, as usual, in close
attendance. Out of regard for the feelings of sub-
scribers to the Times, I induced him to dismount
and sit down ; a very few minutes' later Mahmoud's
little gun did a thing unparalleled in the whole of
our experience ; it sent over a shell which actually
burst in the cactus a hundred yards behind us, and
did some little damage to a mule. And then Harris
thanked me for making him get off, which he had
hitherto forgotten to do.
The strange bursting of Mahmoud's shell was
too much for the gunners. With one accord they
made haste to locate him, and presently every
muzzle was pointed at the very spire of the rock-
fortress across the ravine. The converging shrapnel
REGNAULT-LYAUTEY MISSION 277
searched every cranny of the boulders, and there-
after Mahmoud spoke no more.
Only the approach of night put an end to th(;
cannonade. The sun sank, lighting the sea of the
eastern hills with a saffron radiance, and tlie columns
wound their way homewards through the darkening
cornfields, ineffectively sniped by distant Arabs.
Black against the western glow stood out the
lines of men and guns as they marched on noise-
lessly through the soft plough. On and on they
trudged under the dim light of the stars over a
rough and difficult country, and it seemed as though
the bivouac would never be found. At the bottom
of a steep descent, in a basin in the hills, a halt was
called, and the flicker of lanterns moving hither
and thither through the dark groups lit up a scene
recalling Dord's pictures of the " Inferno." The fact
was the transport was lost ; or, perhaps, the trans-
port would have said that we were lost. Personally,
being very tired, I lay down in the sopping corn,
and, courting destruction at the heels of Ayesha,
went to sleep. It seemed very soon afterwards
that Harris woke me up, for the column was moving
again along a road flanked by a precipitous bank,
down which many an unwary animal fell. Then
we got into a fig orchard, where low branches
struck us unseen blows, and emerged into the road
again to find eerie figures working with pick and
shovel in the blackness, trying to make it practi-
cable for a string of halted arabas. There was no
27S GENERAI. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
need to inquire their burden ; from some came
stifled groans, otliers were silent. At 10 p.m. the
troops reached their bivouac, after seventeen hours'
fighting and marching, with a loss of nine killed
and forty wounded. The next day the columns, at
7.30 in the morning, retired to the heights over-
looking the western plain, where the fighting began
on the previous day. The undaunted M'Dakra
began sniping long before camp was struck, and the
march to Dar ould Sebbah — the farm-fort on the
ridge now called Du Boucheron — had to be pro-
tected by a screen of cavalry and some companies of
infantry detached with a battery of field-guns. But
the attack on the rearguard was never serious, and
the casualties on the French side were only three
wounded. Our road led down a delightful dell
between low hills ; a rippling brook ran through
an orchard of figs flanked by graceful palms, and
the grass beneath the figs was white with great
daisies. Further on the ground was hoed into
neat squares for melon-growing ; an irrigation
channel led to them from the stream ; between the
beds plums and apples and pomegranates were
planted, and roses and quinces hedged the gar-
den in.
The melon grown in these parts is the musk-
melon — long-shaped, green-fleshed, and of exquisite
flavour. Dar ould Sebbah had a familiar look ; it
was the farm the French took on the 8th March,
before the shelling of M'Karto. Standing on the
REGNAUI/r-LYAUTEY MISSION 270
summit of a ridge, within sight of Ber llechid
across the plain, and commanding the ground in
every direction, it is an extremely strong position,
and was there and then selected by General
d'Amade as the site of a post to overawe the
M'Dakra. The mission came over from Ber Rechid
to confirm the selection, and as Du Boucheron it
ranks as the most important of the " dctachements
regionaux."
Desultory fighting took place during the whole
day, but it would be hardly worth while to mention
it were it not for one extraordinary scene which
took place within range of the French guns.
The M'Dakra, who had come out to fight the
French, now acting entirely on the defensive,
suddenly formed into two bodies, and set upon one
another with great ferocity. It transpired after-
wards that one party was for surrender, and having
enlisted the services of some M'Zamza, fell suddenly
upon the intransigents. But the latter were the
tougher in battle as in purpose, and the hands-
uppers had to give in and go on fighting.
On April 1, at noon, the French flag was hoisted
over Du Boucheron, the walled house on the hill.
The main body of the troops was encamped on
spurge-clothed slopes across a little valley, and
stood to arms outside their tents. The bugles
sounded " Au drapeau ! " ; the troops presented
arms ; in the middle of the square the General and
his stafi* saluted.
280 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
That evening news came that a Goumier, carry-
ing despatches to Ber Rechid, had Ijeen robbed of
his letters by natives. A small force of Spahis and
Goumiers were sent to capture and punish the
malefactors, and w^hen on their quest were accosted
by a German, who informed them that the thieves
in question were his proteges and must on no
account be injured either in their persons or their
properties. Scant attention was paid to this cool
request ; indeed, most people believed that if the
natives had not been German proteges they would
not have interfered with French mail-bags.
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO
To all appearance Casablanca is destined to be a
second Suakin. The declarations of the Council of
Ministers at Paris and at Madrid seem to prove that
France and Spain are going to confine themselves
strictly within the limits of the Act of Algeciras,
and that desjoite the cordial understanding which
prevails between the two Powers and England, no
final action is to be taken at present with regard to
the settlement of the Moroccan question. Yet in
1908 the British flag waves over the wide lands
which lie between Wady Haifa and Mombasa, and
the reasons why Casablanca may yet be the base
whence French influence will spread over El Mogreb
el Aksa are not less potent than those which led
Lord Kitchener from Wady Haifa to Khartoum
and from Khartoum to Gondokoro.
What would the refusal of France to deal with
the Moroccan question now mean to the world ? If
she shirks the larger issue involved in the proclama-
tion of Mulai Hafid and his preaching of the Jehad
and restricts her operations to the mere policing of
the Chaouiya, her " great refusal " will incalculably
increase the power of PanTslam, and will go far to
convince non-Europeans that Europe has ceased to
282 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
be a conquering force. To many a Mohammedan
Morocco is what Palestine was to the contem-
poraries of Peter the Hermit, and Fez is the one
Muslim sanctuary still inviolate in Africa. For three
centuries the shores of the Western Mediterranean
felt the consequences of the Spanish and Portuguese
failures in the sixteenth century — before Algiers, at
the Goletta and at Kassr-el-Kebir ; nor were these
consequences wholly obliterated until France in the
nineteenth century carried her flag into the Sahara.
Those who have read the Times articles on the
Hedjaz Railway know that Islam can profit by the
scientific methods of the present day, just as the
Algerians and Tunisians profited by the lessons of
Elizabethan seamen, and it is therefore certain that
if France shrinks from undertaking the settlement
of the Moroccan question her failure to do so will
shake the position of all the European Powers in-
terested in the African world. Have those who
know the East forgotten the results of the Turkish
victories over the Greeks in 1897? Do we wish
for a similar experience in 1908?
If France retires from Morocco, will her retire-
ment make for peace in Europe ? The interior of
Morocco is now far on the way to become dangerous
for Europeans for a generation, and it is practi-
cally certain that if the French withdraw few
mercliants will continue to live even in the coast
towns. At any moment a massacre of Europeans
nught occur. Under such conditions, and though
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 28:3
we ourselves might hold back from undertaking
any punitive expedition in accordance with the
spirit of the entente cordiale of 1904, it may be
taken for certain that Germany would intervene
to protect her growing interests. We have seen
how Kiao-Chao was occupied to avenge the murder
of German missionaries. If German traders perished
at the hands of a Moorish mob, would Germany
refrain from seeking territorial compensation in
order to rely on the pledges of a bankrupt Govern-
ment ? It is a moot point whether it would be
more harmful to England to see the German flag
at Tangier or at the mouth of the Scheldt ; and
if Pan-German dreams are realised it will be all
essential for Germany — having become a Mediter-
ranean Power by the restoration of the Old Holy
Roman Empire — to occupy some half-way house
between Wilhelmshafen and Pola. Tangier dere-
lict would become as veritable an apple of discord
as Capetown would have been if the Vierkleur
had been planted on Table Mountain. We must
not forget that even President Kruger wished that
the coasts of a United South Africa should be
guaranteed by the British Fleet.
It is beside the question to point to the failures
of Germany in the South-West African war.
Well-watered Morocco is within six days' steam
of Bremen, and though under the Imperial Consti-
tution her army would necessarily have to be com-
posed of volunteers, yet the success which has
284 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
attended German colonisation in Palestine would
lead many a man to take his chance of receiving a
grant of land in the Chaouiya. British interests,
so far as commerce is concerned, would suffer as
much under German domination as they could
possibly do under the most rigid French tariffs.
English merchants in Morocco are for ever quoting
the treatment of English traders in Madagascar.
Perhaps they do not always remember what befell
the Australian firms trading with the Marshall
Islands, nor must we forget that Madagascar like
Algeria is a French Colony, whilst Tunis ranks as a
Protectorate. Morocco flanks our sea-road to India
by the Cape, and that sea-road is now more than
ever important since the Suez Canal is divided from
the Hedjaz Railway but by a thin screen of desert.
It is far safer for England to see Morocco in French
hands than in those of a Power which is straining
every nerve to compete with us on the seas. More
than one port on the Atlantic Coast of Morocco
might be turned by German engineers into a
potential Brest or into a potential Cadiz.
Is it true, indeed, that English trade would
necessarily suffer from a French occupation of
Morocco ? The same outcry was made by the
French financial interests in the entourage of the
Khedivial Court when England occupied Egypt ;
yet French holdings in Egyptian securities are now
far larger than they were in 1882, whilst we have
only to look at Algiers to see that the trade be-
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 28.5
tween Cardiff and that port has increased by leaps
and bounds during the last quarter of a century.
Nor have our Maltese fellow-subjects lost by the
annexation of Tunis. The case of Madagascar
remains, and in many ways it is not unlike tliat
of Morocco.
It must be remembered that in all such countries
there are two classes of trade ; the one carried on
by the great firms who have been in the country
for generations, conducted by men who can best be
paralleled by the Merchant Princes of Hong-Kong,
the other that illegitimate sort which finds an
opening in a country where the native Government
is weak yet oppressive and corrupt. Such is the
class of trade which is checked by the establish-
ment of French law and order in Madagascar, as
it was put an end to in a measure by the English
occupation of Egypt. Has our own Government
always recognised the land purchases made from
natives in our Colonies ?
It should be perfectly possible for us to come to
an arrangement with France under the clauses of
the Act of Algeciras respecting equal opportunities
for commerce, and if these conditions were observed,
our traders already established there could only be
the gainers if they were able to run over to Algiers
or Gran in the sleeping cars of a "Rapide" from
Casablanca.
France, on the other hand, must occupy Morocco
eventually, not only to prevent the estabUshment
286 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
of some other European Power on her Algerian
frontier, but also to avoid the unrest which her
withdrawal from Morocco would produce through-
out her African dominions. If ever we had wished
to occupy Morocco ourselves, and there can be no
doubt that at one time we could have done so,
that moment is passed, and if France will come
to an arrangement with us about our commerce
we shall be in no sense the losers. We do not
see the "younger son" (unless he has got a
berth under Government) or the Cluirch Army
emigrant crowding to Egypt, to Cyprus, or to the
Soudan ; whereas a walk down the streets of Casa-
blanca will show the most casual observer how
many small capitalists from France, Algeria, and
Spain have flocked into the place since the bom-
bardment. Would it be possible for a youth from
an English public school, or London office, to com-
pete witli these men in a land where the usual
language of business is Spanish or Arabic, and
where the conditions of living are radically different
from those of an English town ?
If France, by occupying Morocco, gives the
immigrants security of tenure, she will find
colonists flocking in from her whole Mediter-
ranean seaboard. A French occupation will mean
the construction of roads and railways, whilst in
time a quick line of steamers may enable the early
vegetables of the Chaouiya and Mogador to be
placed on the markets of Paris and London. Ex-
THE FUTURE OF IVIOROCCO 287
periments made at Laraclie sliow tliat good wine
can be grown, but for the present agriculturists
in this part of Morocco must rely upon cereals. If
the present uncertainty continues, investors will be
as shy of the country as they are of Cyprus.
It is true that a certain class of Germans might
make good settlers in Morocco. Her Ilanseatic
traders acclimatise themselves to Moroccan sur-
roundings much more readily than Englishmen,
whilst the peasants from Wurtemburg, who liave
covered the plains round Jaffa with orange gardens
and vineyards, might well prove equally successful
in North Africa. We have no equivalent class in
England. In how many of our Colonies are the
vine and the olive grown by Englishmen from
England ? A boy must have capital and leisure
to study their culture on the Continent ; and South
Germans, with their hereditary knowledge, would
have a better chance than our own people of mak-
ing a livelihood in Morocco. Germany, therefore,
would have every inducement to step in where
France had refused to tread.
M. Victor Bdrard in the Revue de Pcwis for
November 15, 1907, has proposed a solution of the
Moroccan question, which has not, apparently, as
yet attracted much attention in England.
M. Bdrard suggests that if Germany agrees to
allow France to have a free hand in Morocco she
should in return receive French and Englisli finan-
cial support in prolonging the Asia Minor Eailway
288 GENERAI. D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
from Eregli to Basra, thus giving her a firm grip
on the fertile plains of Cilicia and Mesopotamia.
He would have the country between Basra and
the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab, so far at least
as the railway and river are concerned, placed
under an International Commission which should
be formed on the lines of that for the Danube,
and which should deal with all matters concern-
ing transport and the care of the river channel,
whilst nominally respecting the sovereignty of
the riverain Powers, Turkey and Persia. Thus
the dangers of the establishment of a fortified
port under a non-English flag on the Persian
Gulf would be obviated, and the Germans would
be more than compensated for their self-denial
in Morocco. The Karun River might, M. Berard
suggests, be included in this arrangement.
The su2:g;estion has much to recommend it
to those who know that Germany might, in the
end, easily find a way to carry a railway to
the Persian Gulf without touching Koweyt. The
claim of the Sheikh of Koweyt to control the
Khor Abdullah or any portion of the western
bank of the Shatt-el-Arab below Basra is, to
say the least of it, shadowy. Under the Anglo-
Russian agreement as to Persia the ports of
]\Iohammera and Bushire are left in the neutral
zone ; whilst it must not be forgotten that not
only have tlie Shah and the Persian Government
refused to recognise that agreement, but that
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 280
it would be perfectly possible for them to grant
a concession to a German company to carry a
line to either of those harbours from the Turkish
frontier. The construction of such a line would
no doubt be difficult and costly, but it would
in no sense be impossible. It is plain, therefore,
that Germany can find means to reach the
Persian Gulf without our consent so far as merely
political considerations are concerned ; but since in
the present condition of the German and American
money markets it might be difficult for her to
find money for the Bagdad Railway without our
help, it might be well that the arrangement
suggested by M. Victor Berard should receive
attention.
We should, in the long run, lose far more if
France now withdraws from Morocco, than we
should risk by coming to an arrangement with
Germany about the Bagdad Railway.
France is a great Mohammedan Power, and
we dare not allow her to become degraded in
the eyes of Islam.
Near the Opera House at Vienna an inscribed
stone is placed in the facade of a stately building.
That stone marks the place where once stood
that Carinthian Gate where in 1529 the final
assault of the Turks was beaten back by the
Viennese burghers. There the Turkish deluge
reached its high-water mark. There those proud
waves were stayed. For years the flood stood
290 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
still, till, after the victory of Lepanto, it ebbed
away almost as quickly as it had flowed. Islam
is now once more waking from its secular slumber
and bracing itself to defend its few remaining
sanctuaries. Is this the time for France to shrink
back from Fez and from Marrakesh, and thus to
show the world where her conquests in Africa have
found their limit? All Europe w^ould, beyond a
doubt, feel the effects of such a policy.
If France consents to grant an open door to
European trade in Morocco she can occupy the
country with the cordial consent of every Power
except Germany. No doubt in her colonies she
adopts a different system ; but, even now, the
policy of the Open Door is to a certain extent
in force in Tunis, which is separated by a customs
line from Algeria, where there is a more stringent
tariff. Bona-fide Moroccan and Algerian produce
might be allowed to cross such a line, were one
established between Morocco and Algeria, without
payment of duty, on the same principle by which
Mozambique produce enters the Transvaal free
under the Treaty with Portugal of 1878. Thus
the Moroccan trade with Oran could be carried
on without impediment.
In her Algerian population and in her Algerian
troops France has the instruments for garrisoning
and administering the country without unneces-
sarily galling the feelings of the inhabitants. Has
Germany such men or are German methods of
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 291
administration those which could be apphed to
such a task ? A Morocco governed on the prin-
ciples in force in Posen would be a constant menace
to the peace of the whole Mohammedan world.
It is true that for some years German traders
made great progress in Morocco, where, for a time,
they competed both with the French and the
English, but they have sustained a great blow
from the events of the last few months, and,
despite the help which they have received from
their Government, it is doubtful whether, as a
body, they are in a very solid position to-day.
On the other hand, French and English commerce
cannot be said to compete with one another in
Morocco. If the English are the masters of the
market for cottons and teas, the French have the
supply of silks and sugars in their hands, and
though German traders import all four classes of
goods, it cannot be said that their cheajDer wares
have as yet won the favour of the Moors. Our
fellow-subjects from Gibraltar find nothing to
complain of in their treatment by the French
authorities, nor are they excluded from competing
for contracts with the French troops. At Casa-
blanca, at all events, English merchants cannot
be dissatisfied with the management of the Custom
House. All they ask is that tranquillity should
be restored and that the interior should once more
be opened up to trade.
If France would consent to occupy Morocco as
292 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
we occupy Egypt — that is, to hold the country as
a veiled Protectorate in which equal opportunities
for commerce are granted to all nationalities — she
might, like ourselves in Burmah, have to face ten
years of brigandage. At the end of twenty years
Morocco, in all human probability, would be as
peaceful as Algeria to-day. Fez and Mogador
would vie with Nice and Algiers as resorts of the
fashionable world, and roads and railways would
penetrate the gorges of the Atlas and the sands
of the Sahara. Possibly even that daydream of
French engineers would have been realised, and
passengers to South America would reach Dakar
by express from Ceuta and be borne by quick
turbine steamers in five days to Pernambuco.
Let France remember that if Spain and Por-
tugal had been willing to grant the Open Door to
the world's trade in South America, their Kings
would still be the lords of Mexico, of Buenos
Ayres, and of Bio. It was to secure permanently
to English commerce those advantages which it had
enjoyed in Brazil during the Peninsular war that
Mr. Canning effected the rise of the Latin-Ameri-
can Republics, and suggested to President Monroe
the promulgation of the doctrine which bears his
name. It was mainly because the " Tunisifica-
tion " of Morocco threatened to close a door open
to German trade that the Kaiser made his speech
at Tangier. Let France grant that Open Door
in })erpetuity, instead of for the thirty years stipu-
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 293
lated for by Lord Lansdowne in 1904. Her
liberality will gain her a splendid heritage, and
by winning Morocco for civilisation she will confer
a benefit upon the world.
The recent action of Germany with regard to
the recognition of Mulai Hafid certainly, I think,
tends to prove the correctness of the views advanced
in the foregoing chapter. It was clear from the
moment when the report of the transfer of her
Minister Dr. Rosen from Tangier to another post
was officially contradicted that the Wilhelmstrasse
had not wholly laid aside its interest in Morocco,
and it cannot but be significant that this new
awakening of German activity coincides with the
passage of influence at Constantinople into British
hands. It cannot be doubted that the main object
of Germany in European as opposed to Asiatic
Turkey has been to secure the construction under
Austrian control of the railway through the Sanjak
of Novibazar from the Bosnian frontier at Uvatz to
Mitrovitza, thus opening out a direct road from
Hamburg to Salonika, and rendering Macedonia,
in itself one of the most fertile districts in Europe,
accessible to German penetration. This project has
always been openly opposed by Russia, and has
never been approved by Italy, who sees that were
it carried out the great Albanian harbours would
pass into Austrian hands. France, also, and Eng-
land have small reason to favour the growth of
German power in the Mediterranean. It cannot
294 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
be said that the hne through the Sanjak of
Novibazar is of any special economic importance to
Turkey itself, and it is stated that it is very un-
popular amongst the Albanians, who form a large
portion of the population of the district. Conse-
quently it is not to be wondered at if the advent
of the Anglophile young Turkish party should in
some measure contribute to delay the realisation
of this dream ; for Austria from a strictly legal
standpoint has so far only obtained a concession for
carrying out a preliminary survey in connection
with the line. The German Emperor has long been
looked upon as the mainstay of the Sultan's des-
potism, and a Constitutional Turkey is as little
likely to do anything to favour German designs as
William III. would have been to effect an Anglo-
French entente cordiale after the revolution of
1688. But England is, on the other hand, regarded
by them as their chief supporter, and it is natural,
therefore, that the present Turkish Ministry should
do everything in their power to promote her wishes
real or supposed. Reports have already appeared that
the Turkish Railway Commission has determined to
postpone the construction of the Novibazar line on
the ground that other railways are of more pressing
importance to Turkey. Can we wonder then if the
German Emperor has taken advantage of the exist-
ing state of affairs at Fez to enter upon a course of
action which might, amongst other consequences,
bring about friction between France and England ?
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 295
Few foreigners have ever really understood the
personal equation in the practical working of our
political system, and it is quite conceivable that the
Kaiser's advisers may, in view of several recent
occurrences, see a tendency amongst certain sections
of English politicians to slacken in our intimacy
with France. It cannot be denied, moreover, that
local English opinion in Morocco itself is far from
being keenly in favour of the entente, and inclines
rather to a common action with Germany in order
to preserve the Open Door. Moreover, until the
German Fleet is ready Germany must necessarily
favour the internationalising rather than the
nationalising by European Powers of semi-civilised
countries, and just as she is opposing the annexa-
tion of Spitzbergen by either Sweden or Norway,
so she is endeavouring under cover of the Act of
Algeciras, glossed to suit herself, to retard the
absorption of Morocco by France. This is by no
means inconsistent with the view that she is hoping
to secure concessions at Constantinople by exercis-
ing pressure at Fez, and it is for English statesmen
to consider whether it is a wise policy for us to
come forward on every occasion as the opponents
of German efforts for commercial extension. It is,
as yet, too early to say whether or not Turkey is
secure against a reaction to despotism, but it may
well be asked if Salonika as a great trading port in
the hands of a constitutional Sultan would really
prove a menace to our interests or to those of
296 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
France. The same remark applies to the construc-
tion of a railway to the Persian Gulf through
Turkish territory.
Moreover, in the case of Salonika, we must not
forget that it lies on the road from Vienna to the
Pirffius. Greece, no friend of Germany, is the only
country in Europe which is not connected with the
European railway system ; and yet, if the missing
link were filled up, and if certain disadvantages in
the harbour could be corrected, the Piraeus would
be the natural terminus for every steamship plying
between Europe and the East. Would the opening
up of Greece and Macedonia be an injury to our
trade, or a price too great for France to pay for the
removal of the Moroccan danger ? She, like our-
selves, has often baffled German colonial ambitions,
and Germany has gained little by the recent settle-
ment of the boundary between the Cameroons and
French Congo. Yet it is believed on good grounds
that the Kaiser would never have set foot in
Tangier had Germany received the mouths of
certain rivers in those regions which were in
dispute between herself and France. The history
of the Sibylline books is true even in our own day,
and balked ambition offctimes turns to greed. The
story of the Hohenzollerns is not unlike that of the
Capetian House.
If England consents to make some such sacrifices
as those here suggested in order to give France a
free hand in Morocco, it would seem obvious that
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 297
we should have a right to expect some return from
her gratitude.
France at no real cost to herself could grant us
one concession, which would have a great value for
our Indian Empire.
Recent events, such as the Abu Musa incident,
have shown that the Persian Gulf has come into
the sphere of international politics. It is clear
that our present methods of securing the " Pax
Britannica " in those once pirate-haunted waters
are gradually becoming obsolete, and that an
aggressive diplomacy in search of coaling stations
may be inclined to pass over our agreements both
with the Trucial Chiefs and with the Sultanate of
Oman. Moreover, if the common belief be correct,
the traders in contraband arms who this summer
have conveyed such large consignments of modern
weapons into Afghanistan by a road which, though
running through Persian territory, lies for many
miles within sight of our Baluch border, found a
convenient basis m the ports of that Sultanate,
Nor must we forget that until very lately the
Slave Trade was kept alive in the Indian Ocean
by dhows sailing from Muscat under the French
flag, and thus a source of constant friction was
created between the French and English Foreign
Offices.
It is true that we have treaty arrangements
with the Sultan of Oman, who could not cede any
portion of his territory to a third power without
298 GENERAL D'AMADE IN MOROCCO
our consent. Experience has shown, however, that
such conditions are very difficult to enforce. We
have had to proclaim a Protectorate, for example,
over the island of Socotra, although we had made
a similar treaty with its suzerain, a sultan in
Hadramaut. Trouble, too, has arisen at Muscat
itself on previous occasions with regard to grants
of land for coal depots.
The reason why we cannot complete our hold
over the southern and eastern coasts of Arabia,
between the limits of our Aden Protectorate and
those of the Turkish possessions on the Persian
Gulf, by proclaiming a Protectorate over Oman, is
that we are bound by a treaty with France dated
March 10, 1862, to refrain from any such action.
Oman and Zanzibar were under one sultan from
the time when the Portuguese were finally expelled
from East Africa by a Sultan of Muscat in 1698
until the year 1856. In that year they became
divided into two independent sovereignties. France
was seeking, at that time, to create bases on the
East African and Arabian coasts, and Lord Palmer-
ston's Government therefore thought it wise to come
to an arrangement with her by which both powers
agreed to respect the integrity of the territories of
Zanzibar and Oman.
Lord Salisbury apparently had forgotten the
existence of this treaty when in 1890 we occu-
pied Zanzibar under the Anglo- German agreement.
France at once protested, and only consented to
THE FUTURE OF MOROCCO 290
acquiesce in our occupation on our recognising her
rights over Madagascar without reserve.
The clauses which relate to Oman are still,
however, in force.
If we could secure our position on the coasts of
Oman and Hadramaut we should be freed from
the danger of seeing a third and possibly hostile
power establish a naval base at some port in those
regions, which, as the late Mr. Theodore Bent
proved, possess several havens within a compara-
tively short distance of Bombay adapted for such
a purpose. Would it be any great sacrifice for
France to make if she allowed us to proclaim a
Protectorate over Oman in exchange for our help
in Morocco ? Legitimate French trade would in
no wise suffer, and it can hardly be thought that
the interests of a handful of gun-runners, even if
they chanced to be French subjects, would be
of sufiicient importance to prevent the French
Government from relieving England of a very
real danger.
INDEX
Abd-el-Kerim, 152, 155, 157, 194
Abd-ul-Aziz, viii, 151, 244-246,
252
Achach hills, 274
Agadir, 1
Ain Djemma, 5(5
Ain Rebbah, 94, 154
Aissoua, 261
Algeria, 82, 83
Alliance Israelite, 133
Anfa, or Anfat6, 1
Aufa Club, 226
Arabs, described, 59, 60, 200
marksmanship of, 65, 66
camps of, 95
mental limitations of, 149
cruelty of, 148
friendly towards French, 271
Army Service Corps, French, 36
Atlas, 1, 19, 58
Augustus, 1
BAGHDAD Railway, 287
Balding, Sergeant, 264
Balloon, 17, 93, 95
Barbs, 18
Barcasses, or lighters, 6, 242
Bassompierre, Colonel, 101
Bee-eaters, 252
Beni, meaning of, 96
Benzakan, Madame, 133, 142
Berard, M. Victor, 287
Bernal, Colonel, 52, 188
BcrbGr 9f)
Ber Re'chid, 58, 59, 71, 101, 119, 155
Bertrand, Captain, 120
Birds, 90, 91, 94, 95, 156, 176, 252
Black- Hawkins, Mr. N., 97, 246
Boots, 49, 50
Bosquet, Captain, 110, 112, 113
Bouchard, Trooper, killed, 127
Bou Nuallah, 205-216
Boutegourd, Colonel, 95, 96, 110-
116
Bou Znika, 92, 101, 174
Brulard, Colonel. 59, 152, 153
Cacolets, 101, 102
Cafard, le, 17
Cameroons, 296
Carpets, 80, 139, 140, 146
Carthaginians, 1
Casablanca, architecture of, 238
climate of, 99, 100
defences of, 5, 8, 9
education at, 132-145
health of. 99, 100
history of, 1-3
life at, 217-240
meaning of, 1
panic at, 152, 158
trade of, 72-86
Cattle-ranching, 79, 91
Chaouiya, composition of French
force in, 10, 11
description of, 19, 53-55, 87
methods of French in, 33
Mulai Hafid desires evacua-
tion of, 151
pronunciation of, viii., ix.
reasons why French should
hold, 34, 80, 81
trade of, 72-86
Characteristics of French troops,
34, 35
Charles Martel, vii.
Chasseurs d'Afrique, 10, 55, 97, 110,
111, 147
Cinco Gremios, 3
Coinage of Morocco, 160, 161
Congo, French, 296
Contracts, 43
Corps de debarquement de Casa-
blanca, 4-52
Costumes of Moors, 200
Costs of the French expedition, 44
Crotel, Lieut., 68
Cruelty of Moors, 148
D'Amade, General, vii, 14, 95, 97,
98, 130, 145, 151, 153, 159, 182,
186, 202, 268, 273, 279
Dar el Aidi, 98
301
302
INDEX
Dar el Baida, 1
Dar ould Fatima, 205
Dar ould Sebbah, 278
Desertions, prompted bv Germans,
29, 30
Domingo Perea, 227-231
" Drives " abandoned, 152
Drude, General, 8, 29
Du Boucheron, 13, 274, 278
Education, 132-145
Elegy on French killed, 115, IIG
Embarkations, 6, 7
Embroidery, 142
Engineers, 11, 20
English in Morocco, 285
Equipment of French soldier, 4()-50
Fedallah, 3, 91, 92, 155
Fekkak, Battle of, 272-278
Fez, 243
Flowers, 53, 55, 57, 58, 90, 92-95,
145, 146, 149, 150, 163, 174, 176,
200, 201, 220, 224, 249, 251, 258,
272, 278
Forage, 42, 43
Force, composition of French, 53
Foreign Legion, 29, 55, 65, 96, 110,
122, 147, 172
Forts, Provot and Ihler, 8, 9
France as a Mahommedan power,
289
French settlers in Morocco, 286
Funeral, military, 108, 109
Gardens, soldiers', 45
German goods, 72, 73, 82
methods, 29, 280
Germans in Morocco, 282-284
Goumiers, 42, 55, 146, 147, 204
Guns, effect of French, 27, 65
at M'Karto, 181
against Bou Nuallah, 206
Gun teams, 18, 204
Hadeamaut, 297
Hamachi, festival of, 261
Hamara Akka, 272
Hanno, 1
Hare, 174
Harris, Mr. W. B., viii, 232, 246,
270, 276
Hassan, Tower of, 250
Hediya, 262-266
Herv^, Madame, viii
Horses, 18
Hospitals, 101-109
Houel, M., correspondent of Matin,
150, 151, 194
Huot, Captain, 122, 205
Huts, French, 44, 45
Spanish, 52
Hygiene of French force, 99-109
Ibis, or cow-bird, 91
Iron, 72
Jews, at Settat greet French, 170
effect of education on, 137, 138,
143, 144
their power, 144
Jewesses, of Settat, 128-131
Kabyle, 96
Kann, M. Reginald, vii, viii, 69, 70,
123, 270
Kasbah ben Ahmed, 196
Kergorlay, Chevalier de, 110, 113-
115
Kit of French soldier, 34, 46-48
Kitchener, Lord, his "idrives," 152
Koweyt, 288
Lagadec, Breton sailor, 224
Laraiche, 1
L'Arbi ben Sherki, 199, 203
Lepeen, Mr., viii
Lewison, M., viii
Litieres, 102
Littoral column, 13, 116
Lixus, 1
Looms, 122
Looting, 146, 182
Lowther, H. E., Sir G., K.C.B., vii
Lyautey, General, 152, 267-280
Maclean, Kaid Sir H., viii, 249-
251
Mahmoud, 182, 276
Mansouriya, 176
March orders, 16
Marching powers of French, 20, 185,
203, 206, 207
Marrakesh, 1, 9, 243
Massenet, Major, 95-97, 186
M'Dakra, 66, 177, 270, 279
M'Karto, 33, 172-186
INDEX
303
M'Koun, 87-98, 155
M'Zab hills, 58, 62, 156
M'Zamzas, 195
Mechraa el Chair, 151
Mediouna, 2, 3, 59, 87-90, 95, 98,
101, 119
Meilud, 262
Melinite, 28
Menebhi, 254-256
Meshwi, 147
Methods of French, 33
Mitrailleuses, G6, 67
Mohammed ould el Hadj Hamou,
4, 60, 61
Morocco, the future of, 281-299
Mountain gun of Moors, 186, 276
Mulai Hafid, 151
Mules, 22, 40, 42, 117, 118, 271
Muscat, 297-299
Nazarenes, 33, 61
Night-attack, 123
Novibazar, 293
Officer, French, his character-
istics, 14, 35, 36
Oil, 73
Oman, 297
Organisation of French troops, 12,
13
Oued Aceila, 186
Aiata, 270
Fekkak, 273
Mellah, 19, 92, 162
Mils, 196
Mousa, 63, 64, 66
Neffifikh, 19, 92, 173, 176
Tamazer, 156, 204
Oulad, meaning of, 96
Harriz, 61, 270
Said, 150, 205
Zian, 270
Oum-er-Rebia, 151
" Palace of Varieties," 231-235
Passard, Colonel, 70, 96, 114, 124,
184
Pay, 45, 46, 50, 51
Paymasters, 43
Piraeus, 296
Pisa, M., viii, 133, 134, 138, 139
Pitchforks, 122
Pompom, 28
Post Office, Army, 43, 44
Powder-play, 265
Prisoners, 146
Protection system, 76-79
KabAt, 30, 91, 93, 241-266
llaisuli, 250
Rations, 36-40, 42
Razzia, 145-151
R'Fakha, battle of, 163-172
Reade, Mr. H., viii, 246
Red Cross Society, 107, 108
Regnault, M., vii, 152 ; mission of
267-280
Review of French troops, 201-204
of Sultan's troops, 256
Ricard, Lieut., 110, 113, 114, 115
Roberts, F.-M. Earl, E.G., 23
Rollers, 258
Rousseau, Trooper, 112, 113, 115
Sallee, 2, 93, 241
Salonika, 293, 295, 296
Schools, 132
Sehoul, forest of, 20, 93, 154, 174
Senegalese, 11, 12, 49
Settat, 1, 53, 61-71, 125-131, 156
Sheep, 91, 172
Sheila, 257-260
Sick, 100, 103
Sidi Aidi, 196, 201
Belliot, 2, 6
ben Sliman, 94, 154, 173
el Aiachi, 150, 205
el Mekki, 110-131
el Ourimi, 205
Hajaj, 176
Signal-fires, 64
Silk, 72
Silos, 57, 58
Silvestre, Lieut., 274
Sniping, 278
Souk, 236
Spahis, 55, 147
Spain, her position in Morocco,
187-193
Spanish huts, 52
troops, 52, 188
Stalf, 14, 15
Strategy of Moors, 153
of French, 20, 24
Sugar, 72
Tactics of French, 25
of Moors, 26, 165, 166
Tangier, 2
304
INDEX
Tattenbach, Count, "-i
Taupin, Colonel, 152, 153
Tea, 72
Telegraphs, 7, and Map
Tents, 40, 56, 57, 104
Tirailleurs, 31, 41, 49, 55, 65, 93,
96, 110, 145, 275
Tirs, 13, 110
Tortoises, 91
Tours, vii
Trade, 72-80, 217, 284, 285
Transport, 21, 40-43
Typhoid, 103, 104
Uniforms, 30, 55, 56
Verdon, Dr. and Mrs., 264
Water, distilled, 42
Wine, 73
Wounded, transport of, 100-102
Zaouia, Sidi el Mekki, 120, 145
Zenata, 4
Zezian, 272
Zouaves, 44, 46, 48, 49, 53, 61, 70, 7 1
Zumbiehl, Major, viii, 102
THE END
I'riiited by Ballanttnk, Hanson &' Co.
Edinburgh ir' London
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
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OCT 07 1986
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