THE (JOAS'IVS (J I 
 R O MANC E 
 
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 CIUjSBIR GARSll, 
 
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Digitized by tine Internet Arcinive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.arcliive.org/details/coastsofromanceOOgarsricli 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE SUNSHINE SETTLERS 
 
 THE MUDLARKS 
 
 THE MUDLARKS AGAIN 
 
 VAGABpND VERSES 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE "ROYAL ANN 
 
THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
RECENT FICTION 
 
 TO LET By John Galsworthy 
 
 THE CLASH By Storm Jamesoh 
 
 BRUSHWOOD By Kathleen M. Barrow 
 
 MOUNTAIN BLOOD 
 
 By Joseph Hergesheimer 
 
 THE GREAT QUEST 
 
 By C. BoARDMAN Hawes 
 
 A LOVE CONFERENCE 
 
 By Mrs. Arthur Harter 
 
 THE SECRET HARVEST 
 
 By Dorothy Percival 
 
 CAREER By Lady Kennard 
 
 JADE AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 By Hugh Wiley 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 / 
 
THE COASTS OF 
 ROMANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 CROSBIE GARSTIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE BALLAD OF THE 'ROYAL ANN' 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
A,^ 
 
 London : IVilliam Heinemann, ig22 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I. 
 
 OUTWARD BOUND 
 
 
 
 
 
 II. 
 
 DOWN CHANNEL 
 
 
 
 
 
 III. 
 
 THE ROCK (l) . 
 
 
 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE ROCK (ll) 
 
 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 ALGECIRAS 
 
 
 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 IN THE STRAITS 
 
 
 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 TANGIER (l) 
 
 
 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 TANGIER (ll) . 
 
 
 
 
 
 IX. 
 
 TANGIER (ill) . 
 
 
 
 
 
 X. 
 
 CASABLANCA (l) 
 
 
 
 
 
 XI. 
 
 '' FANTASIA " . 
 
 
 
 
 
 XII. 
 
 CASABLANCA (ll) 
 
 
 
 
 
 XIII. 
 
 RABAT . 
 
 
 
 
 
 XIV. 
 
 SAL^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE ROAD TO FEZ (l) 
 
 
 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE ROAD TO FEZ (ll) 
 
 
 
 
 XVII. 
 
 FEZ (l) . 
 
 
 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 FEZ (ll) . 
 
 
 
 
 XIX. 
 
 FEZ (ill) 
 
 
 
 
 XX. 
 
 FEZ (IV) 
 
 
 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE ROAD TO MARRAKECH 
 
 
 
 
 
 vii 
 
 
 
 
viii 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PACE 
 
 XXII. 
 
 MARRAKECH (l) 
 
 
 
 
 
 127 
 
 XXIII, 
 
 MARRAKECH (ll) 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^33 
 
 XXIV, 
 
 MARRAKECH (ill) 
 
 
 
 
 
 140 
 
 XXV. 
 
 S.S. BRAZZAVILLE 
 
 
 
 
 
 148 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 TO CADIZ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 153 
 
 XXVII, 
 
 CADIZ . 
 
 
 
 
 
 158 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 SEVILLE (l) . 
 
 
 
 
 
 165 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 SEVILLE (ll) . 
 
 
 
 
 
 174 
 
 XXX. 
 
 SEVILLE (ill) 
 
 
 
 
 
 181 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 '• CORRIDA " . 
 
 
 
 
 
 195 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 CORDOVA 
 
 
 
 
 
 211 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 TOLEDO 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 222 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 ESCORIAL 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 234 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 MADRID 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 243 
 
// 
 
 OUTWARD BOUND 
 
 The liner that was to take us south lay moored off 
 Tilbury. We stood, our luggage at our feet, packed 
 hke herrings on the tender's upper deck. 
 
 Suddenly the siren gave an ear-splitting shriek. 
 The fat man in front of me started, tripped back- 
 wards over his suit-case and sat down heavily upon 
 it, cannoning into me. I passed it on to Hamish, 
 who in turn cannoned into Blackie. Down we went 
 hke a row of ninepins — one — two — three — four, and 
 wallowed on our luggage trying to look as if we were 
 there intentionally. 
 
 " What did he do that for? " I demanded. 
 
 " Who— the captain? " said Hamish. " Oh, it's 
 a way all ferry and cross-channel skippers have, I 
 notice — a tradition of the service. Gan't start on a 
 voyage from Dover to Calais, or Tilbury to Green- 
 wich without shrieking the place down. This chap 
 wants all England to know that he's going to take 
 his life in his hands and push right out into mid- 
 stream, and may not be back for goodness knows how 
 long — perhaps half an hour." 
 
 " You're quite mistaken," said Blackie; " he's on.^ 
 of these humorists — that's all. Think how jolly 
 it must be to stand on that bridge and by merely 
 twitching a string cause about two hundred first- 
 class passengers to sit down as one ! Observe the 
 honest fellow peering over the rail. He's waiting 
 
 B 
 
2 THE COASTS - :0F ROMANCE 
 
 till we're all off our guard again and then — hey 
 presto ! " 
 
 " Reluctant as I am to interfere with the captain's 
 innocent pastime — still, suppose we continue to sit ? " 
 said I. 
 
 " Carried," said Blackie, and we continued to sit. 
 
 " Lots of weeping and gnashing going on ashore," 
 Hamish remarked. " Can't imagine why people 
 prefer to have sob-scenes on a public dock to saying 
 good-bye decently at home. Also the flurry of the 
 thing must cramp one's style. There's a fellow now 
 trying to bid a fond farewell to a really pretty girl 
 with both hands full of baggage and his passport 
 in his teeth. ... I'd try to keep my mouth free 
 at least." 
 
 " One does see a bit of life lolling over an upper 
 deck rail just before a liner slips her tether for 
 foreign parts," said Blackie, chuckling at a memory. 
 " I came home once from Cape Town with a Jew- 
 boy called Isaac Levinski, a little East-Ender who 
 had made a pot of money out of a general store in 
 the Free State. He was going home to be married, 
 he told me. Sure enough, when I got down to 
 Southampton on the return trip, there were Mr. and 
 Mrs. Isaac Levinski and party. Ikey was got up 
 Hke an illuminated address, with white spats, 
 lavender waistcoat, spotted cravat and a button- 
 hole about the size of a cauliflower — the complete 
 gentleman. The bride, a strapping young Mile End 
 Jewess, was also expensively arrayed in all the 
 latest fashions — all of them, one on top of t'other. 
 But Ikey's mother-in-law and the tribe of female 
 relations that had come down (at the bridegroom's 
 expense) to bid the happy pair bon-voyage, they wore 
 
OUTWARD BOUND 
 
 all the time-honoured coster finery — pony coats, long 
 ringlets, gold earrings and great feathered hats. 
 
 " The dockside looked like Hampstead Heath on 
 Whit-Monday. Presently the warning bugle blew, 
 and the same was the signal for a general lamentation. 
 The bride and her mamma went into, what is known 
 in pugiHstic circles as a * tight clinch,' emitting 
 piercing wails, and the Mile 
 End contingent closed about 
 them howling and sobbing. 
 Ikey ran round and round 
 the inner circle like an 
 anxious little dog, lending 
 a handkerchief here and 
 there and exhorting every- 
 body to bear up. The ' all 
 ashore ' bugle sounded. Ikey 
 tapped his bride's elbow. 
 She gave an anguished squeal 
 and clave the faster to her 
 parent. Life was short. South 
 Africa far away and full of 
 lions and cannibals. Now 
 that the actual moment of 
 departure had arrived her courage failed. The 
 parent wrapped massive arms about her offspring. 
 Quis separahit? Ikey damced about them pleading 
 and threatening. They turned deaf ears to him 
 and wailed the louder. He appealed to the 
 bystanders for assistance. They declined, saying 
 it was none of their business, to every man his 
 own mother-in-law. The Hner's siren whooped. 
 Ikey took off his hat and, making a running dive, 
 tried to wedge himself head-first between the pair. 
 
 Running about like an 
 anxious little dog " 
 
4 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 All to no avail. The bo'sun shouted that the gang- 
 plank was coming in. Ikey stopped dancing and 
 for the first time that morning used his brains. Then 
 he put his hand in his pocket, and producing a 
 half-sovereign dropped it on the dock. 
 
 " Family affection is beautiful and binding, but 
 habit is habit, and beyond all, money is money — 
 especially in Mile End. Instinctively the two ladies 
 released each other and grabbed for the coin, and 
 in a flash Ikey was in between them and propelling 
 his better-half up the gang-plank." 
 
 " Last time I heard that story the scene was New 
 York and the hero was an Aberdonian," said 
 Hamish. " But I think I prefer your version, 
 Blackie. Now, talking of New Zealand " 
 
 " We weren't," I objected. " The spot has not 
 been mentioned." 
 
 " Hasn't it? " said Hamish. " Well, it's going to 
 be mentioned now anyhow. I knew a couple of 
 miners in South Island. Spotty Chisholm and Jan 
 Norgaarde. They were partners, had been together 
 for eighteen years. Jan's father snuffed out suddenly 
 and he had to go home. He didn't want to go and 
 leave Spotty, but there were things to see to. He 
 hailed from one of those cold-storage countries where 
 they live on cod-Hver oil and wood-pulp — Iceland 
 or Denmark or something. 
 
 " Anyhow Spotty went down to Dunedin to see 
 him off. They were both feeling very down-hearted 
 at the prospect of separation, so they had a pick-me- 
 up at every pub they passed to numb the pangs. 
 By the time they reached the tender they had 
 accumulated several. They both went on board the 
 ship to look round, and then the bugle tooted, and 
 
OUTWARD BOUND 5 
 
 they shook hands and parted. Spotty hung over 
 the rail, waving his hat to Jan until the two ships 
 were far apart; then he turned round, and as he 
 did so it struck him that the tender had grown up 
 very suddenly. When they had put off from Dunedin, 
 barely an hour previously, it had been quite a Httle 
 chap, whereas now ! 
 
 " Gradually the dreadful truth dawned on him. 
 They had mixed ships ! Jan was on the tender 
 returning to Dunedin and he was on the liner, 
 homeward bound, with not even a toothbrush in his 
 pocket, and the first stop was Rio de Janeiro ! " 
 
 " That," said Blackie, standing up, " is a good 
 story — and always was. I remember how I laughed 
 when I heard it first — twenty-five years ago. But, 
 talking about tenders, I really beUeve this specimen 
 of ours is casting off at last." 
 
 Hamish and I jumped up to watch the fun, and 
 at that moment the captain blew his whistle again. 
 
 Blackie, wallowing at full length on top of Hamish 
 and me, took off his hat and solemnly saluted the 
 rubicund humorist on the bridge. " You win, 
 Gherry-Blossom," he said. " You win." 
 
II 
 
 DOWN CHANNEL 
 
 "' The red Nore lightship drops astern. 
 Now Dover's cliffs have had their turn. 
 
 Pale gleaming, castle-crowned. 
 The white-eyed English coast-lights spring 
 To life. The salty night winds sing 
 Shrill in the rigging as we swing 
 Down Channel, outward bound. 
 
 " Ah, ' outward bound ! ' The words beget 
 A dream of mosque and minaret 
 
 And golden dalliance 
 In orange gardens redolent, 
 Of nights of stars and wonderment. 
 ' Down Channel ' — down the foam-besprent 
 
 Blue highway to Romance." 
 
 We left Tilbury at the turn of the tide, rounded 
 North Foreland and stood down through the Straits. 
 It was a radiant, rosy evening, the sea a vast looking- 
 glass mirroring every tint of the sunset. Away to 
 the east the Boulogne fishing fleet hung becalmed, 
 booms swinging idly. A topsail schooner lay off 
 Dover, every sail set, but motionless. She seemed, 
 girl-like, to be absorbed in her own charming 
 reflection. Our long bow-wave blurred the vision 
 for a minute, which appeared to annoy her, for she 
 tossed her head. The Gris Nez light bhnked suddenly 
 out of the dusk to port and waved us farewell. 
 People walked the decks in twos and threes, chatting 
 and laughing. 
 
 Interspersed with snatches of conversation 
 one caught the names of far-away places, names 
 
 6 
 
DOWN CHANNEL 7 
 
 quickening as faint bugle-calls — Khartum, Jaffna, 
 Coolgardie, Hobart, Golden Bay. The saloon was 
 crowded at dinner that night. Afterwards people 
 put on overcoats and walked the deck again, chatting 
 and laughing, guessing at the south coast lights that 
 sprang up over the bow, flashed and faded once more 
 over the stern. A young gentleman supported by 
 a bevy of girls tried to arrange a dance, but the band 
 was not available. Never mind, to-morrow night 
 would do as well, they said; would everybody 
 promise to help ? Everybody promised. 
 
 The morrow dawned as sweet as a bride, breakfast 
 was also a popular repast. People got out deck- 
 chairs and magazines, babies appeared and toddled 
 about, tripping up pedestrians. The young entry 
 routed out a deck steward and opened games of 
 quoit- tennis and shuffle-board. One thrust er 
 started to collect entries for a Sports Committee. 
 
 At ten o'clock the wind freshened perceptibly, 
 here and there the baby waves showed little white 
 teeth. Blackie pointed them out to Hamish, who 
 immediately resigned his seat on the Spillikins and 
 Allied Sports Committee. At noon we put in under 
 the shelter of Portland Bill and dropped the pilot. 
 The tiny tug which took him off was bucking like a 
 broncho colt. As she left our lee she trod hard down 
 on a green-back and sent the white tatters of it 
 flying over her smoke-stack. Blackie and I pointed 
 this out to Hamish, knowing his little weakness. 
 He turned his back on us, and declining the cigar a 
 Madras planter was pressing on him, walked away. 
 
 The quoit and shuffle enthusiasts were hard at it 
 again after lunch. A subaltern of Sikhs (bound for 
 Wady Haifa) brought a gramophone on deck, and 
 
8 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 the dance promoters practised steps for the evening's 
 performance. At 3 p.m. the loungers began to shift 
 from starboard to port, dragging their deck-chairs 
 after them. It was getting the least little bit nippy 
 on the weather side, they explained. Blackie, going 
 below to fetch a pipe, found a steward screwing up 
 the port-hole. Discovering Hamish, seated between 
 two flappers, relating the deathless story of how his 
 (Hamish's) battalion won the war, Blackie communi- 
 cated the latest intelligence. Hamish bit the death- 
 less story off short and incontinently deserted his 
 audience, pleading an appointment with the bar- 
 tender. 
 
 Blackie filled the vacated chair, and — " while in 
 no way depreciating the efforts of the infantry " — 
 extolled the sterHng share taken in the German 
 debacle by the Army Pay Department. 
 
 On the staircase after tea I met the chief dance- 
 promoter and his female confederates. Everything 
 was arranged, they chirped, the jolly old captain had 
 promised the jolly old band, and the kick-off would 
 be at ten sharp. They gambolled, chirruping, away 
 to spread the glad tidings. The sun went down with 
 a rush into a tumbling sea, a red-bleeding thing, 
 fiercely assailed by a pack of gory clouds. 
 
 I was sitting on my bunk later on, pulling on my 
 socks, when Blackie, who was before the glass 
 knotting a tie, lifted his right leg slowly into the air, 
 poised for one moment like an uncertain tight-rope 
 walker, took two quick steps to the left and sat 
 down on my lap. Simultaneously something shouted 
 ** Swish ! " very loudly at the port-hole. 
 
 Blackie and I looked at each other and made the 
 same remark, " The Bay ! " 
 
DOWN CHANNEL 9 
 
 Hamish showed up for dinner, contributed little 
 to the gaiety of nations and left after the soup. 
 We found him later in the smoking-room, huddled 
 in a corner confronted by a platoon of brandies-and- 
 sodas and roped him into a game of bridge. He and 
 his partner, a hardy Queenslander, won the first 
 game hands down, and were in a fair way to win the 
 second when the Australian went four spades on 
 five to the Jack and then improved the shining hour 
 by revoking. Being dummy next hand he sought 
 the deck to " get some fresh air," and for all I know 
 fell overboard, for I never saw him again. 
 
 We continued three-handed until Hamish, who 
 was shuffling, absent-mindedly let the pack slip. 
 Blackie and I dived under the table to retrieve the 
 cards, and when we came up again there was no 
 sign of Hamish. 
 
 We went outside to see if there was anybody about 
 who felt Hke a rubber. The wind's fingers plucked 
 at the wire stays and shrouds as if they were harp- 
 strings. A foam crest, hissing like a nest of white 
 snakes, leapt out of the blackness overside, glinted 
 for a second in the beam of a port-hole and plunged 
 under the liner's counter. The stern soared up and 
 up as though to rake the heavens. We heard the 
 whirr of the screws as they left the water and felt 
 the ship shudder as they gripped once more. 
 
 Far away in the dark to port the masthead light 
 of some staggering tramp came and went, Winked 
 and disappeared like some ocean Jack-o'-Lanthorn. 
 The long deck, shining under the electric lights, 
 canted slowly over and then swayed slowly back 
 again, apparently quite deserted. 
 
 As we turned away a man roimded the corner of 
 
10 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 a deck-house and tottered towards us. A pitch of 
 the ship set him reeUng. He grasped at the hand- 
 rail, missed it and flopped on his knees, tried to 
 recover his feet, failed and floundered again. He 
 paused for a moment, as though in thought, and then 
 resumed his journey on all fours, crawled past us in 
 
 Resumed his journey on all fours " 
 
 silence and through the companion-way. A minute 
 later a hearty thump apprised us that he had safely 
 reached the bottom of the stairs. I saw his face 
 plainly as he plodded by, he was the festive dance- 
 promoter. 
 
 Blackie walked to the rail and prodded a small 
 object out of the scuppers with his toe. It was some 
 heartless child's forsaken Teddy Bear. We picked 
 up the poor little chap, and carrying him to the 
 
DOWN CHANNEL ii 
 
 deserted smoking-room, placed him in the Austrahan's 
 empty chair and quaffed Hamish's abandoned 
 brandies to his jolly good health. 
 
 " When from the crests of roaring hills we swoop down 
 
 dark abysses, 
 When green against the bolted ports the leaping breaker 
 
 hisses, 
 When water sloshes round the decks in cataracts and 
 
 tideways. 
 The liner wriggles upside down and inside out and side- 
 ways ; 
 When passengers lie pale and prone with cushions on 
 
 their middles, 
 When soup abruptly jumps the plates and soup-plates 
 
 jump the fiddles, 
 When ladies live on malted milk and gentlemen on 
 
 whisky. 
 Then you're in the Bay of Biscay O ! in the Bay of 
 
 Biscay." 
 
Ill 
 
 THE ROCK 
 
 The three white Ughts that stand sentinel round 
 about Cape Finisterre had long since signalled the 
 passing of the Bay of Sorrows. The sun was doing 
 brisk business, and the packet rolled gently over a 
 deep blue swell, very gently, as though contrite for 
 her previous misbehaviour. 
 
 Hamish came prancing on deck, seething with 
 histrionic heartiness. He had had a touch of his 
 old malaria, he explained. Sick ? Piffle ! The 
 only thing he had been sick of was Blackie's and my 
 company — and, by the way, how much did we owe 
 him on that rubber, and where were his brandies- 
 and-sodas ? 
 
 The chairs filled up gradually; wan women lay 
 under rugs in the sunshine, feeling that, after all, 
 they were glad they had been born. Men tramped 
 the promenade in twos and threes ; babies reappeared 
 and tripped them up. I was glad to see them all 
 again, being heartily tired of prowling down empty 
 corridors and deserted saloons like a lone jackal in a 
 dead city. 
 
 But a ship's officer with whom I fell into conversa- 
 tion stated the other side of the case, he spoke 
 up for Biscay's Bay. It gave the catering depart- 
 ment its sole chance of making a profit, he said, was 
 the only thing that stood between thousands of 
 poor shareholders and the workhouse. What the 
 
 12 
 
THE ROCK 13 
 
 Company was looking for was a ship that would 
 roll all the time, even in the flattest of calms. 
 
 Birling's rocky islet, the gulls swirling round it, 
 hove into view that afternoon, the Portuguese 
 coast, and then, at sunset, the mighty mass of Cape 
 Roca. Blackie nudged my arm and pointed sea- 
 wards. A fleet of fishing-boats was skimming for 
 the Tagus, their long yards squared, their triangular 
 white sails swelling in the breeze. Feluccas, the 
 bird-like rig of the South. We were in sunny waters 
 at last. 
 
 Cadiz lay invisible to the north, but Cape Trafalgar 
 pushed its blunt nose through the haze. We 
 churned by the green hills and valleys of Andalusia, 
 rounded the little white town of Tarifa, and saw to 
 the south the cloudy loom of the Rif mountains, 
 Morocco ; and thus, with Europe upon our left hand 
 and Africa on our right, stood down on Gibraltar. 
 
 And all of a sudden we turned a comer and there 
 it was, rearing its fourteen hundred feet sheer out 
 of the sea, a lion couchant, tawny and tremendous, 
 its huge head brooding above the Straits, a world 
 highway flowing beneath its great stone paws. The 
 purple-sailed triremes of Tyre, deep with Cornish 
 tin, came rolling home under that brooding head, 
 also the weather-worn ships of Neco after their 
 circuit of Africa. 
 
 It saw the galleys of JuUus Caesar bound for 
 Gades (Cadiz) with recruits for the legions, and the 
 caravels of Christopher Columbus go wallowing 
 before a brisk Levanter with royal banners flying and 
 the Papal Cross emblazoned on their bellying main- 
 sails. It saw the lean Algerine rover thresh past to 
 
14 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 raid the Irish coast or pick up a prize off Finisterre, 
 two hundred slaves straining under the whip, and 
 the turbaned fighting men squatting cross-legged 
 on the poop. It heard the guns off Trafalgar and 
 saw the Victory limp into its port, rigging shot to 
 strips, her flag half-masted, and the Admiral of 
 Admirals lying dead in her stem cabin. It saw the 
 crowded troopers pass with men and guns for 
 Tel-el-Kebir and Omdurman, and sinister shadows 
 sliding through the green deeps — U boats slinking 
 east to torpedo hospital ships in the Adriatic. All 
 history has passed this way. 
 
 A Pillar of Hercules, stormed and retaken for 
 Cross or Crescent again and again, named and|re- 
 named by succeeding conquerors, sacked by the 
 pirate Barbarossa, bombarded steadily for six 
 months by the combined forces of two nations, 
 blockaded for three long years, besieged thirteen 
 times in all, the great stone man-eater looks across 
 the Straits at his mate Gibel Musa and licks his 
 bloody chops : " Good hunting, brother ! '* 
 
 The Gibraltaian {Scorpio Rockensis) lives on the 
 British garrison, calling ships and smuggling. His 
 complexion ranges through all shades, from snuff 
 to margarine. He is a fluent linguist, being able 
 to utter at least five pidgin languages. The draw- 
 back is that he splutters them all at once, tangled up 
 in such a way that you couldn't drag them apart 
 with a boat-hook. He sits on his rock scanning the 
 horizon for the smoke of a P. & O. with all the 
 intensity of his piratical ancestor on the look-out 
 for a fat Genoese carrack. No sooner has the doomed 
 vessel dropped her hook off Commercial Pier than he 
 is alongside in his little bum-boat, while his twin 
 
THE ROCK 15 
 
 brother, Don Pedro Iscariot, patrols the wharf 
 ready to harpoon any survivors who may escape the 
 first line of blockade. 
 
 jWhen the battered passenger reaches the shore 
 he is assailed by a mob of shrieking hotel touts and 
 porters, who wrench his luggage from him and then 
 worry it amongst themselves as hyenas worry 
 carrion. One hyena, by sinking his teeth in a rival 
 and kicking another in the stomach, eventually 
 obtains possession of your bag and disappears with 
 it, at a gallop, in the direction of the town. You 
 gallop in pursuit. If you are in good trim and can 
 overhaul the chase before he reaches Casemates 
 Square you may ransom your belongings for 10 per 
 cent, of their value (plus tip). If he should gain the 
 Catholic Cathedral it will cost you at least 30 per 
 cent., and so on in ratio. If he gets as far as Buena 
 Vista you will find it cheaper to let him go, for by 
 this time you will not only owe him all your baggage, 
 but be heavily in his debt as well. I am not quoting 
 any " Official tariff," I speak merely from personal 
 experience. 
 
 I intended to leave my kit on the quay handy 
 for the Algeciras steamer, instead of which it was 
 wrested from me by a gang of comic-opera brigands, 
 and when I saw it next it was on a hand-cart at the 
 far end of Water port Street, going goodness knows 
 whither. I had to shell out handfuls of coin for 
 having it brought where I didn't want it, and as much 
 again to have it taken back where I did. 
 
 It is our proud boast that while bestowing on the 
 many peoples of our manifold dependencies the 
 benefits of British law and order, we have in no 
 way interfered with their national customs and 
 
i6 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 characteristics. This is no better exemplified than 
 at Gibraltar, where, under the protection of British 
 cannon and the eyes of British policemen, the local 
 pirate plies his trade as diligently as in the golden 
 age of Tarik ibn Zijad. 
 
IV 
 
 THE ROCK 
 
 The Rock of Gibraltar runs north and south and 
 forms the eastern arm of Algeciras Bay. To the 
 south it terminates in Europa Point, to the north 
 in the low sandy neck which connects it with Spain 
 On the west side it pitches down, almost sheer, into 
 the Mediterranean; on the east lies the town, the 
 naval dockyard and the harbour. Waterport Street 
 is the chief thoroughfare and shopping centre; as 
 the dazed stranger passes up it the shopkeepers dart 
 buzzing out of their emporiums and swarm all over 
 him like wasps on a ripe pear. Spaniards, Moors, 
 Hindoos, Alexandrians and Levant Jews, babbling 
 every unknown language and offering to sell him 
 every variety of pup. Picture postcards, cigars, 
 fans, castanets, mantillas, slippers, stamped leather 
 work, embroidery, rugs, silver-mounted guns and 
 daggers, brass hanging-lamps and beaten trays, all 
 the fantastic and colourful products of the dark 
 bazaars of Beni-Birmingham and Wad-el-Manches- 
 ter. The dazed stranger, bent under his load of 
 faked curios, staggers on, past the imperturbable 
 Tommy on guard outside the Residency, through 
 Southport Gate (under whose shadow lie Trafalgar's 
 dead) to the Alameda Gardens, and sinks to rest 
 beneath a flowering heliotrope with his back to a 
 concrete bastion and his feet in a blaze of scarlet 
 geraniums. Infant Gibraltaians romp up and down 
 the flowery alleys, playing hide and seek, while their 
 c 17 
 
i8 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 nurses lounge on the benches, relating how Enriquito 
 the coal-heaver, or Jaime the bum-boatman behaved 
 last Sunday evening. " Called me ' cruel sorceress,' 
 my dear, and threatened to assassinate himself. — 
 Such sighs ! Such passion ! . . .Ah, alma mia ! " 
 
 Dark-eyed flappers hide in shady nooks, consum- 
 ing the latest naughty love-novelette from Madrid. 
 A British sergeant-major goes past trundling a 
 perambulator, while his little Cockney wife toddles 
 behind, sweetening the breeze with a faint fragrance 
 of peppermint-drops. 
 
 The dazed stranger rises refreshed, stealthily 
 dumps his burden of fantastic junk down a gun-pit, 
 and strolls back to the town to see the evening 
 exodus for La Linea. 
 
 Practically all the work about the harbour and 
 fortifications of Gibraltar is done by Spaniards, who 
 come daily from the mainland. Those living in 
 La Linea have to be out of town before the Land 
 Port is closed at the firing of the sunset gun. They 
 delay until the last moment and then pile, clucking 
 and shouting, into the crazy diligences in Case- 
 mates Square, labourers and market-women, one on 
 top of the other and all in full song. " Go on, Senor 
 Cochero, there are fifteen of us already, what are you 
 waiting for? Miguel? Miguel departed twenty 
 minutes ago in Don Juanito's equipment, I swear it 
 by the beard of my mother ! " " Caspita I get off my 
 foot, she-buffalo ! Diablo ! now you're on the other 
 one !"..." Ah, here is Miguel coming now with 
 Brigidita and Alberto ; they can sit on the drunken 
 caballero in the corner. Climb up, my honeys." 
 ..." Whip your horses, cochero. Madre de Dios I 
 the gim will explode in a moment and we shall all be 
 
THE ROCK 19 
 
 fined ! " . . . " No, stop in the name of God ! — 
 there is my aunt, the Senora Teresa Juana CataHna 
 Sebdceo. Run, Tia, run ! Pardiez ! she has lost a 
 boot, she stumbles, she is down, she is dead ! — Ah, 
 miseria ! and without absolution ! No, she is up 
 again ! Jump, my sainted one, there is plenty of 
 room on top of Miguel, Alberto, Brigidita and the 
 drunken caballero. Holoa, cochero I is the fool 
 paralyzed ? Beat your horses, pig-head, or we shall 
 
 " TUe diligences get under weigh " 
 
 be caught." ..." Stop ! Stop ! I entreat, I 
 demand. There is my father, the Senor Don Carlos 
 Bartolome Quintanon ! Run, Padre — no, don't stop 
 to roll a cigarette ! Teh ! now he has dropped his 
 hat. Never mind, Alberto shall lend you his. Sit 
 on top of the Senora Sebdceo and the others. Now 
 we're all right. Adelante, cochero ! what the mischief 
 are you waiting for? do you want us all to die in 
 jail? Flog your horses, Evil One; knock them on 
 the sore spots with the butt-end ! Pronto ! Al 
 galope! Avantel" 
 
20 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 With more shouts, cracking of whips and creak- 
 ing of springs the diUgences get under weigh and 
 rumble through the Land Port just as the sunset gun 
 crashes from the bastions and the great fortress locks 
 up for the night. 
 
 There is no duty on tobacco in Gibraltar, and 
 they tell me that the amount purchased there works 
 out at an allowance of three and a half pounds per 
 head of population per day — which is more than 
 is good for children in arms and growing girls, 
 and may account for their sallow complexions. Of 
 course ninety per cent, of it is actually smuggled 
 into Spain, where the duty is high. Of this a large 
 proportion enters through La Linea concealed about 
 the persons of the market-people, and also in neat 
 little packs strapped on the backs of dogs. These 
 noble animals cross no-man's-land after dark, run- 
 ning the gauntlet of the Spanish sentries, whose 
 futile shots may ofttimes be heard disturbing the 
 serenity of the night. There is, I am informed, an 
 Academy for dogs in La Linea where they take 
 courses in sentry-dodging and general discretion. 
 The sentry-dodging course consists in tying the dog 
 up and having him severely hammered by one of the 
 professors, disguised as a soldier. After a little of 
 this the intelligent pupil learns that anything in a 
 Spanish uniform is to be avoided like a poor relation, 
 and acts accordingly. 
 
 As the Anglo-Indian, laden with pensions and 
 liver, instinctively retires on Cheltenham or Bed- 
 ford, it is to La Linea de la Concepcion that the 
 Spanish convict — the hospitality of his Government 
 finally exhausted — wends his way, there to spend the 
 twihght of his life in well-merited repose. One likes 
 
THE ROCK 21 
 
 to picture the dear old boys sipping their gore-and- 
 soda in the local Cloak and Dagger Club, displaying 
 their stiletto wounds, garrotting their victims o'er 
 again, and deploring the fact that oakum is not what 
 it was in their young days. 
 
 We left Gibraltar by the evening boat for 
 Algeciras. The mighty rock stood up black against 
 the glow of moonrise, its base spangled with myriad 
 lights. As we watched, the moon swung clear and 
 turned our steamer's wake into a ribbon of sparkling 
 silver. Hamish, who knew his way about, led me 
 forward to where the third-class passengers were 
 preparing for the Customs. Men, half undressed, 
 were busy strapping packets of tobacco under their 
 waistcoats and trousers, while ladies, their skirts 
 hauled knee-high, were packing their stockings with 
 cigarettes. 
 
 " 'S matter of fact the aduaneros seldom trouble 
 to search 'em," Hamish explained. " They know 
 they're all guilty, so they just take note and charge 
 *em a lump sum at the end of the month. There 
 are no complaints." 
 
 A few minutes later a little Spaniard, in a fancy 
 uniform and white cotton gloves, told me that he 
 thought five pesetas would about meet my case. 
 I did not complain. 
 
ALGECIRAS 
 
 Algeciras is a small town set with its face to- 
 wards Gibraltar and its back to the Sierra de los 
 Gazules, and is celebrated for its corks and its con- 
 ferences. It offers few attractions, except a really 
 excellent hotel in which the British tripper may enjoy 
 English dishes, English papers, English games, hear 
 almost nothing but English spoken, and in short 
 forget that he has ever left home — which, to many 
 Anglo-Saxons, is the end and all of foreign travel. 
 
 I once knew a man who lived in a match-board 
 shack near the town of Prairie Dog, Saskatchewan. 
 At the age of forty-three he made a bit of money, 
 palming off salted oil-claims on the mentally defi- 
 cient, and, thinking his mind might stand enlarging, 
 bought a ticket for London. He took a room at the 
 Ritz, but left it next day because the chef couldn't 
 dish up flap- jacks just the same as they did in 
 Prairie Dog. He searched London, high and low, 
 for a week, at the end of which, failing to find a 
 cook up to Prairie Dog standards in jack-flapping, 
 he returned to Saskatchewan and has never since 
 left it. 
 
 In addition to the hotel, Algeciras boasts a further 
 attraction in the Casino, built, with great considera- 
 tion, on piles above the sad sea waves, so that the 
 busted gambler may hear other things breaking 
 besides his heart. 
 
 22 
 
ALGECIRAS 23 
 
 Hamish behaved very oddly at dinner on the night 
 we arrived at Algeciras. He was moody and absent- 
 minded, trying to handle his soup with a fork and 
 stirring his coffee with a toothpick. When I re- 
 marked that bagpipes were a relic of the Inquisition 
 he passed it in silence, and even when Blackie in- 
 formed the table that in Rhodesia they use haggis 
 for poisoning hyenas he failed to respond. Under 
 pressure he confessed that he was being mildly 
 haunted, he couldn't get the number twenty-six 
 out of his head. It kept humming away at the 
 back of his brain like a popular ditty : " Twenty-six, 
 twenty-six, twenty-six " — and for the life of him 
 he couldn't think why. Dashed odd, eh, what? 
 He wondered if there was anything in it. 
 
 I asked what he meant by " anything in it " ? 
 Hamish said that it struck him as dashed queer 
 that this number should leap out of the void and 
 dog him like this on the first evening he was within 
 reach of a roulette table, very dashed queer alto- 
 gether, if not uncanny. For himself he had never 
 been one of those sceptics. He had read several 
 spiritualistic books of late, and he thought there was 
 a lot in the views expounded by Conan Doyle and 
 other spook-fanciers. Now why shouldn't some old 
 pal who was in the Hereafter — and also presumably 
 in the " know " — be trying to do him a good turn ? 
 There had been a lieutenant of Seaforth Highlanders 
 who had " gone West " at Cambrai, owing Hamish 
 fifty francs and a bottle of whisky, why shouldn't 
 this chap be trying to do the square thing and get 
 out of Torment ? — why not ? 
 
 Blackie and I requested him not to talk such 
 arrant slush in our presence. The alms-houses 
 
24 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 were chock-a-block with men who had got tips from 
 angels in dreams, we said. If he felt tired of his 
 money he'd much better go and buzz it into the Bay, 
 where he'd at least get a splash for it. So eloquent 
 were we that he at length gave in and we sought our 
 rooms. 
 
 Still I was uneasy that Hamish, despite his 
 apparent surrender, might give us the slip after all 
 — the flesh is weak. So, determined to save him 
 from himself, I pulled on an overcoat and went down 
 to the Casino. The first person I met there was 
 Blackie. He had come down on the same merciful 
 errand, he explained. We sauntered round the 
 tables for a bit, talking of Hamish and his silly 
 theories, and then it occurred to both of us that, 
 while we were there, we might just as well disprove 
 them finally. 
 
 We did so. We backed that blessed twenty-six 
 until we were black in the face, until I had nothing 
 left in my pocket but a hole and Blackie a ha'penny 
 stamp. 
 
 Broken and desperate we left the Casino and 
 inspected the sea with a view to suicide. We looked 
 at it and looked at it and then turned away. I 
 have always been warned against taking plunges 
 in the dark, and Blackie recollected that his doctor 
 had forbidden him cold baths. 
 
 We went home to bed. When I reached my room 
 I found a note stuck in the mirror. It was from 
 Hamish, and was to the effect that he had suddenly 
 remembered how he had got that twenty-six into 
 his head ; it had been the number of his room at the 
 Charing Gross Hotel ! 
 
ALGEGIRAS 25 
 
 Blackie and I went to bed at two-thirty in the 
 morning — why, I don't know, because we had to 
 get up again at five o'clock in order to catch the 
 Tangier boat. At seven we found ourselves de- 
 posited on the quay, amid a crowd of Spaniards, 
 Moors and What-nots, waiting to be taken off to 
 the steamer. 
 
 There was a stiff Levanter humming down the 
 Straits fit to blow the shell off an egg, and it was 
 doubtful if the packet would start at all, we were 
 told. Pending her coming to a decision, Blackie and 
 I squatted on our baggage and tried to make up 
 arrears in sleep. 
 
 At seven-thirty Hamish, who was very full of life 
 and humour, woke us up to admire the sunrise 
 behind Gibraltar. At eight he woke us again to say 
 the steamer was starting. At eight-forty-five he 
 woke us once more to say she wasn't. A crowd of 
 little soldiers drifted along the wharf and inspected 
 us, hands in pockets, cigarettes drooping from their 
 lips. The general opinion among them, Hamish 
 avers, was that Blackie and I were either drunk or 
 dead, probably both. They were slovenly, unshorn 
 little chaps in uniforms almost too fanciful to be 
 true. One was momentarily expecting them to 
 form line and, dancing forward, explode into some 
 tuney morsel from The Chocolate Soldier. 
 
 At nine-fifteen the steamer suddenly made up 
 her mind to chance it, and we were taken off in a 
 small motor-boat, Hamish and Blackie sitting on 
 top of the luggage, and I in the lap of a voluminous 
 sefiora who breathed a Paternoster down the back 
 of my neck every time she saw a wave coming. 
 At length we gained the steamer. Hamish, sensing 
 
26 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 the re-approach of his " old malaria," immediately 
 went below, but Blackie and I remained on deck to 
 see the last of Algeciras. As we looked, the morning 
 beams flashed upon the windows of the Casino. 
 They twinkled at us merrily. 
 
VI 
 
 IN THE STRAITS 
 
 The little steamer was rocking at her anchor 
 when we scrambled aboard ; once clear of Algeciras 
 Bay she livened up considerably, but off Tarifa, 
 with the five-knot Atlantic tide in her teeth and a 
 thirty-mile Levanter snorting at her heels, she went 
 pitching and rolling through the cross seas like a thing 
 gone crazy. This was deemed by the captain a 
 propitious moment to have his dog washed. 
 
 The dog, a wolf-hound of about the size of a 
 yearling calf, had rolled in some red paint, which 
 gave his coat a somewhat exotic appearance. Two 
 mariners accordingly captured the creature and, 
 up-ending him on the fore-hatch, proceeded to scrub 
 him with, what I afterwards learned to be a mixture 
 of paraffin and turpentine. In next to no time some 
 of the stuff got at the dog's tenderer parts and 
 he went mad — and I don't blame him. The mariners 
 hung on manfully for a minute, but the great writh- 
 ing brute was too much for them ; they let go and 
 did monkey motions up the ratlines — and I don't 
 blame them either. Down the deck came the dog, 
 uttering dreadful howls, foaming at the jaws. 
 There were several passengers lying about the deck — 
 from their abandoned attitudes, quite dead, I 
 thought. However, if Gabriel can bring off as smart 
 a resurrection with his little trumpet as that dog 
 did with his first howl, he has my congratulations. 
 They arose as one man and streaked for sanctuary 
 
 27 
 
28 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 with a rapidity that would have left a four-year-old 
 flash of lightning among the also-rans — and I may 
 admit that I headed the field by at least a length. 
 I streaked for the nearest door — which turned out 
 to be that of the galley — wrenched it open and 
 bolted myself inside. Meanwhile the dog tore 
 round and round the deserted decks, five laps to 
 the minute, gnashing his teeth and yowling like a 
 soul in torment — as far as I could see, in complete 
 mastery of the ship. From time to time one could 
 hear the captain (imprisoned in the chart-house) 
 exhorting the two treed mariners to jump down 
 and play the man, and the mariners reminding the 
 captain that there was nothing in their contract 
 that they knew of which included wrestling matches 
 with wild wolf-hounds. At length one of the latter 
 deftly lassoed the lunatic with a loop of signal 
 lanyard as it ramped past, and we were released. 
 And not a moment too soon as far as I was con- 
 cerned. If anyone wants to know what grease 
 smells like, let him spend twenty minutes in the red- 
 hot, hermetically-sealed galley of a Spanish packet 
 rolling gunnels under in the Straits, while the cook 
 prepares for the crew's dinner those little chefs d'oil 
 so beloved of Dago seafarers. Another five minutes 
 and I should have joined Hamish in the malaria ward. 
 By this time we had passed Punta Marroqui, 
 Europe's most southerly point, and were standing 
 across the- Straits direct for Tangier Bay. The 
 cloud-blurred outline of the African hills became 
 more and more distinct, and presently the town itself 
 hove in sight, a jumble of white houses climbing 
 steeply from the sea, the flat roofs surmounted here 
 and there by a green-tiled minaret. The anchor 
 
IN THE STRAITS 29 
 
 splashed overboard, and we brought up in the open 
 roads between a Portuguese schooner and a Spanish 
 gunboat which were wallowing drunkenly at their 
 moorings. 
 
 Hamish, who wobbled on deck, looking like some- 
 thing the cat had brought in, fetched a deep groan. 
 There was a yellow flag flying on the quay, he said, 
 which meant that we would land at our own risk. 
 Three surf-boats were already close at hand, thirty- 
 foot craft of whaler build, motor driven. They came 
 leaping and swooping towards us, rising over the 
 tattered ridges of green water like hunters at a fence, 
 half their keels bare, to topple and crash downwards 
 the next instant, sending the spray flying above them 
 in glittering sheets. A stirring and beautiful sight. 
 The first swept alongside. A rope was thrown, 
 to be caught by a big brown fellow who balanced 
 upright on the tiny fore-deck like a circus-rider on a 
 caracoling steed. Another made fast a stern-line, 
 while yet another, boat-hook in hand, prehensile 
 toes gripping a thwart, kept the little craft from 
 beating to splinters against the steamer. 
 
 A stout Arab (evidently the Boss-Serang) with 
 a sky-blue kaftan (jacket) across his broad shoulders 
 and a scarlet cummerbund about his prominent 
 larder, bounded from somewhere in the centre of 
 the boat to the ship's gangway, and ran up shouting 
 some pleasantry to the captain, white teeth gleaming 
 in his black beard. It was a considerable jump 
 and the man must have weighed at least fourteen 
 stone, but he flitted like a gazelle. His crew came 
 bustling up after him and set about transferring 
 baggage, which they did at the top of their speed — 
 and lungs. 
 
30 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Hamish, who has sampled the surf all the way from 
 Melilla to Rio de Oro, says they yell to terrify 
 passengers and get more money out of them. On 
 calm days, when the tariff is in force and there is 
 no chance of getting the fare rattled, they are as 
 quiet as lamb cutlets, but given a puff of wind they 
 add to the clamour of the elements to such an extent 
 that the poor fool thinks a watery grave is yawning 
 for him, and pays them untold gold for getting him 
 out of it. 
 
 The baggage safely stowed, word was passed to 
 the Boss-Serang. He cut short the after-dinner 
 story he was breathing into the captain's ear (from 
 the latter's expression an extremely entertaining 
 one), conferred his cigarette-end on the Spanish 
 cabin-boy, and hitched up his plum-coloured 
 bloomers. The real business of the day was at 
 hand. 
 
 One burly Arab took station at the head of the 
 gangway, while the Boss-Serang stood on the lower 
 platform, now six feet above the trough, now with 
 the surf boiling round his bare legs. The Arab on 
 deck bundled one pea-green Spanish youth after 
 the other down to the Boss-Serang, who, in turn, 
 bided his moment, and as the boat soared, slung 
 him into it, willy-nilly, precisely as one slings puppies 
 into a basket. The good dame on whose ample 
 lap I had sat boarding the steamer proved a tougher 
 problem. She hung back to the last and was pushed 
 down the gangway, wailing, praying and contesting 
 every step. As the boat came up her last thread of 
 courage snapped and she grabbed the gangway 
 chains with both hands, resisting the Boss-Serang's 
 every effort to push her off. The boat's gunnel 
 
IN THE STRAITS 
 
 31 
 
 slogged into the steps, knocking the poor lady's 
 feet from under her and she swayed outboard. The 
 next moment she was swinging perilously over the 
 trough, shrieking blue murder. The Boss-Serang 
 was equal to the occasion, however. He signed 
 to his gangway Arab, and as the boat rose again 
 they flung themselves upon her, tackled her round 
 the waist as a couple of Rugby three-quarters tackle 
 an opposing back. Their combined weights tore 
 her from her hold, and the trio rolled to safety on 
 the boat's bottom boards. A minute later we were 
 racing the foam-fringed breakers shore wards, and 
 the Boss-Serang had picked himself up, re-adjusted 
 his bloomers and was collecting fares — a most worthy 
 person ! 
 
 A most worthy person " 
 
VII 
 
 TANGIER 
 
 I HAVE heard it said that to cross the Straits 
 of Gibraltar is to leap from the twentieth century 
 into the Old Testament. 
 
 At their narrowest the Straits are but eight miles 
 wide, yet it is not only two continents that they 
 divide but two worlds. 
 
 One steps off the steamer at Tangier into the heart 
 of Islam. The jetty swarms and hums with Arabs : 
 swarthy boatmen and porters, with bare brown legs, 
 faded cummerbunds and red fez; hotel touts in 
 brown or striped burnous and lemon-yellow slippers ; 
 the grey-bearded dignitary who collects pier-dues 
 might have walked out of the Arabian Nights. 
 In the shade of the Customs shed lounge three Moors. 
 Two wear white turbans and haiks and take turns 
 at a long pipe of hasheesh. The third has his head 
 shaved, but for the pigtail curled in a loose knot on 
 top of it — by which pigtail the Prophet will some 
 day draw him upwards to Paradise, he hopes. He 
 is sunburnt a rich bronze, and wears a coarse brown 
 burnous with tufts of red and yellow wool at the 
 seams. He fingers a two-stringed gounibri and 
 croons a plaintive little tune, a tune he probably 
 believes he composed himself one hot afternoon up 
 in the Rif Mountains when his goats were grazing 
 quietly, but, nevertheless, a tune that David knew. 
 A song of lonely men in waste places, a song as old 
 
 32 
 
TANGIER 33 
 
 and eternal as the hills and their pastures, the 
 Shepherd Song. 
 
 A countryman, cantering home to his farm beyond 
 Ex-Xarf , goes down the Playa, dirty burnous flapping 
 in the breeze, brass dagger-hilt glinting among its 
 folds. He swings his flea-bitten pony off the road 
 on to the beach, lashes it across the neck with his 
 rein-ends and sends the sand flying. A string of 
 wretched little donkeys limp homeward from market, 
 their palmetto panniers empty. The lord and master 
 sits sideways on the foremost and steers by kicking 
 it in the jaw with his toes. His ladies bring up the 
 laggards on foot, whacking the poor little beasts on 
 their raw crupper galls ; sturdy unveiled Rif women 
 with tattoo marks on their chins, and hats as big 
 as cart-wheels. 
 
 A squeal of native pipes, the throb of drums, 
 and behold a wedding procession ! with the bride 
 borne on mule-back in the centre, invisible in a 
 wobbling but highly ornate box. She is being 
 taken to her new home in El-Maadi, where the bride- 
 groom awaits her. Once there she will sit in a pre- 
 pared bower and wail for three days, feigning sorrow, 
 while the groom entertains his friends outside. 
 For half an hour each day of the festivities she will 
 be displayed to the outside world, sitting in all her 
 splendour, eyes closed, blue and yellow stars painted 
 on her cheeks. 
 
 Inside the town walls one is immediately lost in 
 a maze of narrow lanes (too narrow for wheeled 
 traflic) which wriggle in and out, this way and that, 
 like the burrows of a rabbit warren. Arabs squat 
 in dark little shops no bigger than cupboards, so 
 small, in fact, that the merchant can reach any 
 
 D 
 
34 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 article without shifting his position. The streets are 
 thronged with people. A water-carrier plods past 
 jangling his brass bell (burnished daily with sand 
 and lemon), a muscular black fellow bent under 
 the weight of his dripping goat-skin. A party of 
 well-to-do women bound for the Turkish Baths, 
 bundles of white draperies and mystery, nothing of 
 them visible except roving big brown eyes, ringed 
 with kohl, and long lashes ; a trio of Jews discuss- 
 ing the exchange, venerable men with patriarchal 
 beards, dark-blue kaftans and black skull-caps; 
 Jewesses, shapeless of figure, pale-skinned, with 
 brilliant handkerchiefs tied about their raven locks. 
 " Balek ! Balek ! " (get out of the way I) A string 
 of donkeys with panniers of charcoal. " Balek ! " 
 again, and another string laden with water-casks. 
 
 Two fat black women, their faces framed in snowy 
 haiks, like ink blots on white paper, roll grunting 
 up the hill and rap at a nail-studded door. They 
 wear orange scarves pinned across their shoulders, a 
 sign that they are professional inviters about their 
 business of bidding guests to a rich man's feast. 
 
 Blue burnous and brown burnous, burnouses 
 striped and burnouses plain, move all about one, 
 veiled women and ragged porters, rich Moors on 
 sleek mules and dreadful beggars who wail the name 
 of Allah — the name of Allah ! Assuredly this 
 is the very Islam, while just across the strip of 
 sapphire water looms the coast of Spain, that strong 
 fortress of the unbending Christianity. 
 
 The Nahan Battery commands a fine view over 
 the Straits — nothing else, for in action its antique 
 cannon would prove vastly more dangerous to friends 
 than foes ; their weight alone has saved them from 
 
TANGIER 35 
 
 the curiosity hunter. This battery is manned 
 by the Spanish native gendarmerie, fine tall chaps 
 in scarlet tunics and fez. I wanted to see the view 
 and addressed the guard, who were sitting outside 
 before a bed of arum lilies. A stout sergeant-major 
 proved agreeable, and in I went. In the shadow of 
 an antediluvial pop-gun lay a couple of fat brown 
 carcases. As I looked one of them scratched its 
 tummy with a hind leg, grunted and dozed off again. 
 They were a pair of wild boars. I was for stepping 
 nearer and discussing the scandalous price of pork 
 with them, when my dragoman, Abdullah, touched 
 my arm. It would be just as weU to inhale the view 
 from the other side of the battery, he advised. 
 Those pigs behaved oddly at times, especially with 
 Christians. True Believers they did not seem to 
 mind, but Christians ate pig, and he thought these 
 beasts had got to know it. Only a week or so pre- 
 viously an English Admiral had come up there with 
 a camera. He wanted a snap of the pigs, but they 
 were both asleep with their backs to him, so he 
 flipped his cigarette ash at them to make them stand 
 up and look pretty. Unfortunately he flipped 
 a live spark along with the ash. The next instant 
 he and his camera were describing graceful convolu- 
 tions up in the blue. With this in mind Abdullah 
 didn't think it wise to try any tricks with them. 
 I didn't think so either. If they would play cup 
 and ball with a full-blown Admiral, what would 
 they do with a mere fly-blown civilian? What 
 would they do ? The reader must decide for himself, 
 for I didn't stop to make the experiment. One of 
 them got up suddenly, glared at me with a pair of 
 liverish little eyes and sniffed. I went full speed 
 
36 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 astern, and never stopped until well to leeward of the 
 sergeant-major and the guard. I had had bacon 
 for breakfast that morning and felt sure the brute 
 had smelt it. 
 
 
 " Glared at me with liverish little eyes " 
 
 So I never saw the view from the Nahan Battery 
 after all (and unless they have a severe outbreak of 
 swine fever in Tangier, never shall), but I feel certain 
 it must be a fine one, for the Admiral told Abdullah 
 so, and he ought to know, he went up high enough. 
 
VIII 
 
 TANGIER 
 
 On the summit of Tangier's citadel hill stands the 
 Sultan's palace, with a prison built against the back 
 door, a constant reminder to the Minister of the 
 moment that princes are fickle and it is but a short 
 step from favours to leg-irons. 
 
 It is years since the old palace was occupied, but 
 my dragoman, Abdullah, routed out a caretaker, 
 who produced enormous keys, forced protesting 
 locks and let us in. 
 
 After Pandering down dark passages we came out 
 into the sunlight of the central court, which has a 
 small fountain in the middle and lofty rooms all 
 round, opening directly into it. One of these had 
 been the Sultan's private mosque and another his 
 audience chamber. All had ceiUngs of elaborate 
 stalactiform carving, but spiders had spun their 
 dingy webs from peak to pinnacle, and damp had 
 tarnished all the gilt and scarlet; the mosaic tile- 
 work on the walls was crumbling out. A blut 
 pigeon sat preening itself on the door of the Sultan's 
 chamber, and hzards whisked in and out of cracks 
 in the rotting treasure-chests. I did not linger, it 
 was a depressing spot, as are all such scenes of 
 departed splendour. 
 
 With the prison, on the other hand, things were 
 never better. There had been a brawl in town the 
 night before, and in consequence they had a houseful, 
 and were even turning away many old and respected 
 
 37 
 
38 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 clients. For the sum of one franc I was allowed a 
 squint through a hole in the door, but it was so dark 
 inside that I could not distinguish much beyond the 
 fact that their clientele was all the gaolers claimed 
 for it. After the deserted palace it was most 
 refreshing to see a public institution so well 
 patronized. I was speaking enthusiastically of the 
 prison to an EngHsh resident some days later and 
 she endorsed every word. She told me that when- 
 ever her Arab butler felt a bit above himself, she 
 rang up her good friend the Basha and had the varlet 
 cast into durance for a rest-cure. A few days' 
 contemplative retirement in the Carcel had the 
 most chastening effect on him, she said, which I can 
 well believe. 
 
 If the British prison authorities would only take 
 a lesson from Morocco, we should hear a lot less 
 about unrest among domestic servants, I'm thinking. 
 
 The main business street of Tangier runs uphill 
 from the Port Gate to the Marxan Gate, passing the 
 Great Mosque, the Socco Chico (Little Market), the 
 Spanish church and the Government buildings. 
 Of these the only thing of interest is the Socco 
 Chico, for in Morocco one may not go — and, in 
 fanatical places such as Fez, barely glance — inside 
 a mosque. The Socco Chico is indeed so small that 
 there is not plentiful room for a cab to turn, but it 
 is the centre of commercial Tangier. It is surrounded 
 by cafes, where the local merchants sit and do (or 
 don't do) business over aperitifs, while little boot- 
 blacks squabble among their feet and touts dodge 
 around the tables proffering native bric-a-brac and 
 lottery tickets. Every other shop in Main Street 
 is a lottery shop. The Spanish Government runs 
 
TANGIER 39 
 
 a gigantic State draw once a month, with a first 
 prize in the neighbourhood of three milHon pesetas. 
 Every man jack in the country, who can beg, borrow 
 or rob a church collection-box of the price, buys a 
 ticket, or a share in one, and then sits down and 
 makes plans for the spending of the three million. 
 One night in Seville a horrid old woman came up 
 and pestered me to buy tickets from her. I did so, 
 partly from charitable motives and partly to rid me 
 of the smell of garlic which she exuded. I paid 
 three pesetas for the tenth share in a ticket, put the 
 voucher in my pocket-book and forgot all about it, 
 until, on reaching Madrid, I found I had won a 
 prize of thirty pesetas. The hall porter discounted 
 it for twenty pesetas, which same very nearly paid 
 my hotel tips, all of which goes to prove that 
 " Charity (backed by garlic) is its own reward." 
 Any bishop, priest or deacon who would Uke to 
 embody this beautiful and moral story in his sermon 
 is at liberty to do so. 
 
 Tangier was made an international town by the 
 treaty of 19 12, and Spanish, French, English and 
 Moroccan money are current. In these days of 
 frenzied exchange, with the pound going one way, 
 the peseta the other, and the franc chucking fits in 
 the centre, monetary transactions in the Fahsi are 
 the very devil. One has to be constantly running 
 into the banks to inquire after the peseta's tempera- 
 ture, or whether or no the franc has passed a quiet 
 night. Even when one is furnished with the latest 
 bulletins affairs are far from simple to anybody, 
 Uke myself, who has not won laurel crowns for 
 mental arithmetic. Fortunately they are very 
 strong on whitewash in Morocco, and there can 
 
40 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 hardly be a shop wall in Tangier to-day that is not 
 covered with my pencil calculations. 
 
 At the top of Main Street and a little to the left 
 is the Socco Grande (Big Market), a triangular open 
 space presided over by the tiny sanctuary of the 
 Mart's patron saint, Sidi Mejfi. On Thursdays and 
 Sundays it is all agog with country-folk. Women 
 in white squat behind small heaps of garden produce, 
 
 carrots, leeks, 
 figs, bundles of 
 grass and gol- 
 den piles of 
 oranges. Here 
 is an old 
 scavenger dis- 
 playing the 
 treasure-trove 
 of a hundred 
 rubbish heaps : 
 broken scraps 
 of harness, a 
 rusty lock, 
 rams' horns, the 
 empty shell of 
 an American clock, and four decayed crows. There 
 is a sweetmeat seller, his wares cut into cubes of 
 red and white, or twisted about a stick Hke the 
 Caduceus of Mercury. 
 
 A story-teller sits cross-legged in a circle of 
 entranced women and children, spinning his yams 
 of love and war and punctuating his every sentence 
 with a rap on a single-headed drum. More drum- 
 ming — a snake-charmer is at work in the centre of 
 another crowd, passing a dazed reptile across his 
 
 Tangerine cavalier 
 
TANGIER 41 
 
 face and eyes. Strings of donkeys patter through 
 the market laden with grain or charcoal, and then 
 a single beast with one pannier filled with white 
 irises, the other with purple. On the south side of 
 the market is a native cafe with a crazy balcony 
 on which customers sit, crowded like hens in a coop. 
 They sip thick coffee and sweet mint tea and watch 
 the concourse below. A chaouch from one of the 
 Legations in a sky-blue kaftan, heavily frogged; a 
 coloured French trooper in khaki; youths-about- 
 town in fine wool burnouses and beards clipped so 
 close that they look to have been painted on them : 
 from dawn to dusk, on the appointed days, the 
 market continues — and long after dusk. I have 
 crossed the Socco Grande at ten o'clock of a March 
 night and seen candles glimmering like glow-worms 
 on the ground, and a few poor people still crouched 
 behind their remaining wares, hoping against hope 
 for some belated purchaser. 
 
IX 
 
 TANGIER 
 
 The majority of well-to-do Europeans of Tangier 
 live on the Marshan, a plateau to the west of the 
 town, overlooking the Straits. There is a small 
 Moorish cemetery at its western end belonging to 
 the Sherif of Wazan, who, from his direct descent 
 from the Prophet, is very big potatoes in the 
 Mohammedan world. In my father's day the then 
 Sherif practically lived on champagne. When 
 shocked purists demanded how he, the Holy of 
 Holies, could bring himself to break one of the 
 Koran's most stringent rules so brazenly, he replied 
 that he didn't. He admitted lifting the champagne, 
 but it got no further — as champagne, for he was so 
 extremely holy that the moment it touched his lips 
 a miracle occurred turning it to milk. An irrefutable 
 reply — still, it hardly explains the almost constant 
 state of wuzziness in which the good Sherif spent his 
 latter years, or why he could not get his milk direct 
 from the cow. 
 
 There is another colony of Europeans still further 
 to the west, on the slopes of " The Mountain," 
 Gibel Kebir. The road thither runs from the Socco 
 Grande, through the big Moorish cemetery, and 
 plunges downhill to an insignificant trickle known as 
 the " Jews' River " — why, I could never discover; 
 possibly because it does not wash much. On the 
 far side of the river, overshadowed by gigantic green 
 
 42 
 
TANGIER 43 
 
 umbrellas of stone pines, is a Spanish wine-shop all 
 set about with little bowers in which one may sit, 
 listen to an urchin extracting gurgly ditties from a 
 mechanical organ, sip Rioja, and take fresh heart for 
 the assault of the Mountain. For the Mountain is 
 no idle dream. There is a good road up to Washing- 
 ton, but it soars at an angle that would puzzle 
 anything but a fly in gum-shoes; the other tracks 
 are merely dry torrent-beds. The ramshackle 
 diligences that ply to and from the Socco halt at its 
 foot, and if you are going to get anything to the top 
 you had best consult a donkey about it. The size 
 of the article need not worry you. I don't remember 
 seeing a grand piano in any Mountain villa, but if 
 there is one anywhere up there, I haven't the slightest 
 doubt but that a single donkey hoisted it. I have 
 seen a little brute, the size of a St. Bernard dog, 
 swarming the precipice under a full-length iron bath, 
 and another, slightly bigger, toiling up with four 
 heavy steamer trunks. I used to think we knew 
 something about packing a burro out West, but 
 now I hand the palm to the Arab, he begins where 
 we left off. There is nothing a Moroccan donkey 
 and his palmetto panniers will not handle. They 
 carry sacks, casks, logs, packing-cases, furniture, 
 road metal, paving-stones — anything. On one 
 occasion I saw a Moor riding down the Fez road on 
 a wee beast not nine hands high, his small son 
 clinging to his back, a live calf in one pannier, and 
 a donkey foal in the other. Albeit I never saw an 
 animal fall and only one dead donkey ; this fortunate 
 beast lay in the desert beyond Settat and two pariah 
 dogs fed on it. In all fairness there is this also to 
 be said for the Tangerine, that he will never ask 
 
44 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 his ass to carry more than he would cheerfully load 
 on his own wife. 
 
 The nine miles from Cape Spartel to Tangier is 
 one long procession of women toiling into town with 
 brushwood to sell. The bundles are so huge that 
 the bearers are literally bent double under them, 
 and after a few years of it become permanently 
 cramped in that position. They come plodding 
 through the heat and dust, old crones withered to 
 skin and bone, mothers with babies slung at their 
 
 On the Fez road 
 
 breasts, and little girls from eight years on. One 
 feels ashamed to be walking free and upright. 
 
 The western slope of Gibel Kebir is a patchwork 
 of little Rif gardens, each hedged with prickly-pear 
 and studded with fig trees. The cabins are of dried 
 mud thatched with grass, which furnishes ready- 
 made nests for storks. Higher up the gardens give 
 way to rocks, white cistus and yellow lupin. 
 
 Standing on the Mountain top one may look, out 
 over all the Fahsi. To the west lies Larache, the 
 garden of Hesperides; north, across the Straits, 
 looms the headland of Trafalgar; east, Gibraltar 
 and Gibel Musa, the Pillars of Hercules. Close at 
 
TANGIER 45 
 
 hand bubbles the spring from which " Tingris " 
 drew its water when it was a Roman colony under 
 the Emperor Augustus. South-east in the Bubana 
 valley gleam some small white mosques known as 
 the " Tombs of the Faithful/' built to commemorate 
 the Moudjakedines killed in battle with the troops of 
 our English Charles II. All the ages lie at one's feet. 
 
 On the Mountain's northern slope are many lovely 
 villas which look out on the blue ocean through 
 vistas of pine and eucalyptus, their gardens blazing 
 with flowers. In the loveliest of these villas lives 
 Walter Harris, that most charming correspondent 
 of The Times. In the largest, Mulay Abd El Aziz, 
 one of Morocco's two deposed Sultans, occupying 
 his enforced leisure with golf and bridge. 
 
 I was dining with friends up the Mountain one 
 night, and before setting out summoned my hench- 
 man, Abdullah, paid him his wages and told him to 
 meet me at the Jews' River at ten-thirty with either 
 a mule or a donkey. I stayed later than I intended, 
 reaching the rendezvous at eleven. The trusty 
 Abdullah was on the spot, but instead of a humble 
 long-ear he had brought a pair-horse carriage. 
 The reason for this was immediately evident; he 
 had blewed his week's stipend on whisky, was as 
 tight as a drum, and had chosen the one vehicle he 
 personally could ride with any degree of safety. He 
 arose out of the ditch and tacked towards me, 
 hiccupping expressions of esteem. I shut him up 
 sharply and told him to fetch the driver. He 
 wig-wagged back to the ditch and returned, dragging 
 an unconscious negro boy by the scruff. I demanded 
 an explanation. Abdullah beamed and gushed into 
 several languages at once. 
 
46 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 " By goodness, Monsieur, dis black son of a camel 
 he wish for to depart back a la ville sans vous, 
 Senor . . . hie ! She say he hired pour dix heures 
 et demi, not pare no longer. Abdullah, me, I say, 
 * No, alto usted par Allah Akbar ! you pare my 
 marstah, you beni djemel ! ... hie ! hie ! Niggah 
 she say, * No, by dam ! ' and whip to him caballos. 
 Abdullah, I pull him off his pescante de coche and 
 frappe him head on the wall till him tranquil . . . 
 hie ! hie ! Huic ! " 
 
 Abdullah beamed again, aimed a kick at his 
 victim, lost a slipper and his balance and sat down 
 in the road. I lifted the negro boy into the back of 
 the carriage, slung Abdullah beside him, mounted 
 the box myself and drove the pair of them, slumber- 
 ing peacefully, home to Tangier. 
 
X 
 
 CASABLANCA 
 
 From Tangier Hamish journeyed eastward for 
 Ceuta and Algiers, while Blackie returned to Gib, 
 to waylay an Orient liner, having business with a 
 man in Melbourne concerning a dog. I took a 
 passage on a French steamer for Casablanca. 
 
 On the point of embarking I met a genial Parisian 
 acquaintance who was bound the same way. He 
 had chartered a private boat to take him off to the 
 ship, and asked me to share it with him ; the tender 
 was sure to be crowded and uncomfortable, he said 
 I agreed and he led the way to his boat, which was 
 manned by a pair of skinny Arabs, and was quite 
 the smallest in the port. Under the weight of the 
 Frenchman, myself and our luggage the cockle- 
 shell's low freeboard sank until it became almost 
 non-existent, but the Arabs pushed off undismayed 
 and bent to their oars, which were lashed to single 
 thole-pins by scraps of palmetto string. There was 
 considerable surf running, and with wind and tide 
 against us into the bargain we made but scant 
 headway. A hundred yards from the jetty the 
 Arabs stopped pulling and had an argument, the 
 result of which was that they swopped places. By 
 the time the change was effected we were drenched 
 with spray from broaching-to and had drifted back 
 to our starting-point. Once more they bent to 
 their oars and we forged slowly seawards. Off the 
 
 47 
 
48 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Molehead the Arabs decided that they had been really 
 more comfortable in their original positions and 
 changed again. We made our third start from the 
 jetty with a flourish. Stung by the Frenchman's 
 oaths, the Arabs bent to their oars with such 
 
 " The Arabs stopped rowing and had an argument " 
 
 violence that off the red buoy stroke snapped his 
 palmetto string. We drifted, beam-on, back to the 
 jetty just in time to secure the worst seats in the 
 tender. 
 
 Casablanca is about fourteen hours' run from 
 Tangier. The regular steamers leave one port in 
 the neighbourhood of five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 so as to arrive at the other with the sun. There are 
 
CASABLANCA 49 
 
 no night landings made on that coast. I rolled on 
 deck next morning just as dawn was breaking. 
 We were off Casablanca. The lighthouse of El 
 Hank, looking like a slim wax candle gummed on 
 the foreshore by its own grease, was still flinging 
 its beams seawards. The mile-long combers tossed 
 their surf on a coast so low it seemed they must 
 overwhelm it, romped clean over the wreck of an 
 American steamer and pounded on the bows of a 
 big Transatlantic boat which lay, with her back 
 broken, high up the thundering beach. The morning 
 mists wrapped the town about with drifting veils of 
 grey and pearl. As the sun stood up the wreaths 
 became opalescent, trembled with delicate hints of 
 colour, lifted here and there, reveahng a momentary 
 glimpse of a dawn-tinted wall, a shining minaret, 
 all half-seen, suggestive, magical. Then the wind 
 suddenly rolled up the film and tore away the last 
 shreds of illusion. The minaret had a clock in its 
 face, the ghmmering buildings were six-storey 
 department stores; the sun-painted walls informed 
 one, in four-foot letters, that all the best people 
 read La Petite Marocaine, and that Henri Hammelle 
 is the lad for '* fournitures generales." 
 
 Casablanca, being interpreted, means " The White 
 House." It would have been far more appro- 
 priately named " Ciudad Blanca," for, with its 
 wealth of stucco and pseudo-oriental architecture, 
 it brings the Pride of Shepherd's Bush to mind at 
 every turn — Shepherd's Bush with the atmosphere 
 of a Western boom-city, every mother's son chatting 
 oil, real-estate and easy money. However, Casa- 
 blanca makes no pretence to be other than it is — a 
 thrusting modem town. " Let those who seek the 
 
 E 
 
50 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 picturesque and historic go to Fez or Marrakech/' 
 saith she; " I do business." And business it does, 
 and will do infinitely more when the railways open 
 the back country and the harbour is finished, for it 
 is the pet town of France's pet Protectorate, and if 
 money and energy can make a success of it, a success 
 it will be. At present boats of any tonnage anchor 
 off the harbour, a risky proceeding, seeing that the 
 holding-ground is poor and storms sudden. Freight 
 is transferred in lighters (I watched them shipping 
 bullocks one afternoon, sHnging them, suspended by 
 their horns alone, into a lighter twenty feet below) . 
 All this will be mended ere long; a breakwater 
 formed of twenty-five, fifty and a hundred-ton blocks 
 of concrete is being thrown out into the sea from 
 the south-west, and another will be run to meet it 
 from the north. These should break the swell, 
 and in their shelter wharves will be built. The work 
 is well under weigh, one breakwater is nearing 
 completion. 
 
 The old town of Dar-el-Beida is a jumble of low 
 buildings and labyrinthine streets in which gilt- 
 edged officers of the Gibraltar Bland boats mix 
 with smelly Arab fishermen, smart Parisiennes with 
 Mogador Jewesses, motor-cars with camels. 
 
 The new town is laid out in wide avenues providing 
 free passage for the wind to blow and the dust to 
 sweep. The buildings are a uniform white, which 
 proves so blinding under the hearty sun-blaze that 
 all Casablancans have to wear smoked or orange 
 glasses, an imposition which does nothing to enhance 
 their beauty. The Frenchman, that past master 
 of the fine art of forestry, seems to have made no 
 attempt to adorn his town or mitigate the climate 
 
CASABLANCA 51 
 
 by the judicious use of trees. He has been in too 
 much of a hurry — that will come. 
 
 The history of the French in Morocco begins with 
 Casablanca. Some European labourers, in the 
 course of construction work, desecrated a Moorish 
 cemetery, and on July 30th, 1907, nine of them got 
 murdered for it, as the authorities very well knew 
 they would be, having been repeatedly warned by 
 the Basha. This provided an excuse for the war- 
 ship Galilee to shell the town and land a party. 
 The platoon of marines speedily swelled to an army, 
 fresh outrages on French citizens were engineered, 
 and the troops went through the country, bayonets 
 first, and are at the present time hotly engaged with 
 the " rebels " beyond Taza. The history of the 
 French conquest of Morocco does not make pretty 
 Simday School reading, but let this be said for them, 
 that behind their outposts peace is now firmly 
 estabhshed. A man may travel from Marrakech 
 to Fez alone and unafraid. The poor husbandman 
 may keep those things that are his or sell them in 
 the open market. No man is now liable to be 
 thrown, loaded with chains, into a Kasba dungeon 
 without fair trial, there to languish till merciful 
 death releases him, while his property is confiscated 
 and his women sold as slaves and concubines. The 
 coimtry is no longer one vast cock-pit of tribal wars. 
 
 The Moor has lost his Hberty in that he is no 
 longer free to slit his weaker brother's throat for the 
 sheer fun of the thing — a state of affairs abhorrent 
 to our pacific Manchester school, but very com- 
 fortable for the weaker brother. 
 
XI 
 
 ' FANTASIA ' 
 
 It was in Casablanca, the stuccoed, the blatant, 
 that I saw the most stirring spectacle of all. The 
 occasion was the return from Paris of Lyautey, 
 Resident General of the Protectorate, with his 
 marshal's baton. 
 
 The idol of Morocco stood at the saluting point in 
 the Place de France, and the Colonial troops went 
 by : line infantry in khaki ; Zouaves in blue Eton 
 jackets, baggy red pants and fez ; field artillery, and 
 a battalion of Annamites, little yellow chaps from 
 Indo-Ghina. Followed a pause and then, with a 
 rush and a clatter, the friendly Arabs. They went 
 by at a canter, a tribe at a time, headed by its kaid. 
 They all wore white burnouses of striped silk and 
 wool over kaftans of green, yellow and scarlet. Some 
 wore turbans, some fez, the unmarried yoimgsters 
 rode bareheaded with their pigtails flying. On their 
 legs they had long boots of soft yellow leather with 
 coloured strips down the seams to match the saddle- 
 cloths. Each man had a richly embroidered bag 
 swinging on his left side, a brass-scabbarded dagger 
 on his right. Four-foot swords, velvet-covered, 
 hung, points up, from their shoulders. Their silver- 
 banded guns they carried in their hands. They 
 rode entires, crested and rumped like the steeds 
 
 52 
 
' FANTASIA 
 
 53 
 
 that caracole across Velasquez' canvases, with tails 
 that Uterally swept the ground and manes that 
 
 hung a foot below their throats, cascades of rippled 
 hair. 
 
 Grey horses predominated, then blacks, with a 
 springing of browns, chestnuts and creams. Their 
 
54 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 furnishings were gorgeous. They carried heavy, 
 tasselled eye-fringes which fell almost to their 
 nostrils, completely blinding them; tasselled cow- 
 collars, scalloped breastplates from nine inches to a 
 foot deep, saddles with bow and cantle patterned 
 in thread, and saddle-cloths three-foot six across 
 and stretching back over the croups. These were of 
 all colours and loaded with gold or silver bullion. 
 The bits and stirrups were of damascened steel. 
 The reins only were of plain leather. I saw a silver- 
 maned liver-chestnut with deep purple trappings 
 worked with silver, an iron-grey in apple-green and 
 silver, a cream in white studded with turquoises, 
 and a black in crimson and gold. But the pick of 
 the bunch, to my mind, was a kaid they told me was 
 the Basha of Marrakech. He cantered up well in 
 advance of a full squadron, a slender youngish 
 man sitting very straight on a great white stallion 
 with a black mane and tail, and its trappings 
 were of pale blue and silver. For over twenty 
 minutes this cavalcade swept past, a thousand 
 strong, an avalanche of billowing white and flaming 
 colour. 
 
 In the late afternoon of the same day they held 
 a powder-play on the beach. The tribes Hned up, 
 with their kaids in the centre, and at a signal from 
 them, jumped off, cantered fifty yards and then went 
 hell-for-leather, yelled, fired off their guns, twirled 
 them, smoking, above their heads and pulled up all 
 standing. Then they filed back to the starting- 
 point as another party went by, while tattered slaves 
 on humble donkeys trotted up, retrieved dropped 
 stirrups and reloaded the guns for them. For 
 
' FANTASIA ' 55 
 
 hours this continued, tribe after tribe swept down 
 the beach again and again, yelling and blazing, white 
 burnouses streaming, gaudy trappings glowing, 
 scattering the sand — and all this against a back- 
 ground of deep blue sea. Hour after hour till the 
 west flushed red with sunset and the last powder- 
 flask ran out, till the lighthouse of El Hank winked 
 his eye at the new moon, and Jean Jacques, store- 
 clerk, hooked his arm in that of Marie-Rose, milliner, 
 and yawned, " Alors, ma mie, aliens au cinema 
 voir Chariot — hein? " 
 
 As a spectacle of barbaric splendour this powder- 
 play beat anything I have ever seen or am Hkely 
 to, but as a display of horsemanship there was 
 little in it that is not surpassed every morning 
 of the week by an average cavalry regiment at 
 troop drill. 
 
 All the horses had to do was to gallop straight 
 ahead; as for the sudden stop, they had to pull up 
 or leave their jaws behind. 
 
 The bits were more Hke bear-traps than anything 
 else. The lower jaw was crushed into a soHd steel 
 curb ring, which in turn was hinged on a three-inch 
 port. The reins were at the extreme ends of four- 
 inch levers. A bit like that would stop a train. 
 The horses mouthed and fretted at them con- 
 tinually, spattering their gorgeous breast-cloths 
 with foam. The Arab sits high up (the saddles 
 were Hfted on an average of eight thick felt num- 
 nahs) on a red cloth sofa with his knees in his mouth 
 and his feet, toes down, in stirrups shaped like 
 coal-scuttles. If his mount took it into its head 
 to turn off suddenly, goodness knows where he'd 
 
56 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 get to. Though I did see one buck with bloody 
 four-inch spikes strapped to his heels, spurs are 
 not generally used. The inner edges of the stirrups 
 are sharpened and do all the damage required; 
 after half an hour of this " Fantasia " business the 
 animals' flanks were ripped to pieces. 
 
 As for the horses themselves, there were at least 
 five hundred cavaUers on that beach riding the best 
 native stock in the country, and there was hardly 
 a £ioo beast among the lot. From the lady nove- 
 Hst's or circus-man's point of view they were all 
 that could be wished for, docile, muck-fat, rounded 
 Hke pugs, wonderful manes and tails — all that. 
 But to the hard, practical eye, short-reined, steep- 
 shouldered and sickle-hocked. I stated my opinion 
 of them to a well-known French horseman who has 
 dealt in horses all over the world and is now manag- 
 ing one of the largest studs in the country. " Vous 
 avez bien raison," he said. " G'est un cheval en 
 deux pieces " — and snapped his fingers. 
 
 To do the Arab or Barb horse justice, it is his 
 blood that has done more for the modern thorough- 
 bred than any other, but his part-progeny has gone 
 far beyond him now, he is a showy archaism. 
 
 A couple of days after the powder-play I was 
 motoring to Marrakech, and we passed caravan 
 upon caravan of Arabs returning home. The 
 cavalier rode first upon a trippling mule, and after 
 him came camels with tents, women, children and 
 slaves afoot, and miserable little donkeys carrying 
 in their panniers the dazzling saddlery, carefully 
 wrapped in cloths, while in their midst strode the 
 ** Fantasia " stalHon without a string upon him 
 
' FANTASIA ' 57 
 
 except his halter. A French officer in the car 
 beside me waved his hand towards them. " A 
 whole family will starve itself to skin and bone in 
 order to maintain one splendid man and horse," 
 he said. " How's that for pride? " 
 
XII 
 
 CASABLANCA 
 
 Casablanca nights' entertainments are many 
 and varied. There is a circus, a repertoire theatre, 
 several palatial cinemas, a French music-hall, a 
 Spanish music-hall and all sorts of dancing places. 
 The French music-hall was dreary to a degree. 
 Ladies lightly clad in a ribbon and a pair of socks 
 tripped on to the stage and reeled off furlongs of 
 sob-stuff of the " Break the News to Mother " order, 
 while the audience drank Barcelona beer and 
 gloomed. 
 
 A notice pinned on the back-cloth of the Spanish 
 music-hall — " Se prohibe arrojar objetos al escena '* 
 — hinted at possible liveliness, and there was some 
 fair Andalusian dancing, but the night I was present 
 trouble had arisen between France and Spain over 
 the Tangier stickleback fishery, or something similar, 
 and there was a lot of patriotism flying about. 
 
 The Andalusians cut short their dancing, packed 
 the stage wrapped up in Spanish flags, and emitted 
 an interminable anthem. After an hour or so of this, 
 seeing that there was going to be no chucking of 
 " objetos/' that the singers had fairly got their 
 teeth into it, I arose and gat me quietly hence. 
 
 Attracted by the thud of drums and rhythmic 
 stampings, I pushed into a native caf6 at about 
 two o'clock one morning. It was full of Arabs, 
 some in djellabas, some in shoddy European kit — 
 
 58 
 
CASABLANCA 
 
 59 
 
 coast riff-raff. A tousled half-caste, evidently 
 the proprietor and very drunk, shuffled towards me. 
 He spoke perfect English, he informed me, in bad 
 French, having once been to Rotterdam on a cattle 
 boat. 
 
 On a small stage sat four Arab girls, a boy of 
 twelve and a man of fifty. The girls wore short 
 muslin dresses and many bead necklaces ; they patted 
 the drum-heads with their henna- 
 stained fingers — earthenware things, 
 these drums, shaped like gourds. 
 The boy thumped a big tambourine 
 and the man played a fiddle, which 
 he rested on his knee. They all 
 looked bored to tears. 
 
 A woman in a red wrapper swag- 
 gered over, hands on swaying hips, 
 sat down before me and tried to 
 open a conversation in Arabic. She 
 had masses of oily black hair, a 
 face like a hatchet, eloquent eyes 
 and lovely teeth. I have no Arabic, 
 an omission which I much regretted, 
 liked to have talked to that woman, she was one of 
 the wickedest-looking devils I ever saw. As it was 
 she prattled away for a minute or so, but, getting no 
 intelligible answer, shrugged her shoulders, told me 
 what a fool I was (or so I imagine), drank my beer, 
 laughed and swaggered back to her friends. 
 
 A black fellow came in, saw me and crossed over. 
 I recognized the cheerful countenance and eight- 
 inch smile of " Kitchener," a Tangerine from the 
 hotel. " By God, sar ! " said Kitchener, " I show 
 you sometings now, the best what you never see." 
 
 "A tousled 
 half-caste" 
 
 I should have 
 
6o THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 He turned and shouted to the stage for " La Danse 
 de Minuit." 
 
 ** Oui, oui/' hiccupped the proprietor. " Danse 
 de Minuit, se — seguramen — mente." 
 
 A comely girl, with the gold and madder com- 
 plexion of an October peach, knotted two soiled 
 handkerchiefs together, slung the bight round the 
 back of her neck, took an end in each hand and 
 began to dance, slowly at first, then faster and 
 faster, sawing at her neck with the handkerchief, 
 stamping to time with her heels. As the crude 
 music quickened she turned round and roimd, 
 twitching her body from the hips up, while all her 
 bead necklaces bounced and clicked. Then the 
 music ceased abruptly and she sat down. The 
 great Midnight Dance was over. The fiddler put 
 away his instrument and lit a cigarette, the tam- 
 bourine boy nearly yawned his sleepy head off; 
 the Arabs burst into salvos of applause, the pro- 
 prietor nodded his tousled mop and mumbled 
 " Magnifico ! " 
 
 " By God, sar ! " said Kitchener. " What you 
 tink of dat ? By God, I 'specs you never seen some- 
 tings so good." 
 
 I didn't tell him what I " tinked," it might have 
 hurt the good chap, but I knew now why the per- 
 formers looked bored to tears ; I had very nearly 
 wept myself. 
 
 I have witnessed several Arab dances since then, 
 and that is a very fair sample, they are not worth 
 crossing the road to see. 
 
 A character, this boy " Kitchener " of the Excel- 
 sior Hotel. He was servant to K. of K. for a short 
 time, and so took the name as his own. Had 
 
CASABLANCA 6i 
 
 destiny dedicated him to the Church, I presume 
 he would have adopted an even loftier appellation. 
 Feeling inadequately clad in a land where medal 
 ribbons form a substantial part of male attire, 
 and seeing that nobody appeared anxious to fill 
 his lack, " Kitchener " has presented himself with 
 a few decorations of his own invention from time 
 to time, and is now tied up like a chocolate box. 
 It must be a moving ceremony, " Kitchener " 
 decorating himself. I imagine he does it before a 
 mirror. " Well, my man," he says to himself, 
 " it is my duty and privilege to pin upon your heroic 
 bosom (Oh, sorry ! did I prick it ?) this pretty little 
 bit of stuff in recognition of your distinguished 
 conduct on the field of — ahem — er — in recognition 
 of your distinguished conduct. I trust you will 
 ever wear it with honour, and wish you all prosperity. 
 Cheeroh ! " Whereupon " Kitchener " shakes hands 
 with himself, salutes his reflection, turns smartly 
 to the right and dismisses. 
 
 The road from Casablanca to Rabat runs within 
 sight of the sea practically all the way. There is 
 barely a house or a tree beside it. I travelled that 
 road in a public motor 'bus, and should have found 
 it extremely irksome had it not been for the two 
 Englishmen who sat on either side of me. The man 
 on my left was a Manchester traveller. Nineteen 
 years earlier he had ridden into Fez, disguised as a 
 Moor, he told me. He had never been on a horse 
 before and couldn't speak a word of Arabic. He 
 had samples in one saddle-bag and a stork chick 
 in the other. 
 
 " Picked it up in Rabat and took a fancy to the 
 
62 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 little blighter," he said. *' The Moors would have 
 murdered me if they'd found out; storks are sort 
 of sacred here, you know." 
 
 He had sciatica in one leg and the cramping in the 
 car gave him beans ; he cursed and groaned. 
 
 " When I was a nipper an uncle tipped me a 
 sovereign," he went on. ** I spent it in a day-trip 
 to Boulogne, paddle-pusher from Margate. That 
 whetted my appetite for foreign travel. I swore 
 I'd see the world, and I have, all of it; but now, 
 by James, I can't stop ! I was on the point of 
 retiring in 1914 when war broke out, and I had to 
 carry on to release the youngsters. After the war 
 the boom, and the youngsters couldn't handle it. 
 Then came this slump, and the firm said, * Here, 
 for God's sake go out and save what you can, you're 
 the only man who can do it.' And so I go on, and, 
 my soul, ain't I tired of it ! — hotels, trains, hotels, 
 ships, hotels, cars, and hotels again. I've got a home, 
 but I never see it. My own kids hardly know me. 
 Last time I got back my youngest boy ran and told 
 the wife that there was a strange man in the house. 
 Ever heard of the Wandering Jew? Well, here he 
 is — and all through a day-trip to Boo-blooming 
 long." 
 
 The Englishman on my right was an engineer 
 bound for Kinitra. I said I understood that the 
 road we were travelling on was made by German 
 war-prisoners. He said that was so, adding, " Lucky 
 devils ! " I asked him what he meant. " Some- 
 thing to do, keep 'em from brooding," he replied. 
 " I was a prisoner in Ruhleben for over four years 
 and nearly went woolly with boredom. Ruhleben 
 is a race-course, you know, and they penned us up 
 
CASABLANCA 63 
 
 in loose-boxes, six to a box. You try living in a 
 loose-box for four years with five other men, all 
 sorts of men, and all your nerves on edge. Whew ! 
 didn't we love each other ! " 
 
 He laughed. " I had one break, though — did 
 something awful : tried to smuggle a perfectly harm- 
 less letter out and got nipped — place was lousy 
 with spies. Got hauled up before the Commandant 
 and was bawled at as though I'd set the whole dam 
 Deutsches Reich ablaze. Sentenced to a fortnight's 
 solitary confinement in a Berlin fortress. When I 
 got to the fortress, however, one of the warders 
 took me aside. ' Don't worry. We've had word 
 about you from Herr X.,' said he, and winked. 
 * Everything will be all right.' 
 
 " Herr X. was an influential German friend who 
 stuck to me throughout. 
 
 "What do you mean, exactly?' I asked. 
 
 " * No solitary confinement,' said the warder. 
 ' We've got a room with eight other Englishmen in 
 it ; we'll put you along with them.' 
 
 " * Oh no, you won't,' said I. ' Not by a damsite ! 
 I've jolly well earned fourteen days to myself, 
 and I'm jolly well going to have 'em, if I have to 
 appeal to the Commandant.' And I got 'em too." 
 
XIII 
 
 RABAT 
 
 " Rabat " is a corruption of " Ribat el Fath " — 
 " The Camp of Victory," and was founded in the 
 twelfth century by the Almohade sultans to com- 
 memorate their successes in Spain. It is now the 
 seat of the French administration. The present 
 Sultan of Morocco, Moulay Yousef , also has a palace 
 there, but he is the merest marionette, animated 
 only when the Governor-General pulls the strings. 
 
 Rabat is a flashing white town inside red walls, 
 with the boom of the surf in its ears and the sea- 
 wind shaking its orange grooves. The soldier in 
 Abd El Moumene Ben Ali, who planned the town, is 
 everywhere evident, for it is laid out with the 
 regularity of a camp, on the block system, its streets 
 running straight and intersecting at right angles. 
 Whilst the twists and turns of the Tangerine alleys 
 would buckle a corkscrew, and those of Fez make a 
 homing pigeon lie down and weep, the simple 
 stranger in Rabat may consign all guides to blazes 
 and possess his own soul once again. 
 
 I salute the memory of the martial Abd El 
 Etcetera ! Not that I am for a universal gridiron 
 system, far from it. 
 
 American towns laid out by efficiency experts, 
 trees extended at ten paces and dressed by the right, 
 every address a mathematical problem and every 
 surprise a foregone conclusion, are fit only for 
 
 64 
 
RABAT 
 
 65 
 
 efficiency experts. The Straight Road, if safe, is 
 notoriously dull. Romance waits always up the 
 mysterious by-ways, up the little dark cul-de-sacs 
 that lead nowhere — and everywhere : Romance 
 bright-eyed, cherry-lipped, with a dagger in her 
 stocking. Still Rabat was a change, and most 
 changes are for the best. 
 
 I put up at a 
 hotel in the Boule- 
 vard El Alou, com- 
 manding a cheerful 
 view of a vast native 
 cemetery and a jail. 
 The post-office is 
 also on the Boule- 
 vard El Alou, and 
 is remarkable for 
 nothing but that I 
 was in there, buying 
 stamps one after- 
 noon, when an old 
 Arab beggar with no 
 eyes at all was led 
 in by a small boy. 
 The French girl who was serving me took three 
 pennies haphazard out of a drawer and handed 
 them to him one by one. The old man felt the coins 
 between his finger and thumb, and without hesitation 
 described each one correctly, date and superscrip- 
 tion, which I thought most extraordinary, seeing 
 that the pennies were so worn down that one could 
 barely decipher them with a perfectly sound pair 
 of eyes. 
 
 At the south end of this Boulevard are the offices 
 
 Spahi 
 
66 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 of the Region Civile, a white building draped with 
 heavy festoons of magenta bougainvillaea and 
 fronted by a bank of pink geraniums. As though 
 this were not enough colour to be getting on with, 
 there was invariably an officer of the Chasseurs 
 d'Afrique swaggering about outside in his high fez 
 and vivid scarlet cloak, and a trooper or two of 
 Algerian Spahis in snowy head-dresses, short red 
 timics and baggy blue pants. 
 
 At the Boulevard's northern end is the Medersa, 
 or old Islamic college, a walled fortress of a place 
 which now encloses a public garden. Its walls are 
 pierced for cannon, and several ancient pieces still 
 sit on their mouldering wooden carriages and grin 
 vacantly seawards. They hail from many countries, 
 these cannon, and were doubtless taken from prizes 
 captured when Sadie over the river discovered piracy 
 to be the best paying policy. Four twelve-pounders 
 were engraved with the English royal arms and were 
 cast by I. and H. King in 1807. 
 
 Others, cannon-royal and demi-cannon, • bore 
 Dutch, Italian and Spanish arnis, also the names and 
 titles of the people for whom they were struck, 
 such as " DON IVAN CARLOS, GAPPn Gl DE LA 
 ARAMDA NAVAL DE FLANDRE. ANNO 1638 " 
 and " DON PAGHECO, Gd CAPTTAN GENERALE 
 DE LA ARTILLERIA. 1614." 
 
 In almost every embrasure of the Medersa walls 
 the sacred storks have built their nests. As the 
 spirit moves them they spread their black wings 
 and circle in the blue air or pose on the dog-toothed 
 towers and flap their bills, producing a noise like 
 that of the bird-scarers' rattles heard in EngHsh 
 cornfields. Beyond the Medersa, overlooking the 
 
RABAT 67 
 
 river-mouth and the sea, is the Kasba des 
 Ouadaia. 
 
 At the foot of the diff is the bar on which the big 
 green rollers break perpetually, tawny-stained with 
 sand. Small boats can cross the bar and tie up to 
 wharves in the river, but large vessels must anchor 
 outside and employ lighters. One morning I 
 watched these lighters rowing home from a rust- 
 coloured tramp steamer anchored about a mile out. 
 A scrubby little tug towed them within a cable's 
 length of the surf and then cast off. The lighter- 
 men ran out sweeps and brought the clumsy craft 
 wallowing through. They rolled by a biscuit-toss 
 beneath me, fifteen rowers to a boat, pulling one 
 stroke sitting, the next standing up. Below me, 
 also, red geraniums flared in crevices of the cliff, 
 mingled with silver-grey cacti and prickly pear with 
 flowers, like yellow shaving-brushes, growing out of 
 their fleshy leaves. A slave girl stood knee-deep 
 in a jade sea-pool, washing raw wool, silver bangles 
 shining on her wet black arms, and two Arabs, one 
 in a djellaba of dingy salmon, the other in faded 
 saffron, sat fishing side by side on a fantastic rock, 
 the green and tawny rollers smashing to glory at 
 their feet. 
 
 Colour, colour everywhere to thrill and baffle 
 one ! The architectural lion of Rabat is the Tower 
 of Hassane, a red pile built on a height above the 
 marshes to the north-east of the town. It is one 
 of three famous sisters, the Kontoubia minaret at 
 Marrakech and the Giralda at Seville making up the 
 trio. They were all designed by one Djeber or 
 Jabir, an Andalusian Morisco, and erected at the 
 end of the twelfth century at the instance of the 
 
68 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 mighty Almohades. The Tower of Hassane stands one 
 hundred and forty-three feet high, massive and alone, 
 the mosque that was once attached to it having been 
 razed to the ground. The ascent is made up of a 
 series of gently inclined planes; it would be per- 
 fectly easy to ride a horse to the top. I climbed the 
 tower one evening to watch the sun set over Rabat. 
 The tide was out and the river looped down to the 
 sea, a ribbon of pale glass, the uncovered mud-banks 
 taking on delicate tones of pearl-grey and violet. 
 
 But it was the white town that caught one's 
 breath. Stone will grow beautiful with time, take 
 on a mellow, unchanging beauty ; brick is brick come 
 storm come shine, but whitewash is a clean canvas 
 keenly susceptible to every passing flick of sunshine 
 or splash of shadow. 
 
 Under the red-gold blaze of sunset the town took 
 fire. The white houses flushed rose and orange, 
 here and there a tile twinkled, a window flamed. 
 The sun dropped lower, shadows crept up the walls 
 like a purple tide, up and up till at length the light 
 lay only in strips along the parapets — a town outlined 
 in gold. 
 
XIV 
 
 Rabat is bounded on the north by the river 
 Bou Regreg, and on the opposite bank is the Httle 
 town of Sale, the home of the notorious " Sallee 
 Rovers," whose crimes and cruelties to " poor 
 English sailors " were the subject of many a ballad- 
 singer's broad-sheet. 
 
 In the Middle Ages Sale did a considerable trade 
 with the Genoese, Venetians, Dutch and EngUsh 
 in skins, wool, carpets, ivory and honey. In 1627 
 it cut its teeth, rebelled successfully against the 
 Saadian dynasty, and absorbing Rabat, constituted 
 " The Republic of Both Banks." Early in the same 
 century, seeing that the men-o'-war of the Christian 
 nations were hotly engaged one against the other, 
 and reaUzing that when two dogs fight it is the third 
 dog that snatches the bone, the Sallateens put to 
 sea and preyed wholesale upon the belligerents' 
 merchantmen. 
 
 Though their activities are not to be compared 
 with those of the Algerine corsairs (who thought 
 nothing of cutting out a ship inside the Eddystone, 
 and in 1638 raided Iceland and bore eight hundred 
 prisoners to slavery in Algiers), the " Sallee Rover " 
 became a byword with English ship-men in that, 
 while the Algerine attended mainly to the Mediter- 
 ranean, the Sallateens ranged the Atlantic sea-board 
 from the Canaries to Ireland. 
 
 69 
 
70 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 A man may not become a shellback at will. The 
 Moors themselves had no sea knowledge, but they 
 could fight hke wild cats, tooth and claw fashion. 
 What they wanted was men who could build them 
 suitable ships and lay them alongside prizes — they 
 would do the rest. 
 
 They did not want long. Thief had turned 
 
 A Sallee Rover" 
 
 catcher. The buccaneer Morgan had been made 
 Sir Henry and Governor of Jamaica, and as such 
 persecuted his former companions with such fury 
 that the Spanish Main was no longer a fit place for 
 a poor pirate. They had to get out or dance at 
 the yard-arm. To go home also meant treading 
 a gallow's measure, so they went " downe to the 
 coasts of Barbaric," and found a hearty welcome. 
 There they met with seamen who had murdered 
 
SALE 71 
 
 their officers, dockyard carpenters who had knifed 
 their mates in brawls, smugglers with prices on their 
 heads, scuttlers and barrateers; the North African 
 ports were asylums for the salt rogues of Europe. 
 Father Pierre Dan, the Redemptionist, records that 
 in 1634 there were eight thousand of these gentry 
 in Algiers city alone, while of the thirty-five pirate 
 galUots sailing out of that port, no less than twenty- 
 four were commanded by renegades. The " mala 
 casta " (hard case) swarmed in Sal6 also. They had 
 their taverns in the town, a fair share of plunder 
 and all the women they wanted. It was a snug berth, 
 not quite as luxurious as the old Main havens — 
 Av6s, Tortuga, San Domingo — but, seeing the way 
 the wind had set, better holding-ground. 
 
 Batteries commanded the river-mouth, there was 
 a bar to slip over in case matters got too warm out- 
 side, and plenty of back-country if an attack were 
 pressed home. Some of these " renegades " became 
 " reis " or corsair captains, others rose to high rank 
 in the army and State. The majority were Latins, 
 but Great Britain was represented. 
 
 In 1727 " one Garr " wels Kaid of the Jews and 
 head of the arsenal. In 1780 " Omar," a Scot, 
 commanded an xebec of sixteen guns, and an Exeter 
 butcher became, appropriately, Gourt executioner. 
 
 These xebecs operated in small fleets of four or 
 five. They were rigged with square sails on the 
 mainmast, lateens on the fore and mizzen. They 
 mounted from twelve to twenty-four guns, and 
 carried crews of from one hundred and twenty to 
 two hundred, all fighting men. 
 
 A Hghtning raid on some unsuspecting coast town 
 was their mark, or the capture of a slow, poorly- 
 
72 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 armed merchantman, on which they would fall like 
 a pack of wolves and carry by sheer weight of 
 boarders, uttering a war-cry which an old chronicler 
 describes as " appalling." 
 
 Did some hard-hitting man-o'-war heave in sight 
 they showed their well-tallowed heels (they were 
 excellent ship-husbands), if necessary running out 
 sweeps and pulling for it. They sought plunder 
 rather than glory. 
 
 After a successful foray they would come home 
 over the bar into the Bou Regreg, flags flying, drums 
 banging, while the men ashore cheered and danced 
 and the women shrieked their " zahrits " (joy-cries). 
 A scrupulous division of all spoils was made, one- 
 fifth going to the Government, one-half of the 
 remainder going to the owners and the reis, the other 
 half to the crew. Then there would be merry nights 
 and days in old Sale. 
 
 One can picture some such night in a " renegado " 
 tavern. The olive-lamp light waving over dingy 
 walls, scrawled with crude drawings of ships under 
 top-gallants and scraps of bawdy doggerel. The 
 tavern full of Rovers, just in from sea, pranked out 
 in plundered finery, hailing each other in husky 
 lingua-f ranca ; and old "haul-bowline," who had 
 seen the sack of Porto Bello and Panama, sprawling 
 over a bench, rasping an anchor chantey and 
 banging his pot for more rum, gold doubloons in his 
 leather ears, pigtail seized with tarred spun-yam. 
 A pair of Spanish gunners, wanted for mutiny in the 
 Armada Real, boast of their marksmanship. In the 
 comer a Portuguese deserter from the garrison at 
 Mazagan dices for loot with the ex-mate of a Guinea 
 " blackbirder," a Genoese bo'sun and two French 
 
/ 
 
 SALE 73 
 
 convicts. While all about in the Arab houses great 
 feeds of couscous are in progress, dancing and high 
 nasal singing; drums throb, ouds and gounibris 
 twang and tinkle. SaM en fete, for the Rovers are 
 home again and the horns are running over. El 
 Hamdoulillah ! 
 
 Christian prisoners formed a valuable part of the 
 booty. After the Government had taken its pick 
 the rest were driven to the slave-market, pinched, 
 prodded, trotted up and down and sold by auction, 
 like cattle. The prettiest women went to the harems, 
 the uglier to housework. Men were bastinadoed 
 until they confessed their circumstances. If people 
 of consequence they were held for ransom and tor- 
 tured to speed its payment. If humble they became 
 mere beasts of burden. When the Sallateens broke 
 into the pirate business oars were going out and there 
 was no longer a demand for galley slaves, so in Sale 
 prisoners stopped ashore, rigged ships or toiled in 
 the salt-pans and limestone quarries. At night they 
 were lowered into damp and verminous " mata- 
 moras," or dungeons, eighteen feet underground. 
 Their food was black barley-meal and oil — and 
 precious httle of that. Did they offend they were 
 bastinadoed, dragged head downwards at a mule's 
 tail, burnt, crucified, hung on hooks, or sawn in half. 
 Pellow of Penryn, who spent some twenty odd years 
 a prisoner in and about Sal6, in the early eighteenth 
 century, says that they often stamped a live slave 
 into the mortar of a wall — " to larn him." In the 
 reign of Muley Ismail (1673-1727) there were 25,000 
 Christian captives in Meguinez alone, the majority 
 taken by the Rovers. This happy state of affairs 
 continued into the nineteenth century — ^no less ! 
 
74 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 In the case of well-to-do captives their families 
 usually beggared themselves and ransomed them. 
 Poor men were sometimes bought out by charities 
 or subscriptions raised in Christian countries by the 
 Redemptionist Fathers, but more often they died in 
 bondage. Now and again a Government put its 
 hand in its pocket. 
 
 In 172 1 Commodore Stewart was sent on a mission 
 to Morocco and obtained the release of two hundred 
 and ninety-six British prisoners. The proud and 
 puissant European Powers then conceived the digni- 
 fied notion of buying off this handful of yellow 
 cut-throats. The Moors accepted the bribes with 
 alacrity, but, Uke Lord Bacon, were not influenced by 
 them. They went on taking ships and prisoners as 
 merrily as ever. From time to time when the Great 
 Powers thought of it, or had powder to spare, they 
 bombarded Sale. But the Sallateens apparently 
 didn't mind very much, for they always bobbed up 
 again. 
 
 In 1629 RicheHeu sent the Chevalier de Razilly 
 with seven vessels, but they got blown off the coast 
 by bad weather. In 1635 the English had a cut at 
 it, with no better results. In 1680 Chateau Renaud 
 was despatched by Louis XIV. with six ships. He 
 was successful in that he destroyed several corsairs 
 and got a treaty out of the Sallateens. 
 
 In 1765 the French had to go again, and after a 
 two days' bombardment were rewarded with another 
 scrap of paper. 
 
 In 185 1 two of their grain ships were pillaged and 
 they had to make yet a further demonstration. 
 These were fleet actions, but the most doughty blows 
 were dealt the pirates by single ships commanded by 
 
SALE 75 
 
 gentlemen who seem to have got their nationalities 
 mixed. The first, a Tuscan frigate, had a captain 
 of the name of Acton, while the skipper of the second, 
 a British sixth-rate, was called Delgarno. Be that 
 as it may, there was nothing mixed about the recep- 
 tion they gave the corsairs. The Tuscan sank three- 
 fifths of their fleet single-handed, and the English- 
 man harried their town so constantly that the mere 
 sight of his topsails sent all hands scuttling into the 
 country, and Sallateen mothers used him as a bogey 
 to frighten their rebellious children, very much as the 
 gentle Georgian matrons would scare the daylights 
 out of their offspring with threats of " Boney." 
 
 This Captain Delgarno appears to have hated the 
 place. I imagine that whenever his breakfast dis- 
 agreed with him or his liver was troublesome, he 
 worked his feelings off on Sale — stood in for the bar, 
 plugged the shipping with his chasers, knocked a tile 
 or two off the town with a broadside, and filled away 
 again wreathed in smiles. Apart from the actions of 
 these lone stalwarts and the half-hearted bombard- 
 ments aforementioned, it was not until 1803 that a 
 first-class Power took the matter in hand in earnest, 
 and that power was the United States. Like every- 
 body else they had been paying futile blackmail for 
 years, but in 1803, annoyed by the cutting out of the 
 Boston brig Celia by a Moroccan pirate, they stopped 
 payment and, having a fleet free, sent it east and 
 gave the bold corsairs such a drubbing that they 
 howled for mercy. Other Powers followed the lead, 
 withdrew their subsidies and exchanged shell for 
 shot. Lord Exmouth's action in 1816 crippled 
 them, and the French gave the coup de grace when, 
 in 1830, they occupied Algiers. 
 
76 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 There have been many ugly incidents since. Ship- 
 wrecked crews have spent years in mountain kashas ; 
 wind-jammers becalmed too close inshore have been 
 boarded and pillaged. In the year of Our Lord 192 1, 
 at least two vessels were taken off Spanish Morocco 
 and their people held to ransom — the old ramp dies 
 hard. But the United States action in 1803 signed 
 the death-warrant of Barbary piracy on the grand 
 scale. 
 
 In Sale now, the great days over, they weave mats 
 — mats ! I wandered about its sleepy alleys for hours 
 without discovering any other industry — but there 
 were any amount of mat factories. These for the 
 most part were long rooms open to the street. The 
 workers squatted cross-legged on a string frame 
 raised about six inches from the ground and wove 
 their way forwards. Most of the work in each of 
 these factories seemed to be done by a multitude 
 of babies under the direction of a single man ; nut- 
 brown babies with shaven polls, in pink and yellow 
 djellabas. They sat up and grinned at me merry- 
 eyed, their mouths full of coloured reeds, which gave 
 them the appearance of long- whiskered kittens. 
 Saucy little grigs ! — I had half a mind to threaten 
 them with Delgarno. 
 
 I found a little cafe close to the Haja Gate, with 
 tables set out under a tent of flowering wistaria 
 and convolvulus. I sat down at one of them and 
 ordered a vermouth cassis. The old French patron 
 with a bottle-nose (token of his trade) brought the 
 drink and took a seat beside me. He asked me if I 
 knew anything of this Einstein who was upsetting 
 everything, according to the papers. Did I think 
 
salA 
 
 17 
 
 his upheavals would have a depressing effect on 
 trade? I thought not. He shook his grey head 
 doubtfully. You could never trust these Boches — 
 " Sales cochons ! " Silence. Nothing to be heard 
 but an artiller5mian whispering to his lass behind the 
 creepers and a green parrot clawing at its bars. 
 
 " It's very quiet here/' I remarked. 
 
 The patron came out of his thoughts and nodded. 
 
 " Oui, id c'est Men tranquil — toujour s." Shades 
 of the old Rovers ! 
 
 THE SALLEE ROVERS 
 
 Captain Tobias Boone (Renegade) Sings 
 
 I 
 
 " Oh, we went a-sailing, a-sailing from Sallee, 
 Three as pretty picaroons as ever put to sea ; 
 Greased from stem to starnpost, swift as fallow deer, 
 Stored with good provision and all the best of gear; 
 Furnished well with carronades, with powder, ball and 
 
 case. 
 A score of lusty infidels to haul on every brace. 
 When the hookers thrash to windward on a wet stern 
 chase. 
 
 List ye well. 
 
 My Johnny Bowlegs, 
 List ye well ! 
 
 II 
 
 "As we went a-sailing, a-sailing to the north. 
 
 We spied a fleet of fishermen from Tagus putting forth. 
 
 We stole their luff and rounded them and herded them like 
 
 goats. 
 We took the younkers prisoner and cut the ancients' 
 
 throats. 
 From Lisbon came a fighting ship of full a thousand tons, 
 But I have got a motto, ' When I cannot win I runs.' 
 So we ran and left him banging off his long bow guns. 
 List ye well. 
 
 My Bully Rovers, 
 List ye well 1 
 
78 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 III 
 
 " Oh, as we were a-cruising before Corunna's port, 
 
 There came an Indies gaUiasse and ran our hawse athwart. 
 
 We phed our pieces manfully, and brought his sprit-sail 
 
 low, 
 We shot away his rudder-head, his mizzen-mast also. 
 We boarded him with pike and axe as helplessly he rolled, 
 And plundered all his goodly freight, a wonder to behold. 
 The sugar, dyes and ^Iver and the raw red gold. 
 List ye well. 
 
 My Haul-a-Bowlines, 
 List ye well ! 
 
 IV 
 
 " Oh, as we went a-coasting along the Biscay strand, 
 
 We saw a cosy township lying sweetly to our hand. 
 
 We waited till the night was down and all the lights were 
 
 out. 
 Then landed with the pinnaces and ringed the place about. 
 Oh, sorely groaned the Frenchmen to see our heathen folk. 
 Bitterly wept the ladies that to slavery awoke. 
 But we got them under hatches as the grey dawn broke. 
 List ye well. 
 
 My Tar and Oakums, 
 List ye well ! 
 
 " And now we're sailing homewards for the coasts of Barbaric, 
 Three as jolly picaroons as ever came from sea. 
 With treasure in the cabins and plenty goods besides. 
 With hewers for the quarries and wenches for the kaids. 
 Then I will walk my garden where orange blossoms blow, 
 And tease my little Arab girls and chase them to and fro, 
 And swallow rum in taverns till the red cocks crow. 
 Fare ye well, 
 
 My Salt Sea Gipsies, 
 Fare ye well ! " 
 
XV 
 
 THE ROAD TO FEZ 
 
 There is a railway running the one hundred and 
 forty-five kilometres from Rabat to Fez, and friends 
 strongly advised me to take it — if I were out for 
 sensation and enjoyed having my neck broken every 
 ten miles or so. Otherwise, if speed and safety 
 were an object, they recommended walking. 
 
 The trains are composed of broad trucks running 
 on a metre-gauge which makes it exceedingly 
 difficult for them to keep their balance. In fact, 
 if they turned a comer too sharply or did anything 
 to startle them — bang ! the whole lot fell over 
 sideways. My friend told me he had seen seven 
 carriages fall on their beam-ends because a Ford 
 popped a tyre close at hand. 
 
 As for their speed, on the flat they made a good 
 showing, given favourable circumstances. It is on 
 record that a train careered from Sidi Yahia to Dar 
 Bel Amri in 45 hours, 16 minutes and 6 seconds, 
 but that was before a strong westerly gale with all 
 the passengers on the roofs spreading their bur- 
 nouses to it. A Berber, who passed it en route, 
 said that for a few furlongs outside Drib it held 
 his donkey neck and neck ; he had to use the stick. 
 Uphill the train's velocity depends on how strong 
 its passengers feel. 
 
 The record for hill-climbing is held by the Rabat- 
 Casablanca ** Comet." On the occasion this was 
 
 79 
 
8o THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 established it was conveying the Mazagan Rugby 
 football team. These stalwarts scrummed down 
 behind the train and hove it over the humps in a 
 twinkling. But it is steaming downhill that the 
 Moroccan express is seen at its best. Woe betide 
 the camel calf or donkey foal that lies drowsing 
 across the track when a Rapide is hurtling down a 
 45° grade, throttle wide open and all the brakes 
 broken — it'll get a nasty push. 
 
 Dizzy with its own unwonted speed the train 
 usually misses the rails altogether at the bottom 
 and lies panting on its back until the survivors 
 come to their senses, bury the dead and lift it back 
 on its legs again. This is my friend's description 
 of railroading in Morocco, but, with all due respect, 
 I think it must be the least bit exaggerated, for I 
 saw a Tangerine dragoman of my acquaintance 
 boarding a train at Casablanca, and a week later I 
 saw him in Marrakech, two hundred and thirty- 
 eight kilometres distant, and, except for a few cuts 
 about the jaw (which may have been inflicted by a 
 safety razor) he appeared perfectly whole. 
 
 Nevertheless I did not take the railway to Fez, 
 nor did I walk, having had all the foot-work I 
 require with the cavalry in France. I went by 
 touring car. We left the El Alou Gate in Rabat 
 at seven in the morning, ten of us crushed into a 
 car built to seat seven uncomfortably. The driver 
 and two Sapper officers sat in the front pew ; a big 
 Algerian native, a Lisbon oil merchant and a Spanish 
 settler in the second; a Dutchman, a Marseilles 
 danseuse and myself in the third. Our luggage was 
 piled into the hood, strapped on behind, along the 
 running boards and mud-guards. A perambulator 
 
THE ROAD TO FEZ 
 
 8i 
 
 was lashed across the bonnet and an Arab urchin 
 sat on the tool-box, clinging to the Stepneys. 
 
 " If this vehicle gets as far as Mequinez without 
 breaking every spring in its body," said I to myself, 
 " 111 not only eat my own hat but everyone else's." 
 
 When the car reached Mequinez, and later Fez, 
 with not even a puncture, I was glad that it was to 
 myself I had made this offer. The Portuguese's 
 
 On the road 
 
 straw boater I might have managed, given time and 
 Worcester sauce, but the lady's black velvet toque, 
 ribbon streamers and papier-mache cherries would 
 have been sticky work. 
 
 Our road ran out into the marshes below the 
 Hassane Tower, crossed the Bou Regreg, doubled 
 back into Sale and turned east along the " Trik es 
 Soltane," the old imperial highway. Then for 
 some fifteen miles we switchbacked through the 
 southern fringes of the Forest of Marmora, a sombre 
 forest of scrub and small cork trees with dingy 
 
82 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 leaves and smutty stems. Now and again one 
 glimpsed the smoking kilns of charcoal-burners, and 
 once a couple of Berber kaids cantering down a 
 glade. Both rode grey horses and carried carbines, 
 while a trio of white greyhounds feathered the bushes 
 in front of them, nosing for wild pig. 
 
 Admitting that a long-dog is usually a coward 
 and a fool, is there anything much more beautiful 
 than one in action? — a long-dog laid down to it, 
 driving for blood like a bullet, splitting the air with 
 his snake head. His gallop is a ripple, his spring 
 a bird-skim, a drift on wings invisible. They gave 
 me a thrill, those white things, swinging through 
 the dark forest as silently as some ghostly hunt, 
 with the bars of sunshine flickering over them. 
 
 The cork trees changed to tufts of palmetto grass 
 and rolling prairie land. Here and there was a 
 cluster of fiat black tents, the encampment of nomadic 
 Berber graziers, with a flock of sheep and goats 
 browsing close at hand, a long-tailed mare or two 
 limping at their hobbles, and some camels with 
 woolly calves at heel. The Hollander hkened the 
 calves to something you got at a toy-shop when 
 young, with a red flannel tongue and a squeaker in 
 its tummy. He spoke colloquial English with a 
 strong accent, this man, a piquant combination. 
 In spite of the early start he had shaved that morn- 
 ing, which was not the case with the others. I 
 took to him instinctively. He explained that he 
 had just retired from the Dutch army and was out 
 to see the world. 
 
 " Been bottled up in Holland dese lasd vive years 
 vile you schaps blayed hell all around," said he; 
 " a rodden business ! " 
 
THE ROAD TO FEZ 83 
 
 " Sorry if we disturbed you," said I. " But your 
 folk made a tidy pile out of us anyhow." 
 
 He nodded. " Perhabs — bud I vas speaging 
 personally. You see I have been addatched to all 
 sords of regiments on peace-time manoeuvres : 
 Cossacks off de Guard, * Toden Kopf,' French 
 Cuirasseurs and your ' Greys.' I had dam goot 
 pals in all of zem, straight-riding, merry vellows — 
 zo whoever von I losd vriends." 
 
 " A very perfect neutral," I remarked. 
 
 " By no means. Id vould have brogen my heart 
 iv England had gone under." 
 
 "Why? " 
 
 "Vhy? Vhy begos iv she had, vhere de devil 
 vould I ged my vox-hunting? — eh? " 
 
 The little Marseillaise asked us if we knew any- 
 thing of Mequinez, which we did not. 
 
 She sighed. She was afraid it was " pas chic." 
 Anyhow her contract was only for a month; a 
 month wasn't much in a lifetime, and at all events 
 it was something new. Where was she going from 
 Mequinez ? To Fez for two months, and after that 
 right through to Tlemcen and Algiers. That done, 
 home to Notre Dame de la Garde ? Not likely ! 
 She was engaged to a chemist at La Madrague — 
 " un gargon tres comme il faut, mais fort serieux, 
 voyez vous." If she went home she'd have to 
 marry him and settle down to unspeakable dull- 
 ness. Marriage was well enough when one was 
 getting on — a haven for the battered, as it were — 
 but while one was young and had one's looks, " il 
 faut voyager. G'est tellement interessant faire les 
 voyages, n'cest pas? On rencontre toujours les si 
 droles de gens." 
 
84 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 The Dutchman and I bowed. 
 
 No, after Algiers, Saigon in Cochin China; she 
 had the contract in her bag. Saigon finished, it 
 wasn't such a step to Shanghai, was it ? Shanghai 
 was most chic, she heard. " The Paris of the 
 East." A friend of hers, a soubrette from Lyons, 
 already getting heavy, had had many successes in 
 Shanghai. When she'd danced her way round the 
 world she'd think about making la soupe in Mad- 
 rague — time enough then. She yawned. She'd 
 been tangoing with a very chic lieutenant of Spahis 
 until three o'clock that morning, she explained, 
 and was dead sleepy — " Ai-Aie ! " Without another 
 word she laid her velvet toque on my shoulder and 
 closed her eyes, but after a ten-minutes trial I proved 
 too lean, so she transferred to the Dutchman, who 
 was comfortably padded and filled all requirements. 
 
 From the expression on his face I gathered he was 
 suffering agonies of tickling from the ribbons and 
 cherries, but he bore it like a hero. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE ROAD TO FEZ 
 
 The road from Rabat to Mequinez was not 
 crowded. We passed a few three-ton lorries grinding 
 cheerfully along under ten-ton burdens topped by 
 swarms of travelling Arabs ; and a couple of Ford 
 cars speeding for the coast with at least seven 
 passengers each, plus baggage. Otherwise we met 
 never a soul. 
 
 Beyond Tifiet the hills began. The dreary 
 palmetto flats with their funereal nomad tents 
 changed to flowery undulations, and there was some 
 attempt at agriculture. Prickly pear hedges 
 appeared at intervals, enclosing barley plots and 
 fig trees. 
 
 Berbers dotted the hillside, scratching the soil 
 with shoe-shaped wooden ploughs, their team an 
 ash-coloured ox and a skinny horse pulling at a 
 yoke-bar hitched under their bellies. 
 
 Once I saw a donkey and a woman harnessed 
 side by side. 
 
 We drew up at a wayside hostelry for lunch. 
 It was a single-storied building built of sun-dried 
 brick with an iron roof. The bedrooms were at 
 one side, a row of matchboard bathing boxes opening 
 directly on to the high-road. The main building 
 was divided into two compartments, a combined 
 store and cafe and a salle-a-manger sparsely 
 furnished with trestle tables and wooden benches. 
 
 ^5 
 
86 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 A little woman with tendrils of damp hair hanging 
 over her eyes came charging out of the kitchen and 
 thrust a plate of greasy soup into my hand. I 
 bore it outside under the cane verandah, where I 
 found the Dutchman feeding his ration to a spotted 
 dog. The next course was weather-beaten ham. 
 We sawed at this, but our knives skidded over it 
 like blunt skates on hard ice. The Dutchman said 
 he did not think it was meant to be cut. He 
 thought guests were supposed to strop their cutlery 
 on it in preparation for the next course and then 
 hand it back. There was a pig prospecting among 
 the derelict bones and tins behind the hotel, a 
 hirsute beast with the longest nose I ever saw 
 outside Jewhannesburg — I think a tapir must 
 have married into his family at some time. 
 
 'The Dutchman named him " Cyrano." I was a 
 bit diffident at first about offering Cyrano a slice 
 of what might conceivably be his own aunt, but 
 the Dutchman had no such scruples. The only 
 thing a pig absolutely drew the line at had not yet 
 been discovered, he declared, it would be only too 
 delighted. And it was. 
 
 It gathered our contributions to its bosom with 
 one gulp and grunted for more. The spotty dog, 
 bringing with him a melancholy friend, returned 
 in time to receive the next course, which was 
 alleged to be veal, but if so the calf that 3delded it 
 must have been very old for its age. To swell the 
 crowd of mendicants came a bedraggled cock with 
 his harem. 
 
 What with one thing and another we weren't 
 getting much nourishment ourselves, so we bought 
 some sardines, biscuits and tomatoes at the store 
 
THE ROAD TO FEZ 
 
 87 
 
 and made a meal of them, which the Marseillaise 
 shared — in the intervals of powdering her nose. 
 
 In the intervals of powdering her nose " 
 
 She hoped we would stop at Mequinez and dance 
 with her, she said. It would create a good impres- 
 sion with the patron if she produced her own 
 
88 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 clientde. How a girl was expected to keep her 
 complexion in this climate she was sure she didn't 
 know. No wonder the Fatimas wore curtains. 
 She gave Cyrano a pearl-powdered tomato and 
 asked him how he kept his tail so curly. The 
 little damp waitress came out and collected eight 
 francs apiece from us for the meal her menagerie 
 had eaten. We were from Rabat? Yes? Well, 
 had we seen anything of her husband, a Marechal 
 des Logis? He had gone in a week previously on 
 a criminal case which should only have taken three 
 days and was not yet back. She doubted his 
 fidelity. Had we seen anything of him? A big 
 man with black moustaches, a bit free with his 
 eyes — the dog ! 
 
 We denied all knowledge of the gallant Marechal. 
 The little woman flung a pebble at Cyrano and hit 
 the cock. 
 
 " Tchut ! Veux tu t'en aller, monstre ! " . . . 
 One could hardly keep that pig out of the house; 
 it would be expecting a bed next ! Well, if her 
 husband didn't return soon she'd go down to Rabat 
 herself and tow him home by his black moustaches, 
 she would indeed, criminal case or no ! She 
 detested Morocco, loathed it ! She was Bordellaise 
 from Talence, and had had some very good offers, 
 but . . . the Marechal had come along with those 
 eyes of his and told her stories. And now she 
 supposed she was here for life, driven crazy with 
 flies and pigs and Arabs. Oh, la la ! 
 
 She turned fiercely on the dancer : " Retournez 
 dans le beau pays de France, ma p'tite — quand 
 vous pouvez I " and ran back into the cafe damper 
 than ever. 
 
THE ROAD TO FEZ 89 
 
 The driver played upon his horn and we flitted 
 back into the car again. The hills had grown into 
 young mountains through which the fine military 
 road writhed like a tormented snake. The sturdy 
 car droned up the grades, steam hissing from its 
 radiator, and boomed down them with the bit in 
 its teeth, taking the ferocious curves with two 
 wheels on the track and two pawing thin air, the 
 driver arguing hotly with an officer the while on 
 the Spanish situation at Melilla. 
 
 Much as I have always admired the Frenchman's 
 trick of assisting his conversation with both hands, 
 there are times when I think they might be better 
 employed, and one of them is when he is at the 
 wheel of a runaway car plunging over a precipice 
 at forty miles an hour. However, no harm came 
 of it, though my hair was so constantly standing 
 on end it got set in that position, giving me a 
 disagreeably Teutonic appearance which took a 
 week and two bottles of hair- wash to cure. But 
 the scenery was worth the thrills. There were 
 flowers everywhere. The mountains were great 
 mounds of flowers. They did not mingle as they 
 do out West, covering the prairies with one huge 
 Turkish carpet, but grew in clusters of a kind, 
 clusters sometimes an acre in extent, draping the 
 slopes with a brilliant patchwork quilt, red, yellow, 
 white, blue and gold. I caught one glimpse down 
 a side valley, a flash of ineffable beauty. 
 
 A small stream curled round the feet of inter- 
 locking spurs, and each spur was a different colour. 
 The first was yellow with marguerites, the second 
 poppy-scarlet, the third a blaze of orange mari- 
 golds — whole hillsides aflame with wild colour 
 
90 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 sheer to the skyHne. The flats beyond were flooded 
 with sheets of purple viper's bugloss, and in the 
 background the naked red bastions of the Gibel 
 Zehoun soared into the blue. 
 
 Just a flash as the car swung round a curve and 
 it was gone. I looked for that radiant valley on 
 the return journey, but the sky was spitting and 
 leaden and the glow out of it all. " Earth's briefest 
 moment is unique " — but I had my moment. 
 
 A few kilometres outside Mequinez we were 
 flagged by a couple of wayfaring Moors. Some 
 talk ensued and we went on again. It turned out 
 they wanted a lift into town, and nothing but that 
 they offered one franc apiece while he demanded 
 five deterred the driver from taking them aboard 
 as well, but where he intended to stow them passes 
 my understanding — though the Dutchman did 
 point out that there was still room on the lamps. 
 An experience of Morocco gives one to doubt the 
 truth of the saying concerning the last straw and 
 the camel. 
 
 ■ I did not stop at Mequinez. I was told there was 
 nothing there that could not be bettered elsewhere, 
 nothing but vast ruined palaces and miles of 
 crumbling walls. 
 
 The wonders of Fez, so close at hand, beckoned 
 irresistibly and I went on. " The City of Olives " 
 had but a brief period of glory, from 1673 to 1727, 
 under the Alaouite Sultan, Muley Ismail. He it 
 was who with an army of 25,000 Christian slaves 
 (most of them captured by the Barbary Rovers) 
 and 30,000 native convicts built the greater part 
 of its palaces and fortifications, planted its gardens 
 and dug its reservoirs, superintending the work 
 
THE ROAD TO FEZ 91 
 
 personally, sword in hand, smiting down any 
 labourer he thought worthy of his ire.^ 
 
 He built stables three miles long capable of 
 housing 12,000 beasts and founded a library of 
 12,000 volumes — with the idea of providing a book 
 for each horse, I suppose, so that they would have 
 something to read on wet afternoons. Another of 
 his creations was the famous black guard, the Bou 
 Khari. He formed this force on a nucleus of giant 
 negro slaves brought from the Soudan and Niger, 
 camped them out at Mechra a Erremal, bred them 
 like animals, and soon had a roll-call of 15,000 
 picked men, who played a part in Moroccan history 
 similar to that played by the Pretorian Guard of 
 the Caesars or the Mamelukes in Egypt. 
 
 There was nothing small about Muley Ismail 
 (not even in person — he was nicknamed " Es 
 Seman," the Fat) . He dealt in large round numbers. 
 He had 4000 wives, which puts Solomon out of 
 the running and makes our poor old Henry VHI. 
 look like a misogynist. 
 
 As though these were not enough to darn his 
 socks, he proposed that Mademoiselle de Blois 
 (daughter of Louis XV., afterwards Princesse de 
 Conde) should make the four thousand and first, 
 but the lady was somehow not attracted by the 
 idea. Furthermore, he is credited with 800 children, 
 a performance Americans — prone to extol the 
 prowess of their national champion, Brigham 
 Young — will please note. 
 
 How this monarch, with his colossal jerry-building 
 business and family responsibilities, actually found 
 time to put on flesh, and died with his boots on 
 
 1 PubUsher ; " Tut-tut I " Author : " Sorry I " 
 
92 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 (so to speak) at the ripe age of eighty-one, is a 
 matter that leaves me speechless with amazed 
 veneration. 
 
 His successor, Muley Abdallah, seems to have 
 been a destructive maniac, for he attacked the 
 lovely suburb of Erriadh with an army of work- 
 people and destroyed it utterly in ten days, for 
 no better reason than that he disliked the view 
 of it from his palace windows. A favourite joke of 
 his during these demolitions was to drive a gang 
 of slaves under a wall or building as it toppled 
 over. Not content with smashing Mequinez to 
 pieces physically, he imposed such taxation that 
 he beggared it to boot. Evidently the type of 
 humorist that ought to be kept in a padded cell 
 dressed in a muzzle and boxing-gloves. 
 
 At Mequinez our car was lightened of half its 
 load, including the dancer and the Dutchman, who 
 was bound for Volubilis to brood among the Roman 
 ruins. Mademoiselle took tender leave of me. If 
 Mequinez did not prove vastly more chic than it 
 appeared at first sight she'd cock her thumb at 
 the patron, come right on to Fez and teach me to 
 " shimmy." She sent her love to half a dozen 
 lieutenants, two captains and a major, whose names 
 I carefully inscribed on my cuffs and then, forget- 
 ting, sent to the wash. A large-hearted little lady. 
 
 We sped on the thirty-one miles to Fez, down a 
 broad fiat valley with mountains on either hand. 
 Half an hour later we lost another passenger, the 
 Spanish settler. He stood up abruptly, in the 
 middle of nowhere, and touched the driver's 
 shoulder. The car slurred to a standstill and he 
 got out. 
 
THE ROAD TO FEZ 93 
 
 By the wayside lay a heap of what I took to be 
 dirty rags. The Spaniard stirred it with his toe 
 and the heap uncoiled into a yawning Arab boy, 
 Without a word the pair walked away into the 
 wilderness; the grim old man striding in advance, 
 very sturdy and upright in his black suit and pith 
 helmet, the boy following with his bag. 
 
 Off to some lonely little farm in the " Bled," 
 I suppose, with a mule-well in the hollow and a row 
 of struggling vines before the door; off to battle 
 with the palmetto grass, the locusts and the drought. 
 I wished the old chap luck, for I have had some 
 of that sort of thing myself and know the way 
 of it. 
 
 The car whirred on again. The Gibel Terats, 
 the guardian mountains of Fez, grew nearer and 
 nearer. We passed occasional troops of donkeys 
 and camels returning with empty panniers from 
 the city markets, and then two companies of that 
 most romantic of all regiments, the Foreign Legion, 
 moving up for the action beyond Taza. They 
 looked anything but romantic at that moment, 
 poor devils ! — straggling anyhow through the heat 
 under their heavy packs, tunics undone, sweat 
 running in dirty trickles down their caked faces. 
 They shuffled to one side and glanced at us with 
 sun-reddened eyes as the car went by, very much 
 as we, slogging the greasy Flanders pave, used to 
 glance at the flying Staff limousines. I felt ashamed 
 of my luxury. Poor rations, sore heels, pay that 
 wouldn't keep an errand-boy in cigarettes, and very 
 likely a tribesman's ragged bullet at the end of it 
 up some burning hillside with no water an5Avhere — 
 I doubt if the " Regiment of Broken Men," the 
 
94 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 " Lost Legion," etc., see the glamour of their 
 existence. 
 
 The stream of homing marketers grew thicker. 
 Away to the south loomed the mountain of Kandar, 
 and further still to the south-east the snow peaks 
 of the Minor Atlas thrust their silver javelins into 
 the sunset sky. The Arab urchin crouched on the 
 tool-box suddenly jerked himself upright and 
 pointed to a line of grey walls ahead. 
 
 " Fez — Fez Djedid ! " he cried, as who should 
 say, " Behold the Promised Land ! " 
 
XVII 
 
 FEZ 
 
 The city of Fez is built in a narrow valley at the 
 intersection of two grand trunk roads : the imperial 
 road from Algeria to the Atlantic, and the great 
 caravan road that crosses both the Atlas ranges 
 and finishes on the Mediterranean. It is the 
 religious and commercial centre of the Sherifian 
 empire, the home of learning and the arts. 
 
 To hold Fez is to hold Morocco, but almost every 
 Sultan, on his accession, has had to fight for it 
 tooth and nail. For no matter how strong were 
 his claims to sovereignty, Fez invariably set up a 
 rival and made it a point of honour to submit only 
 after months of starvation, when its warriors were 
 dead, its walls carried and the heads of its leading 
 citizens grinning from pikes above the gates. 
 
 " Fez " means " the pickaxe," and the town is 
 supposed to have got its name from some ancient 
 implements that were dug up with its foundations. 
 Fez el Bali (Old Fez) was originated in 743 by 
 Muley Idriss II. This prince is looked on by the 
 Fezzians as the peer of Mahomet and is the city's 
 patron saint. The Mosque built round his tomb 
 in the centre of the old town is the most sacred spot 
 in all Morocco and the lode-star of pilgrims. 
 
 The three dynasties that followed the Idrissides 
 were short-lived, but they all added their quota 
 to the city's glories. 
 
 95 
 
96 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 The Almoravides preferred Marrakech, but Fez 
 was not neglected, and while William of Normandy 
 was conquering England, she grew and grew. Archi- 
 tects and mechanics were brought from Spain, 
 mosques, baths and fondouks were built, a hydraulic 
 system with water-wheels constructed. 
 
 In 1 145 the Almohades made Fez the capital once 
 more, and in the short twenty-five years of their 
 power brought the old town to its present-day pro- 
 portions. At the zenith of the Almohades — accord- 
 ing to the author of the Rhondh el Kartas (" Garden 
 of Folios ") — Fez el Bali contained 785 mosques 
 and, placing cleanliness next to godliness, 93 public 
 baths, 43 wash-places and 80 fountains. Nine 
 thousand, four hundred and twenty-two shops she 
 had also, 477 caravanserais, 3064 workshops, 472 
 mills, 86 tanneries and 116 dye-works. 
 
 At the opening of the thirteenth century some 
 wild nomads on camels, driven north by famine, 
 looked down the hill slopes into the green pastures 
 of the Sebou and found them good. They were the 
 first of the Merinides. Others followed, gradually 
 filling the green valley of the Sebou. The Almohade 
 Sultans had shot their bolt and were slack with 
 well-living. They made no effort to limit or oppose 
 the influx, until it was too late, and in 1248 a 
 Merinide king ruled in the city of Idriss. Masters 
 of Fez, the wild men put off their barbarism and 
 became patrons of the arts. They cast far and 
 wide for the greatest artists irrespective of race or 
 religion, housed them like ambassadors, paid them 
 like princes, and even regaled them with music 
 while they worked. They went crazy for beauty, 
 the starved desert men, counting its cost as nothing. 
 
FEZ 
 
 97 
 
 Fountains, aqueducts, mosques and minarets sprang 
 
 up everywhere. In Fez they built the new town 
 
 of " Fez Djedid," the foundations being laid with 
 
 much ceremony, preceded by a massacre of the 
 
 Jews to bring it luck. They built the Dar el Makhzen 
 
 (palace of government) and quarters for their 
 
 Christian mercenaries and Syrian archers. They 
 
 built numerous colleges for the study of Islamic 
 
 law. They fostered learning, art and commerce 
 
 with all their power. Fez hummed 
 
 with life and the population rose to 
 
 the high- water mark of 125,000 
 
 souls. At the end of the fourteenth 
 
 century the virile nomad blood 
 
 thinned out, the Merinides fell into 
 
 decadence and went under in their 
 
 turn. Shepherds at the first, it is 
 
 by their sheep (" Merinos ") that 
 
 they shall be known at the last, 
 
 when all their monuments are 
 
 dust. 
 
 Following the brave days of the 
 Merinides Fez fell on evil times. 
 The Beni Ouattas truckled to the Spaniards and 
 Portuguese, and in 1554 the city was pillaged by 
 the Turks. The Saadians made Marrakech their 
 capital, and Muley Ismail established himself at 
 Mequinez, but his son Abdullah battered his way 
 back after two desperate sieges, and the Alaouite, 
 despite many bloody vicissitudes, rules in Fez to 
 this day, propped up by the French, who entered 
 the town on May 21st, 1911. 
 
 Modem Fez consists of three towns. The new 
 suburb, laid out in 1916, lies to the west, and con- 
 
 H 
 
 A colonel 
 
98 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 sists principally of bungalows of the French colony. 
 
 East of this is Fez Djedid of the Merinides, and east 
 
 of this, again, is Fez el Bali, the original city of 
 
 Idriss the Blest. 
 Bungalow town lies in the open among pleasant 
 
 gardens and orchards, but Fez Djedid and Fez el 
 
 Bali are enclosed by double 
 walls set with enfilading 
 towers and pierced by nine 
 great gates, at which armed 
 sentries stand by night and 
 day. From east to west 
 the two walled towns are 
 together six kilometres in 
 length. 
 
 Fez Djedid is the cosmo- 
 politan town. It contains 
 the " Mellah " or Jews* 
 quarter, with 7250 Israelites 
 and seventeen synagogues. 
 Round about are hotels 
 which the guide-book chari- 
 tably describes as " peu 
 recommandables," cafes, 
 
 ^ . - • Arab and otherwise, various 
 
 Foreign Legion , , -, 
 
 resorts for the delectation 
 
 of the native soldiery, and ramshackle dwellings 
 
 which harbour lesser menials of the palace, Saharians, 
 
 freed slaves, errant caravan folk and the off-scourings 
 
 of Southern Europe. 
 
 The main street of the " Mellah " is the mart for 
 
 European goods of the type known to the trade 
 
 as " African truck," shoddy reach-me-downs, Man- 
 
 i 
 
FEZ 
 
 99 
 
 Chester limbo, Birmingham tin-plate and Marseilles 
 rubbish. I bought some linen collars there that I 
 wouldn't present to a self-respecting poodle, and a 
 handkerchief I sneezed a hole clean through the first 
 time I used it. 
 
 However, in the cool of the evening the " Mellah " 
 main street becomes a sort of promenade, and one 
 sees and meets all kinds of interesting people. 
 Legionaries — (almost ex- 
 clusively Germans) — slouch 
 up and down, bumping 
 shoulders with young French 
 criminals who are serving 
 their sentences in the Bat- 
 talion d'Afrique. Moorish 
 merchants, European civil- 
 ians, Jews, beggars and 
 negroes of the Imperial Guard 
 whose ancestors were haled 
 from Timbuktu by the 
 Saadian, Ahmed El Mansour ; 
 ebony giants in red tunics, 
 
 pipe-clayed belts and turbans crossed with green 
 tape, with tufts of hair over their ears and enormous 
 earrings of silver wire. 
 
 In one evening in the " Mellah " I met a Maltese 
 who had been wounded at Ypres ; two Austrians who 
 had served in the Legion and weren't going home 
 unless pushed ; an Italian who had laid a consider- 
 able stretch of the Trans- Andean Railway and who, 
 on learning that I was acquainted with his native 
 Bassano, saluted me on both cheeks ; a Gibraltaian 
 Jew who swore he had sold me a pair of boots in 
 
 Sultan's Bodyguard 
 
100 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Buluwayo in 1913, and very probably did; and a 
 Swiss who called himself the Champion of Lucerne, 
 and proposed that we two should give an exhibi- 
 tion spar in the Cinema for what we could get 
 out of it. Mixed company I grant — but Lord, how 
 entertaining ! 
 
XVIII 
 
 FEZ 
 
 Old Fez is entered from the west by the New Gate 
 of the Bou Jeloud, a huge arch of great beauty, 
 faced with blue and white enamel. Here all 
 vehicles stop, the streets of the old town being too 
 narrow for anything but pack animals. No wheel 
 has rolled in Fez el Bali, though an up-to-date 
 builder once tried to break this precedent by 
 importing wheelbarrows — without success, however, 
 for his workpeople insisted on carrying them on 
 their heads. It is not only vehicles that stop at 
 the Gate of the Bou Jeloud, but Almighty Time. 
 With the exception that the French have intro- 
 duced feeble electric street lamps, it is the same 
 to-day as in the days of the Almohades. 
 
 Once through the gate and you are lost, lost 
 utterly and helplessly in a vast labyrinth of narrow 
 alleys that wriggle and writhe and tie themselves 
 in tangles, running all the time beneath over- 
 hanging walls and tunnelling under half a dozen 
 houses at a time, so that the light of day descends 
 only by occasional shafts and one's sense of direction 
 goes pop in the first five minutes, never to recover. 
 If you try to ask your whereabouts nobody under- 
 stands, for you are not in Fez Djedid, the cosmo- 
 politan, now, but a lone " Roumi " in Fez el Bali, 
 
 lOI 
 
ioa'':::"TfH£ COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 the heart and soul of the Moghreb. You will get 
 nothing but the mocking laughter of running water 
 for answer, the rushing, bubbling streams that 
 undermine all old Fez, and were likened by the local 
 bard, Abou-el-Fadhl, unto " white honey or silver " 
 (a pretty long stretch of poetic imagery, seeing 
 that he is describing the town sewers). You twist 
 and double and twist once more and come out 
 where you started from. The hidden 
 water gurgles with joy. 
 
 Whittington, cat-fancier, and some 
 time Lord Mayor of London, came to 
 Morocco and founded his fortunes 
 there, according to the legend. It 
 must have been in the souks of Fez 
 that he learnt the trick of " turning 
 again." 
 
 One afternoon while my guide 
 " Fido " was snoozing outside my 
 room, under the impression that I 
 was similarly engaged within, I gave 
 him the slip, and plunging into old 
 Fez aimed at Hotel Transatlantique. 
 An hour or so later I was found by 
 a chaouch of the Bank of British West Africa 
 turning round and round like a Japanese waltzing 
 mouse outside the Mosque el Andalous and towed 
 giddy and gibbering into his company's hospitable 
 premises. That broke my nerve, and never more 
 did I stir foot abroad without " Fido." 
 
 " Fido," I should explain, was an Arab child of 
 perhaps fourteen summers, who dumbly attached 
 himself to me on the evening I arrived in Fez and 
 
 Fido 
 
FEZ 
 
 103 
 
 never left me until I was safely out of it again. 
 I think he camped under the hotel porch o' nights, 
 for he was always there when I came out in the 
 morning. Somehow or other I would make him 
 understand where I wanted to go. He would nod 
 his cropped poll and lead the way, turning his 
 head from time to time to see if I were coming 
 along all right, for all the world like a trusty little 
 hound. 
 
 If I was with 
 resident friends he 
 went to heel, 
 following like a 
 shadow and as 
 silently. Arrived at 
 my destination he 
 would pull his djel- 
 laba hood over his 
 nose, curl up and 
 snooze until I came 
 out again, even if it 
 was at five o'clock 
 in the morning. He 
 was to me what a 
 dog is to a blind 
 man. I called him 
 
 " Fido " for his canine qualities. I never heard 
 his proper name and shouldn't have been able to 
 pronounce it if I had. We hardly exchanged a 
 word the whole time we were together, I having 
 no Arabic, he nothing else. From time to 
 time I bestowed on him a few of the filthy 
 paper tickets which pass for currency in the 
 
 "He would lead the way" 
 
104 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Sherifian empire, and he appeared perfectly con- 
 tent. 
 
 In Morocco the arts and crafts are in the hands 
 of guilds, as they were in mediaeval England — to 
 its everlasting glory. If you want anything done 
 you put it in the hands of the guild-masters, and 
 that is an end of it. They are experts in their 
 line and will brook no more amateur interference 
 in their cases than a Harley Street specialist would 
 in his. This makes for a high level of workman- 
 ship, and nowhere is it more in evidence than at 
 Fez, the home of the guilds. 
 
 There are miles of souks in Fez el Bali, miles 
 of dark little boutiques packed shoulder to shoulder, 
 and in their particular quarters jewellers may be 
 seen at their trade, fashioning earrings of gold 
 and coral, tiaras of beaten gold, silver bracelets, 
 anklets and rings, or moulding scented beads from 
 a paste of powdered amber, musk and attar of 
 roses. Tinsmiths contriving delicate fretted hang- 
 ing lamps from old kerosene cans. Cobblers 
 stitching red and lemon babouches, temmegs (riding 
 boots), belts and velvet slippers for brides, crusted 
 with brilliant silks and bullion. Makers of 
 gorgeous " Fantasia " saddlery. Potters turning 
 out their wares, white, or enamelled in many 
 colours. Here are vendors of thick rich carpets. 
 There sellers of women's cosmetics : henna for the 
 fingers, " Harkos " ink for eyebrows and beauty- 
 spots, powder, rouge, kohl and incense woods. 
 Weavers with wooden hand-looms spinning rainbow 
 scarves. Workers in Tafilalt leather, mimosa- 
 scented, making bags, cushions and book-covers. 
 
FEZ 105 
 
 tooling fantastic designs in gold on purple, crimson 
 on blue, or vice versa. Embroiderers sitting cross- 
 legged with spindles loaded with bright silks, green, 
 purple and orange, twirling before them. So intent 
 on their work are they that they hardly glance 
 up though the haiks of the passers-by brush 
 their elbows. Beggars wail from corners in the 
 name of Muley Idriss. Water-carriers jangle 
 their bells. Trains of loaded donkeys and 
 mules appear, heralded by shouts of " Balek ! 
 Balek ! " You swear they will never get through 
 the press, but they do somehow, bumping and 
 slipping. 
 
 The souks are roofed with lattices of canes, and 
 beneath them the crowd surges up and down in 
 ceaseless movement, a tossing froth of white 
 burnouses, chequered and striped with stencillings 
 of sun and shadow. 
 
 One evening I climbed the spurs of the mountain 
 that overhangs Fez on the north. From where 
 the tombs of the Merinide Sultans lie crumbling 
 among the olive trees one can look out over all 
 the old city. It fills the valley from side to 
 side, a sea of cream-coloured fiat roofs, with 
 here and there a touch of green where some fig 
 tree aspires to the sunlight, and here and there 
 a minaret springing skywards like a jet. The 
 city hums with the clamour of hidden multi- 
 tudes, the murmur of innumerable voices all 
 talking at once. Not a whirr of machinery in 
 the whole town, not the creak of a wheel — just 
 talk. Bargaining in the souks, shouts of mule- 
 teers, children chanting in the schools, wails of 
 
io6 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 beggars, mistresses scolding slaves — a thousand 
 and one cries, chatterings and conversations, all 
 blend in a murmur that hangs above the house- 
 tops, rising and falling like the noise of beating 
 surf. 
 
XIX 
 
 FEZ 
 
 One of the chief charms of old Fez is its unex- 
 pectedness. One may stumble over anything at 
 any moment. You are pushing up a dark and 
 noisome lane, when you are vaguely aware that 
 the press is somewhat thicker, the beggars more 
 plentiful, and that several Arabs are crowding to 
 kiss a grille that is knotted with strips of dirty rag. 
 " Come on," says a resident. " Don't hang about 
 here, they don't like it." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Oh, because it's their pet Mosque of Muley 
 Idriss. That's the women's ante-room in there. 
 Don't allow 'em in the Mosque proper — got no 
 souls, poor dears. See 'em all squatting on the 
 floor? Just snatch a blink and come on." 
 
 That is Morocco's Westminster Abbey, her Holy 
 of Holies, hidden up an alley like the back entrance 
 to a mews. It is the same with the Karouine 
 Mosque, the intellectual centre of the Moghreb, a 
 huge building of long avenues of columns, 270 in 
 all; a building, according to the Rondh el Kartas, 
 capable of accommodating 20,000 students. Ima- 
 gine poking up Petticoat Lane and tripping over 
 Oxford and Cambridge ! 
 
 In Christendom we take a deal of trouble over 
 the exteriors of our buildings. In Morocco they 
 don't care a hoot. At the Sultan's palace in 
 
 107 
 
io8 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Marrakech, built in the thirteenth century, they 
 have not yet removed the scaffold-poles. It is 
 the interiors they worry about, therein displaying 
 sound sense, for, after all, a man lives in and not 
 outside his house. The drawback to possessing a 
 dwelling with a picturesque exterior is that every- 
 body gets the benefit of it except the inmate. 
 Did I own Arundel or Warwick Castle I should 
 live in a tent in the garden, where I could 
 gloat over them to the best advantage. 
 
 In Fez el Bali one meets friendly folk 
 who invite you to a whisky-and-soda, 
 conduct you down a kennel a pig 
 wouldn't face without goloshes, open a 
 stable door in a blank mud wall, lead 
 on up a black and tortuous tunnel — 
 till you curse yourself for leaving your 
 knuckle-dusters on the dressing-table 
 and hope that, at any rate, they'll give 
 your body decent burial — and bring 
 you out into a palace worthy of the 
 Arabian Nights. If this happened to me once it 
 happened a dozen times. 
 
 On one occasion I was taken to see the little 
 shanty a wealthy Moor was tacking together for 
 his retirement. The owner was lying on some mats 
 under an arch, watching the plasterers at work, 
 an enormous old man with a skin as pale as a 
 North German, serene grey eyes and a long white 
 beard. In his flowing, snowy garments he looked 
 like a Biblical patriarch. He met us with the 
 quiet courtesy of all well-bred Arabs, and showed 
 us round the high cool rooms with their carved 
 and painted ceilings, mosaic dados and ten-foot 
 
 In the mellah 
 
FEZ 109 
 
 cedar doors; the shady arcades with their plaster 
 column-heads fretted with lace-like designs, picked 
 out in black and scarlet; the tiled court with its 
 fountain tinkling and sparkling in the centre, gold- 
 fish, like slips of bright orange-peel, swimming in 
 the green basin. On into the garden, in which 
 great banana plants quivered their tattered fronds 
 and orange trees shook their scented blossom all 
 around. 
 
 We liked it? Yes? That was good. He 
 nodded his white turban in stately satisfaction. 
 Expensive? Surely — but everything was expen- 
 sive since the war. As long as it met with our ap- 
 proval, was beautiful He dismissed the matter 
 
 of a hundred thousand francs or so with a princely 
 gesture. Would we take tea? No? He bowed, 
 shook hands, returned to his mats and his contem- 
 plation of money flowering into loveliness. The 
 door into that paradise was like that of a Kerry 
 cowshed. 
 
 The reason for these shabby entrances is two- 
 fold. The first is the Moor's total disregard of 
 exteriors mentioned earlier, and the second is that 
 in the old times (popularly termed " good " by 
 people who would be the first to squeal did they 
 return) a subject of the Sherifian monarchs dare 
 not advertise his wealth, because if he did he was 
 promptly and painfully separated from it. The 
 Basha of some remote mountain village might cut 
 a modest dash, but not a Fezzian with the Sultan 
 and his bravoes just up the hill. Hence Fez is a 
 secret city, showing its life in the streets, but 
 hiding its soul behind blank mud walls — its leopard 
 soul, golden and black, steel hooks sheathed in 
 
no THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 velvet paws, for this is Africa, animal-sensuous 
 and animal-cruel, Africa of a thousand years ago. 
 
 A secret and sinister city. 
 
 From sunrise to sunset Fez pours itself through 
 its narrow streets. It is a white crowd, for not 
 only does it dress in white but is white-skinned. 
 Red and fair hair is common and so are albinos. 
 The reason for this is partly the European blood 
 injected by renegades and free auxiliaries through- 
 out the ages (the Almohade, El Mamoun, kept a 
 corps of 12,000 paid Spaniards alone), and also the 
 Fezzian, living a sedentary life in a dark city, has 
 no need of protective skin pigment. 
 
 The crowd streams this way and that, meets, 
 boils like the froth in a pot and flows on again. 
 A mountain kaid clatters up the street, his carbine 
 slung at his back (he was probably sniping the 
 French outposts twenty-four hours earlier). He 
 shouts no " Balek ! " but rides anybody under 
 that gets in his way. A wolf in the sheep-fold. 
 There goes a boy of ten to his circumcision, sitting 
 at his father's saddle-bow as proud as a king, drums 
 and pipes in attendance. Here comes a funeral 
 procession led by Tholbas (theological students) 
 chanting the sonorous Arab death-song; the dead 
 woman borne shoulder high to her immortal groom 
 on a bier as gaily decorated as the bridal litter of 
 her girlhood. And so on from dawn to dusk. 
 
 At the shabby pleasure resorts of Fez Djedid 
 you may drink or dance the dawn in — an it amuse 
 you. But there is no night life in Fez el Bali. 
 At sunset the crowd begins to dwindle and by ten 
 o'clock the alleys are empty. Near the Bou 
 Jeloud, in a bare little room, wide open so as to 
 
FEZ III 
 
 throw its light across the street, sit four or five 
 Arabs smoking, their rifles propped against the 
 wall. This is the " Assa," the Basha's police post. 
 One morning, returning from a military ball at 
 the " Makina " (Old Arsenal), I encountered these 
 police. They were in a high state of merriment 
 and were dragging two natives on a sort of wheel- 
 barrow affair. That the natives were freshly 
 killed was evident from the way their teeth showed 
 and heads lolled. 
 
 Apart from the " Assa " there is hardly a sign 
 of life in the whole city. Walk a mile up the ill- 
 lighted tunnels, and in the gloom of doorways 
 you may see a few heaps of rag with bare legs 
 protruding — beggars sleeping out — or disturb a 
 pariah dog scavenging along the gutters — that is 
 all. Silence everywhere, except for the eternal 
 chuckle of running water — silence and shadows. 
 Then, suddenly, from the darkness overhead comes 
 a long wailing cry which is taken up from tower 
 to invisible tower right across the sleeping city — 
 Muezzins proclaiming to the stars the greatness 
 of God. 
 
XX 
 
 FEZ 
 
 I WANTED to do some shopping before I left Fez 
 and a friend offered to come with me. As he had 
 traded in Morocco for years and spoke Arabic 
 fluently, I closed with the offer as a trout snaps 
 mayfly. He led the way up the thronged souks 
 and swung himself into a little boutique by a lanyard 
 suspended from the ceiling. I followed. In the 
 gloom of the interior, nearly filling the tiny crib 
 from side to side and top to bottom, was a dim 
 pyramidal shape. This turned out to be the pro- 
 prietor, a stout old Moor, swathed in white, with 
 a short beard clipped in the fashion popularized 
 by Henry VHI. 
 
 We shook hands and squatted on mats, knee to 
 knee — the boutique was not eight feet by five. 
 
 B. translated my wants to the Moor, who grunted, 
 and, without shifting his position, reached up to a 
 shelf and shed upon us a shower of pocket cases. 
 That shelf bared he put out his other hand and 
 it rained hand-bags; once more and it snowed 
 cushions. He opened a cedar-wood box at his 
 side and tossed book-covers at us. 
 
 My knees were heaped with exquisite, scented 
 things of fine leather, cream and gold, black and 
 gold, scarlet and gold, purple and silver — all 
 colours, tooled, stamped and embroidered with 
 curly arabesques, Solomon's rings, crescent moons 
 
 112 
 
FEZ 113 
 
 and what not. I made a difficult selection. " How 
 much? " I asked. 
 
 The proprietor pencilled some figures on a scrap 
 of paper and added them up, grunting with the 
 mental strain. " Five hundred and eighty francs," 
 he announced at length. I know something of the 
 ritual of bargaining. I have bought among other 
 things horses in Ireland and cattle in Matabeleland, 
 both devious processes. 
 
 " Offer him four hundred," I instructed B., who 
 said something in Arabic. 
 
 The Moor threw both hands wide-stretched into 
 the air and gave vent to a shrill cry of anguish. 
 B. beat him playfully on the side of the turban with 
 a lemon-and-black pocket-book. The Moor rocked 
 from side to side, delivering his lamentable cry. 
 Then they argued hotly, the Arabic fairly flew. 
 Then they derided each other, dug each other in 
 the ribs and scoffed. Then they fired short, sharp 
 monosyllables, apparently out of temper. The 
 Moor began to replace the book-covers in the box. 
 I feared B. had made a mess of it. 
 
 " Offer him four fifty," I urged, and clung to 
 the covers I had chosen. 
 
 B. plunged into more Arabic. The Moor shook 
 his head vehemently and replaced the cushions. 
 
 " Call it four seventy-five then," said I. 
 
 For answer B. caught me by the arm and pulled 
 me into the street. " Come on," he said shortly 
 and led me up the hill. I wrenched my arm 
 free. 
 
 " I'm going back," said I; " those are the best 
 things I've seen yet and I'm going to have 'em, 
 even if I've got to pay full price." 
 I 
 
114 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 " Don't be an ass," said B., taking my arm again. 
 " I can't afford to be bested in this town if you 
 can. And anyway everything's going swimmingly. 
 Just walk on as if you'd forgotten all about it, 
 and for heaven's sake don't look round." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " You'll see presently, or I'm much mistaken." 
 
 At the top of the street a small Arab youth 
 twitched B.'s coat-tails. He winked at me. " There 
 you are. Told you so. We're to go back. They 
 were watching us all up the street; one sign of 
 weakness and " 
 
 When we returned to the boutique the fat Moor, 
 all smiles, was already making my selection into a 
 parcel. "Well, what's the damage?" said I, 
 pulling out a sheaf of notes. " Four fifty, four 
 seventy-five or what? " 
 
 " Two hundred and ninety," said B. "I halved 
 his price right off." 
 
 I was walking up the Zekak at Hadjer one 
 drizzling morning with this same B. when we 
 encountered a wealthy native coming down. He 
 had the hood of his rich blue djellaba pulled up 
 against the rain, and rode a sleek iron-grey mule 
 with red leather trappings. A negro slave boy 
 of about ten years carried the saddle cover and 
 trotted behind, clinging to the mule's tail. 
 
 B. hailed the cavalier, who hauled his beast to 
 a standstill and shook hands. " A friend from 
 England," said B., introducing me. 
 
 The Moor showed his excellent teeth. " Ha, ha ! 
 Pleased to meet you," said he in English ; " and how 
 is Fez treating you? " 
 
 I told him it was doing me proud. 
 
FEZ 
 
 115 
 
 He nodded. " That's good, but Fm sorry we 
 haven't any better weather to offer." 
 
 I said I thought it was probably far worse in 
 England, and he agreed. 
 
 " Oh, hell, yes ! England in March ! Snow, 
 sleet, rain and wind — waugh ! * Nine months winter 
 and three months damn bad weather ' — eh, what? " 
 He shuddered at the memory. "I'm glad I'm out 
 of it. Well, I must be 
 pushing on, I suppose." 
 He flipped the sleek 
 mule across the withers. 
 " Give my love to Merrie 
 England when you get 
 home — and, oh, I say ! " 
 he checked his mount 
 and laughed back over 
 his shoulder, "my 
 s alaams to Marie 
 Lloyd." He flicked the 
 mule again, the sable 
 infant took a fresh pur- 
 chase of its tail and they 
 jingled off down the street. 
 
 "Now how," said I to B., "do you explain 
 that?" 
 
 "Quite simple," said he; "that chap was on 
 the Manchester Cotton Exchange for twenty-three 
 years, had a house in Moss Lane, where there's a 
 whole colony of 'em. He's retired now." 
 
 " I notice it's not to civilized Manchester that 
 he's retired, a white waistcoat, a limousine and a 
 butler," said I, " but barbaric Fez, a djellaba and 
 a moke and a nigger boy." 
 
 My salaams to Marie Lloyd " 
 
ii6 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 *' 'M, yes," said B. " And Fm not sure that I 
 don't agree with him — ever been in civiHzed 
 Manchester? " 
 
 The American cinema man slouched into the 
 lounge of the hotel in Fez, slung his Boy Scout 
 hat into one chair, himself into another, and ordered 
 two whiskys-and-sodas at once. 
 
 " Bad day? " I asked. 
 
 He growled, " You've said it. Bo ! " and chewed 
 his finger-nails as though he hated them. 
 
 " Well, I'm bio wed if I know what you fellows 
 want," said I. " My goodness ! if you can't find 
 stuff here you never will. Why, everywhere I turn 
 I see pictures. In my opinion this place was 
 planned, built and maintained with a view to you 
 chaps." 
 
 The cinema man looked at me sourly. 
 
 " Well, now, that's all you know about it. What's 
 your graft, anyhow? Ink-slinging, ain't it? Go 
 out and lamp the whirl quietly and then trot home 
 and write it up in your bedroom afterwards. That's 
 one thing — but, say, do you know what I am in 
 this doggone country ? I'm the * Evil Eye,' the 
 * Demonical Optic' Yessir, that's me, no more 
 and no less. I'm the Bogie Man, the Ogre Boy, 
 Calamity Kate and Harold the Hoodoo all in one. 
 These here ' Andy-Janes,' ^ as the Frogs call 'em, 
 love me like holy-water loves the devil. The 
 minute I produce the camera — bingo ! — there ain't 
 a soul in sight. I've seen folks take cover in my 
 time, I've seen an entire Mexican army corps melt 
 into the surrounding scenery because their Field- 
 ^ Indigenes — natives. 
 
FEZ 117 
 
 Marshal's Ford back-fired, but they were slow to 
 these Andy- Janes ; it's more Hke a conjuring trick 
 than anything else. If there was a war on in this 
 happy land I'd a sight sooner have a camera than 
 a machine gun. I would honest. I'd roll up a 
 riot with a kodak. Now and again I've caught a 
 guy in a corner where he couldn't get out back, 
 front nor sideways, and then up goes his wrapper 
 over his head, and what do I get? — a picture of a 
 wrapper in a corner. That won't buy new boots 
 for the baby, friend. Folk in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 
 won't tread each other underfoot to see pictures of 
 wrappers in corners. They got things like that at 
 home. Tried to get a powder play at Souk el Arba 
 last week. Got right in front of the racket, but as 
 soon as they piped the camera, round they went, 
 and all I secured was a stone in the eye and a 
 darn good picture of a dust-storm. So you reckon 
 this place was built for us fellers, do you ? Hah ! 
 Why, believe me, in a week I could get a Fez run 
 up in Los Angeles that would make this dump 
 look like the last rose of summer, and hire a bunch 
 of dollar supers to act a whole lot more like Arabs 
 than what these Andy- Janes do. Next time I 
 got to take foreign travel stuff I'll take 'em right 
 in God's own country, and I'll guarantee they'll 
 be a heap more lifelike than the originals. I'm 
 telling you, now." He consumed his second whisky 
 and lit a cigarette. 
 
 " Mind you," said he, " I'll admit I have pulled 
 a few dandy reels. The Frogs ain't hampered me 
 none, and I'm an old boss. I savvy a trick or two. 
 We've got a little contrivance in the trade called 
 the ' telephoto lens,' which makes long ranges 
 
ii8 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 short. I've pulled off one or two little stunts with 
 that, hidden in bushes, up roofs and so on. But 
 my best stunt was the Mosque of Mister Muley 
 Idriss. I'm proud of that and don't mind saying 
 so. They'd of torn me to chicken feed if they'd got 
 wise to me, but I fooled 'em all right." He chuckled. 
 
 "How?" I asked. 
 
 " Hired one of them theodolite things from a 
 Frog engineer and made out to be a surveyor. 
 Started up top of the lane and worked down, taping 
 and measuring with off-set rods and chains, taking 
 fake readings on the theodolite and writing figures 
 in a note-book. They didn't pay any attention to 
 me after a bit, used to surveyors by now. By'm 
 by I'm opposite the joss-house and there's a camera 
 on the tripod in place of the theodolite. Get 
 me?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "Yep; little Ferdinand certainly put one over 
 on the Andy- Jane that time," he went on. " But 
 say, friend, I had a sip of pure juice yesterday. 
 Pulled off a reel of the Basha in judgment. A 
 real peach. Had a gink before him for stealing, 
 on the ground trussed up like a Thanksgiving 
 turkey. * Are you guilty ? * says the Bash. ' No,' 
 says the gink. * Oh, how can you tell such lies ? ' 
 says the Bash. * Hand it to him, boys.' And the 
 boys handed it to him across the bare feet with 
 sticks. The gink hollered and screamed. * Guilty 
 yet ? ' says the Bash. ' You bet,' says the gink. 
 ' Thought you would be,' says the Bash. ' Well, 
 now, poultice him good and plenty, fellers; the 
 guilty have got to suffer for their sins if there's to 
 be any justice in this land. Go to it, sons.' And 
 
FEZ 119 
 
 they went to it all right, all right, till the gink's 
 feet were like raw meat and he fainted." 
 
 " You photographed all that? " I asked. 
 
 " I did, sir, I got one cracker] ack reel." 
 
 " Pity you weren't in the trade nineteen hun- 
 dred years ago," said I. 
 
 ''Why so?" 
 
 " Because you might have got a cracker] ack reel 
 of the Crucifixion," said I. 
 
 He grinned good-humouredly. " Oh, well, I 
 guess I would have too. IVe got my living to 
 make, and if you don't snap a chance somebody 
 else will. After a year or two of this ]ob you ain't 
 got any natural feelings left, once you've got a 
 crank in your hand. When the Crack of Doom 
 occurs I'll bet my life the Yankee camera men will 
 go down into Everlasting Blazes trying to make a 
 picture of it. It gets in your blood. Do you 
 remember an attempt on Mayor Gaynor on New 
 York docks some years back? You do? Well, 
 there were six of us camera men standing right 
 alongside the assassin when he opened up. Did 
 we horn in and spoil the biggest scoop for weeks? 
 No, sir, we did not. We knew our business. We 
 let the feller plug ahead and twisted away at the 
 cranks like Sam Hill. It ain't only in my line 
 neither. You know New York? Then you know 
 Harlem ? As the poet remarked, * In the midst 
 of life we are in Harlem,' and he spoke a mouthful. 
 Nothing ever happens there. 
 
 " One day something did. Skirt got riled at a 
 guy over a breach of promise case and pulled a 
 gun on him. Hit nearly everybody else in court 
 barring the man she was aiming at. Her first 
 
120 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 shot winged the judge, her second a witness, the 
 third a pohceman, the fourth her own lawyer. 
 The fifth bullet went into the leg of a cub reporter, 
 who jumped the paling and grappled with her. 
 He got a vote of thanks from the survivors and a 
 free ride to hospital. He was only chipped a piece, 
 and in a week or so called round at his newspaper 
 office. He was told the Loud Noise wanted to 
 see him, and limped up to the Lion's Den thinking 
 he was in for a row of gold medals and a rise in 
 salary. Instead of that the editor jumped out of 
 his chair as if it had bit him. * My Gawd ! * he 
 yelled. * What do you call this ? Here have I 
 been keeping you at Harlem, eating your head off 
 for the last nine months, on the dog's chance that 
 something would happen, and when it does, dash 
 me if you don't give every other reporter in the 
 court a head-liner and go joy-riding to hospital 
 yourself. You're fired \ ' " 
 
XXI 
 
 THE ROAD TO MARRAKECH 
 
 To get from Fez to Marrakech I went back on 
 my tracks to Rabat and Casablanca, partly to pick 
 up the washing I had dumped at these places and 
 partly because there is no other way. I find one's 
 voyagings are largely ordered by the washer- 
 woman. You may make every arrangement to 
 leave Jerusalem for Madagascar on Tuesday morn- 
 ing, but if the wash lady says you can't have your 
 things until Wednesday evening, that's an end of 
 it — unless the traveller is given to celluloid acces- 
 sories, which I am not. I once journeyed across 
 Schleswig-Holstein in the same compartment with 
 a German who took off his collar at night and 
 cleansed it next morning with his tongue. Since 
 then I have been prejudiced against the things. I 
 left Casablanca at six o'clock in the morning on the 
 two hundred and eighty-three kilometre run to 
 Marrakech in a public touring car built to accom- 
 modate seven, and, as usual, carrying nine, ex- 
 clusive of two babies who sat on their mothers' 
 laps and gave tongue continuously to Ben Guerir, 
 where they varied the monotony by being sick. 
 I got a back seat with a French officer on one side 
 and an old chevalier d'industrie of uncertain origin 
 on the other. They were neither of them very 
 interesting. The soldier had earache, and what 
 remarks he did make were quite unprintable, and 
 it would therefore be futile to record them. 
 
 121 
 
Z22 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 The old adventurer was full of grievances which 
 I did not want to hear — other people's troubles are 
 so trivial. It was raining when we left Casablanca. 
 The heavy car ploughed and hissed through the 
 puddled ruts, throwing the water from her like a 
 destroyer in a head sea. The old man presently 
 suggested that we change seats. I should get a 
 better view from the outside, he thought. I thanked 
 y<^''^ ^-^iin, but held that I could 
 
 ^-y^ \ see all I wanted from 
 
 where I was. He then 
 asked if I had such a thing 
 as a bit of newspaper, as 
 there was a leak in the 
 hood above him which he 
 would like to plug, as it 
 was dribbling down his 
 neck. We rocked and 
 splashed onwards through 
 a cheerless, treeless country 
 under a drooping, dripping 
 sky. Now and again we 
 passed a little farm with a 
 camel stroUing round and round turning a water- 
 wheel; now and again the domed tomb of a mar- 
 about. Judging by the number of these monuments, 
 about three-fourths of the population of Morocco 
 were hallowed at one time. As they couldn't 
 possibly have all made a Hving by simply being 
 angehc, it must have been quite a common thing to 
 have a saint in to clean the boots. I expect it was 
 a decoration invented after some great war and 
 squirted broadcast in the manner of a certain 
 British Order that I might mention — but won't. 
 
 An old chevalier 
 d' Industrie " 
 
THE ROAD TO MARRAKECH 123 
 
 Outside Settat we encountered many Arabs goad- 
 ing loaded donkeys and camels to market. The 
 drivers' hoods being up against the downpour, they 
 did not hear our horn until we were on them, and 
 then flung themselves upon their beasts, shouting 
 and whacking. The imperturbable donkeys usually 
 went straight on, while the more emotional " oonts " 
 turned sideways, with the result that the former 
 got under the latter and confusion reigned supreme. 
 
 We breakfasted at Settat on hard-boiled eggs 
 and parboiled coffee, standing at the bar of the one 
 hotel while the rain drummed a dismal tattoo on 
 the iron verandah. A wretched village of adobe 
 houses with the whitewash peeling off in leprous 
 patches and thoroughfares deep in red slush. How- 
 ever, in all fairness let me say this for Settat, that 
 in its streets I saw a Frenchman without the ribbon 
 of the Legion of Honour. I congratulate it on 
 possessing so distinguished a citizen. 
 
 Settat behind us, warm coffee thawing his cockles, 
 my old adventurer waxed communicative. The 
 country was going to pieces, he informed me. Why 
 the French wanted to come butting in he was sure 
 he didn't know. Everything had been all right 
 before. He had been over thirty years in Morocco 
 and knew what he was talking about. But these 
 ones — he made a grimace towards the groaning 
 soldier — think they'd listen to him? Not they. 
 Read a text-book or two at St. Cloud and knew all 
 about everything, natives included — puppies ! In 
 the old days an intelligent man could live. One 
 made oneself agreeable to the Bashas, of course — 
 he winked and rubbed his second finger and thumb 
 together, indicating the passage of surreptitious 
 
124 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 coin — and they gave one a free hand to pursue one's 
 little industries. Now — pouf ! He shrugged his 
 shoulders and blew into his brindled moustache, lit 
 a " caporal " and relapsed into silence. 
 
 At Mechra Ben Abbou we stopped at a wayside 
 caf6 where my pessimistic friend and I had a glass 
 of vin rouge together. I was under the impression 
 that it was to be at his expense, since he made the 
 suggestion, but as I was left to pay for it I may as 
 well claim the merit. We re-embarked, pitched 
 downhill to where the river Oum Er Rebia winds 
 seawards through beds of tamarisk, and there, at 
 the entrance to a suspension bridge, halted again. 
 
 " Bridge tolls to pay," the driver informed us, 
 " four sous each." 
 
 A single-roomed adobe guarded the bridge-head, 
 with a tin verandah in front of it. Under this, at 
 the receipt of custom, sat a statuesque middle-aged 
 woman, cutting bread-and-butter. Her rusty black 
 bodice was cut low, displaying the throat of a diva. 
 Her plentiful dark hair was smeared with streaks 
 of henna, giving it the appearance of tortoiseshell 
 — a grotesquely coquettish touch. Without favour- 
 ing us with as much as a glance, she prodded a 
 squatting Arab with the toe of a split velvet slipper. 
 He got up, collected the tuppences, stacked them in 
 front of her, and squatted once more. That done 
 our driver threw in his clutch, but so abruptly that 
 he killed the engine. " Madame," said he, " may 
 your Arab give the handle a turn ? " 
 
 The Arab glanced at his mistress, but, like 
 Thackeray's friend, Charlotte, she made no sign, 
 but went on cutting bread-and-butter. The driver 
 cleared his throat and spoke louder. " Ahem ! — 
 
THE ROAD TO MARRAKECH 125 
 
 Madame, will you tell your Arab to start my engine, 
 if you please? " Charlotte went on cutting bread- 
 and-butter. The driver cursed softly, " Madame, 
 you see how it is. To get out I have to climb over 
 two ladies with babies. The gentlemen in the back 
 are so crowded they cannot possibly move, whereas 
 it wouldn't take your Arab a second. One twist, 
 I beg of you." 
 
 Charlotte continued to cut bread-and-butter. The 
 two burdened women got out, the driver restarted 
 the engine, and then they all packed back again. 
 At the wheel once more the driver made a speech 
 to Charlotte. He complimented her on her appear- 
 ance, on the success of her coiffeur, on her manners, 
 on her kindness of heart. Then turning to us, he 
 took off his hat : " Messieurs, Dames," said he. 
 ** Let us honour this so gracious lady. Adieu, 
 charmante charmeuse." We civilians gravely un- 
 covered, the soldier saluted, the two women bowed, 
 the driver kissed his hands — and so we rumbled 
 away over the bridge. 
 
 When I glanced back Charlotte had stopped cutting 
 bread-and-butter and was imperturbably eating it. 
 She never even looked up ! Oh, admirable woman ! 
 
 As we climbed and swooped through the bare hills 
 of Les Skrours the sim sprang out hot and strong 
 and the wet land steamed under it like a drying 
 towel. 
 
 After the hills the plains again, a treeless wilder- 
 ness, sparsely dotted with Bedouin encampments, 
 flocks of black goats and moth-eaten camels. 
 
 The wild swaying of the car and the increasing 
 heat told on the babies with the disastrous conse- 
 quences afore-mentioned. Being in the back seat 
 
126 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 I escaped scathless, but from the excitement in the 
 intervening row it appeared that the fellows there 
 were not so fortunate. However, the driver pro- 
 vided them with a side-screen as a shield against 
 further back-fires and we whirred on again, on and 
 on, kilometre after kilometre. 
 
 A fresh range of naked hills rose steeply in our 
 path, the'Djebilet or " little mountains." The road 
 bored through a pass, rose over a saddle and slid 
 downhill, dodging in and out round the rocky 
 spurs. 
 
 Then suddenly we turned a corner and saw far 
 away across the hazy plains to the south a vast 
 oasis of dark green palms, pierced by slender pink 
 minarets and backed by the huge gUttering snow 
 wall of the Major Atlas — Marrakech, the City of 
 Morocco. 
 
XXII 
 
 MARRAKECH 
 
 The name of the southern capital of the Moghreb 
 takes many forms. Borrow calls it " Maraks/' old 
 British residents " Morocco City," ancient writers 
 and most maps simply " Morocco." The modern 
 French call it " Marrakech," and as they are in 
 possession and Hkely to remain, it is wisest to 
 follow their example. 
 
 When, four years before the battle of Hastings, 
 Youssef Ben Tachfine came out of the desert with 
 his fanatic horsemen and made himself master of 
 Morocco he secured Fez (after two sieges), but 
 founded his capital on the site of the old Roman 
 camp of Bocanum Hemerum. This is now Marra- 
 kech. In 1145 the Almoravides were overturned 
 by another Saharan family, the Almohades, who 
 established themselves at Fez. But at the hands 
 of these mighty kings, whose conquests extended 
 over Algeria, Tunisia and deep into Spain itself, 
 Marrakech was by no means neglected. They built 
 the mosque and tower of the Kontoubia — the queen 
 minaret of all Morocco — the Aguenaou Gate, the 
 Dar El Makhzen palace, laid out the Aguedal 
 Gardens and bridged the Tensift with twenty-seven 
 arches. 
 
 The Merinides and the Beni Ouatta dynasties 
 also made their headquarters at Fez, visiting Marra- 
 kech only to subdue it, and the city languished for 
 
 "7 
 
128 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 a while, to bloom again under the Saadian Sultans. 
 These swept into power on the wave of a holy war 
 against the Portuguese which ultimately washed 
 the invaders off the coast, with the exception of 
 the garrison at Mazagan. The greatest of this line 
 was Abou El Mansour, surnamed " The Golden," 
 who organized an expedition to Timbuktu, returning 
 with fabulous spoils which he spent in enriching his 
 capital. He set up wonderful buildings decorated 
 with Carrara marble (paid for, it is said, with 
 sugar), built the Saadian Mausoleum, the Badi 
 Palace and completed the Dar El Makhzen and 
 the Aguedal. 
 
 Fez found greater favour with the dynasties that 
 followed, but Marrakech remained the capital of 
 the south, a " makhzenia " or imperial town, and 
 Sultans visited it regularly, adding colleges, gates, 
 mosques and mausoleums as the spirit moved them. 
 For four centuries it was actually a Christian 
 bishopric. 
 
 The first missionaries to arrive in Marrakech 
 were five hardy Franciscan brothers. The reigning 
 Almohade seems to have been extremely broad- 
 minded for his period. He let them come and he 
 let them preach. Even when they outraged all 
 decent manners by violently profaning the creed 
 of their hosts and starting a general riot, he forbore 
 to act as all his instincts must have urged him, but 
 gently deported them to Ceuta. The five Fran- 
 ciscans, however, dodged their escort, and returning 
 to Marrakech opened the racket again. Seeing 
 that nothing short of martyrdom would content 
 these vahant pests the Almohade obligingly martyred 
 them. A martyr, it appears to me, is a man who 
 
MARRAKECH 129 
 
 persistently crams down another man's throat some 
 doctrine that is utterly repugnant to him, till the 
 latter, exasperated beyond endurance, takes a 
 meat-axe to stop the flow. In short, a martyr is 
 simply a slaughtered bore. One would have thought 
 that the Almohades would have placed an embargo 
 on Christian evangelists after this, but not a bit of 
 it, and when in 1233 one Brother Angelo turned up 
 in Marrakech, describing himself as " bishop " of 
 the place, and producing credentials from Pope 
 Gregory IX., they let him and his successors bishop 
 ahead undisturbed. The see was financed by 
 property on the Guadilquivir, so it didn't cost them 
 anything, and there were no more riots — bishops 
 being notoriously not the stuff that martyrs are 
 made of. So the bishops continued in Marrakech, 
 living comfortably on Andalusian rents, until the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, when the 
 Sultans, enraged by the expulsion of the Moors 
 from Spain, kicked the Spanish prelate out of 
 Morocco, and that was the end of that. 
 
 Abou El Mansour's adventure to Timbuktu 
 opened regular trade between Marrakech, the Niger 
 and the " Coasts of Guinea." Caravans were de- 
 spatched to buy, or preferably steal, slaves, gold, 
 gums, ivory and indigo from the West Coast natives. 
 The privations suffered by these caravans in the 
 Sahara were fearful. A heavy percentage never 
 returned. Jackson, who traded in Agadir in 1805, 
 records that an " akkabaah " homeward bound 
 from Timbuktu to Taffilet lost themselves in the 
 seas of sand and perished to a man — two thousand 
 souls and eighteen hundred camels. 
 
 The chief item of the Niger traffic was slaves, 
 
 K 
 
130 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 obtained either by raids or bought for salt. Sudan- 
 ese " black ivory " came also into Marrakech from 
 the great Saharan slave-market of Ghadames, via 
 Gourarat and TafiUet. De la Martiniere says that 
 the price for slaves in Morocco in 1889 ranged from 
 £2 to £20, the latter for "a choice young negress 
 possessing a fair number of charms " ! Where the 
 slaves once marched in gangs they are now smuggled 
 into Marrakech in driblets, but the everlasting 
 Sahara remains and its caravans roll up as of yore. 
 Marrakech with its fountains and gardens, with its 
 green palms nodding against the snows of the Atlas, 
 must look mighty good to these herdsmen and 
 cameleers Umping in parched and sore-footed after 
 months of blazing desert trails. One sees them all 
 over the town, swarthy with sunburn, in soiled and 
 tattered haiks, sauntering along in pairs, hand in 
 hand like children (or Chinamen), gazing wide-eyed 
 at the wonders of the city, smiling at everything, 
 rus in urbe, " rubber-necks." 
 
 Fez and Marrakech are the two chief cities of 
 Morocco, but they are as the poles asunder. Fez 
 is the East; Marrakech, Africa. Fez is secret and 
 sinister; Marrakech wide-open and jolly. Fez 
 makes books and dainty scarves, jewellery and 
 cosmetics for ladies; Marrakech makes saddlery 
 and swords, powder-flasks and silver-mounted guns. 
 Fez is a city of pale students and merchants juggling 
 words and money in the gloom; Marrakech a city 
 of brown adventurers seeing life in the sunshine. 
 The lovely tower of the Koutoubia, with its belt of 
 turquoise mosaic, dominates all Marrakech. Its 
 pinnacle is decorated with three golden globes 
 
MARRAKECH 131 
 
 concerning which Legend has been busy. One story 
 is that they were made from the jewellery of Abd 
 El Mumin's pious queen. Captain John Smith, the 
 privateer who took service with the Moors in 1604, 
 relates that " A King's daughter of Etheopea " set 
 them up in memory of a dead prince of Morocco, 
 her betrothed. Pellow, the renegade, on the other 
 hand, says that they were given by a royal widow, 
 Lalla Oudah, to expiate her crime of nibbling a 
 peach during the fast of Ramadan, and were sup- 
 posed to be guarded by Djinns who, on the approach 
 of thieves, produced " a great rumbling noise, Hke 
 as if the whole fabric was tumbHng." Pellow speaks 
 from experience, for he took a crack at the precious 
 globes himself one night. Two-thirds of the way 
 up the tower the rumbling started, his light went 
 out, and Mr. Pellow, ** falling in a very great sweat," 
 came down with a run, and went home consoling 
 himself with the thought that if he had got any 
 gold the Sultan would assuredly have taken it from 
 him, so everything was really for the best. How 
 potent a panacea is philosophy ! 
 
 The Djinns of the Koutoubia 
 
 *' Three coal-black demons in coal-black robes 
 Sat up the tower and watched the globes. 
 One dark guardian said to another, 
 ' What see you in the night, O brother ? ' 
 ' I see the old moon hollow and strange 
 Over the snows of the Atlas range, 
 Orion a-glitter. Mars a-glow, 
 The twinkling lights of the town below. 
 I hear the tinkle of fountains flowing, 
 Wind in the palm groves coming and going. 
 I smell the flowers in the Sultan's garden. 
 And what see you, O fellow-warden ? ' 
 
132 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 " ' I see the Sultan feasting in style 
 On cous-cous, chicken and sherbert, while 
 The Sultan's favourite clasps her lover 
 Deep in the garden's leafy cover. 
 I hear music and I see dancers 
 Sway, and a kaid of Askar lancers, 
 Wild from the desert, flinging his soul 
 To a gipsy slut, all henna and kohl. 
 I see the beggar-folk in their huts 
 Wolfing a supper of figs and guts 
 (The dumb can jest, the blind are winking.) 
 I hear prisoners' fetters clinking. 
 The deep -voiced challenges of the guards. 
 And nomad pipes in the camel yards. 
 What of the night, O silent brother ? ' 
 
 " ' I hear sounds you were like to smother 
 With all your chatter — the soft footfalls 
 Of a thief intent on the Golden Balls. 
 He creeps upstairs, he is close beneath, 
 Sweat on his brow, a knife in his teeth. 
 Now for the rumblings ! All together ! . . . 
 See him scampering hell for leather. 
 Crash ! to the bottom with both legs broken. 
 It is sufficient, the Djinns have spoken ! ' " 
 
XXIII 
 
 MARRAKECH 
 
 The hub of Marrakech is the Place Djeema El 
 Fna. Its name means " The Sinners' Rendezvous," 
 for it was here, in quite recent times, that the 
 heads or limbs of executed criminals were exposed 
 to view by order of the authorities — very much 
 as an English gamekeeper nails up stoats and 
 weasels. 
 
 Muley Ismail sent the heads of ten thousand 
 Shavoian men, women and children to decorate 
 the walls of Fez and Marrakech. 
 
 Fellow relates that after the taking of Guzlan, 
 Muley Es Sherif removed all the rebels' heads 
 with the intention of carrying them to his father 
 the Sultan — like a proud little puppy bringing home 
 his first rat. However, " they became stinking to 
 that degree that he was obliged to be contented 
 with their ears, which were all cut off from their 
 heads and put up with salt into barrels." It is 
 gratifying to learn that the Sultan expressed him- 
 self "highly content with the ears; though not, 
 as he said, but that the sight of the heads would 
 have given him a great deal of pleasure." 
 
 Still the puppy got his pat and Mr. Fellow twenty 
 ducats for his share in the massacre. 
 
 The ears were strung on cords and festooned the 
 city walls. That was in the eighteenth century. 
 
 The pretender Bou Hamara was hung alive on 
 133 
 
134 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 the battlements of Fez, spread-eagled in a cramped 
 wooden cage. When the Fezzians had had their 
 fun out of him, he was tossed to Muley Aziz' pet 
 lions for the entertainment of the ladies of the 
 harem, thus providing sport to the last. 
 
 That was in this our twentieth century, 1904 to 
 be precise. 
 
 But transgressors no longer muster in death 
 upon the Djeema El Fna. Marrakech is the Sahara 
 pleasure city and the Place of grisly memories is 
 its Broadway, its Leicester Square. In the morning 
 and early afternoon it is given over to vendors of 
 fruit, vegetables, etc., and native barbers may be 
 seen putting their stoic customers to the sword, 
 but towards evening the public entertainers take 
 possession, drawing audiences to them by a pro- 
 digious thumping of drums. 
 
 From mid-afternoon till dark the four or five 
 acres of the Place are packed with crowds of sight- 
 seers, ring with the shouts of performers and throb 
 with the din of tom-toms. The sight-seers are of 
 all sorts. Townswomen in white, closely veiled; 
 dark, ardent Bedouin women in blue, unveiled for 
 the most part; caravan men from the desert, 
 rough, simple creatures with a smell of camel 
 about them and curved daggers swinging from 
 their shoulders; mountaineers from the Atlas, 
 arrogant fellows, hawk-featured; and here and 
 there a big black Senegalese soldier with his graceful 
 wife carrying a round-eyed piccaninny on her 
 back. A good-tempered, kindly crowd. I jostled 
 about amongst them evening after evening and met 
 nothing but smiles and courtesy. 
 
 The story-tellers kept away to the western side 
 
MARRAKECH 135 
 
 of the Place. There must have been a dozen of 
 them. They were refined, clean-looking men, dressed 
 in the snowiest of garments, and they delivered 
 their yarns with great spirit and expression, rapping 
 from time to time on little square tambourines. I 
 wished I could have understood what they were 
 sa5dng, for I'm sure their tales were good, they held 
 their audiences spellbound. Close to them was a 
 man with performing monkeys and a buffoon and 
 his partner. The fool was a stout negro with a 
 short white beard, his assistant a young Moor in 
 a red-and-white striped djellaba. 
 
 The fool staggered round and round, slapping 
 his thighs and making faces, pulled off a few feeble 
 practical jokes at the expense of the Moor and 
 ended up by riding him round the circle, shrieking 
 with laughter — the eternal story of the clown and 
 the ring-master, the triumph of folly over wisdom. 
 It may have been excellent fooling, but the audience 
 gave no sign of being amused, they remained 
 engrossed throughout, but as solemn as undertakers' 
 mutes. 
 
 The timiblers were not much better. They wore 
 dark blue blouses and shorts edged with red, shouted 
 a lot and threw creditable somersaults and hand- 
 springs, while a small boy squirmed in the dust 
 tying himself in knots, but there was nothing in 
 their show that would have won a clap in a third- 
 rate European music-hall. 
 
 The snake-charmer was more exciting. He was 
 a cadaverous creature, with wild, humorous eyes, 
 dressed in tatters and long oily hair. A member 
 of the Aissawa, a semi-religious brotherhood who 
 hold themselves impervious to all earthly hurt 
 
136 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 and are subject to fits of physical delirium, during 
 which they tear live sheep to pieces with their 
 teeth, gnash stones and red-hot coals. 
 
 Four ruffians crouched on their hunkers and 
 banged away on hand drums, while the snake- 
 charmer ran round and round the ring at a wolf- 
 lope. When a sufficient audience had assembled 
 he shook a snake out of a leather bag, caught it 
 by the neck and tail and held it at arm's length. 
 
 The snake, a thick yellowish reptile, was any- 
 thing but charmed. It writhed and hissed. He 
 laughed, and brought it to within six inches of his 
 mouth and let go its head. The snake struck, and 
 as it did so the man put his tongue out. The snake 
 sank its fangs into the tongue and hung there 
 quivering. 
 
 There would be little in this trick were it not 
 that the snakes are said to be deadly. A friend of 
 mine once scoffed at a Tangerine charmer, telling 
 him that anybody could fool with a creature that 
 had had its poison-fangs extracted. For answer 
 the Aissawa sent across the market for a fowl, 
 incited his snake to strike it, and in a second the 
 wretched bird was dead. 
 
 The charmer unhooked the serpent, picked up a 
 handful of shavings from the ground, wiped the 
 blood off his tongue and crammed the shavings 
 into his mouth. In a few moments smoke began 
 to pour from his nostrils. He chewed on and on, 
 chest heaving, eyes rolling, opened his jaws and 
 showed himself all aflame within. The fellow must 
 have had asbestos innards. 
 
 Cheek by jowl with the snake-charmer were a 
 troupe of Chleuh dancers, three men and four boys. 
 
MARRAKECH 137 
 
 The boys had their heads shaved, except for pig- 
 tails, but the men wore their hair long, and it was 
 carefully combed, glossed with oil and strung with 
 gold and enamel jewellery. They were all dressed 
 in spotless white garments which hung to their 
 ankles. The men played gounibris and ouds, and 
 sang, swaying to the music, while the boys danced. 
 They swayed gently, shuffled, stamped, twirled 
 and swayed again, drifting across and across each 
 other all the time to the tinkling, pleasant tunes, 
 frittering tiny brass cymbals between their fingers. 
 It was most graceful, far more so than the dancing 
 of any Arab woman I have seen. 
 
 I was pushing about one evening in the Djeema 
 El Fna when I heard a blood-chilling whoop, and 
 saw a nightmare apparition bounding through the 
 crowd straight for me. The creature was inky, 
 filthy and naked, except for a few rags and bits 
 of goat-skin. 
 
 He hurtled through the press in kangaroo bounds 
 and whooped as he bounded, a mane of muck- 
 matted hair streaming round his head like a black 
 halo. The crowd scattered right and left and I 
 scattered with them, having no desire to be mistaken 
 for a sheep and minced by a demented Aissawa. 
 The brute missed me by a foot and bounded on 
 and out of sight. Behind him came running the 
 main body of the sacred order, banging on drums, 
 howling hke a pack of wolves, and bearing in their 
 midst a dirty green banner worked with Arabic 
 characters. 
 
 I followed to where the green banner had halted, 
 and with the help of a friendly dragoman got a 
 place in the inner circle. The Aissawas were seated 
 
138 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 on the ground, thumping their tom-toms and 
 chanting. I have seen Sioux and Blackfoot braves 
 in their paint and Kaffir witch-doctors got up to 
 kill, but they were pure chocolate-box to these 
 gentry. They were men of all ages, half-naked, 
 horribly disfigured, indescribably foul, and — as 
 Anatole France says of earlier saints — " the odour 
 of their sanctity rose to heaven." 
 
 The Aissawa live by working on the popular 
 imagination and will stop at nothing to create an 
 impression. One fellow had dragged his ear-lobes 
 down until they dangled almost to his shoulders 
 like loops of tripe. The lips of another had been 
 artificially swollen, and protruded well beyond his 
 nose. A third had slit his mouth lengthways so 
 that his grin extended literally from ear to ear. 
 
 An old albino was dancing under the green flag 
 to the delirious crescendo of the drums. He was 
 fat, pale, toothless, quite hairless and covered with 
 scales of dirt. His sole garment was a sack. He 
 crossed his dirty fat arms on his breast and rocked 
 and moaned and slobbered, tears streaming from 
 his puckered eyes. He looked like some pale 
 slimy slug that Hves underground among the worms 
 and fungi, and, I expect, was an extremely holy 
 person. 
 
 The black demon who had nearly knocked me 
 over sprang to his feet and started to bound again, 
 shrieking and panting. He flung himself this way 
 and that, gnashed his tongue and spat blood and 
 foam. Then he drew a dagger and chopped himself 
 over the head with it till the blood ran streaming 
 into his eyes and dripped to his chest. The small 
 boys simply loved it. Then he made a collection. 
 
MARRAKECH 139 
 
 (It has been my experience that ecclesiastical 
 observances of any denomination are closely followed 
 by an acolyte with the hat.) 
 
 I thought so much gore was worth something, 
 so I contributed two francs — at the then rate of 
 exchange worth about sixpence. 
 
 The Aissawa examined the note carefully to see 
 if it were genuine and then made a speech about 
 me. I was right in the front row; all eyes were 
 turned my way and it was most embarrassing. 
 
 At the end of the speech everybody passed their 
 hands over their faces and murmured the name of 
 Allah. 
 
 "What was all that about?" I asked the 
 dragoman. 
 
 " Oh, sar, he say you nothin* but poor bloody 
 infidel, all same you present him most than all 
 dese peoples what call themself * True Believers.' 
 He say you good fellah. He say all peoples must 
 pray^you be convert to True Faith and go heaven 
 by'm by." 
 
XXIV 
 
 MARRAKECH 
 
 One of the most entertaining sights I saw in 
 Marrakech was the beggars' parade. At about nine 
 in the morning they began to appear, issuing singly 
 from all comers of the Place Djeema El Fna, and 
 collected under a building near the Post Office. 
 They squatted with their backs to the wall and 
 passed a pipe of hasheesh from hand to hand. The 
 courage with which these unfortunates bore up 
 against their infirmities was most uplifting to 
 behold. Seldom have I seen so merry a crew. 
 They joked, gossiped, told stories, poked each 
 other in the ribs and rocked with laughter. At 
 nine-forty-five the last member had reported, the 
 sun was mounting, and stem Duty called. 
 
 They arose, settled their rag garments, grasped 
 their staves, composed their features and linked 
 up, each beggar taking hold of the tatters of the 
 beggar in front. When they were all in line a 
 small boy gave his shoulder to the leading mendicant 
 and away they went. Simultaneously as they 
 stepped off each broke into his professional wail, 
 howling for alms at the top of his pipe, in the name 
 of Allah, Mahomet, Tachfine, Idriss or other pet 
 patron saint. 
 
 They trailed, howling and chanting, across the 
 Djeema El Fna en route for their places of business, 
 a chain of sixteen shambling rag-heaps, clinging to 
 each other's tails like a troupe of performing baboons. 
 
 140 
 
MARRAKEGH 141 
 
 These gentry were blind — or supposed to be — but 
 apparently one does not need any special qualifica- 
 tions to set up as a beggar in Morocco, for the 
 majority of them are sturdy rogues who would be 
 quite capable of working for a living were it not 
 that the mere suggestion of bodily toil makes them 
 come over all swoony-like. 
 
 The Moorish servant of a friend of mine suddenly 
 gave notice. His mistress asked him his reasons 
 for leaving ; had he any complaints to make ? He 
 had none whatever, he said — everything had been 
 quite satisfactory and he could give her the best of 
 characters. No, he was merely tired of work and 
 thought he'd go begging for a change. And he 
 went. 
 
 A great negro, thewed like a shorthorn bull, 
 squatting on his muscular hams, imploring burdened 
 passers-by to keep him in indolence in the name of 
 God, is a sight not without the elements of humour 
 — and is quite a common spectacle in Morocco. 
 
 I must admit to a very warm feeling for glaring 
 impostors of that sort. It takes considerable 
 courage to face the world with nothing in your 
 hands but a great, big, blazing, bare-faced, bald- 
 headed bluff that an unweaned bat could see through 
 blindfolded. I should be in constant terror of being 
 lynched myself. 
 
 The market philanthropist who sells yokels gold 
 watches for half-a-crown, the politician who promises 
 the public ninepence for fourpence, the " Futurist," 
 " Cubist," " Trapesium " or what-not who wipes 
 his boots on a canvas, calls the result *' a psychic 
 impression of Bach's Sarabande in Damn Flat," 
 and persuades the critics to take him seriously — 
 
142 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 all these bold spirits have my admiration and best 
 wishes for success. It was, I think, the Tichborne 
 claimant who divided the public into two classes 
 only, those who have money and those who have 
 got to get it from them. He who will subscribe to 
 lusty beggars, buy gold bricks from Rand magnates 
 in Shaftesbury Avenue bars and play poker with 
 curates in race-trains at this stage of the world's 
 history, doesn't deserve to have any money, and 
 the sooner he is divorced from it the better. All of 
 which is a thousand miles from the subject in hand; 
 we will now hark back to it. 
 
 On the southern skirts of Marrakech are the 
 Saadian tombs, the Imperial Palace and gardens. 
 The Saadian Mausoleum lies hidden in the heart of 
 the Kasba. You reach it through a labyrinth of 
 deserted lanes, grass-grown and strewn with heaps 
 of tumbled bricks, come upon a building which, 
 from its exterior, might well be a straw bam, and 
 enter by an unpretentious door into the quiet 
 presence of Ahmed El Mansour, " the Golden 
 Sultan," and the Emirs of his dynasty. Moorish 
 decoration is apt to be too richly coloured, too 
 ornate, but in the Saadian Mausoleum the gilt and 
 scarlet has been used sparingly and Time has 
 mellowed the lace-like plaster to the tone of old 
 ivory. The lines of the central chamber are simple 
 and lovely — almost Gothic. The lighting, which 
 comes in shafts from gratings near the ceiling, is 
 subdued and perfect. Several blue pigeons were 
 fluttering in and out of the gratings, cooing and 
 preening themselves above the marble tombs. 
 
 The only living things in the deserted palace 
 at Tangier were blue pigeons. The Mashonas say 
 
MARRAKECH 
 
 143 
 
 that the spirits of their chiefs return to their old 
 hunting-grounds in the shape of Hons. Perhaps the 
 souls of dead Sultans enter these birds and come 
 back to hover over the scenes of their bygone 
 glories. 
 
 The Dar El Makhzen (Imperial Palace) is for- 
 bidden ground. Its interior is reputed to be the 
 most sumptuous in all Morocco. Built by the 
 Almohades and im- 
 proved by the Saadians, 
 its vast rooms are said 
 to be lined with white 
 marble and contain fish- 
 ponds and fountains. 
 
 Pellow, the renegade, 
 says that the ceilings of 
 these rooms were covered 
 with mirrors, so that the 
 reflected fishes appeared 
 to be swimming over- 
 head. 
 
 The Dar El Makhzen 
 overlooks the Aguedal, 
 the Sultan's pleasaunce. 
 
 I took a mule one morning and went for an amble 
 through these gardens. He was an unambitious old 
 donkey, with a comfortable trippling gait which he 
 could do in his sleep — and did. He took a nap 
 while waiting for me outside the hotel, woke up for 
 a few moments when I mounted him, and then, 
 finding I was armed with nothing that would pene- 
 trate his calloused hide, slumbered off again and. 
 wobbled ahead, his mind a blank, his legs working 
 mechanically. As long as he answered the helm and 
 
 " I was in no hurry " 
 
144 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 didn't trip over himself I was well enough suited, 
 being in no hurry. 
 
 The Aguedal gardens are three kilometres in length, 
 irrigated by wonderful reservoirs and aqueducts, 
 surrounded by fortifications and subdivided by high 
 red walls topped by sea-green tiles. Each section 
 is given up to one sort of tree. I ambled through 
 acres of olives, then through acres of oranges, 
 bearing fruit and flower at the same time, through 
 apple, pear and plum orchards, through groves of 
 lemon, almond, figs, apricots, mandarins and pome- 
 granates. The warm wind blowing across square 
 miles of blossom swept us with wave upon wave of 
 almost overwhelming perfume. The bright sunlight 
 filtering down through the tree-tops made a path 
 of gold lace for my old mule's shuffling feet — but he 
 never blinked a lid, just wobbled on, snoring gently. 
 
 We trippled all round the western side, down the 
 centre and back again, and not a solitary soul did 
 we meet — except one young Arab in a chocolate 
 djellaba who sat under an almond tree as if in a 
 trance, tall mauve poppies nodding all round him, 
 his pale hands crossed on his lap. I called " Salaam ! " 
 to him, but he did not even open his eyes, so I left 
 him to his poppied sleep and turned homewards 
 down a minor alley, with the over-arching boughs 
 snatching, green-fingered, at my hat; passed 
 through a gate into an orange grove and heard the 
 noise of singing. 
 
 The singing was of many voices, but stopped as 
 I came on the scene. I checked my old somnam- 
 bulist and looked for the singers, but couldn't see 
 them anywhere. The trees were of the kind that 
 are cultivated only for their flowers, of which orange- 
 
MARRAKECH 145 
 
 water is made. They were heavy with great pulpy 
 golden fruit and snowy with blossom. That some- 
 body had been lately picking the blossom was 
 evident from the heaps of it piled close to the trunks. 
 
 The singing broke out afresh, a wordless, bird- 
 like trilling very sweet and clear. I looked around, 
 behind, before — nobody. Then the singing changed 
 to ripples of laughter, and glancing up I saw the 
 boughs parting and little girls' faces peeping through 
 — pale gold faces cheek to cheek with golden oranges 
 and framed in green leaves and snowy blossom. 
 They showed their tiny white teeth, and their big 
 dark eyes sparkled at the sight of the " Roumi " 
 tripper and his comic steed. Then the boughs 
 closed and they twittered into song once more. 
 The witchery of the morning infected me and I 
 sang too — " The Blackwall Liner," of all inappro- 
 priate selections, but it was the first thing that came 
 to my tongue. 
 
 I have rather a remarkable voice. Should the 
 worst come to the worst I could make quite a good 
 living by singing in public. People would pay me 
 big money to move into the next parish, county, 
 or, preferably, emigrate. This is no idle boast. I 
 once sang in the aid of charity at a concert on board 
 an Atlantic packet. I didn't know the words, so 
 had to pay all my attention to the score and didn't 
 see what was happening. 
 
 When I had coughed up the last hoot and looked 
 around for the thunders of applause, there weren't 
 any, for the sufficient reason that every soul of the 
 audience had arisen and slid quietly into the night 
 long before, preferring the rigours of a Western 
 Ocean gale to what was going on in the saloon. 
 
 L 
 
146 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 As the collection was to be made after the perform- 
 ance, the charity came out rather poorly. The secre- 
 tary, however, was equal to the occasion. He 
 posted a notice that subscriptions would be received 
 in his cabin, and unless the takings were satis- 
 factory, Mr. Garstin would sing again. The takings 
 broke all records. 
 
 You will please pardon this digression, but I 
 mention the incident to show that sensitive people 
 prefer almost death to hearing me tune up. 
 
 I didn't mean to annoy the pretty little flower- 
 pickers. The combination of scent, sunshine and 
 general loveliness went to my head with a rush, and 
 " The Blackwall Liner " simply bubbled out of me. 
 Nevertheless it didn't last long. I had just got to 
 *' Oh, what do you think we had for dinner? " 
 when down came a shower of those heavy, soft 
 oranges. One knocked my hat sideways, another 
 skimmed my jaw, and another took the old moke 
 under the eye and splashed out like a sun-burst. 
 
 He woke up with a snort, cavorted sideways into 
 an irrigation ditch, floundered out again and brought 
 up with his nose against a tree-trunk. I climbed 
 back off his withers into the red-cloth saddle, un- 
 hooked my hat from my ear and glared around. 
 There was nobody to be seen. The boughs had 
 closed again, but the leaves were all a-quiver as 
 though shaken by little imps of laughter. 
 
 Once upon a time there was a Prince of Morocco 
 by the name of Muley Archid. He was bom a 
 younger son, but deciding that he would not die one 
 if he could help it, he set to work to murder his 
 way to the throne. He polished off his elder 
 
MARRAKEGH 147 
 
 brother, Muley Em Hamet, with his own hand, 
 and everything was going swimmingly, when one 
 day he went for a ride in the Aguedal and did not 
 come back. When they found him he was jammed 
 by the head in the fork of an old orange tree, dead 
 as hashed mutton. His horse had bolted with 
 him. ... I wonder if some saucy little girl threw 
 an orange at it ? 
 
 In the Sultan's Garden, Marrakech 
 
 " Ten little slave-girls sit and sing 
 High in the Sultan's orange trees. 
 They shake the laden boughs and fling 
 A rain of blossom down the breeze. 
 
 " Their song uprises sweet and shrill, 
 A song that cannot wait for words. 
 They perch along the boughs and trill 
 Like Uttle golden singing birds. 
 
 " Now they are hidden shy and mute, 
 And now their laughter peals anew, 
 And all among the golden fruit 
 Are golden faces peeping through — 
 
 " Bewitching faces framed in green, 
 Mischievous eyes that sparkling rove. 
 These are no bondmaids of a queen. 
 But dryads of the orange grove. 
 
 " And now they turn to work again. 
 Again their blackbird carols flow. 
 The blossom falls like silver rain 
 Upon the marigolds below. 
 
 " Oh, were I Sultan I would let 
 My Vizier make what laws he chose. 
 And doff the cares of State and get 
 Quietly to my garden close, 
 
 " And sit beneath the scented trees, 
 With blossom drifting white as curds, * 
 
 And smoke my pipe and take my ease. 
 And listen to my singing birds." 
 
XXV 
 
 S.S. BRAZZAVILLE 
 
 I BOOKED a passage from Casablanca to Tangier 
 by a French boat that was due to sail next day. 
 
 " You'll be there on time, won't you? " said the 
 shipping clerk. " On the dock at three- thirty 
 sharp, sharp, mind you." 
 
 I promised. 
 
 Next morning as I stood outside the Excelsior 
 cafe bidding farewell to dozens of hospitable 
 Gasablancans, somebody touched my arm. It was 
 the shipping clerk. 
 
 " Don't forget, three-thirty at the latest," said 
 he, nodded and hurried away. 
 
 I had my kit packed before lunch, lunched, 
 settled up all round, climbed into a rickety cab 
 and reached the dock at three-twenty. 
 
 " Observe. Ten minutes to spare," said I, 
 dangling my watch before the shipping clerk. 
 " Now Where's the launch? " 
 
 He said it was then nearing the steps and bustled 
 off to speed up some other passengers. I fell into 
 conversation with a Frenchman, and we propped 
 up a wall and made guesses as to which of the 
 half-dozen steamers in the roads could be ours. 
 I plumped for a black funnel, he for a red-and-black. 
 We appealed to a mariner, who said that the black 
 funnel was the Abda, just in from Marseilles, and 
 the red-and-black a Portugee bound for Arzila. 
 When I looked at my watch again it was four-ten. 
 I accosted the shipping clerk, who was stampeding 
 
 148 
 
S.S. BRAZZAVILLE 149 
 
 about brandishing a bouquet of lading bills, and de- 
 manded how much longer we were to be kept waiting. 
 
 He replied that the embarkation was about to 
 begin and implored me to hold myself in readiness. 
 I took the Frenchman on at tossing pennies, by 
 five-thirty had lost two francs, and went on the 
 clerk's trail once more. I ran him to ground in the 
 harbour-master's office and asked permission to 
 go up town and get a tin of sardines or something. 
 He was aghast. What ! leave the quay just as we 
 were about to be taken off to the ship ? Impossible ! 
 
 The Frenchman dug a couple of " L'heure 
 d'oubli " novelettes out of his bag, and we sat on 
 our luggage reading them until the light failed. 
 I glanced at my watch; it showed 7.15. To my 
 horror the quay was quite deserted. I sprang up, 
 determined to find that clerk and drink his life's 
 blood. I found him in the Customs shed. 
 
 "Look here," I barked; "what the devil do 
 you mean by letting that boat go without us? " 
 
 " She hasn't gone," he said sweetly. " She hasn't 
 quite arrived yet." 
 
 "Wha-at?" 
 
 " Had a slight breakdown apparently, but I've 
 just had a wire to say she's been sighted off 
 Mogador, so she ought to be along in the morning. 
 You'll be here at the same time to-morrow, won't 
 you? Three-thirty at the latest." 
 
 I grabbed up a suit-case in either hand and 
 plodded off back to the hotel, the voice of the 
 clerk following faintly through the dusk : "... on 
 the dock at three-thirty sharp, sharp, mind you." 
 
 The Brazzaville limped in at nine-thirty next 
 
150 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 morning. I watched her unloading Senegalese 
 troops into lighters as I shaved, and went aboard 
 after lunch. She was for Marseilles with a cargo 
 of ground-nuts from Dakar and a deck-load of 
 bananas from the Canaries. She also carried a 
 number of monkeys and a civet cat in cages on 
 her promenade. Her passengers were mostly 
 French officials with their families, home-bound 
 from Guinea and Senegal. A bourgeois crowd with 
 all the vitality sapped out of them by heat and 
 fever. The women and children were pale, listless 
 and dowdy; the soldiers uncouth and dull, with 
 none of the snap one associates with French officers. 
 The swell of the company was a judge from the 
 Ivory Coast, a little dried-up husk of a man. He 
 had his wife with him, a strapping young negress 
 as black as the ace of spades, who dressed in 
 European kit and sat at the head of the captain's 
 table — a daughter of the subject race, straight- 
 backed, full-bosomed, lusty, flashing her strong 
 white teeth over the wreckage of her conquerors. 
 
 The most interesting people on board were four 
 Philadelphians who had been prospecting in 
 Senegal, hard-bitten, humorous, decent fellows. 
 As they did not enjoy being patronized by a Baule 
 negress, they fed at a side table and invited me to 
 join them. One asked me that night after dinner if 
 I were interested in spiritualism. " Because the 
 doctor is bugs on the subject and is going to hold a 
 seance presently," said he. " Care to come? " 
 
 I said I should, and we went on deck for a pipe 
 before the show. When we returned to the saloon 
 all the lights had been switched off, with the 
 exception of a small one over the centre table. 
 
S.S. BRAZZAVILLE 151 
 
 The captain, purser and about seventeen passengers 
 turned up. We took seats round the table, three 
 Americans and myself together. The fourth 
 " Fitz," they told me, was busy, but would be along 
 later. We were instructed by the doctor to spread 
 our hands on the table and link up, little fingers 
 touching. That done he besought us to concen- 
 trate our minds on Mozart and started to pray. 
 A curious figure, the doctor. About six feet three 
 in height, very thin, with a commanding red nose, 
 gold pince-nez and pom-poms of brindled hair fluffed 
 out over his ears. I had watched him painting 
 futuristic water-colours on deck that afternoon, 
 wiping his brushes on his white duck trousers. An 
 American told me he had dosed a fireman with photo- 
 graphic developing mixture for colic, and ever since 
 the captain had been doing the physicking. 
 
 The doctor prayed. He prayed that if there were 
 any spirits present they would manifest themselves 
 to twenty-three psychological students gathered in 
 earnest conclave. I didn't hear any more, as he 
 drifted into an incoherent mumble, but I could 
 see the man was in deadly earnest ; his voice shook 
 and his forehead was shining with sweat. Suddenly 
 he sprang to his feet screaming. At the same 
 moment banshee howls came from under all the 
 side tables, the saloon blazed with hissing blue 
 light, and from under the table rose a horned 
 white shape. Away went the doctor, racing round 
 and round the table, shrieking like a madman, 
 the horned apparition gambolling at his heels. 
 The earnest conclave of psychological students 
 folded over the table and wept brokenly. The 
 man who held the blue flare laughed so much that 
 
152 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 he dropped it and singed one of the banshees. At 
 the third lap the doctor got the door open and 
 bounded up the companion-way, with the apparition 
 not a foot behind. I went after them, thinking the 
 poor fool might be scared overboard. I reached the 
 deck in time to see the negress chucking a fit on top 
 of her tiny husband, the civet and monkeys going 
 round their cages nineteen to the dozen, gibbering 
 
 "With the devil at his coat-tails " 
 
 with terror, and the doctor sprinting aft over the 
 banana crates with the devil at his coat-tails. '' Fitz " 
 returned a few minutes later wiping chalk off his 
 face. He was dressed in the fleece of some sort of 
 white Barbary sheep, the horns of which were stuck 
 through the crown of an old pith helmet. 
 
 " Doc's all right," he reported. " Barricaded 
 himself in his cabin and squirted holy water or 
 developer or something at me through the keyhole, 
 shouting a Paternoster. Guess hell let sleeping 
 spooks lie after this." 
 
XXVI 
 
 TO CADIZ 
 
 They told me in Tangier that the Spanish ports 
 were closed to all travellers from the African side 
 on account of the plague of typhus that was sup- 
 posed to be raging in Morocco. I was not greatly 
 perturbed, because there never has been a barrage 
 yet that wasn't as full of holes as a bachelor's 
 socks. Furthermore, almost any Dago official will 
 go automatically stone blind if you drop a penny 
 in his slot, and would let Harry P. Satan through 
 heaven's gates for ten pesetas. However, I did 
 not want to work my passage by bribery if I could 
 help it, firstly because it is immoral, and secondly 
 because I had other uses for the money (my objec- 
 tions should have been placed the other way about, 
 perhaps) ; so I sat down in Tangier and nosed about 
 for a gap in the fence. I had just discovered a way 
 through (which I will not divulge because I might 
 need it some day — you never know) and was on the 
 point of putting it to the test when the Spanish 
 authorities lifted the embargo for forty-eight hours, 
 to save it from being pierced, I presume — like a 
 countryman of mine who erected an elaborate park 
 gate and then was afraid to shut it lest his cattle 
 rubbed the gilt off. I should have dearly liked to 
 have tested that gap, but to do so would have 
 meant waiting until the embargo dropped again 
 and then going considerably out of my road, so I 
 
 153 
 
154 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 decided to be sensible, accept defeat and introduce 
 my typhus into Spain by the regular channels. The 
 steamer was due to leave Tangier for Cadiz at mid- 
 day. The usual Levanter was blowing, and the 
 motor surf-boat that took us off went leaping and 
 plunging through the green rollers in a most 
 exhilarating manner. But that one got drenched to 
 the bone with the flying sheets of spray she tossed 
 from her, it was as good as a scurry over hurdles 
 astride an eager thoroughbred. By the time we 
 reached the steamer most of the passengers were 
 reduced to the colour and consistency of pea-soup. 
 The Arab surf-men baled the human mess out of 
 the boat and transferred it to the steamer's deck, 
 hove the luggage up and cast off. Ten minutes 
 later we were steaming nor'-nor'-west out of Tangier 
 Roads. The tide was pouring westwards through 
 the narrow funnel of Gibraltar's Straits. The waves 
 ran like a pack of white hounds foaming at the 
 mouth, while the Levanter rode on their sterns 
 cracking his whip and whooping them on. Once 
 clear of Cape Malabater the little packet got the 
 full force of wind and current on her starboard 
 quarter and rolled fit to shake the sticks out of 
 herself. 
 
 We were now in the main track of the shipping, 
 and fog swept upon us. It was not the clammy, 
 crawling, yellow beastliness of the Grand Banks 
 or the Channel, but an airy mixture of heat-mist 
 and spindrift whirling on the wings of the wind. 
 There was a strong sun at work somewhere up 
 above and the mist was charged with sunshine; 
 it gleamed, it sparkled, had iridescent gUmmers 
 in it and flickers of rainbows. An iron barque 
 
TO CADIZ 155 
 
 crossed our bows under a press of canvas, fairly 
 burying her nose in white water. As she drove 
 by they took in her lower-topgallants; we could 
 hear her people sing out as they tailed on the clew 
 and bunt-lines. A huge American tanker " flying 
 light " churned past, a cable's length astern of us, 
 with a consort on her port quarter. Tankers are 
 not elegant, but these great things lumbering 
 unmoved through the turmoil, their high red sides 
 and grotesque upper works towering over us, 
 blurred with the flying mist and their own blown 
 smoke, had a certain impressiveness ; they looked 
 like mediaeval castles. At sunset the white city 
 of Cadiz came abeam. We rounded the fortresses 
 of San Sebastian and Santa Catalina and dropped 
 anchor in the Bay. A tug put off and ran along- 
 side. She was chock-a-block with soldiers all 
 armed to the teeth. I felt sorry for any typhus 
 germ that might be aboard and wondered if they 
 would bayonet or shoot it. 
 
 The port doctor, a pleasant little man in a sort 
 of naval uniform, held audience in the stem cabin. 
 He asked me if I had any typhus germs about me. 
 I told him I hadn't as far as I knew, but if he could 
 find any he was quite welcome to them. He said 
 he was convinced I was not a " carrier," my colour 
 was too healthy. No germs could possibly live 
 on anybody as rosy as I was, they'd gQt scarlet 
 fever and die. He went on to say that he had 
 noticed most male Britons were very richly tinted, 
 and thought it was because they ate nothing but 
 raw beef. He then became purely conversational. 
 I was stopping long in Cadiz? Only one night — 
 ah ha ! And then ? And then Seville — a lovely 
 
156 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 city. " Quien no ha visto Sevilla no ha visto niara- 
 villa." I should be staying at the Hotel Paris 
 doubtless? Yes, yes. He made some notes, pre- 
 sented me with a sheet of buff paper and turned 
 to the next suspect. I crushed the buff paper into 
 my pocket and never gave it another thought until 
 — but that is another story. The examination of 
 passengers over, we all went ashore in the tug — all, 
 
 Male Britons ate nothing but raw beef" 
 
 with the exception of an old Spanish labourer and 
 his wife who were left aboard under guard. 
 
 I arrived at the hotel at nine o'clock and was 
 served with an excellent meal, which tasted all the 
 more delicious by virtue of contrast. At the next 
 table three young Spaniards were dining, mainly on 
 patent medicines. Each had a bottle of noxious 
 dope at his elbow and swigged solemnly away at 
 it all through the repast. 
 
 It was a ghastly spectacle, but gave me a feeling 
 
TO CADIZ 157 
 
 of immense superiority. Said I to myself, " Here 
 
 am I old enough to be you fellows* grandfath 
 
 well, at any rate at least as old as you fellows, 
 and Fm going to eat everything on the programme, 
 drink everything on the wine list, and never turn 
 a hair. I'll show you what a clear conscience and 
 simple living will do for a chap. I felt so proud 
 of myself I got light-headed and wrote poetry on 
 the back of the menu : 
 
 " The young caballero of Cadiz 
 A reckless and rollicking blade is. 
 He quaffs at his beanos 
 Both Epsom's and Eno's, 
 And twirls his moustache at the ladies. 
 On Owbridge's tonic 
 His language is chronic. 
 He mutters ' By Jove ! ' and ' Oh, Hades ! ' " 
 
 Next morning I discovered that Cadiz is pro- 
 nounced Kadi at home — the z being seen but not 
 heard. This absurd parochialism reduces my brain- 
 child to vers libre ; but never mind, the great 
 thoughts remain. 
 
XXVII 
 
 CADIZ 
 
 When I told the port doctor I was leaving Cadiz 
 next morning, I fully intended doing so, but after 
 dinner that night I fell in with a cheery Spanish 
 naval lieutenant who insisted on showing me round 
 the town. What with one thing and another we 
 returned to the hotel annexe in the small hours of 
 morning. Like most Andalusian houses the annexe 
 was built, Moorish fashion, about a central court, 
 the upper rooms giving on balconies running round 
 the inside, our rooms being at the top. 
 
 I led the way up and was on the point of opening 
 my door when I saw a big nigger doubled up behind 
 a palm plant ready to spring on me. What light 
 there was came from a shaded electric bulb. All 
 I could see was the crouch of his muscular figure 
 and the white gleam of his eyes and teeth — but 
 that was enough. Buck negroes have no right to 
 be hiding behind palms on hotel landings at three 
 a.m. — attack is the first principle of defence — I 
 dived for the brute over the top of the palm, landed 
 on his chest, bowled him over and we rolled together 
 on the floor. 
 
 The Spaniard heard the thud and came bounding 
 upstairs to my assistance. I picked myself up 
 hastily. 
 
 " What's the matter? " he inquired. 
 
 " Nothing," said I. " I — er — tripped over the 
 palm — the light is rotten." 
 
 158 
 
CADIZ 159 
 
 He looked at me curiously, then at the palm. 
 " Hello, what's that there? " 
 
 " Nothing," said I. " Let's go to bed." 
 
 For an answer he stepped past me, made an 
 exclamation and, stooping, dragged the body of 
 my burglar into the light. 
 
 The Spaniard was a decent fellow, he did not 
 laugh, he was indignant. " Fancy leaving this 
 abomination on a hotel landing ! " said he. " It 
 might scare young girls to death." 
 
 " Certainly," said I. 
 
 " It is our duty to protect them," said he. 
 
 " Obviously," said I. 
 
 Without further ado he picked the body up in 
 his arms and hove it over the balustrade. It fell 
 the five stories headlong, crashed like a bomb on 
 the flagstones of the court and burst into a thousand 
 fragments as though made of plaster — which, in 
 fact, it was — a plaster negro, full-sized, painted up 
 hke hfe and dressed in a complete suit of clothes. 
 
 We spent an entertaining ten minutes hanging 
 over the balustrade commenting on the various 
 night-attire of the startled guests who popped out 
 of their rooms on the balconies below us. 
 
 The upshot of all this was that, so far from catch- 
 ing the morning train, I slept till lunch-time. 
 
 I asked the Boots why he had not aroused me as 
 per request. He replied that he had entered my 
 room to the minute, but I looked so peaceful he 
 simply hadn't the heart to disturb me. He admitted 
 hearing me speak of leaving by the morning train, 
 but couldn't think I meant it. Morning trains 
 were run merely to fill a bare patch in the time- 
 table. No Spaniard, in his senses, ever travelled 
 
i6o THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 by them. He laughed at the very idea. (The 
 Santa Maria must have pushed off for the States 
 after lunch, I'm thinking, otherwise Columbus & Co. 
 would never have caught it.) 
 
 As things turned out I was extremely thankful 
 for the Boots' tenderness of heart and touching belief 
 in my sanity, for I fell in love with Cadiz and 
 continued to miss the morning train, morning after 
 morning, with complete equanimity. One train is 
 usually followed by another sooner or later, I have 
 noticed, and as I was faring but a few miles at a 
 time, there was no call for heroic measures. 
 
 Cadiz was founded by the Tyrians in iioo B.C. 
 The Phoenicians made it a trading post for the 
 silver of Tarshish and Cornish tin. In Cadiz 
 Hamilcar and Hannibal fitted out their fleets. 
 Julius Caesar and Pompey fought each other for it. 
 Martial and Juvenal wrote of it as " jocosae Gades," 
 lauded its cooking and dancing girls. On the banks 
 of the Guadalete (which empties into Cadiz Bay) 
 the Berber general Tarik, while out reconnoitring 
 with 12,000 cavalry, fell in with Roderick, the last 
 of the Visigoth kings, at the head of 90,000 men, 
 defeated him, and whirling on against orders, across 
 Andalusia and Castile to Toledo itself, established 
 the Moors so firmly in Spain that they were not 
 to be ousted for nearly eight centuries. Under the 
 Crescent, Cadiz fell into decay, but with the dis- 
 covery of America it soared dizzily again, for it 
 was in its port that the Indies fleets came to anchor, 
 tall galleons and galliasses, loaded deep with glitter- 
 ing cargoes of gems and bullion, the plunder of 
 Mexico and Peru. 
 
 To Cadiz in 1587 came Frankie Drake to " singe 
 
CADIZ i6i 
 
 the King of Spain's beard " — in other words, to 
 fire the shipping and stores and delay the sailing 
 of the Armada one year. In 1596 the English 
 came again, under the Lord Howard, admiral, and 
 the Earl of Essex, general. This time they not 
 only destroyed the shipping, but sacked and burnt 
 the town into the bargain. 
 
 " The great St. Philip, the pryde of the Spaniards 
 Wee burnt to the bottom, and sunk in the sea ; 
 But the St. Andrew, and eke the St. Matthew, 
 Wee took in fight manfullye and brought away. 
 
 *' Full of rich merchandize, every shop catched our eyes, 
 Damasks and sattens and velvets full fayre; 
 Which soldiers measured out by the length of their swords, 
 Of all commodities eche had a share. 
 
 " When our brave general saw they delayed all. 
 And wold not ransome their towne as they said, 
 With their fair wanscots, their presses and bedsteads. 
 Their joint-stools and tables a fire we made; 
 And when the towne burned all in flame. 
 With tara, tantara, away wee all came." 
 
 Thirteen men-o*-war and forty American galleons 
 was the bag on that occasion, to say nothing of 
 the loot. The city was soon rebuilt, and recovering 
 its trade was, until the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, a richer port than London. 
 
 On October 19th, 1805, Villeneuve, with the 
 combined fleets of France and Spain, stood out of 
 Cadiz with forty sail, thinking to encounter CoUing- 
 wood with only eighteen. Instead of that he saw 
 " a forest of masts to leeward " — Nelson with 
 twenty-seven sail. All Sunday night the two fleets 
 kept so close together that — in the words of a 
 British marine — " their lights looked like a street 
 well lighted up." Next morning broke with the 
 
 M 
 
l62 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 thunder of the guns off Trafalgar, and the horror- 
 stricken Gaditanos, crowded on their house-tops, 
 saw their last Armada go down before the old 
 enemy in the old way. Cadiz must have the word 
 " England " graven deep on her heart. 
 
 Cadiz is built on a limestone rock and is con- 
 nected to the Isla de Leon by an arm of sand so 
 narrow there is barely room on it for a railway 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 Dm -c. 
 
 "Especially above the sewer outlets" 
 
 and a road. Actually a peninsula, she is spiritually 
 an island, for wherever one looks are glimpses of 
 the sea; the sea- winds sing through her streets 
 and the thresh of the surf on her ramparts is ever 
 in one's ears. The houses are high^ with balconies 
 nodding to each other across the narrow streets, 
 all white, and bright with pink and red geraniums. 
 The dark doorways are closed with iron grilles 
 showing sunny courtyards beyond, palms, foun- 
 tains and azulejos tile-work — survivals of the 
 
CADIZ 163 
 
 Moors. She has pleasant squares and parks, 
 canopied with plane trees, acacia and giant palms, 
 in the shade of which splendid cabbies in blue 
 coats and gold-braided Staff caps snooze and 
 twist cigarettes, while nursemaids in deep Byronic 
 collars roll their dark eyes at the soldiery. 
 
 All along the sea walls, and especially over the 
 sewer outlets, sit patient fishermen angling in the 
 surf fifty feet below. 
 
 All along the battlements small Gaditanos fly 
 their kites; every telegraph and telephone wire is 
 hung with the dead bodies of these playthings. 
 
 Spaniards call Cadiz " La taza de plata " — " the 
 dish of silver " — and it is a happy conceit, for, seen 
 across the Bay from Trocadero on a moonlight 
 night, she might have been built of ingots brought 
 home from the Indies by the silver fleets in the 
 great days of the Conquist adores. " La Joyosa y 
 Gulta," her lovers call her also, and once again the 
 cap fits. A civil, clean and shining city is she, a 
 bed of white water-lilies floating on a blue lagoon 
 under a blue heaven. I left Cadiz early one morn- 
 ing, and as ^the sleepy train crawled past Puerto 
 Real, dawn came up. 
 
 There was not a cat's-paw on the glassy Bay 
 or a fleck aloft, sky and sea melted together and 
 were one colourless, vaporous immensity. A fleet of 
 ghostly feluccas becalmed off Las Puercas seemed 
 poised in mid-air. Then dawn came. The pink 
 glow caught their sails and they were ghosts no 
 longer, but a flock of flamingos beating westwards 
 on rosy wings. Cadiz floated out of the mists like 
 a low bright cloud, took shape as the light sharpened, 
 shaped into domes and towers. A Venus city 
 
164 THE COASTS OF ROMA CE 
 
 rising out of the sea, made of frozen foam bubbles 
 and mother-o'-pearl — white, silver white. 
 
 The train plunged into a plantation of stone pine 
 and hid her from my view. 
 
 Adios Hermosa ! 
 
 THE SEAMEN 
 I 
 
 *' Sunset flamed on Cadiz Town, 
 Flushed her towers and made her burn, 
 Then the piping night shut down 
 And her Hghts went out astern. 
 Blotted by the rain and spray ; 
 And we squared our yards away 
 For the Port of No Return. 
 
 II 
 
 '* Divers were the deaths we found. 
 Plagues beyond the surgeons' lore 
 Rotted many; others drowned. 
 Some the English langrel tore; 
 Some were slain by Indian darts ; 
 Others died of broken hearts, 
 Rowers who could tug no more. 
 
 Ill 
 
 *• Shattered, scattered are our bones. 
 Wrapped in weedy winding-sheets 
 Where the steady Trade Wind drones 
 And the sapphire roller beats 
 Over coral : fathoms down 
 Lie we men of Cadiz Town, 
 Seamen of the treasure fleets. 
 
 IV 
 
 •• Dead, forgotten, far away. 
 Offal that the sharks devour. 
 Still we dream of Cadiz Bay, 
 Cadiz at the dawning hour. 
 Floating on her blue lagoon 
 Like a lily of the moon, 
 Like a silver lotus flower." 
 
XXVIII 
 
 SEVILLE 
 
 I HAD been in Seville two days and, following 
 the custom of the country, was taking a siesta 
 after lunch, when a bell-hop knocked at my door 
 and said the Serenissimo Seiior was wanted by 
 the police. I pulled on my coat and went out, 
 more relieved than otherwise, for I have been 
 wanted by the poUce so often that, should I arrive 
 in a foreign city and the local gendarmerie display 
 no yearning for my company, I feel slightly hurt. 
 I begin to fear that old age is creeping up and that 
 I am losing my form. 
 
 When, some years before the war, I sojourned 
 in BerHn, a policeman used to look in and arrest 
 me regularly after breakfast. One morning he 
 failed to come. I was so uneasy I ran roimd to the 
 station and asked if I had offended in any way. 
 
 After extensive experience of excited foreign 
 constables I have found the best method of dealing 
 with them is to assume an expression of even greater 
 imbecility than is natural, feign a total ignorance 
 of their language and offer drinks all round. 
 
 After a bit they realize the utter hopelessness of 
 doing anything with a blithering idiot who does 
 nothing but grin and say, " By Jove, is that so? " 
 " My Aunt, you do surprise me ! " shrug their 
 epaulettes, quaff the offerings and go home. 
 
 It has been my experience that the police of all 
 nations are just as keen in avoiding friction as you 
 and I — if not more so. They are not half as anxious 
 
 165 
 
166 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 to have their heads stove in by rioters or their legs 
 bitten off by convivial mariners as some people 
 suppose. I never worry about the police. 
 
 Nevertheless as I went forth to confront the arm 
 of Seville law, I mildly wondered what the charge 
 was going to be this time. I had not murdered 
 anybody for months, was guiltless of any recent 
 arson, barratry or bigamy that I could remember. 
 Spiritually armoured in " the white flower of a 
 blameless Hfe," I stepped boldly forward. 
 
 A Guardia Civil, girded with an assortment of 
 cutlery, stood in the hall, and beside him was a 
 kindly-looking old gentleman in a suit of serviceable 
 black with a straw hat. The old gentleman raised 
 the hat, and stepping forward made a speech in 
 Spanish. I waited until he had finished, shipped 
 my imbecile expression and said, " By Jove, is that 
 so? " He coughed, shot his cuffs and repeated the 
 speech. Once more I waited until he had emptied 
 his chest, smiled my silliest and said, " Me ha 
 prestado usted uno de esos servicios que jamas se 
 olvidan " (which, the phrase-book assures me, 
 means, " You have done me one of those services 
 which are never forgotten "). He looked almost 
 frightened, rubbed his ear and had a whispered 
 conversation with the Guardia Civil. 
 
 I bowed and made a move to depart, but the 
 Guardia headed me off and the old gentleman 
 disappeared into the oflice, presently returning with 
 the clerk. 
 
 As the clerk knew all about me and handled 
 English in all its branches, I saw that further 
 dissembling was useless. The examination began : 
 
 My name was Gars tin? I did not deny it. I 
 
SEVILLE 167 
 
 was recently from Morocco? True again. I had 
 landed at Cadiz on such and such a date, made a 
 declaration that I was leaving for Seville next 
 morning and would stop at Hotel de Paris, whereas 
 I had stayed in Cadiz for several days and on 
 reaching Seville had not been near the Hotel de 
 Paris — was not that so? 
 
 I admitted the description of my movements was 
 correct, but denied making anything so momentous 
 as a declaration. Whatever I had said in Cadiz 
 was merely by way of passing the time of day with 
 the port doctor — a very decent sort, to whom I 
 hoped they would convey my kind regards when 
 next they wrote. The old gentleman swallowed 
 and brought up the next charge. Why had I not 
 reported myself daily to the Sanitary Authorities ? 
 I replied that I didn't know I had to and, anyhow, 
 why should I ? 
 
 The old man flung his hands aloft. " Por vida 
 mia ! " Wasn't I out of Morocco and rotten with 
 typhus? Hadn't I been given a paper warning me 
 that if I neglected to report I should be fined two 
 hundred and fifty pesetas a day? Hadn't I? — 
 eh? It was useless to deny it. It was useless to 
 deny it, I recognized immediately, remembering 
 the buff slip the port doctor had bestowed on me, 
 and which I had not thought of since. 
 
 With the fine of fifteen hundred pesetas hanging 
 over me I changed my tone. I became exceeding 
 humble. I feigned the innocence of the dewy prim- 
 rose and grovelled, imploring forgiveness. I could 
 neither speak, read, nor understand Spanish, I told 
 them (through the clerk). I was just a little 
 frightened orphan lost in a great strange land. The 
 
i68 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 clerk, stout fellow, added a few pathetic touches of 
 his own, and united we melted the opposition. The 
 Guardia Civil had to twitch his whiskers to keep 
 from blubbering out loud, and the old gentleman, 
 tears in his voice, patted my shoulder and bade me 
 bear up. All was forgiven and forgotten, he said, 
 but I really must come and see him on the morrow 
 between three and five, otherwise they would be 
 forced to take a serious view of my delinquencies. 
 
 I promised faithfully to turn up and the pair 
 departed. I returned to my room, ferreted the 
 buff sHp out of the rubble in my suit-case and tried 
 to read it. 
 
 I have a few modest accomplishments — such as 
 playing on the Jew's harp, card tricks, animal imita- 
 tions and so forth — but Spanish is not one of them, 
 and wild horses could not make me learn it. I have 
 no luck with languages and have done with them. 
 
 Hours upon hours of my boyhood were dedicated 
 to the painful study of Itahan scribes, and might 
 have been far more profitably employed in games, 
 for when I at length reached Rome I made the 
 discovery (of which English pedagogues are appar- 
 ently not yet aware) that the language of Caesar, 
 Livy & Co. is no longer current in those parts. 
 My passionate declination of the whole of the verb 
 " amo " to a lass (beneath an oleander in the 
 Borghese Gardens) produced nothing but the warn- 
 ing not to stand about in the sun without a hat. 
 I was just getting a strangle-hold on Italian and 
 the lady was beginning to sit up and take notice 
 when the bugles bade me to France. 
 
 I lived a year in Prussia and learnt to gargle with 
 the best, but since those days the only conversation 
 
SEVILLE 169 
 
 I have held with Germans has been through the 
 interpretation of a Lee-Enfield. I spent six months 
 imbibing Burmese, but found it of very little use 
 in the United States, whither I betook myself 
 instead of to Rangoon. 
 
 American is not half as painful as it sounds, and 
 in a year or two I could utter it with a fluency that 
 was altogether wasted on the inky denizens of 
 Africa, among whom I next pitched my moving 
 tent. 
 
 Flanders came after, and though my outpourings 
 in Sentabele and Setuana created a profound im- 
 pression among the Flemings, I very seldom got 
 what I asked for. I have now abandoned the cult 
 of foreign tongues and am concentrating on the 
 spread of pidgin English about the world. 
 
 The bu^ paper being printed in Spanish I got 
 next to no information out of it. It was headed 
 in full-grown capitals : " PATENTE PERSONAL 
 DE SANIDAD." " Sanidad " I took to mean 
 " Sanitary Station." I could make no sense at all 
 out of the small print in the middle, but at the 
 bottom there was a reference to the ** Codigo 
 Penal " and " 250 pesetas " which made an im- 
 pression on me. At 3*15 next afternoon I set 
 forth. According to the hotel porter the place 
 was not five hundred yards distant across the Plaza 
 de San Fernando. 
 
 I walked into the Casa del Ayuntamiento (City 
 Hall) and asked a janitor for the " Sanidad." 
 There was no department of that name in the 
 building, he said, but had an idea there was such 
 an institution in the Plaza de la Gonstitucion. I 
 promenaded the Plaza de la Gonstitucion, but could 
 
170 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 see nothing but shops and private houses. I then 
 accosted a waiter outside a club at the south end 
 of Sierpes, bleating the word " Sanidad " at him, as 
 Gilbert a Becket's Saracen maid must have bleated 
 '* London " all the way across Europe. 
 
 The waiter missed the point altogether, so I 
 showed him the buff paper. He glanced at it and 
 displayed symptoms of intelligence. Oh, the Sani- 
 dad ! I should find it opposite the Mercato. Down 
 Sierpes and to the right. I thanked him and walked 
 on to the Market, and it took me fifteen minutes to 
 do so. Having twice circumnavigated the Market 
 without discovering anything that looked like a 
 sanitary station I button-holed an idler. 
 
 " Sanidad," I blathered. 
 
 " Sanidad," he repeated, scratching his chin 
 stubble. " Que es eso ? " 
 
 I thrust the buff paper upon him. He read it 
 slowly, twice. At the second reading light broke 
 upon him. He nodded and beckoned me to follow 
 him. We did another tour of the Market and 
 halted where we started from. 
 
 My guide subjected his jaw to some more rasping 
 and consulted the paper again. A second idler 
 slouched up and was given the paper — then a third 
 and a fourth. Presently there was a crowd about 
 me, and every man jack wanted a look at the paper. 
 An infernal long time they took about it too — 
 which is not to be wondered at, seeing most of them 
 read it upside down. I grew impatient. The 
 Market clock pointed to four-ten, and I had been 
 warned that if I flouted the authorities again I 
 should feel the full weight of the fine — 1750 pesetas 
 by this time. Nevertheless I couldn't bring myself 
 
SEVILLE 171 
 
 to hustle these fellows, they were so civil and 
 obviously doing their best on my behalf. 
 
 At length they put their heads together and at 
 four-seventeen decided that it was a case for the 
 Guardia Civil, so we all marched into the Market 
 police station, all of us, a dozen at least. 
 
 The sergeant in charge shook his cocked hat at 
 my reiterated " Sanidad," but after reading the 
 paper he lit up. Of course ! of course ! What I 
 wanted was the Hospital de la Caridad at the south 
 end of the city. That was it. Past the Cathedral 
 and to the right. I reached the Hospital, all of a 
 lather, at four-forty, and was stopped by a sentry. 
 
 *' Sanidad? " said I. 
 
 He didn't appear to have ever heard of the place 
 — which was absurd, seeing that he was supposed 
 to be guarding it. 
 
 I wagged the paper in front of his pug-nose. He 
 took it, read it, propped his pea-shooter against the 
 wall, motioned me to look after it and walked off, 
 taking the buff slip with him. 
 
 At four-forty-six he brought it back. " Casa del 
 Ayuntamiento," said he, " Plaza Fernando, past 
 the Cathedral and on the left." 
 
 " But I've been there already," I expostulated. 
 " Yo he been there todavia, don't you sabe ? " 
 
 " Ayuntamiento, Plaza Fernando," he repeated 
 and resumed his beat. 
 
 Four-fifty ! I had only ten minutes in which to 
 save my 1750 pesetas, and no more idea of where 
 they hid their cursed Sanidad than when I set out. 
 
 I fled into the street looking for a cab. There 
 wasn't one in sight. I fled past the Gobierno Militar, 
 past the Casa Lonja, still no cab. Down the Calle 
 
172 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 del Gran Capitan I fled, bursting all records. A 
 two-horse vehicle crawled out of the Almirantazzo, 
 and with one bound I was into it. 
 
 " Sanidad," I shouted to the amazed Jehu. 
 " Sanidad — pronto ! prontito ; prontitissimo ! Get 
 a move on ! " 
 
 " Sanidad ? " he queried. 
 
 *' Si, si," I roared. " For heaven's sake don't 
 pretend you no see where it is, either ! Call your- 
 self a cochero I Sanidad — ^get there in cinco minutos 
 and you shall have diez Pesetas, see? " 
 
 " Sanidad," he murmured, looking as blank as 
 Good Friday. Then all of a sudden he let a loud 
 yell and lashed at his horses. He had caught on. 
 
 Back down the Calle del Gran Capitan we 
 clattered, kicking sparks out of the metal; round 
 the Gobiemo Militar on two wheels; missed a 
 tram in the Santo Tomas by its varnish and slithered 
 to a standstill in front of a building in the Maese 
 Rodrigo. The cabby, avid for his ten pesetas, 
 pointed to a doorway with his whip and howled 
 to me to run. I didn't need any encouragement 
 with my 1750 pesetas hanging on half a minute. 
 I rocketed up the steps, straight into the waistcoat 
 of the porter. 
 
 " Sanidad," I panted, waving my paper like a 
 flag. 
 
 He glanced at me curiously. "Inglese?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 " Si," said I. 
 
 He motioned me to wait and went behind a 
 partition. 
 
 A young Englishman came out. 
 
 " Anything I can do for you? " he asked. 
 
SEVILLE 
 
 173 
 
 " Is this the Sanitary Inquisition — or whatever 
 they call it — of Seville? " said I. 
 
 " No," said he. "It is not. These are the 
 offices of Sanitas — Sanitas the universal disin- 
 fectant." 
 
 Next afternoon, at three o'clock, the hotel porter 
 led me by the hand to "La Estacion Sanitaria de 
 Sevilla." It was in the Plaza de la Constitucion 
 after all, but it 
 was a miserable 
 little hole disguised 
 as a shop with an 
 awning completely 
 hiding its title, 
 so no wonder I 
 missed it. I crept 
 inside, hat in hand, 
 with the porter 
 standing by to 
 pitch the pitiful 
 yam. But he was 
 not called upon, the old doctor already knew it. 
 He smote me upon the back and chest and laughed 
 till his eyes leaked. 
 
 " Sanitas I" he guffawed. " Sanitas ! Dios 
 mio ! " and belaboured me again. There was no 
 mention of the fine; as for the typhus, he was 
 convinced I was not a carrier, he said (nobody 
 with my complexion, etc.), and would not put me 
 to the trouble of calling in again. " Sanitas — el 
 Diablo /" 
 
 Dios mio! 
 
XXIX 
 
 SEVILLE 
 
 Before going to Seville I looked up her past. 
 I combed through this book and that book but 
 could find next to nothing. Nobody of importance 
 seemed to have selected Seville to be born in except 
 Velasquez and Murillo, and the former spent most 
 of his life in Madrid. Toledo and Cadiz, Cordova 
 and Zaragoza, Saragossa and Leon, towns of half 
 her size and wealth, ring with great names and 
 boom like bells through Spanish history. 
 
 They bred patriots, discoverers and poets, fostered 
 learning, rose raging against injustice, fronted 
 invaders and were faithful to those things which 
 seemed good unto them through famine, pestilence 
 and death. But Seville was never of this valorous 
 company. I wondered why. I wondered how 
 through the twenty odd centuries of her story she 
 had remained unshaken by the passions of good or 
 evil. I wondered. 
 
 When I reached Seville I wondered no longer. 
 Adam only began to delve when the Garden was 
 closed to him. The SevilHan is still there, drowsy 
 with sunshine, drugged with flowers — still in Eden 
 with his Eve. I remarked to a Spaniard that it 
 was curious that both Cortes and Pizarro sprang 
 from the same province, Estremadura. 
 
 " On the contrary, it was inevitable," he repHed. 
 " You should see Estremadura. They had either 
 to strive or starve." 
 
 174 
 
SEVILLE 175 
 
 He spoke the truth. Prophets, philosophers and 
 bandits come out of the deserts and mountains. 
 Ambition is whetted on the bare hill ribs, not in 
 rose-gardens. Had the Gonquist adores been bom 
 in Seville instead of the arid west they would have 
 lived and died comfortable sergeants of Guardia 
 Municipal, dicing their subordinates for drinks. 
 And why should Seville oppose the hosts of the 
 invader with unfamiliar steel when she had spells 
 no mortal man could withstand ? 
 
 Carthaginian, Roman, Goth, Moor, Frenchman, 
 she let them come, serene in the knowledge that 
 she had only to snap her fingers, hum a little fado, 
 glance up under her black lashes and the con- 
 querors would be conquests. " Look," one can 
 imagine her saying to the heroic cities. " You 
 fronted these people and what are you now ? Dung- 
 heaps, holocausts. As for me, I just smiled at 
 them a little and they curled up purring at my feet 
 — Paso a paso van lejos." 
 
 A wanton if you will, but, as one of her daughters, 
 Maria de Padilla, has amply demonstrated, it is 
 far better to be a king's beloved mistress than his 
 scorned queen. 
 
 On St. Clement's Day, 1248, Ferdinand HL 
 marched in through the Goles Gate to pluck the 
 city from her Moorish master — she had no notion 
 of plucking herself, being, as usual, comfortably 
 settled with the intruder. The first man of his army 
 to climb the Giralda was a Scot named Laurence 
 Poore, whose descendants still have a palace in the 
 Calle de la Cuna. Ferdinand was canonized for 
 his rout of Islam despite the fact that he had raised 
 the devil to down the devil, as it were — the Mahom- 
 
176 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 medan Sultan of Granada being his active ally in 
 the business. 
 
 His sword, his pennant and the ivory image of 
 the Virgin which hung at his saddle-bow are pre- 
 served in the Cathedral Pant^on, while an effigy 
 of the warrior-saint rides the screen above, tramp- 
 ling the Moorish kings beneath his horse's hoofs. 
 Saint or soldier he has an abiding place in the city's 
 heart. Mightier kings have come and gone, but it 
 is ever the memory of Ferdinand HI. that the 
 Sevillian dehghts to honour. 
 
 In the great, gloomy, splendid Cathedral, in a 
 bronze coffin borne on the shoulders of four giant 
 figures symboHcal of the kingdoms of Castile, 
 Aragon, Leon and Navarre, is the mortal dust of 
 immortaUty — the body of Christopher Columbus at 
 rest after many vicissitudes. 
 
 Columbus had little connection with the city, 
 except that it was here, to the court of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, that, on Palm Sunday, 1493, he 
 came with new worlds in his hands. 
 
 He died in Valladolid in May 1506 and was 
 buried there, but his voyagings were not to end with 
 his life, and in 15 13 he was exhumed and reburied 
 in the church of Neustra Sefiora de las Cuevas in 
 Seville. For twenty-three years he lay quiet, and 
 then was rooted out and sent overseas to San 
 Domingo in Haiti. When the French acquired 
 the island he had to move on again, to the Cathedral 
 in Havana. In 1899 the Cubans cut the Spanish 
 tether and the poor old bones came back across the 
 Atlantic to a three years' lodging in Granada. 
 From thence, in 1902, after more than three cen- 
 turies of wandering, he returned to Seville. 
 
SEVILLE 177 
 
 Seville the languid, the laughing, the lovely is 
 no place for ghosts, but if ever a garden were 
 haunted the gentle Maria de Padilla walks still 
 under the orange trees of the Alcazar, and her mad 
 lover prowls the night streets of his capital looking 
 for mischief, a malignant Haroun-al-Raschid. 
 
 Maria de Padilla occupied the one white spot in 
 the black heart of Pedro the Cruel. He roved and 
 he rogued (he burnt a girl in the Square in Seville 
 because she would have none of him, and another 
 disfigured herself rather than remain attractive in his 
 eyes) , but in the end he always went back to Maria. 
 Like Cynara's lover he was faithful in his fashion. 
 
 A suitable match was made for him and he 
 married Blanche de Bourbon with great splendour, 
 but left her in two days and returned to his dear. 
 
 Again he took a noble wife, Juana de Castro this 
 time, and again returned to Maria — Juana dying 
 mysteriously " of herbs " at the age of twenty-five. 
 
 His half-brother, Don Fadrique, came back from 
 fighting the king's battles in Murcia, was well 
 received by Pedro, whom he found in the Alcazar 
 playing backgammon, and went on to pay his 
 respects to Maria. When he returned the door was 
 shut, and at his knock Pedro himself opened a 
 wicket and shouted, " Kill the Master of Santiago ! " 
 to the archers outside. 
 
 They did so there and then. One of the mur- 
 dered man's squires fled to Maria's rooms, and 
 seizing one of her daughters tried to use the girl 
 as a shield, but Pedro struck him down with a 
 poniard and left him to writhe his life out before 
 the terrified women. A gUmpse into home-life in 
 the Alcazar in the fourteenth century ! 
 
178 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Abu Said, Sultan of Granada, visited Seville at 
 the invitation of the king and was at first royally 
 entertained. But when Pedro learnt that the 
 Moor had valuable jewels with him — among them 
 one marvellous ruby — he had his guest murdered. 
 
 Constable of France 
 
 stripped, the body thrown across a donkey and 
 dumped among the garbage outside the city walls. 
 As a perfect host he runs the Borgias close. But 
 retribution was feeling for the throat of Pedro the 
 Cruel. One brother was past troubling, but there 
 was still another left, the bastard Don Enrique, 
 and he, enlisting the services of that stout Constable 
 
SEVILLE 179 
 
 of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, began to knock 
 the props from under the throne. 
 
 Castile fell away from the king, then Andalusia 
 and finally Seville. The Black Prince was biting 
 his nails in idleness at Bayonne and thither Pedro 
 bolted, taking the Moor's jewels with him. 
 
 Partly in consideration of half a milUon gold 
 florins and the great ruby, but mainly for the 
 chance of a crack at his old friend and enemy, 
 Du Guesclin, Edward crossed the Pyrenees on the 
 trail of the French free-lances. The armies swept 
 towards each other, Pedro promising the EngUsh 
 castles, estates and titles if they won, Enrique 
 dangling the same inducements before the French 
 — hence the origin of " chateaux en Espagne." 
 
 They met at Najera near Logrono in Old Castile. 
 Just before the action an English knight, Sir Hugh 
 Calverley, changed sides. He had taken service 
 with the Aragonese but, refusing to fight his Prince, 
 crossed over with four hundred lances. They 
 joined battle, 30,000 half -starved British against 
 80,000 French, but the Crecy veterans, led by the 
 first soldier in Europe, swept the board, killing 
 17,500 and capturing the redoubtable Bertrand. 
 
 Pedro was overjoyed. He had not done any 
 fighting himself, but he turned up immediately 
 afterwards and proposed to butcher all the prisoners. 
 The Black Prince refused his amiable request, 
 turned Du GuescHn loose and marched out of the 
 country in disgust. That was the last Pedro saw 
 of Edward Prince of Wales, but it was not the last 
 he was to see of Bertrand. 
 
 One night two years later he was lured into the 
 latter's tent outside Montiel in La Mancha, and 
 
i8o THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 there Enrique fell upon him with a poniard, as he 
 himself had fallen on another defenceless man in 
 Alcazar years before. The two brothers rolled 
 over and over on the ground, locked and struggling, 
 shrieking filthy scandal concerning each other's 
 mother. At length Enrique drove the poniard 
 home — Du GuescUn held the king's leg while he 
 did it. 
 
 So perished Pedro I., King of Castile, in 1369, 
 and his corpse was made mock of and lay three 
 days unburied. But in life so in death, for at the 
 long last he returned to his Maria and they lie 
 together in the Capilla Real in the Cathedral of 
 Seville. 
 
 As for the great ruby, it went with the Black 
 Prince and to this day smoulders blood-red in the 
 crown of George V. 
 
 THE TOMB OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 
 
 (Seville Cathedral) 
 
 " I sailed forth poor, derided — row am drawn 
 Home to this tomb of kings a kingly guest. 
 I saw cloud empires flaming down the west, 
 New worlds for old, and in the sunset dawn 
 I saw my dream come true, and take my rest." 
 
XXX 
 
 SEVILLE 
 
 During the hot hours Seville keeps house. 
 Except in the narrow Street of the Serpents, where 
 the best shops are and no wheel enters, there is 
 comparatively little movement about the town by 
 day. 
 
 The Sevillian immures himself in his patio and 
 defies the sun. Pleasant places these patios. The 
 damp and gasping stranger braving the full glare 
 of noon catches snapshots of them as he plods by; 
 glimpses through dark doorways into cool court- 
 yards paved with white marble and shaded by 
 awnings; of birds in cages, of flowers, shrubs and 
 fountains, of families grouped at meals, of women 
 sewing, men snoozing over newspapers, babies rolling 
 happily on rugs, prosperous cats licking themselves. 
 
 But with the first cool breath of evening Seville 
 begins to open, unfolding to the dusk Uke a great, 
 sweet moon-flower. 
 
 There is a broad drive called the Paseo de las 
 Delicias, running between the Guadalquivir and the 
 palace gardens, flanked by giant palms, acacias, 
 chestnuts and banks of roses, and up and down 
 this Parade of Delights the carriages sweep from 
 late afternoon till dark. 
 
 I used to hire a roan cob of an evening and amble 
 along the dirt track at the side. There were always 
 a score or so of young bucks on the track. Solemn, 
 
 i8i 
 
l82 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 handsome boys sitting straight up on their fine- 
 muzzled, bob-tailed Httle horses. They affected 
 native costume, big hats, Eton jackets, trousers 
 pulled over their half-boots, and used native saddlery 
 with its sheep-fleece pad and Moorish stirrup-irons. 
 As far as I know their riding was confined to an 
 
 On the tan 
 
 evening hack in the Delicias, but they had the 
 look of horsemen, flat-thighed, slim-waisted, light- 
 handed. I should like to have the training of a 
 squadron of them. 
 
 Two or three wizened crones — duchesses by their 
 coats of arms — rolled up and down in coaches 
 with four fat mules to each (the more withered the 
 woman the more sturdy animals it requires to 
 
SEVILLE 183 
 
 draw her, it would appear), but the rest of the 
 world went in motors and open carriages, principally 
 victorias drawn by spanking pairs. The flower 
 of the south was in the victorias, the proud, ripe 
 beauty of Andalusia, creamy, full-lipped, oval- 
 faced; mantillas floating from the high combs; 
 big, dark eyes smouldering over fans. " Parade 
 of DeUghts " — I should say so ! I got so delighted 
 I nearly fell off my cob a dozen times an evening. 
 
 Seville by night — ah ! Thread the crooked, 
 dim-lit alleys and Mystery and Enchantment walk 
 with you, waving their wands. A girl leans out 
 of an upper window, her head and neck in lovely 
 silhouette against the warm orange of the interior. 
 She flips a geranium with her forefinger, the red 
 petals flutter down like a drift of confetti. High 
 among the stars the anointed bells of the Giralda 
 boom, tremble and die away. 
 
 Cloaked shapes move in the shadows. The fringe 
 of a shawl swirls round a comer. In the black 
 cavern of an arch some one whistles softly. Romance 
 is at your elbow, you can feel her feather touch 
 on your arm, hear her secret laughter. Your heart 
 is a-tiptoe, listening. A faint tinkle of music 
 comes from somewhere and the scent of oleanders. 
 A man strains against the heavy reja of a ground- 
 floor window, whispering, whispering. As you pass 
 a hand slips through the bars, a little lily-bud of 
 a hand. The fellow bends to it hungrily, never 
 heeding your presence — and why should he, bedad ? 
 Good luck, Don Amante ! 
 
 Further down the alley is another man at another 
 reja — and another and another. All Seville is in 
 love apparently — and small blame to them. 
 
i84 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Again the lilt of music and the breath of blossom. 
 Magic ! The main streets are quiet no longer, they 
 are thronged. Clean-shaven, blue-jawed men slouch 
 up and down, cigarettes trailing from their Hps, 
 stiff-brimmed Andalusian hats cocked this way 
 and that — but they are nothing, pshaw ! It is 
 the women of Seville, the work-girls, the Cigarreras, 
 the Carmens, that thrill one with their pride, their 
 poise, their grace and their soft Hsping voices, with 
 the way they wear their shawls and star their 
 night-black hair with carnations and jasmines. No 
 wonder the conquerors sheathed their dripping 
 swords at the gates of Seville and her sons fritter 
 ambition away on guitar strings. 
 
 The crowds loiter under the date palms and 
 electric arcs of the Plaza de San Fernando, sipping 
 zazaparilla and lemon ices and Hstening to the 
 band, pack the cafe tables in the Duque, or stroll 
 under the blue night of the Paseos of Santelmo 
 and Hercules. 
 
 The caballeros, the gentlemen, lounge at the 
 club windows of Sierpes — the Calle de Tetuan — 
 or sit at tables right out in the street, watching 
 the world go by over cigars and tall glasses. 
 
 I was wandering aimlessly along the latter street 
 one night when a hand came out of an open window 
 and gripped my arm. I spun about and saw a 
 semi-circle of men sitting at a table inside the 
 window. The personage of the party seemed to 
 be a fellow in the centre. He wore a big grey 
 sombrero tilted rakishly over one ear, a short 
 pigtail and a sort of black velvet Eton jacket. 
 He was coUarless, but displayed plenty of spotless 
 shirt-front studded with diamonds all the way 
 
SEVILLE 
 
 185 
 
 down. His face was chiselled with deep and 
 humorous Unes and might have been hewn out of 
 oak. His eyes were brighter than any blackbird's, 
 they shone like his diamond studs. They sparkled 
 at me in the friendliest way. He sparkled, twinkled 
 and exploded into a gust of laughter, showing a 
 row of ivories that would have made the fortune 
 of any tooth-paste. I leant over the 
 sill and laughed back at the brilliant, 
 infectious creature. We roared at 
 each other, roared. 
 
 " Britanico ?" he inquired at length. 
 
 " Si, Irlandes," said L 
 
 " Habla Espanol ? " 
 
 " No— devil a bit." 
 
 He spoke to one of his companions, 
 who reared on his hind legs and 
 bowed. 
 
 ** The Senor here implores you to 
 take wine with him, sir," said he, in 
 EngHsh. " The Senor is a famous 
 bull-fighter and would be greatly 
 honoured." 
 
 I replied that the honour would be 
 mine and we clinked glasses, still laughing, myself 
 bent double over the window-sill, half in and half 
 out of the Calle de Tetuan. I saw him once again 
 late one night in a dancing place in the north of 
 the city. He was sitting in an upper box with 
 two gorgeous women, dressed in black velvet and 
 diamonds as before. He recognized me, halloed 
 and waved his ringed hand cheerily. I never 
 discovered his name, hadn't enough Spanish to 
 ask, but he must have been a celebrity, for the 
 
 A type 
 
i86 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 girl with whom I was footing it was deeply im- 
 pressed and I acquired much reflected merit. 
 Seville is the home of Spanish dancing. The 
 majority of the Flamenco performers one sees 
 about and about learnt their steps in the shadow 
 of the Giralda. There is an academy of the art 
 in the Calle San Vincente, but the Sevilliana has 
 no need of academic instruction, dancing is bred 
 in her bones, runs like fever in her blood. Her 
 mother was a dancer before her, and her grand- 
 mother — back to the ladies who bewitched Augustus 
 Caesar. The tuning of a guitarra made her buck 
 in her cradle and snap her infant fingers. 
 
 Apropos of *' Flamenco," I see some one writing 
 to a London paper recently to ask how dances 
 so essentially Andalusian come under the title of 
 " Flemish." I think a reasonable explanation is 
 that for centuries a heavy proportion of Spanish 
 dancers have been gipsies, and that the original 
 gitanos came to Spain from Germany and the Low 
 Countries and were hence known as " Flemings." 
 
 There are always two or three girls performing 
 at the big cafis chantants in the centre of the town, 
 but to see dancing by the people for the people 
 (as Lincoln would have it) one must get away to 
 the poorer parts of the city. 
 
 By this time, with my usual good luck, I had 
 fallen in with a charming Spaniard called Felix 
 Castelar. He was a Catalan by birth, but South 
 America had eaten a large sUce out of his Hfe and 
 he had seen a decade of London. He had now 
 retired from business and was engaged in the 
 re-discovery of his native land. He was twelve 
 years my senior, but that did not hinder him from 
 
SEVILLE 
 
 187 
 
 engaging whole-heartedly in any childishness that 
 appealed to me. He was, in fact, a perfect com- 
 panion, travelled, well-read, easy-going. I met him 
 quite by chance and clave to him like a sick kitten 
 to a hot brick, parting from him with great regret 
 in Madrid some weeks later. 
 
 Castelar knew Seville like the inside of his pocket. 
 He turned his back on the 
 big cafes and took me off to 
 a shabby resort in the north 
 of the town. It was a bam 
 of a place, with lame chairs 
 and rough wooden tables on 
 the ground floor, a crazy 
 gallery running round three 
 sides and an apron stage on 
 the fourth. The scenery was 
 of the crudest — a couple of 
 rudely daubed wings to a 
 side and a back-cloth pasted 
 with bullfight posters. The 
 audience drank cheap wine, 
 smoked vile cigarettes and 
 spat. They were working-men mostly, unshorn, 
 black- jowled devils in big hats, overalls and rope 
 shoes. They looked as if they would cut their 
 mothers' throats for ten centimos and were probably 
 model sons and citizens. At all events they gave 
 me no cause for complaint; in fact I met with 
 nothing but the utmost courtesy from any Spaniard 
 of any class — with the exception of a hildalgo of 
 Burgos who jumped my seat in a train and refused 
 to budge till I hove all his luggage into the corridor 
 and was preparing to chuck him after it. 
 
 The bread boy 
 
i88 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 The orchestra was grouped under the lip of the 
 stage — a piano, two guitars and a vioHn. The 
 wife of a guitar-player sat beside him throughout, 
 a baby in her lap, which same she handed him to 
 dandle during the long and frequent intervals. 
 The poor chap's arms got not a minute's rest for 
 four mortal hours. It is little incidents like that 
 which reconcile one to the horrors of bachelorhood. 
 
 There were seven or eight girls on the bill of 
 fare, each did three dances at a time and appeared 
 twice. It was most pleasant to see the generous 
 way in which they applauded one another. 
 
 As their turns came round they signed to their 
 mothers and bobbed through a sort of trap-door 
 under the stage, to emerge later in all their war- 
 paint. No Spanish damsel seems to be able to 
 move a foot without her parent. Castelar per- 
 suaded a couple of girls to come on to a dance 
 with us after their own show was over. They 
 came readily enough, but they brought their 
 mammas along as well. We all drove off in a 
 single cab with one old lady sitting on my knees — 
 they have never been the same since. 
 
 A Texan of my acquaintance married a Mexican 
 beauty and he had to do his courting literally 
 over her mother's body. At every meeting she 
 sat plump between them. He pulled the job off 
 somehow, but the good dame never knew how near 
 she was to sudden death. He told me he thought 
 Spanish windows were barred not so much to keep 
 lovers from getting in as to save duennas from 
 being bundled out. 
 
 You see patient old women scattered about the 
 back of every dance-hall in the south, sewing, 
 
SEVILLE 189 
 
 yawning, slumbering on their chairs. Shapeless, 
 moustached beldames muffled in black shawls and 
 boredom. It seems impossible that the radiant, 
 rhythmic creatures across the footlights can be 
 their flesh and blood — but they are, and in their 
 day these old frumps made crowds stir and shout, 
 " Bravo ! Viva ! Otra vez ! " 
 
 When a girl was ready to come on she signalled 
 from the wings with a rap-tap of her castanets, 
 whereupon the guitar-player restored the baby to 
 his spouse and the orchestra got busy. The violinist 
 pumped away fit to saw his fiddle in half and the 
 pianist punched the keys like a little man, but the 
 two big guitars swept them both up like a river 
 in spate. Before going to Spain the sole use I 
 had for guitars was as a rhyme to stars. Now I 
 know better. A cow-boy mate of mine was describ- 
 ing to me the musical genius of his inamorata, 
 " Believe me, Jim," said he, " she's that gifted 
 she's just gotter wipe her paw across the harmonium 
 and the dog-gone implement sits up and howls." 
 The Andalusian has the same happy knack. In 
 his paws the dog-gone guitar leaps to life, it throbs, 
 booms, tingles, sends hot and cold ripples up and 
 down your spine and carries all before it. The 
 hidden girl in the wings took up the time on her 
 castanets — click-clack, chatter; until she got her 
 cue — then strode on, a blaze of colour, the quint- 
 essence of grace. 
 
 They danced Flamenco dances, dances peculiar 
 to Seville, Jerez, Catalonia and Valencia, Portu- 
 guese fados, fandangos and dances of their own 
 invention, some of them broadly obscene. All 
 acquitted themselves with credit. Had they failed 
 
190 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 they would have promptly heard about it, Castelar 
 told me. For this was no cosmopolitan cafe chantant 
 where anything wrapped up in a Manila shawl 
 and calling herself " Paquita " would pass muster, 
 but the heart of Seville with a fiercely critical 
 audience to reckon with, dancers, mothers, sisters, 
 fathers and brothers of dancers, the descendants of 
 generations of dancers. Nobody got stormed off, 
 all did well, but to my taste two stood head and 
 shoulders above the rest, and from the shouts they 
 raised and the crash of applause which followed 
 them the conoscente audience was of like mind. 
 
 The first was a gipsy from Jerez. A tawny 
 panther of a woman, golden-skinned, with coils of 
 blue-black hair looped over her ears and a red 
 mouth flashing with splendid teeth. She wore a 
 black sombrero and a saffron dress slashed with 
 old rose. Her eyes in the shadow of the wide hat 
 were the most glowing, scornful things I ever saw. 
 She strutted round the stage glowing at the audience 
 over her golden shoulder, and then slipped into the 
 swirl of the music, tossing her head as a colt does 
 in the pride of the morning, twitching, shuddering 
 from head to foot, clattering her castanets, stamping 
 the boards with her high red heels, never taking 
 her scornful eyes off the spectators, watching them 
 as a cat watches sparrows. The castanets and 
 the heels battered on the nerves like Arab drums. 
 Men shuffled their feet and drew breath. She noted 
 it, and a smile flickered at the comers of her mouth 
 and she spun across the stage, head thrown back, 
 skirt billowing out like a great yellow flower. She 
 stopped short and it shut about her like a fan. She 
 swept round and round the stage, swinging the 
 
SEVILLE 
 
 191 
 
 Flamenco Dancer 
 
192 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 upper part of her body as if it had snapped off 
 at the waist, the castanets chattering hke mad 
 things, hammering at the guitars, hammering them 
 on, faster, faster. 
 
 Men jumped from their chairs and shouted to 
 her. She shook the big hat off, shook her dark 
 tresses loose, tossed them backwards and whirled 
 on her toes with hair, arms, skirts floating straight 
 out — whirled, whirled, whirled. Crash ! The music 
 stopped as if against a brick wall, 
 leaving the dancer in the centre of 
 the stage panting, laughing, with 
 the tumbled hair pouring over her 
 shoulders like a torrent of black 
 water. 
 
 The second was a Sevilliana — a wisp 
 of a girl of perhaps seventeen. She 
 X^ " \ wore a plain dress of pearl grey with a 
 silver shimmer in it. Her hair was 
 drawn back as tightly as that of a 
 Chinese woman, bunched at the top of 
 her head and fixed with a tall tortoise- 
 shell comb. Also, like a Chinese 
 woman, her sloe eyes and straight 
 eyebrows slanted somewhat and were very black, 
 startlingly so on her milk-white face. There wasn't 
 a touch of colour about her except for her crimson 
 mouth and long coral earrings. She might have 
 been carved out of alabaster and inlaid with 
 ebony. She floated on to the stage like thistle- 
 down, swaying to the tune of some old Spanish 
 cancioneta. She did not use castanets, .but snapped 
 her long fingers almost inaudibly. She did not 
 stamp her heels, she wore ballet shoes. Her ex- 
 
 SevilUaha 
 
SEVILLE 193 
 
 pression remained fixed, inscrutable throughout. 
 I haven't the slightest idea what she did, I only 
 know she fascinated me. 
 
 She fluttered like a tired white moth caught 
 in a briar bush, hovered like a snow pigeon over 
 its nest, swayed this way and that like a languid 
 hly bending from capricious winds. It was in- 
 expressibly delicate and beautiful. Her feet made 
 no sound at all. The audience made no sound. 
 They sat tense and rapt. There was nothing to 
 be heard but the orchestra playing as in a dream. 
 The whole thing was like a dream with a ghost 
 girl drifting through it to a whisper of far music. 
 Presently it was borne in on me that she was 
 standing still, that the orchestra had ceased to 
 play. She had finished. How long she had finished 
 I don't know, I had been over the hills and far 
 away. She was standing quietly before the foot- 
 lights, her hands folded in front of her, her expres- 
 sion unmoved as ever, but one eyebrow was slightly 
 arched as if to say, " Well? ..." 
 
 Castelar turned on me, his eyes moist. " Amigo," 
 said he, " let us go home before we wake up." 
 
 PASEO DE LAS DELICIAS 
 
 {Seville) 
 
 ' When daylight and twilight are meeting like brothers, 
 Before the first pin-pricks of starlight appear, 
 The beauties of Seville drive out with their mothers 
 Beside the brown river, the Guadal-qui-vir. 
 They sit very stately, they bow most sedately. 
 The blue fans and black fans th^ flutter and close. 
 Their dark eyes glance sideways at Dons on the ride-ways. 
 Careering — big glowing eyes, soft as a doe's. 
 O 
 
194 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 The horses step proudly, the sun on their buckles. 
 
 The red wheels and yellow wheels glitter and twirl. 
 
 The breezes are laughing, the brown river chuckles, 
 
 The stranger ejaculates, ' Lord, what a girl ! 
 
 If only I — Glory be, there is another ! 
 
 As sweet as the first — but, God save us, the mother ! 
 
 II 
 
 " The beauties of Seville drive on with their mothers 
 Beside the broad river that runs to the sea. 
 They bow to some gentlemen, smile at some others, 
 But turn up their proud little noses at me. 
 They sit so serenely, their poise is so queenly, 
 Like crowns are the tortoiseshell combs in their hair. 
 Their hands are so taper ; like wisps of black vapour 
 The filmy mantillas float out on the air. 
 The carriages roll in unceasing procession 
 Till Night, the dark emperor, comes to his own. 
 With stars on his turban. Immersed in depression 
 The stranger turns homeward, unloved and alone. 
 He curses, he sighs — then resignedly smothers 
 The wish that the devil might fly with those mothers. 
 
XXXI 
 
 * CORRIDA ' 
 
 I WAS riding out on the Paseo de las Delicias one 
 Saturday evening when I noticed that the carriages, 
 instead of turning at the Guadaira rondel, were 
 bowling on up a track to the left. Being as inquisi- 
 tive as a fox-terrier I turned my cob after them. 
 
 The attraction was a display of fighting bulls 
 destined for the morrow's Corrida. 
 
 They were in a field just off the road, penned in a 
 post-and-rail corral with a three-foot trench round 
 the inside. Seven bulls there were and half-a-dozen 
 decoy oxen, immense placid' beasts with collars and 
 beUs. 
 
 Several of the herdsmen who had brought them 
 in were lounging against the rails — alert brown 
 fellows wearing sombreros and bifurcated leather 
 aprons, ancestors of Western cow-boys' chaparralljos 
 or " chaps." In fact, what with these horsemen, 
 their ponies, high-peaked saddles, the corral, the 
 smell of cattle and the haze of dust, one could imagine 
 oneself back on the prairies some warm evening 
 during the Fall round-up. 
 
 All the bulls on this occasion were black, small, 
 active, glossy with condition and snuffling with 
 aggression. They glared sulkily at the fashionable 
 crowd outside the bars, rolled their top lips and pawed 
 the ground. The fashionable ladies put up their 
 lorgnettes (which, by the way, are known in Spain 
 by the dehcious title of " Impertintentes ") and, 
 
 195 
 
196 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 under the direction of their squires, studied the 
 animals' points. 
 
 When a fighting bull is young a mounted man rides 
 up and gives him a hearty dig with a goad. If the 
 youngster turns tail he is either transformed into 
 steaks or goes under the yoke, but if he comes back 
 snorting to the charge he is judged a lad of spirit 
 and lives on the prime of the country henceforth 
 until that day when he rushes into the arena, his 
 breeder's colours pinned to his withers, rage in his 
 heart. 
 
 I have a friend called Richard who spends much of 
 his spare time messing with water-colours. As he 
 is colour-blind his productions are absolutely stag- 
 gering. He gave me a little impression of Ceylon, 
 which, until it was stolen from me, was one of my 
 most treasured possessions. Chocolate grass studded 
 with bright green flowers and vermilion trees against 
 a sky of French mustard. 
 
 Were it not that poor old Dick can really draw a 
 bit we might have made a successful " Modern " of 
 him. As long as he sticks to landscaping no harm 
 comes of it. Mountains and valleys, no matter how 
 offended, can hardly get up and hit him on the nose — 
 at any rate they don't. But his efforts in portraiture 
 have frequently got him into trouble. People do 
 not always enjoy having their eyes represented as 
 ferret pink, their complexions magenta and their 
 hair pea-green. Nor has his pursuit of animal 
 studies been without incident. Another friend 
 immortalized one of these misadventures in verse. 
 Seeing that he stole my sketch of Ceylon I am only 
 administering justice by stealing his poem. Here 
 goes — 
 
' CORRIDA ' 197 
 
 " Old Richard stalked a spotted cow 
 With the intent to paint her. 
 He dangles from a tree-top now, 
 His yelps wax faint and fainter. 
 You cry, ' For shame ! ' ' For shame ! * you cry. 
 ' May retribution claim her ! ' 
 Be still, my friend, and dry your eye, 
 Nor with harsh titles name her; 
 For I've seen Richard paint and I 
 Cannot exactly blame her." 
 
 But to return to Spain. One fine morning Dick 
 was strolling about on the outskirts of Lebrija in 
 Andalusia, when he came on a scene which took his 
 eye, acres of salt-marsh blazing with yellow mar- 
 guerites and coppery hills beyond. Dick climbed a 
 barbed-wire fence, and squatting under a lone tree 
 pulled out his gear and began to slosh on the ultra- 
 marine and vermiUon with all the fine frenzy of 
 your true artist. His picture (which might well 
 have been called " The Death of the Whale " — a 
 puddle of blood in an ocean of blue) was nearing 
 completion when he heard steps behind him, and 
 turning, beheld a brindled bull approaching, two or 
 three friends at his heels. 
 
 Dick didn't cotton to the bull at all, its horns were 
 too prominent and there was a doormat of curly 
 wool where its forehead should have been. He said 
 " Boo ! " to it and " Shoo ! " to it, and finally waved 
 his picture at it. That did the trick. The bull, 
 who hitherto had been approaching at a dignified 
 walk, let a loud snort and came for Dick, tail up, 
 head down. 
 
 Dick ascended the lone tree with the alacrity of 
 a greased chipmunk, the bull smiting the trunk 
 with its countenance not six inches beneath his 
 heels. 
 
198 
 
 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Dick went up and up the tree till he reached the 
 thin part. The tree was one of those willowy things 
 and it bent right over under his weight. When the 
 bull bunted the tree it trembled all over and bent 
 
 "They were like boys at a fair" 
 
 the more. Most of the time Dick was hanging 
 upside down. 
 
 The brindled animal butted till his head ached, 
 then a friend took on. Bulls rolled up from all over 
 the place, black bulls, roan bulls, piebald and skew- 
 bald, " thousands of 'em," Dick says, " a sea of bulls," 
 
' CORRIDA ' 199 
 
 and, making all allowances, I should say there were 
 possibly ten. 
 
 They were like boys at a fair bashing away at the 
 " Try-Your-Strength " machines; "Ring the bell 
 and win the coker-nut " — Dick in this case repre- 
 senting the coker-nut. They bunted that tree, 
 singly and by twos and threes, and every time they 
 bunted Dick's teeth clattered and he whipped about 
 like a dry-fly on a trout line. They kept the poor 
 old chap up the tree all that blessed day. 
 
 One advantage about hanging upside down in a 
 hot cHmate, Dick says, is that you don't get sun- 
 stroke — at least not where it matters. Towards 
 evening some bull-farmers rode up, and after they 
 had done laughing drove off their pets and raised 
 the siege. 
 
 Dick's first act on reaching his hotel was to despatch 
 a case of wine to every matador whose address he 
 could obtain, wishing all possible power to their 
 elbows. 
 
 I went to the " Corrida " next afternoon, and went 
 alone, Castelar refusing to come with me. A bull- 
 fight bored him almost as much as an English 
 cricket match, he said. To appreciate it properly 
 one must study the finer points of the art, and he 
 had neither the patience nor the inclination. 
 
 It was a ghastly orgy of blood-letting. The worst 
 side of a kindly people came uppermost. They 
 thronged to see a lone animal battling to the end 
 against impossible odds, very much as certain 
 EngHshwomen pack the Old Bailey to see a lone 
 criminal struggling for his Ufe in the iron gin of the 
 Law. 
 
200 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 Castelar wished me joy, but didn't think I'd get 
 any. I should be as bewildered and sickened as any 
 decent Spaniard would be at a British prize-fight. 
 
 Having thus delivered himself he strolled off for 
 a quiet afternoon in the Alcazar Gardens, Livre de 
 Mon Ami under his arm, and I drove down to the 
 Guadalquivir and the Plaza de Toros. 
 
 The crowd was in by the time I arrived, but 
 there were a couple of squadrons of fully-armed and 
 mounted Guardia Civil drawn up outside, imparting 
 a sinister hint of the turn events might take. I was 
 shown up a concrete passage to my seat high in the 
 " Sombra." 
 
 Bull-rings are divided into halves. Sombra y Sol 
 (Shadow and Sun), the seats in the glare being the 
 cheaper. The Plaza de Toros in Seville is a colossal 
 amphitheatre, open to the sky and capable of 
 accommodating fourteen thousand spectators. It 
 was packed to capacity that Sunday afternoon — 
 faces, faces, faces — banks and tiers of them, from the 
 barrier right up to the blue sky. 
 
 At my back, highest of all, were the boxes, and in 
 these sat the prize beauties of Seville, black and white 
 mantillas falling from their tortoiseshell combs, their 
 fans a-flutter, their gorgeous Manila shawls thrown 
 over the balustrades in front of them, making a 
 bright belt of colour right round the top of the 
 building. Directly in front of me sat a young couple, 
 very full of each other. They did not hold hands 
 but they wanted to. On my left was a family 
 party, two soft-eyed flappers, a boy of twelve and 
 their father, a plump, twinkling man who spent his 
 time explaining the points of the game to his children 
 after the manner of old gentlemen at Lord's or the 
 
' CORRIDA ' 201 
 
 Oval. On my right was a man of my own age, who 
 bowed, smiled and offered me a cigarette. 
 
 Came a fanfaronade of trumpets, and the Alguaciles 
 rode into the ring dressed in old Spanish costume. 
 
 Behind them, stepping to the martial music of the 
 band, came the toreadores, a glitter of gold and 
 scarlet. 
 
 Espadas (matadores) first with their under- 
 studies; then the capeadores; the picadores next, 
 followed by the red-shirted chulos, or attendants, 
 with their beribboned mule team. 
 
 After saluting the President, the Aguaciles, the 
 mule-team and two-thirds of the toreadores with- 
 drew. 
 
 The remaining third disposed themselves round 
 the arena. The President tossed out the key, the 
 Torilero threw open the gate of the bull pen and 
 waited, staring into the black cavern beyond. He 
 did not wait long. 
 
 In a couple of seconds he whipped about and was 
 over the barrier at the side, and out of the darkness 
 shot one of the little black bulls I had seen in the 
 corral the evening before. He shot out of the cavern 
 like a bullet, blowing foamy bubbles of sheer rage, 
 made a flying toss at the Torilero' s heels as they 
 disappeared over the barrier, and slithered on into 
 the sunlight, dazzled by the glare, amazed by the 
 thunder-clap of fourteen thousand voices shouting as 
 one. 
 
 The Espada in the centre of the big ring twirled 
 his purple cloak. The bull answered the challenge 
 with a short, explosive bellow and went straight 
 for the Espada, all out. The man waited calm, 
 rigid, his bullion-loaded dress glinting in the intense 
 
202 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 sunshine, holding the purple capeo before him as one 
 might hold a towel before the fire. The bull came 
 at him like a five-nine shell. When it was within 
 a foot of him he made one step sideways, one only, 
 and the bull went into the cloak. He drew the cloak 
 over the horns and strolled away, never glancing 
 back. 
 
 The bull shot on into the middle of the capeadores. 
 They flickered about him, whisking their brown 
 and purple cloaks, over his rump, under his belly, 
 over his horns, in his face, leading him on towards 
 the horses. 
 
 He horned at the golden mosquitoes this way and 
 that, twisted, skipped, charged, bellowing with 
 fury, but met only cloaks, cloaks. A picador 
 spurred and hammered his old white horse into the 
 melee, and a capeador danced backwards towards 
 him, flicking the bull in the eyes. 
 
 The bull followed, blinking, furious, right into the 
 horse. The picador made a pretence of holding off 
 the charge with his pole, but it was the merest 
 formahty. The bull sank its sharp horns in the 
 horse's belly up to the wool, sank them as easily as 
 a fork pierces butter, bunched its brawny neck and 
 hove horse and rider into the air and over on to the 
 ground. They dragged the fallen picador clear and 
 ragged the bull away from its groaning victim, one 
 fellow actually twisting its tail. 
 
 The chulos set about the horse. They flogged it, 
 they kicked it, they hauled at it, got under it and 
 lifted it on its legs. The poor old beast's head was 
 down, it sagged at the knees and doubled at the 
 hocks, its entrails were tumbling out through the 
 rips in its belly. Life was fluttering yet, but only 
 
' CORRIDA ' 203 
 
 just. They would have to be quick if they wanted 
 another stab at it while it could still feel. 
 
 One chulo held the drooping head, one set his 
 back to the rump, three got under it on the off-side. 
 They propped it up somehow. The picador was 
 hoisted into the saddle once more. They shouted 
 to the capeadores to hurry. The capeadores ragged 
 the bull on, dancing enticingly before it, trailing 
 their cloaks. The bull came on, blinking, rumbling, 
 saw the horse, bunched his neck and was in again. 
 The horse went over without a kick or a groan. 
 The capeadores buzzed in and drew the bull towards 
 another horse that was being flogged up from the 
 other side of the arena. 
 
 The white horse was beyond further propping, 
 so the Puntillero drove his knife in behind the ears, 
 cutting the spinal cord, " pithing it," as butchers 
 say. 
 
 The second animal was a small bay with the 
 stringhalt. He was more mettlesome than the first. 
 Blinded though he was he seemed to sense the bull's 
 approach and swung sideways. The bull locked a 
 foreleg somehow in his horns and slung the horse 
 over, but there was no blood. The bay got himself 
 up and limped round the arena in a lively fashion. 
 The bull could not be brought up to it for some time, 
 and when it was, missed the mark altogether, the bay 
 rearing over backwards. 
 
 That enraged the crowd. Two failures. A growl 
 went up from the cheap seats on the ** Sol " side, 
 ran like a whirlwind round the huge amphitheatre. 
 " Sangre ! Sangre ! " " Blood ! Blood ! " 
 
 The game little horse had got to die. 
 
 For the second it came over me that I was the I 
 
204 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 of a previous existence, in Nero's Rome, in the 
 Coliseum with the multitudes turning their thumbs 
 down. 
 
 So the little bay died and, I trust, is now cantering 
 (his stringhalt cured) over those meads of asphodel 
 that are the recompense of the brave. 
 
 The chulos held him head and tail, so that there 
 was no getting away from it. I think a horn got 
 him through the heart, at all events the Puntillero 
 pithed him where he lay. There was no propping 
 up. A bluster of trumpets announced the end of the 
 first period, and, for my part, not a moment too 
 soon. 
 
 I am not squeamish, but I had had all I could 
 stand. I found it necessary to scrape my nails with 
 a pocket-knife — and keep the point touching on the 
 quick. 
 
 Expert Spaniards declare that this horse-gutting 
 is necessary to the general scheme of the Corrida. 
 Then all I can say is that the sooner the last Corrida 
 is run the better — if for this feature only. 
 
 For the rest I admit I wasn't half so disgusted as I 
 expected to be. I don't think the bulls I saw baited 
 felt much pain, they were too busy and furious, and 
 in every case they were killed clean, dropped as 
 neatly as thousands of bullocks drop daily in 
 municipal abattoirs. 
 
 But this horse business ! Though it is as absurd 
 for me to criticize bull-fighting as for the average 
 Spaniard to censure fox-hunting, I say there is not a 
 particle of skill or excitement in it — just sheer 
 agonizing butchery. 
 
 The Portuguese get a lot of fun out of bulls in a 
 perfectly harmless fashion. The bull works off his 
 
' CORRIDA ' 205 
 
 high spirits on thin air. The cavalheiros display 
 real horsemanship by eluding the horns, the cloak- 
 men display agiUty, the Espada demonstrates how 
 easily he could have slain the savage beast had his 
 sword been of steel instead of wood, and everybody, 
 including the bull, goes home to tea tired but satisfied. 
 But Spain must have its " sangri " and will not be 
 gainsaid. 
 
 Popes and potentates have thrown their weight 
 against the sport — even Isabel the Catholic — all to 
 no avail. 
 
 The crack Espadas get as much as £500 for sticking 
 two bulls in an afternoon and occupy positions 
 somewhere between a matinie idol and a First League 
 pitcher. Three journals recount their doings, Gallos' 
 opinion on the Versailles Treaty and what Belmonte 
 had for breakfast, etc. 
 
 Bull-fighting is to the Peninsula what baseball is 
 to the States or professional football to England. 
 The only way to wipe it out would be to wipe out 
 Spain. 
 
 The trumpets rang in the second period, the 
 Seurte de Banderillear. A capeador, with a paper 
 frilled banderilla in either hand, walked into the 
 centre of the arena. The bull was slewed to face 
 him. The man flapped his arms slowly, as a bird 
 flaps its wings. The bull took a step forward, 
 snuffling. The man made other movements of his 
 arms, holding the animal's eye. The bull snorted, 
 trotted forward and charged. The man waited on 
 tiptoe, arms outstretched, a tall graceful figure, 
 shimmering in its crusted gold. 
 
 He stood the charge without twitching a muscle, 
 stood until the battering-ram of a head was within 
 
206 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 a yard of his stomach, and then bent sideways, with 
 what seemed no more than a swerve of his hips, and 
 planted the two darts close together in the bull's 
 withers as it thundered past. The movement was 
 timed to the fraction of a second, to the eighth of an 
 inch. A thrilHng display of cold nerve. The bull 
 rushed on, roaring at the prick of the darts, bucking, 
 trying to shake the things loose from his hide. There 
 was some more cloak work and two more darts were 
 planted by another man. The bull's black withers 
 streamed with a shiny crimson. 
 
 Then came an unrehearsed diversion. Over the 
 " Sol " barrier tumbled a street urchin of seventeen. 
 He picked himself up, dodged a couple of clutching 
 capeadores and ran straight for the bull, waving 
 his ragged coat. The capeadores rushed to the 
 rescue, but they were off-guard and too late. The 
 bull and the boy met. 
 
 Fourteen thousand people said ** 0-oh ! " and 
 jumped up. Said " A-ah ! " and sat down again. 
 The bull was tossing the coat on its horns, the boy 
 was dancing a pas-de-joie in the centre of the ring, 
 and the *' Sol " was thundering its applause. His 
 triumph was short-lived. The capeadores drew the 
 bull down to the barrier while one of their number 
 took the hero by the ear and led him ignominiously 
 back whence he came — much to the disapproval 
 of the " Sol," however, they bombarded the capeador 
 with cushions. 
 
 The third banderillo planted his darts. He saved 
 himself with a sort of backwards twitch, but he lost 
 the entire seat of his pants. The needle-point of 
 a horn tore it right out. It was a near go, but it 
 did not rattle the banderillero. Undismayed and 
 
' CORRIDA ' 207 
 
 unabashed he immediately seized two more darts 
 and planted them with the same movement. Only 
 when this was successfully accomplished did he 
 retire to cover his nakedness. 
 
 The trumpeter sounded for the Suerte de Matar, 
 the third and last act. 
 
 The Espada, the master fighter, took the stage, 
 a slender, wiry fellow with a gentle face and brown, 
 dog eyes. He held a bit of stick in his right hand, 
 over which was draped a small scarlet cloth. He 
 played all round the bull, knelt before it, jumped 
 over the lowered head, pulled its ears and tail, 
 fooling the bewildered creature with the scarlet 
 cloth. The bull butted at him, struck sideways, even 
 kicked in its exasperation, but missed the mark 
 every time and by a hair's breadth only. 
 
 The Espada did not appear to hurry. He appeared 
 to elude the terrible horns by merely curving his 
 body. An infinitesimal miscalculation, the momen- 
 tary treachery of a single muscle, and his stomach 
 would have been ripped out. Touch and go all 
 along. The nerves will not last for ever and at the 
 best are brittle stuff, and nobody knows it better 
 than the bull-fighters. They get absolution in the 
 Plaza chapel before entering the ring. 
 
 A Russian told me he was in a Madrid hotel with 
 a famous Espada on the eve of a big Corrida, and the 
 man was pacing his room all night, up and down, up 
 and down. 
 
 The bull came to the end of his strength. His 
 tongue lolled, his flanks pumped, blood and sweat 
 dripped off him to the sand. The Espada knelt before 
 him, flipped him on the nose with the scarlet rag. 
 The bull would not move. He was beat to a finish. 
 
2o8 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 The Espada made a sign and a capeador brought 
 him his sword. It was a three-foot sword with a 
 straight edge but with a left-handed curve in the 
 flat — left-handed towards the heart. The hilt was 
 bound with red tape and was so small there was only 
 room for three fingers inside the guard, the shock 
 being taken by the heel of the hand. 
 
 The Espada changed the rag-stick to his left hand, 
 and keeping the sword concealed, stepped forward 
 a pace or two towards the bull, flapped the rag, 
 and knelt again. The bull watched him but made 
 no move. The Espada stepped slowly forward, the 
 sword now hidden under the scarlet rag. Fourteen 
 thousand people sat frozen still. Sudden death 
 might have smitten the great amphitheatre. 
 
 Suddenly the bull darted at the man. He tossed 
 the rag from him, drew up like a fencer meeting a 
 thrust, the sword flashed out and down, down 
 between the bull's shoulders right up to the red 
 hilt. The Espada skipped backwards with the 
 bull's matted poll seemingly driven into the pit of 
 his stomach. The bull had him between its horns, 
 had him over, down ! No, it was the bull that was 
 dropping ! It stumbled, fell on one knee, on both, 
 rolled over. 
 
 The Espada smiled, shrugged his ghttering 
 shoulders, turned and walked away, while the 
 Puntillero did his merciful work. The vast crowd rose 
 at the Espada. He had brought off an especial 
 tour -de-force, it appeared, the " Recibiendo." 
 
 He walked round the arena, bowing, glancing 
 up shyly with his sad, dog eyes. The spectators 
 hurled their expensive sombreros at him as a mark of 
 approval. It snowed sombreros, white, grey, brown 
 
' CORRIDA ' 209 
 
 and black. A capeador walked behind the master 
 and returned them haphazard. For ten minutes 
 after he had passed they were busy sorting hats in 
 the lower benches. 
 
 The band blared merry music. The mule team 
 cantered into the ring to a great cracking of whips, 
 were hooked on to the carcases of the bull and two 
 horses — splendid fat grey mules jingling with bells, 
 with Spanish flags fluttering from their collars, 
 their shorn tail stumps tied with bows of red and 
 yellow ribbon. Attendants appeared with brooms 
 and swept sand over the dark red patches in the 
 arena. 
 
 Boys came round the benches selling water, fans, 
 cushions (" trouser-protectors," they called them) and 
 curious Httle shellfish Uke crabs. 
 
 I felt pretty sick; I looked about me to see if 
 anybody else was feeling sick. The love-lorn couple 
 were smiling into each other's eyes. The pretty 
 flappers on my left were pinching their parent to 
 make him buy them chocolates. He was pretending 
 to be in intense agony. 
 
 Up in the boxes the beauties were laughing and 
 fanning themselves. The man on my right offered 
 me another cigarette and tried to explain the fine 
 points of the game to me. He was desperately 
 anxious that I should enjoy myself. Nobody was 
 feeling sick, it seemed. They were having the devil 
 of a good time. I was the sole skeleton at this 
 feast of pleasure. 
 
 I began to feel that there must be something 
 
 wrong with me. The lovers in front, the charming 
 
 family on my left, the friendly fellow on my right 
 
 were no whit less deficient in kindness than I am, and 
 
 p 
 
210 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 they were but samples of the crowd. Forms of 
 sport in which I habitually engage would probably 
 shock them to the soul. " The crimes of Clapham 
 are chaste in Martaban/' and vice versa, I told 
 myself; " morals are only a matter of geography," 
 and so on, but the sick feeling remained. 
 
 Six bulls and twelve horses were killed that 
 afternoon. 
 
 I sat it out to the end and was bored, no less — 
 bored stiff. Despite my neighbour's efforts I could 
 not appreciate the fine shades of the play, the altos, 
 the redondos and camhinados. The game was too 
 one-sided, the toreadores too dexterous, the bulls 
 too wooden-stupid. It is not always so. While I 
 was in Madrid three men were killed in a single 
 Corrida. But that Sunday in Seville there was no 
 hitch. The thrills no longer thrilled me ; the blood, 
 by its sheer quantity, ceased to appal. The last 
 sacrifice went down to a " volapU " thrust. The 
 trumpets sang " Finis " to the evening sky. Urchin 
 hero-worshippers vaulted into the arena, bought 
 from the attendants gore-clotted darts as souvenirs 
 and played at bull-fight on the sodden sand. 
 
 The vast crowds emptied into the Paseo de 
 Cristobal Colon en route to discuss the day's exalted 
 moments over cafe tables or to roll in carriages on 
 the Delicias. 
 
 I found Castelar in the hotel lounge, humming 
 " Espanola " and playing patience. He had spent 
 a delightful afternoon with Anatole France in the 
 Alcazar Gardens and was in high good humour. He 
 made no mention of the bull-fight. 
 
XXXII 
 
 CORDOVA 
 
 Some years ago I found a battered copy of 
 Washington Irving' s Conquest of Granada lying in 
 a comer of a little hotel in the Canadian Rockies. 
 I was a lumberjack in those days, had taken a toss 
 from the top of a log-deck, sprained my arm and was 
 forced to go easy for a while. I spent the time with 
 the Conquest of Granada. 
 
 The account of Cordova, the base of the Christian 
 army, with the chivalry of Europe flocking in all 
 their bravery to the banners of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, made fascinating reading, especially in a 
 raw-lumber hamlet smothered in a six-foot fall of 
 snow. 
 
 I told myself I would go and see Cordova some day. 
 After that, of course, Cordova never stood a dog's 
 chance. Actualities seldom soar to the heights of 
 expectation. A world- traveller told me that while 
 loveliness was always leaping at him unawares, the 
 only two celebrated beauty-spots that had come up 
 to the advertisements were Rio de Janeiro and Venice. 
 I went to Spain in an ideal state, knowing absolutely 
 nothing of its cities, except Cordova, and Cordova 
 was the sole disappointment. 
 
 Castelar told me such would be the case. All the 
 afternoon rattling up from Seville along the valley 
 of the Guadalquivir, he laboured diligently to bring 
 my conception of the city down to the ground floor. 
 
 211 
 
212 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 "But— but " said I, "the birthplace of 
 
 Lucan and Seneca, Averroes and the Gran Capitan ; 
 the capital of Hispania Ulterior; the capital of the 
 Cordovan Gahphate, whose conquests swept as far 
 north as Tours; in her day the lamp of learning 
 and art to all Europe; the Mecca of the West — 
 surely. . . . ? " 
 
 " Dead," said Castelar, " desecrated, blown to 
 dust — all gone. I remember a London policeman 
 diving into the Serpentine after a man. The fellow 
 struggled desperately, but the poHceman dragged him 
 out to find he was a competitor in a Fully-Dressed 
 Swimming Race. Cordova was swimming on the 
 top of the Morisco tide when Fernando III. dived 
 after her. He rescued her all right, but she died 
 of it." 
 
 His parable was apt. Salvation killed Cordova. 
 That done, one would have thought that the Spaniards 
 would have preserved the glorious body; but no, 
 they tore it limb from limb, determined to stamp 
 out every trace of the hated infidel. The Holy 
 Inquisition, that first saved a man's soul and then 
 burnt his body, was in power and expressed the crazy 
 fanaticism of the times, the fanaticism which later 
 led Philip II. to order the destruction of all pubHc 
 baths on the ground that washing savoured of the 
 Moors and, consequently, of heresy. Nothing of 
 the city's ancient wonder remains but the great 
 mosque, a tower and a bridge. 
 
 A yellow town of mean and tangled streets, sliding 
 down a brown hillside to a yellow river. Such is 
 the Cordova of to-day, the erstwhile " Bride of 
 Andalusia," " The brightest splendour of the world," 
 of which an old Arab has said, ** Her long line of 
 
CORDOVA 213 
 
 Sultans form the crown of her glory; her necklace 
 is strung with the pearls her poets have gathered 
 from the ocean of language; her dress is of the 
 banners of learning. ..." 
 
 The great days of Cordova began in the eighth 
 century with the first of the Omaiyade Caliphs, 
 Abd-er-Rahman, who alone escaping the massacre 
 of his family by the Abbasides, re-founded his 
 dynasty in Spain, and cutting adrift from the 
 Damascene empire, whose black standards flew from 
 the Himalayas to the Atlantic, set up Cordova as a 
 rival to Mecca itself. Abd-er-Rahman landed in 
 Andalusia a lone fugitive, hunted from pillar to post 
 by implacable foes, carved out a mighty realm and 
 held it at the sword's point for thirty- two bloody 
 years. A stupendous achievement; a great figure 
 of romance — yet he died a miserable and dejected 
 old man, maintained only by his bodyguard of 40,000 
 ferocious African mercenaries. He might cut his 
 kingdom adrift but not his heart-strings, and in his 
 last days the sick soul of the old ** Hawk of the 
 Koreysh " turned homewards, and he wrote a sad 
 poem to a palm tree in his garden, a fellow-exile 
 from Damascus. " Like me, thou art separated 
 from friends and relations . . . thou art far from the 
 land of thy birth." 
 
 Hisham I., " the Amiable," succeeded him in 
 788. He it was who built the seventeen-arch bridge 
 that spans the Guadalquivir to this day. 
 
 In 796 came Hakam, a debonair and sprightly 
 prince, whose goings-on so shocked the theological 
 bigots that they roused the people against him time 
 after time. The laughter-loving Caliph was, how- 
 ever, neither fool nor poltroon. 
 
214 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 On one occasion, when the populace was battering 
 in his palace gates, he was discovered dressing his 
 hair with civet oil, giving as an explanation that 
 " the rebels would be unable to find my head among 
 the rest if it were not distinguished by its sweet 
 odours." His locks anointed, he gathered his 
 cavalry and sallying by a back door, took the mob 
 in the rear, where nobody Ukes to be taken. 
 
 A fanatic ringleader was brought up before him 
 and gave as his excuse that in hating the king he 
 was but obeying the voice of God. Said Hakam, 
 " He who commanded thee, as thou dost pretend, to 
 hate me, commands me to pardon thee. Go and live." 
 
 Hakam was followed by his son, Abd-er-Rahman 
 n., a patron of the arts and graces, whose Cabinet 
 consisted of a theologian ex-rebel called Yahya, the 
 favourite queen, Zihyal, Nasr, a negro slave, and a 
 Persian singer by the name of Zihyab. The doctor, 
 the lady and the nigger attended to poHtics while 
 Zihyab kept everybody in a good humour. He ran 
 an academy of music, could sing over a thousand 
 songs himself, added a fifth string to the lute, intro- 
 duced asparagus, a new method of hair-dressing and 
 was the absolute arbiter of fashion. The solitary 
 sect this singing exquisite could not charm were the 
 Christians. They had no legitimate grievances, 
 being allowed the utmost freedom of worship and 
 seven churches to do it in, but a certain priest, 
 Perfectus, having been executed for pubHcly cursing 
 the religion of the conquerors, the Bishop of Cordova 
 had him canonized. 
 
 Seeing all that wels needed to become a saint was 
 courage and a foul tongue, an epidemic of martyrdom 
 swept the city. Would-be saints of both sexes 
 
CORDOVA 215 
 
 rushed upon the Cadi as he sat in judgment and lashed 
 the Mahometan faith with every vile insult they could 
 lay their tongues to. The Cadi remonstrated with 
 them, but as his kindly expostulations only called 
 down fresh torrents of blasphemy, there was nothing 
 for it but to follow the law and execute the 
 blasphemers. 
 
 The flood of saints poured into the Calendar in 
 such volumes that they were in danger of swamping 
 it, and the bishops were forced to issue an edict 
 that while all past canonizations held good, no 
 further awards would be made. That ended that. 
 
 Following Abd-er-Rahman II. came a string of 
 feeble Sultans under whom the kingdom went to 
 pieces, and then, in 912, Abd-er-Rahman III., " the 
 great Caliph." He came to the tottering throne a 
 boy of twenty-one, set himself immediately at the 
 head of his forces and started to reconquer the 
 kingdom of his fathers. He was successful, but it 
 took him eighteen years. During his long reign 
 Andalusia flourished as never before or since. 
 
 Her armies pinned Castile, Leon and Navarre 
 within their boundaries. Her fleets cruised between 
 the Pillars of Hercules and kept the predatory 
 Barbary Sultans in check. Brigandage was stamped 
 out. Peace possessed the land from end to end. 
 There was one law impartially administered for all, 
 Moor, Spaniard or Jew. Vast irrigation works 
 were engineered and agriculture prospered accord- 
 ingly. Art and learning rode forward with the rest. 
 It was Spain's golden age. 
 
 And what of Cordova, the capital of this happy 
 realm ? 
 
 Cordova is recorded to have contained over 
 
2i6 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 150,000 houses, 700 mosques and 9000 public baths. 
 Her doctors, her philosophers, her poets and artisans 
 were famous the world over. Ambassadors came 
 from Constantinople, Germany, Italy, all Europe, 
 and were entertained in the Sultan's marble halls, 
 " The Palace of Flowers," " The Palace of Lovers," 
 and " Damascus " — " Damascus " of the scented 
 garden, of which the Arab minstrel sang, " Its night 
 is always perfumed, for morning pours on it her grey 
 amber and night her black musk." 
 
 But the most splendid of all was a palace Abd-er- 
 Rahman built outside the city and called after his 
 darling queen Ez-Zahra — " The Fairest." 
 
 Ten thousand workmen were employed in the 
 construction and three thousand pack animals for 
 carrying material. The CaHph himself became so 
 absorbed in the work that for three consecutive 
 holy-days he forgot his religious duties, and when, 
 at length, he showed up at the Mosque he was 
 severely reprimanded by the preacher. Ez-Zahra, 
 when completed, must have been enormous, for it 
 housed the six thousand three hundred women of 
 the harem, and the three thousand three hundred 
 pages and eunuchs who waited on them. It had 
 hanging gardens of white marble, fish-ponds and 
 fountains fed by streams brought down from the 
 Sierra in lead pipes. Its courts and terraces were 
 marvellous to behold, but the brightest gem was 
 the Hall of the Caliphs, which was roofed with gold, 
 had eight doors of ebony and ivory inlaid with jewels 
 and a pool of quicksilver in the centre which quivered 
 and flamed with every ray of the sun. England, 
 be it borne in mind, had at this period barely emerged 
 from the wattle-and-daub style of architecture. 
 
CORDOVA 217 
 
 In 960 Abd-er- Rahman died. Like his contem- 
 porary, Alfred the Great, he had found his people 
 riven and impoverished with war and left them in 
 peace and prosperity. He was renowned throughout 
 the known world for his generosity, his justice, his 
 meekness and his courage in the field. A happy 
 man, one would say, yet after his death a paper was 
 discovered on which he had recorded the days of his 
 reign that had been free from sorrow, and in fifty long 
 years there were but fourteen. 
 
 Of all this splendour and power nothing remains. 
 The Palaces of Lovers and Flowers have gone; 
 " Damascus " has gone and " The Garden of the 
 Water-wheel." The Berbers sacked and burnt 
 Ez-Zahra and the Alcazar is now a prison. Nothing 
 remains but the great mosque. Forbidding, embattle- 
 mented on the outside, with only the lordly bell- 
 tower to denote its character, it is more like a 
 grim Moroccan kasba than a place of peace. But, 
 as in all Moorish structures, it is the interior that 
 matters. The building was begun by Abd-er- 
 Rahman L and contained ten rows of columns taken 
 from anywhere and everywhere, from old Roman 
 temples, from Constantinople, and the ruins of 
 Carthage. Hisham I. erected a minaret, a fountain 
 and a gallery for women. 
 
 Abd-er-Rahman IL, to meet the fast-increasing 
 needs of the city, added seven rows of columns. 
 The Caliphs that followed made extensions and 
 restorations as they were called for, but the Mosque 
 owes most to Hakim H., who set up fourteen rows 
 of columns and built the exquisite Third Mihrab 
 with its pine-apple dome, interlacing arches, pillars 
 
2i8 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 of gold and lapis-lazuli and scollop-shell ceiling 
 carved from a single block of white marble. The 
 Mosque was now at its zenith and must have been 
 an astounding sight. 
 
 Imagine a vast low hall, two-thirds the size of St. 
 Peter's, Rome, with a ceiling only thirty-five feet 
 high, carried on a forest of over nine hundred slender 
 pillars of marble, jasper, porphyry, branching, 
 flowering into double arches of alternate red and 
 white stone. There were twenty-one doors of 
 polished brass and the pulpit was of ivory and rare 
 woods studded with gold nails. The whole floor 
 was paved with rich mosaics set by workmen brought 
 from Constantinople. The ceiling was of carved 
 wood, painted in red, blue and gold and hung with 
 seven thousand brass lamps beaten out of Christian 
 bells and burning scented oil. 
 
 " The gold shines from the ceiling like fire,'* 
 writes an old Arab chronicler; *' it blazes like the 
 lightning when it darts across the clouds." 
 
 Incidentally " The Mehdi," the founder of the 
 all-conquering Almohades, was the son of a lamp- 
 lighter of this Mosque. 
 
 In 1236 came Fernando III., and twenty-four 
 years later the building was dedicated to the Virgen 
 de la Ascencion and wholesale vandaHsm. 
 
 At first the Christians were content with making 
 a few alterations on the outskirts and destroying 
 a part of the Second Mihrab, but in 1523 they set 
 to work in earnest, pulled down sixty- three columns 
 and erected a monstrous and obscene Renaissance 
 choir right in the middle of the building. 
 
 For the honour of Cordova it must be said that 
 the City Fathers opposed the churchmen in this. 
 
CORDOVA 219 
 
 and Charles V., who sanctioned the scheme, bitterly 
 repented afterwards. 
 
 " You have built what you, or others, might have 
 built anywhere," said he, " but you have destroyed 
 what was unique in the world." 
 
 I am not vindictive, I hope, but I do devoutly 
 trust that the bishops, priests and architects of the 
 Cordova chapter who were responsible for that job 
 of work are now grilling over a slow but everlasting 
 fire. 
 
 Although the gilded ceiling has been plastered 
 over, although the mosaic paving has all gone, 
 despite the brutal and insistent presence of the 
 Renaissance choir, leering through the avenues of 
 pillars Hke a stucco villa in a dark forest of enchant- 
 ment — despite all this the Mosque interior is still 
 unique, still one of the world's wonders, for that 
 crown jewel of Moorish art, the Third Mihrab, remains, 
 also eight hundred and sixty columns, and by 
 dodging the choir you may look down seemingly 
 illimitable tunnels of arches and see endless piles 
 of pillars dressing into line whichever way you 
 glance, scores and hundreds of pillars, jetting aloft 
 their sprays of red and white, dwindling in perspec- 
 tive, marching on and on into the gloom and mystery 
 beyond. » 
 
 A cure for the depression caused by the triumph 
 of gim-crackery in the Mosque is to be found outside, 
 at the southern comer. 
 
 It is a monument, and quite the most comic 
 effort I have seen, and I hail from an island that has 
 perpetuated much of its considerable humour in 
 stone — I cite the Manchester Martyrs' statue in 
 Dundalk as a sample. 
 
220 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 At the first blink I thought it must be in memory of 
 the late Lord George Sanger, Esq., the circus king, 
 but on closer examination it proved to be in honour 
 of St. Rafael, the city's fairy-godfather, and the 
 work of two French artists (in the tombstone trade, 
 I should imagine). 
 
 St. Rafael is perched on the top of a column, 
 which in turn is planted on the apex of a fantastic 
 rockery such as are sold by bird-fanciers for the 
 bewilderment of gold-fish — only larger, of course. 
 
 Crawling in and out of the rockery cracks is a 
 menagerie of strange and suffering beasts. Most 
 of them are so distorted by disease it is impossible 
 to recognize their species, but one is a horse and 
 another is a Hon. The horse has goitre, and gout all 
 round. The Hon is afflicted with dropsy and both 
 cheeks are so swollen with gumboils it can barely see 
 out of its eyes. 
 
 I have not yet discovered how they came to be 
 mixed up with St. Rafael, though Castelar made the 
 suggestion that perhaps, when he wasn't busy 
 sainting, he ran a veterinary business as a side line — 
 not with any marked success it would appear. 
 
 We stayed in Cordova two days. I was for leaving 
 at the end of the first, but Castelar was sticky. 
 A true son of Barcelona, he was meditating the 
 removal of the Renaissance choir by dynamite, but 
 coming to the conclusion that it would undoubtedly 
 take the rest of the Mosque along with it, he 
 abandoned the project and we left for Madrid after 
 dinner on the second night. 
 
 We did not travel alone. Just before dinner there 
 was a stir in the hall and a party of Moors came in, 
 two women and two men, all in full native costume. 
 
CORDOVA 221 
 
 The elder man was a Manchester merchant I had 
 met in Fez. He recognized me and shook hands. 
 He was taking his family to England, he said, was 
 going through to Madrid by the night train. 
 
 We dined together, the two Moors, in their blue 
 burnouses, white turbans and bare legs, Gastelar 
 and myself. The women dined upstairs, in a bed- 
 room, locked in. We drove to the station in the 
 hotel bus, the women staring over their veils, wide- 
 eyed, like frightened does, at the crowds and lights 
 on the Paseo del Gran Capitan. One of them held 
 a Httle basket of Fez oranges on her lap, the other 
 clutched a palmetto broom — pathetic relics of 
 home. 
 
 The men, Castelar and myself herded together 
 in the train, but the women had a compartment to 
 themselves, again locked in. 
 
 The railroad to Madrid follows the valley of the 
 Guadalquivir out of Cordova. The elder Moor 
 finished his cigar in the corridor, very thoughtful 
 and silent, watching the scattered lights and black 
 country slipping by — " lost Andalus." 
 
 Perhaps he saw the ghostly squadrons of Tarik 
 sweeping northwards to victory, the moonlight 
 on their scimitars; the spectre summer palaces of 
 the great Caliphs gleaming amongst the hills ; heard 
 the clack of water-wheels and Arab girls singing 
 among the fig trees. Perhaps he did — but, on the 
 other hand, perhaps he was merely meditating on the 
 cotton slump. 
 
XXXIII 
 
 TOLEDO 
 
 Whereas I went to Cordova blowing bubbles of 
 expectation, mention of Toledo woke no emotions 
 in my bosom. I knew it had a cathedral, of course, 
 but then so has Amiens and Cologne, Antwerp, 
 Chartres, Milan and Burgos — in short there are 
 precious few Continental cities that haven't. I 
 knew it had enjoyed a reputation for forging lethal 
 cutlery and took its name from a town in Ohio, 
 U.S.A. That was the sum-total of all I knew about 
 Toledo. 
 
 Castelar, wise bird, made no efforts to enlighten 
 me. All he said was, " I think we'll trot down to 
 Toledo to-morrow." I yawned " Right-0 " and 
 went to bed. If he had said, " We may as well 
 toddle over to Lhasa after breakfast," I should 
 doubtless have made the same reply. I am seldom 
 argumentative at 2.30 a.m. I had no sooner dented 
 the pillow then he threw cold water over me and 
 told me it was time to get up. I gnawed a little 
 breakfast, as in a dream, and went the whole way 
 from Madrid to Algodor stretched out on a seat, 
 snoring so loud, Castelar avers, that the train stopped 
 twice, thinking it had broken something. 
 
 From Algodor onwards we had two agreeable 
 cavalry Heutenants in the carriage and got into a 
 discussion as to the relative merits of cut and thrust. 
 
 I was giving a demonstration with my cane in 
 222 
 
■ 
 
 TOLEDO 223 
 
 favour of the latter when Castelar summoned me to 
 the corridor, dropped the window and pointed. 
 " By Jove ! " I said. " What's that ? " " Toledo," 
 he replied. " Oh yes, of course, that was the place 
 we were going to, wasn't it? I'd forgotten," said I, 
 and drew breath again. " Whew ! " 
 
 Imagine Mont St. Michel picked up by a typhoon 
 and deposited two hundred miles inland. Mont St. 
 Michel on a grand scale. Such is Toledo. A walled 
 city, half Eastern, half Gothic, of flat roofs, domes 
 and spires piled on top of a single hill, towering over 
 the Vega as the Castle dominates Edinburgh or 
 Chateau Gaillard the valley of the Seine. 
 
 The bare Montes de Toledo heave abruptly out 
 of the plain as a hne of breakers heave over a sunken 
 reef out of a flat sea. The Tagus (which the 
 Spaniards in their blighted ignorance spell " Tajo " 
 and pronounce " Td-ho ") has gouged a precipitous 
 canyon round the hill on three sides, cutting it 
 from the main range and isolating it on the north 
 bank. The fourth side rises sharply from the Vega 
 and is protected by enormous walls. Before the 
 invention of siege cannon the city was impregnable 
 by force of arms, a fact which she repeatedly 
 demonstrated. 
 
 The road from the station to the city leaps the 
 gorge on a high bridge protected by guard-towers 
 at either end, wriggles skjrward by a series of sharp 
 hair-pin bends and deposits you, panting, in the 
 Square, the Zocodover. 
 
 Toledo, hke Cordova, is a dead city. That is 
 to say, where once she hummed, she now dozes; 
 her population is barely one-tenth of what it was 
 once. But there the similarity ends, for the corpse 
 
224 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 of Toledo, so far from being torn and trampled, has 
 been carefully preserved, succeeding conquerors 
 turning the buildings of predecessors to their own 
 use. Mosques and synagogues have become churches 
 merely by a change of titles, their essential character- 
 istic remains undisturbed. Civilizations have left 
 their works piled one on top of each other in clearly 
 defined layers. For instance, the foundations of 
 the Puerta de Alfonso VI. are Roman, then comes 
 a stratum of Visigothic stone-work bridged by a 
 Moorish horse-shoe arch, the whole surmounted by 
 the eleventh-century loopholes and embrasures of 
 the monarch whose name it bears. 
 
 Albeit the prevailing tone of the city is Moorish, 
 the houses turn their backs to the streets and face 
 inwards on their patios, and the dark narrow streets 
 twist, bend, loop and stop altogether as if they had 
 lost their way in a wood and got panicky — ^which is 
 the Oriental idea of how streets ought to behave. 
 
 I have heard the theory advanced that Eastern 
 streets are deliberately tangled up in this fashion 
 to keep the Faithful sober. The True Believer 
 eschews liquor, knowing very well that if he doesn't 
 keep all his wits about him he'll never get home as 
 it is. 
 
 A glance at the map of Toledo convinced me that 
 we should need a guide, so, without consulting 
 Castelar, I secured a fellow whose sole English proved 
 to be the sentence that had recommended him to 
 me, namely, that he spoke it perfectly. I have had 
 some experience of guides, but this was a new kind. 
 He would shamble along before us, toes turned out, 
 knees turned in, until he came to some object of 
 interest, then halt, about face and introduce us to 
 
TOLEDO 225 
 
 the building with a wave of his hand and a Httle bow, 
 just as if we were three gentlemen meeting at a 
 reception. 
 
 " San Juan de los Reyes — the Sefior Dons. The 
 Sefior Dons — San Juan de los Reyes " — another 
 little bow. Very polite ; several times my hand went 
 half-way to my hat. 
 
 That was all. Not a word concerning San Juan de 
 los Reyes. If we asked him any questions he would 
 glance uneasily at the Spanish Baedeker Gastelar 
 carried and say, " Ahem ! What does the book say, 
 Senor? " Castelar would then read an extract, the 
 guide nodding his head in approval all the while. 
 
 " Splendid ! " he would exclaim when it was all 
 over. " Couldn't have expressed it better myself. 
 Excellent ! " and shamble on again. 
 
 I asked him if he had any other occupation. 
 
 " No, Sefior," he replied, " all time guide." 
 
 " But surely very few visitors come here in summer 
 or winter; in fact during nine months of the year? " 
 said I. 
 
 He shook his head sadly. " No visitors come, 
 Sefior." 
 
 " But what do you do then? " I asked. 
 
 " Still guide, Senor," said he, " all time guide." 
 
 Should the worst come to the worst, and I am 
 forced to earn my living honestly, I have serious 
 thoughts of becoming a guide in Toledo. Like 
 schoolmastering, there may not be a fortune in it, 
 but the vacations are liberal. 
 
 Toledo's natural advantages have made her a 
 stronghold from the earUest times. 
 The first Spaniard probably lived in a cranny on 
 Q 
 
226 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 the top of the hill and kept off the ichthyosauri, 
 tetrabelodons, titanotheres and brontosauri by 
 rolling rocks on top of them. 
 
 (There was one thing about primitive man that 
 was certainly not primitive, and that was his spelUng. 
 You don't catch him calling animals by short, easy 
 names such as dog, cat, cow, pig, etc. I don't know 
 the Stone Age for " flea," but I'll bet it had twenty- 
 five syllables — and a fracture of the jaw in it.) 
 
 One hundred and ninety-two years before Christ 
 the Romans captured Toledo from " the brave 
 Carpetani." Later on the Visigoth kings made her 
 their capital and the head-quarters of the Catholic 
 faith on the Peninsula. 
 
 In A.D. 711 Tarik swooped out of the blue with 
 his Berber horsemen and, aided by the local Jews, 
 took the town at a rush. The Spaniards surrendered 
 without striking a blow, but claimed a moral victory 
 in that some priests had escaped with the city 
 treasures, the sandal of St. Peter and the tooth of 
 Santiago — an argument which was completely lost 
 on that benighted heathen, Tarik, who was in no 
 way interested in blessed knick-knacks, dental or 
 otherwise. 
 
 Under the Moors " Tolaitola " prospered exceed- 
 ingly in the silk and wool trade and achieved a 
 reputation for forging the finest sword-blades on 
 earth, blades that could be coiled up like watch- 
 springs without snapping. 
 
 Four centuries the Moors held Toledo, but not 
 always on behalf of the Cordovan Caliphate. Her 
 proud and independent spirit was ever on the boil 
 and she rebelled frequently, was sometimes reduced 
 by long and devastating sieges, but more often was 
 
TOLEDO 227 
 
 not. Alfonso VI. had to sit down and invest her 
 for three soHd years before the Crescent banners 
 could be brought low. There is a converted mosque 
 in the north of the city called " El Christo de la 
 Lux " (The Christ of the Light), built by the Moors 
 on the foundations of a Visigoth church. The 
 story has it that on Alfonso's triumphal entry into 
 the city the Cid's horse went down on its knees before 
 this mosque and remained in an attitude of prayer 
 despite all efforts to move him. 
 
 Awful scene ! A Christian horse bestridden by 
 the leading Crusader prostrating itself before a 
 temple of infidehty ! Tut-tut ! Oddsbodkins ! I 
 expect the poor gee got a good talking to with a 
 stirrup-leather when he reached home and was 
 put on a penance of oatless days for a week at 
 least. 
 
 But he was in the right after all, for shortly 
 afterwards some holy relics, left by the Visigoth 
 Christians four centuries before, were found hidden 
 in a wall of the mosque, a crucifix and a lamp still 
 alight. 
 
 We don't get oil like that nowadays. 
 
 It was in the reign of this same Alfonso that the 
 Church was rent in twain as to whether the Roman 
 or Mozarabic ritual should be performed. Ingenious 
 experiments were made. A fire was lit and books 
 of the rival rituals tossed into it, with the idea that 
 Heaven would preserve the right one from the 
 flames. Heaven preserved the Mozarabic. 
 
 Alfonso, still unsatisfied, invented an even more 
 exhaustive test. Two bulls, the one dubbed 
 " Rome," t'other " Toledo," were turned loose on 
 each other. " Toledo " knocked " Rome " out for 
 
 1 
 
228 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 the full count. Whereupon the Gastilian Solomon 
 declared unhesitatingly for *' Rome." It is thus 
 that the Articles of our spiritual belief have been 
 decided for us. Nevertheless in one chapel of 
 Toledo Cathedral (alone in all Spain) the Mozarabic 
 ritual persists to this day. 
 
 I searched that chapel for some recognition of its 
 Fidei Defensor, the doughty bull, but there was 
 nothing, not even a stuffed tail or a framed nose-ring. 
 
 It is not, however, with memories of the Reyes 
 that Toledo is pregnant, but with those of her 
 Archbishops, and their fame is by no means local, 
 they ride gigantic, iron-hoofed down the history 
 of Spain itself. They drew enormous revenues, 
 built mightily and maintained private armies which 
 they led in person. Their portraits surround the 
 Sala Capitular — Rodrigos, Tenorios, Mendozas, 
 Ximenes, de Lunas, Rojos — a ring of clean-shaven, 
 tight-mouthed, purposeful faces. No pale dreamers 
 here — Lord Chancellors, Generals, Trust Presidents, 
 one would say, masquerading in episcopal flummery. 
 
 Warriors, statesmen, diplomats, prelates when 
 there was nothing else doing — there is always an 
 Archbishop of Toledo charging in the forefront of 
 every battle of the Middle Ages, engineering and 
 financing Crusades and, if necessary, taking the whole 
 business of government into his capable hands. 
 An extract from The Chronicles of the Cid reveals 
 the temper of a Spanish ecclesiastic of the period. 
 
 ** At cock-crow they all assembled together at 
 the Church of St. Pedro, and the Bishop Don 
 Hieronymo sang mass, and they were shriven, 
 assoyled and howselled. Great was the absolution 
 the Bishop gave them. He who shall die, said he. 
 
TOLEDO 229 
 
 fighting face forward, I will take his sins and God 
 shall have his soul. Then, said he, a boon, Cid Don 
 Rodrigo; I have sung mass to you this morning; 
 let me have the giving the first wounds in this 
 battle ! and the Cid granted him this boon in the 
 name of God. . . . Then the Cid bade his banner 
 move on, and the Bishop Don Hieronymo pricked 
 forward with his company and laid about him with 
 
 "Muscular Christianity in full swing" 
 
 such guise that the hosts were soon mingled 
 together. . . . Great was the smiting and slaying 
 in short time." 
 
 Muscular Christianity in full swing ! 
 
 When Alfonso VIII. lost his head at a critical 
 moment of the great battle of Las Navas in 1212, it 
 was an Archbishop of Toledo who took charge and 
 carried the day. A shepherd showed him a pass 
 through the Sierra Morena by which he could take 
 the Ahnohades in flank. A gigantic cross that 
 appeared blazing red in the sky is also said to have 
 
230 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 helped a lot. The shepherd, Isidro, has since been 
 canonized for that bit of ground-scouting and is a 
 patron saint of Madrid. There is a pleasant short- 
 legged statue of him in the Capilla Major of Toledo 
 Cathedral. 
 
 Another Toledo bishop was practically regent 
 during the minority of Enriques III. Cardinal 
 Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, was twice regent. 
 On one occasion, being asked by what authority 
 he was assuming the government of the country, he 
 led the disgruntled nobles to a window and silently 
 pointed to the square below, chock-a-block with his 
 own troops — " A commission," as King Charles 
 admitted, on being confronted with a similar argu- 
 ment, " written in very fine and legible characters." 
 Ximenes also equipped and led the expedition that 
 stormed the stronghold of Oran. 
 
 It was an Archbishop of Toledo who, hearing of 
 a conspiracy to kidnap Isabella on the eve of her 
 wedding with Ferdinand, gathered a body of horse, 
 kidnapped the Queen himself and galloped her to 
 safety in Valladolid. 
 
 Gonzalez de Mendoza, " Tercer Rey " (the third 
 king), Isabella's mainstay and chief driving force 
 in the conquest of Granada, was a Bishop of Toledo. 
 He it was who founded the Inquisition, he and that 
 Satanic figure whose influence hung hke a black 
 cloud over two continents, Tomas de Torquemada. 
 So much for the potent Archbishops of Toledo. 
 
 Their day is over, the Crescent banished whence 
 it came, and they He quiet now in marble tombs, 
 their fierce fires burnt out. " Hie jacent pulvis, 
 cinis et nihil," one has left as his epitaph: Porto- 
 carrero, who was called " The King-maker." 
 
TOLEDO 231 
 
 Under Mendoza's patronage Toledo became the 
 headquarters of the Inquisition, despatching its 
 hooded familiars to work their evil wherever 
 Spanish rule held sway — all over the Peninsula, 
 to the Netherlands and the Indies. 
 
 According to Llorente 9000 people were executed 
 during the sixteen years that Torquemada controlled 
 the Holy Office. Motley puts the number of deaths 
 at 10,220 and 97,321 racked and variously tortured. 
 
 In Toledo autos-da-fe were held in the Zocodover. 
 The condemned, grotesquely garbed in yellow robes 
 embroidered with black devils, and tall fools' caps, 
 marched to the shambles in a procession led by 
 children and followed by famiUars bearing the blood- 
 red flag of the Order, also black coffins painted with 
 flames and containing the charred bones of previous 
 victims. The nobihty and gentry brought up the 
 rear. The sacrifices were first treated to a sermon 
 and then roasted — ^before the good effect could wear 
 off. 
 
 It is the custom with certain savages to make a 
 clay model of an enemy, stick a pin in it and hope 
 for the worst. 
 
 Following the same line of thought the Inquisition 
 would try an absent sinner by proxy, then, did he 
 remain unobtainable, burn him in effigy — ^whereby 
 justifying the title auto-da-fe, " act of faith," I 
 suppose, for a more childhke trust in Providence it 
 were hard to imagine. 
 
 An auto-da-fe was as good as a circus to the 
 Toledans. When there was going to be a disciplinary 
 barbecue they clapped on their best fal-lals and 
 farthingales, packed the decorated balconies of 
 the Zocodover, and combined sport and edification 
 
232 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 in watching naughty heretics being purged by fire 
 and cutting the most diverting capers in the 
 operation. 
 
 But who shall blame the good Toledans? We 
 British lit sundry human " candles " at Oxford and 
 Rouen, and at a considerably later date a popular 
 highwayman dancing an airy pas seul at Tyburn 
 Tree drew all fashionable London. 
 
 In an alley that taps the Zocodover is a little 
 posada that rejoices in the congenial sign of " The 
 Inn of the Blood." It has a small, dark courtyard 
 with a wooden gallery above, and here it was that 
 that crippled ex-soldier and sometime slave, Miguel 
 de Cervantes, lodged and wrote his passport to 
 immortality. 
 
 Looking out over the twisted canyon of the Tagus, 
 above the spot where Roderick, last of the Visigoths, 
 saw the fair Florinda bathing, to the loss of his 
 honour, kingdom and life, stands the house of "El 
 Greco " the painter. The Casa del Greco has been 
 turned into a museum by a public-spirited grandee, 
 and several original works are to be seen there and 
 also in other parts of the city. 
 
 I confess that " The Greek's " impressions of 
 slate-coloured saints and martyrs leave me cold, as 
 a rule, but his picture of the burial of Count Orgaz 
 in the church of Santo Tome is a marvel. The 
 Count, limp and drooping in his silver armour, is 
 being lowered into the grave, while behind him 
 stand the mourners (the Greek among them) all 
 portraits, and all in black. A striking, dignified and 
 masterly work. 
 
 We left Toledo in the late evening. 
 
 I lolled out of the carriage window as the train 
 
TOLEDO 233 
 
 rattled eastwards for Algodor, watching her to the 
 last. In the waning Hght brown walls, roofs, domes 
 blended with the brown rock till they became part 
 of it. A town carved out of a mountain. The 
 fantastic mass towered dark against the primrose 
 afterglow, and about it the Tagus wound a coil of 
 pale gold. A city of enchantment, she seemed, a 
 wizard's keep, piled on perilous crags and circled 
 by a monster snake, smooth-sHding, ripple-scaled. 
 Her sentinels, surely, stretched prone at their 
 posts; the burgesses snored across their counters; 
 the good-wives slumbered at their distaffs, while in 
 the palace courtiers bowed low over their lutes and 
 viols, and a princess lay waiting the kiss that should 
 wake them all from sleep. 
 
 TOLEDO 
 
 " Toledo, Toledo, she sits on a hill, 
 A shimmering dragon lies coiled at its base 
 (Some call it the Tagus). She sits very still. 
 With the moon on her cheek and the wind in her face. 
 No rumble of Progress her reverie mars ; 
 Toledo, Toledo is up in the stars. 
 
 " Toledo, Toledo is caught in a trance, 
 A spell that some merciful wizard has thrown. 
 She sleeps and she dreams of the days of Romance, 
 When kings came a-courting and trumpets were blown, 
 And banners flew proudly from castle and keep. 
 Toledo, Toledo, she smiles in her sleep. 
 
 " Toledo, Toledo, the captains and kings 
 Lie low ; the red cardinals slumber in mould ; 
 The trumpets are silent ; no troubadour sings. 
 And queens in their splendour of silver and gold 
 Have gathered in shadowy mansions and vast. 
 
 Toledo, Toledo, dream on in the past." 
 
XXXIV 
 
 ESCORIAL 
 
 EscoRiAL, the mammoth mausoleum and palace 
 of the Spanish sovereigns, lies within easy — no. 
 I had almost written " within easy train journey " 
 when memory jogged my elbow. Castelar and I 
 went out there one Sunday morning in tow of a 
 young engine that had evidently enjoyed its break- 
 fast and was full of joie de vivre and eau-de-vie, je ne 
 sais quoi and all that, for it skipped along, whistling 
 and hooting and knocking its carriages together in a 
 most uplifting manner. 
 
 So far so good. But on the return trip we got 
 an asthmatic dotard that was literally on its last 
 wheels and must have been crawling home to die. 
 Every time it came to an up-grade (and all roads 
 leading to Madrid are that way inclined) it halted 
 and considered the matter; wriggled to the top, 
 panting and blowing in the most heartrending 
 fashion; did some more thinking; lowered itself 
 cautiously down t'other side and halted once more 
 at the bottom as if awaiting the congratulations of 
 its patrons on the achievement of a perilous feat. 
 
 Evening slipped into night, night towards mid- 
 night, and Castelar and I, abandoning all hopes of 
 dinner, talked of what we'd have for breakfast — if 
 we got home in time. When at length the lights of 
 Madrid hove in sight we were drawing lots as to who 
 should eat the other. With that experience in mind 
 I don't think I'll definitely commit myself concerning 
 
 234 
 
ESCORIAL 235 
 
 the trains. We serious historians have got to tell 
 the truth occasionally, no matter how it hurts us. 
 
 Let us say that Escorial, the mammoth mausoleum 
 and palace of the Spanish sovereign, lies about 
 thirty miles north-west of Madrid — and leave it at 
 that. We had a French couple in the carriage with 
 us going out to Escorial that morning, a Colonel of 
 Artillery (retired) and his wife. The old chap had 
 seen most of his service en gargon in the Colonies, 
 he told me, was on the point of sending in his papers 
 when war broke out and he had to go on again for 
 another five years. He had commanded a brigade 
 of guns at Verdun and Chemin des Dames. " Elles 
 out casse tant des coeurs, ces Dames Id / " said his 
 wife. The reunited couple then retired into a 
 corner and flirted — there is no other word for it. 
 Most unseemly at their age ! 
 
 Castelar and I were so embarrassed we had to turn 
 our backs on them and pretend to be absorbed in 
 the scenery. 
 
 As the Castilian plain is as barren of interest as 
 a frog of feathers, I was profoundly relieved when 
 Escorial was reached. Castelar, who had been very 
 moody throughout, was gripped with violent colic 
 driving up from the station, and on reaching the 
 hotel tottered upstairs and went to bed in the first 
 room he came to. 
 
 Some consternation was caused among the hotel 
 staff when he was discovered, the room belonging 
 to a nobleman from Corunna. However, as the 
 nobleman was out and Castelar refused to move, 
 he was allowed to lie on. From the violence 
 of his groans it was judged that his tenure of the 
 room could only be a matter of minutes anyhow. 
 
236 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 For some mysterious reason I am not popular in 
 sick-rooms. I can't think why. If I were ill I 
 can't imagine anybody Fd rather have about the 
 place than myself, whistHng, chatting, doing balanc- 
 ing feats on the backs of chairs and keeping up the 
 moral generally. But there you are, invaUds won't 
 have me at any price. They say I distract the 
 nurses, sample their medicines and eat their calves- 
 foot jelly — which is rot, of course, I don't Uke jelly. 
 Fve known dying men sit up and with their parting 
 breath threaten that if Fm not put out of the room 
 they'll get out of bed and do it themselves. 
 
 When I offered to stop with Gastelar and hold his 
 hand to the last he said, " No, thank you." Those 
 are not exactly the words he used, but, boiled down, 
 they amounted to that — the man was not himself and 
 one must make allowances. I therefore purchased 
 half a bottle of whisky at considerable expense 
 (Spaniards seem to be under the impression that 
 ordinary Scotch is distilled from pure gold), left it 
 by his bedside and fared forth alone. I was not alone 
 long. The French couple had secured a guide, were 
 waiting in the hotel grounds and insisted on my 
 going the rounds with them. We were old comrades 
 in arms, the Colonel said, and strangers in a strange 
 land, the Entente must stand united. 
 
 After what I had seen in the train, I was reluctant 
 at first, feeling I should be de trop, but they persuaded 
 me. I need not have worried. Escorial has many 
 corridors with many kinks in 'em, the second- 
 honeymooners had ample opportunity to hang back 
 out of sight, and I speedily recognized that my 
 function for the day was to provide company for 
 the guide. 
 
ESCORIAL 237 
 
 On one occasion I absent-mindedly returned to have 
 a second look at a fresco and came full upon them. 
 The old man might have been performing a figure 
 in a quadrille. He was strutting and bowing round 
 his dame like a peacock round its hen and ended the 
 movement by kissing her hand. The good lady was 
 sparkHng as though she were twenty instead of 
 fifty. I blurted, " Oh, sorry ! " and scuttled back 
 round the corner, blushing all over. For the rest 
 of the day I acted the discreet chaperon to my 
 grandfather and grandmother (so to speak), keeping 
 the guide busy with idiotic questions and heading 
 him off whenever he attempted to return after his 
 strayed charges. I hope the young things enjoyed 
 themselves. 
 
 When a man builds a house in a range of mountains 
 it is to the glorification of the mountains — usually. 
 Not so with Escorial. It is as though PhiUp II. 
 had pitted himself against Creation. He took 
 Nature on its own ground, at its grandest, and set 
 himself to pile up something grander. The palace 
 of Escorial sits in a crescent formed by the ragged 
 Sierra Guadarrama and suffers nothing by com- 
 parison with the surrounding crags and peaks. It 
 is an immense, four-square mass of grey granite 
 with a tower at each comer and a dome bubbling 
 out of the centre. It is as solid as the Pyramids, as 
 austere and forbidding as a prison, and makes no 
 appeal other than that of sheer brute bulk. 
 
 It began by challenging the mountains, ended as 
 one of them, and has their sure hold on eternity. 
 The story of how it came to be is, that miHtary 
 necessity calling on Philip for the destruction of 
 
238 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 the Church of St. Lawrence at St. Quentin, he sought 
 to propitiate Heaven by promising to build the saint 
 a better one — somewhere else. He built it at 
 Escorial, added a palace, a mausoleum, a college, a 
 convent and a monastery. 
 
 The combination of a palace and a burial vault 
 might not appeal to everybody, but Philip II. was 
 a gentleman who took his pleasures seriously. The 
 place was planned in the form of a gridiron in honour 
 of the utensil on which St. Lawrence was grilled, the 
 main block representing the grid and the palace the 
 handle. The result is as much like a gridiron as 
 I am ; but no matter, it was a pretty conceit. 
 
 Escorial is a departmental town, a city in a single 
 building. It covers an area of five hundred thousand 
 square feet; has sixteen courtyards, two thousand 
 six hundred windows, twelve hundred doors, eighty- 
 six staircases and nearly one hundred miles of corri- 
 dors. 
 
 The history of Escorial begins with Philip and 
 almost ends with him. The gloom and immensity 
 of the place seem to have weighed on his successors, 
 for it saw Uttle of them until they were brought to 
 lie in the jasper vault, coming from Madrid across 
 the bleak Castilian plain in the dead of night with 
 chantings and torches and much dismal pomp. 
 
 But if it has few memories of its later masters, it 
 is obsessed with Philip. He planned it, superin- 
 tended every detail of the construction, lived in it, 
 died in it. 
 
 Half-palace, half-monastery, melancholy to a 
 degree, yet possessing a certain cold magnificence, it 
 expresses the very soul of the lonely bigot who built 
 it, the king who should have been a monk. He was 
 
ESGORIAL 239 
 
 sitting at vespers in the old church when news was 
 brought him of the one outstanding success of his 
 reign, the victory of his fleet at Lepanto, and the 
 freeing of Christendom from the Turks. It is 
 reported that he made no sign, said no word beyond 
 commanding that the Te Deum should be sung at 
 the end of the service. In the present church he 
 ordered and attended the solemn requiem for the 
 soul of Mary, Queen of Scots. He kneels in gilded 
 bronze on one side of the high altar, three of his wives 
 kneeUng behind him, the fourth, Mary of England, 
 perhaps the only person who ever loved him, not 
 being represented. 
 
 His body, in company with those of the succeeding 
 kings and queen-mothers, Hes in the Panteon de los 
 Reyes directly under the altar. It is a dim-lit 
 vault tricked out with gilt and rococo-mouldings 
 and surrounded by black marble sarcophagi. A 
 ghastly hole. Isabel of Bourbon, the laughter- 
 loving but courageous wife of Philip IV., had such 
 a horror of the place that she dared not enter it in 
 life. She is there now, poor thing. With the 
 Latin's inherent instinct for the appropriate the 
 attendant ghoul has set up a post-card shop in a 
 corner of the adjacent Panteon de los Infantes. 
 
 The palace is on the west side of the main block, 
 looking out over the heat-hazy plain of New Castile. 
 All Philip II. required, to use his own words, was " a 
 cell in which he might bear his weary limbs to the 
 grave " — observe the monkish touch. In the lower 
 stories of the palace these " cells " are to be seen — 
 and really they are little more — the leather chair he 
 sat in, the stool for his game leg and the table on 
 which he wrote his interminable and tedious letters. 
 
240 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 One can see him at it, " the Most Catholic King," 
 monarch of half the world, the under-sized dyspeptic 
 with his chill fanatical eyes, pendulous Hapsburg 
 lower lip and short yellow beard, twinging with 
 spasms of indigestion brought on by prodigious 
 meals of pastry, bent over that table between ranks 
 of candles, writing, writing. Girding at his ambassa- 
 dors, generals, and Inquisitors; planning the assas- 
 sination of WilHam the Silent, of Elizabeth of England 
 and his own son, Don Carlos ; contemplating fresh 
 persecutions of the Jews and the drowning at sea 
 of the entire Morisco population; contriving new 
 taxes, new wars, new deviltries to the glory of Philip 
 II. and his God ; writing, writing, writing deep into 
 the night while the winter blasts swept down the 
 frozen slopes of the Guadarrama and wailed hke 
 lost souls round the granite buttresses of Escorial. 
 This Httle room, that chair, that table was the centre 
 of the spider's web that stretched its terrible toils 
 from Ceuta to Amsterdam, from Naples to Panama. 
 
 The smallest of these mean chambers has a glass 
 panel in the door giving on the chapel, and in this 
 room on the last day of September 1598 Philip 
 died, staring at the kneeling effigy of his father 
 beside the high altar, in torment of body and soul, 
 wracked by a loathly disease, conscious that all his 
 great schemes had come to naught and that the day 
 of his enemies was at hand. 
 
 • «•••• 
 
 Immediately on returning to the hotel I ran up- 
 stairs to pay my last respects to the remains of poor 
 old Castelar. Instead of a corpse I found a very 
 lively gentleman in the room, the Corunna grandee, I 
 suppose. He wanted to know what I was after. 
 
ESCORIAL 241 
 
 and as I couldn't explain, showed me the door and 
 followed suspiciously all along the corridor, ringing 
 beUs. 
 
 I discovered the corpse in the lounge having tea 
 with a remarkably comely lass and her brother — 
 fellow South Americans, it appeared. Castelar 
 explained that he wasn't dead yet, had decided 
 to postpone the event indefinitely, and, curiously 
 enough, his recovery had coincided almost exactly 
 with my departure. He regretted that I had not 
 come back a few minutes earlier, as then he could 
 have offered me a drink of my own whisky. As it 
 was, he and the South American had found a home 
 for it. 
 
 I opened my mouth to say a lot of things, felt the 
 twinkling brown eyes of the lady upon me — and 
 closed it quietly on a bun. 
 
 PHILIP II 
 
 {At his palace of Escorial) 
 
 " The candles leap and gutter, 
 Philip, Philip, 
 Sitting all alone. 
 
 A stray draught stirs the shutter 
 And the drear winds moan. 
 The rain drums on the pane like fingers tapping. 
 Pale moths wheel round the flames, grotesquely flapping 
 Their dance of Death. The shadows plot together. 
 Hooded, gigantic. Creaks the gilded leather 
 Chair. In the arras grey mice gnaw and scuflie. 
 Down empty corridors the cold draughts ruffle. 
 Piping through keyholes, whimpering and dying. 
 The night is full of ghosts and voices crying, 
 Wailing, bereft, with never hope to cheer them. 
 Can you not hear them, 
 Philip ? 
 R 
 
242 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 II 
 
 " The candle-flames burn lower, 
 Philip, Philip, 
 And low the embers burn. 
 As crops come to the sower 
 So the dead return 
 Home from the world's ends. They are all around you. 
 Seamen of lost Armadas, shattered, drowned, you 
 Drove to their doom ; poor soldiers slain in battle 
 Bloody with wounds ; Moors felled like slaughter cattle ; 
 Oar-slaves lashed raw, that down the blue sea valleys 
 And sliding hills your bannered golden galleys 
 Might flaunt the winds ; men racked, assassinated 
 To serve your schemes and lull your never-sated 
 God and His iron priests. The dead are massing, 
 And the light passing, 
 Philip." 
 
XXXV 
 
 MADRID 
 
 " From Madrid to heaven is but a step," saith the 
 proud Madrileno, glorying in his native city. As a 
 matter of fact he hardly exaggerates, for the climate 
 is about the most murderous in Europe, the weather 
 jumping blithely from tropical to arctic in a single 
 day. As someone has said of a district of California, 
 " suitable wear for these parts is a linen duster with 
 a fur collar." Nevertheless, Madrid owes its first 
 prosperity to its climate. Until the sixteenth 
 century it was merely a mihtary outpost of Toledo. 
 Then came Charles V., and discovering the wind- 
 bitten spot kindly to his gout, rewarded it with a 
 shower of charters. 
 
 In 1556 the industrious storm-centre abjured the 
 world that was becoming too troublesome altogether 
 and betook himself and his gout into monastic 
 retirement at Yuste — to dedicate the remainder of 
 life to God, he said, but in reality to dicker with 
 innumerable clocks and gorge himself sick four times 
 a day on Estramadura sausages, pickled partridges, 
 sardine omelettes and eel-pies. And Phihp II. 
 reigned in his stead. 
 
 Phihp moved the Court from Valladolid to Toledo, 
 but finding the arrogance of the Cathedral Chapter 
 insufferable, moved on again and settled the capital 
 finally on the Manzanares. It was the strategic 
 centre of " The Spains," and as for the climate — 
 R2 243 
 
244 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 well, he didn't intend to live there himself, so what 
 matter ? 
 
 Cervantes and Calderon, the dramatist, lived in 
 Madrid during the otherwise undistinguished reign 
 of his successor ; then the third Philip died, shrieking 
 in the Alcazar palace, surrounded by ghastly rehcs 
 and corpses of saints, and Philip IV. took the stage. 
 
 PhiUp IV. was on the throne for forty-four years, 
 and during that period lost two big campaigns; 
 Portugal and the Netherlands obtained their inde- 
 pendence; Catalonia was in a state of continuous 
 uproar; Jamaica fell to the British, and British 
 privateers hung off Cadiz and captured the home- 
 bound treasure-ships as fast as they hove in sight. 
 Spain was dropping to pieces, a province at a time, 
 but in the Court at Madrid all went merrily; the 
 black Chancellor, Count-Duke Olivares, saw to that. 
 He shifted the festive monarch out of the old Alcazar 
 into the new fairy palace of El Buen Retiro, kept 
 him dizzy with entertainments and misruled the 
 kingdom himself. 
 
 Cane tourneys were held day after day in El 
 Retiro woods, stag-hunts, boar-hunts, displays of 
 horsemanship and buU-fights in which grandees 
 competed for prizes of massive silver plate. 
 
 The beautiful palace was dedicated to carnivals, 
 plays (specially written by Lope de Vega and others), 
 masquerades and splendid balls where lady-dancers 
 were presented with perfumed purses of ducats and 
 pelted each other with egg-shells filled with scent. 
 
 Further cavaUer displays were held in the Plaza 
 Mayor in the centre of the town. The houses facing 
 the Square could accommodate fifty thousand 
 spectators and were packed to the last inch. The 
 
MADRID 
 
 245 
 
 balconies were hung with rich tapestries, and in 
 these the great ladies sat gorgeous in their jewels, 
 cloth of gold and silvered plush. 
 
 The bounds were kept by the Spanish Guards in 
 
 Displays of horsemanship 
 
 orange and scarlet and German Guards in crimson 
 and gold. Grooms paraded the royal horses draped 
 in housings of crimson velvet, fringed with gold. 
 Music was provided by pipes, clarionets, hautboys 
 and drums, played by musicians dressed magpie 
 fashion. 
 The king and Olivares (both finished horsemen) 
 
246 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 opened the courses, which continued all day, and 
 late into the night cavahers still processed lit by 
 thousands of torches. So avid was the Court for 
 enjoyment that, when in July 1631 half the Square 
 was burnt down, a royal bull-fight took place among 
 the smoking ruins. 
 
 Autos-da-fe were another form of amusement held 
 in the Plaza Mayor under the gracious patronage of 
 their majesties. In 1636 an awkward incident 
 occurred at one of these shows. The familiars 
 started to torture a suspect in public without taking 
 the precaution of gagging him, and the low fellow 
 opened his mouth to such purpose that he was 
 hastily released from the rack, "as he showed an 
 intention of accusing half Madrid," says the chronicler. 
 Most unsporting ! 
 
 Madrid's leading play-house, the " Corral de 
 Pacheca," stood on the Calle del Prado where 
 the Teatro Espanol stands to-day. " Corral " 
 means " yard," and that is all it was, an open 
 courtyard covered by an awning. The mob sat 
 or stood in the yard and the aristocrats watched 
 the play through the grated windows of surrounding 
 houses. It was through one of these gratings that 
 PhiHp first saw La Calderona, the actress who became 
 mother of Don Juan of Austria. 
 
 One of the most pathetic features of the present 
 day are the letters theatrical managers write to the 
 papers describing the bitterness of their struggle to 
 keep body and soul together. (It is correspondingly 
 inspiring to note how few of the gallant fellows 
 abandon the contest while life is in them.) 
 
 Nevertheless, I venture to think that they would 
 have found matters even more trying in Spain in 
 
MADRID 247 
 
 the seventeenth century. The mob was very free 
 with its remarks and oranges; "Dead-heads" 
 were legion ; young bloods often insisted on dimbing 
 on the stage and taking part in the performance, 
 fell out over seats or favourite actresses, drew swords 
 and set about each other there and then. Imagine 
 a leading lady working up to her great moment — 
 some climax of terror or sorrow such as Lady 
 Macbeth' s candle scene or the death of Little Willie 
 in East Lynne — when an imperial riot breaks out in 
 the theatre. A dozen young rips chivvy each other 
 round the pit, through the stalls and over the stage, 
 bodkins out, yelping like a pack of terriers. The 
 leading lady would either throw a swoon or walk off, 
 and what would the manager do then, poor thing ? 
 
 Nor was that the darkest side of the profession. 
 During the reign of Philip IV. one Fernandez, a 
 theatrical manager, was stabbed to death on the 
 " Liars' Walk " at the instigation of a gallant whose 
 play he had refused to produce. 
 
 A great feature of Madrid of those days was this 
 " Liars' Walk." It was a raised pavement by the 
 side of St. PhiHp's Church where the Calle Mayor 
 enters the Puerta del Sol. Here quidnuncs and wits 
 exchanged quips and gossip, painters (ancestors of 
 our pavement artists) exposed their works for sale, 
 actors boasted of their devastating charm; led 
 captains auctioned their swords, and hungry poets 
 read their masterpieces to one another while waiting 
 for the free soup which the friars of St. Philip dished 
 out daily at noon. 
 
 The " Liars' Walk " was also an assassins' club. 
 If you wanted a throat sUt in Madrid in the seven- 
 teenth century you went to the " Liars' Walk " and 
 
248 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 hired a slitter as openly as you would a cab or a 
 porter. 
 
 It is on record that there were one hundred and 
 ten murders committed in a single fortnight in 1641. 
 
 The city was, in those days, a thug's paradise, for, 
 despite the splendours of El Retiro, and the glittering 
 tomfooleries of the Court, it was a dark and noisome 
 spot. Under the RegaUa de Aposentos buildings 
 of any pretensions were liable to have troops and 
 royal servants billeted on them, and in consequence 
 houses were kept to the meanest proportions 
 possible. 
 
 The streets were narrow, filthy kennels infested 
 by the privileged pigs of St. Anthony and without 
 any sort of drainage or illumination. What more 
 could your cloak-and-dagger artist desire ? Indeed, 
 he desired nothing better, for when that benevolent 
 despot, Charles III., initiated street lighting the 
 enraged Madrileiios up and all but deposed him. 
 
 On a wet March evening of 1623 two muddy 
 horsemen rode into Madrid, and passing up the Calle 
 de Alcala dismounted at the famous " House of the 
 Seven Chimneys," and said that Messrs. Smith and 
 Brown would take it as a favour if they could have 
 word with the British Ambassador. 
 
 My Lord Bristol obeyed the summons in his own 
 good time to find, to his amazement, that Mr. John 
 Smith was no other than Charles Stuart, Prince of 
 Wales, and Mr. Brown, George ViUiers, first Duke 
 of Buckingham. They had come a-courting, to 
 seek the hand of Philip's little sister, the Infanta 
 Maria. Thus the '* Spanish match " was set afoot. 
 
 Charles saw the Infanta driving on the Prado and 
 fell in love with her at once. Madrid received the 
 
MADRID 
 
 249 
 
 British heir with open arms — here was an excellent 
 excuse for fresh gaieties. A magnificent display was 
 held in his honour, relays of bulls being speared by 
 mounted grandees. 
 
 The Plaza Mayor was hung with gold and crimson 
 and surrounded by stagings. The queen and 
 Infantas appeared sprinkled with diamonds and 
 covered in gems. Charles, wearing black with white 
 plumes, cut a gay and gallant 
 figure, we are told. For a' 
 that his courtship made no 
 headway. 
 
 According to the custom of 
 the country he could only see 
 his lady when all of her family 
 were present, which didn't suit 
 his taste at all — the boy was 
 hotly in love. He heard that 
 she went to the king's summer- 
 house to gather May-dew of a 
 morning, followed her there, 
 climbed a wall or two and 
 jumped off practically into her 
 arms. Instead of rewarding his acrobatics by 
 falling on his breast she ran screaming. 
 
 In a second he was surrounded by her expostula- 
 ting attendants and the game was up. He had to 
 apologize all round and Buckingham was forced 
 to eat muck, which went against his proud stomach. 
 As a matter of fact the poor lover hadn't a hope from 
 the first among them all. Philip might be outwardly 
 hospitable, but he was the " Most Catholic King " 
 and Charles was a heretic. Moreover, Olivares 
 wouldn't allow the match for diplomatic reaisons. 
 
250 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 He hummed and hawed, temporized and bickered 
 with Buckingham, demanded absurd concessions, 
 got them and asked for more. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Papal Nuncio and the priests 
 worked on the Infanta. To be the wife of a heretic, 
 mother of heretic children ! Unthinkable ! She 
 was very devout, and she thought so to. 
 
 Matters dragged on and on and were not helped 
 by the insolent conduct of Buckingham and the 
 English courtiers. According to HoweFs letters, the 
 sole member of Charles' train who was in the least 
 popular in Madrid was Archie Armstrong, James I.'s 
 jester, lent to his " Dear Baby " for the occasion. 
 
 At length a finish was cried to the miserable farce 
 and Charles went home to console himself with 
 Henrietta Maria. But he seems to have left some 
 kindly feeling for himself on the Manzanares, for 
 the birth of his heir was celebrated with great public 
 rejoicings, and later on, when this " saddest of all 
 kings " most deservedly lost his head, a shudder of 
 horror ran through the country. They forgot the 
 arrogance of Buckingham and remembered then the 
 laughing boy at the bull-fight, very handsome in his 
 black and plumes, the boy who jumped over the 
 garden wall after his lady-love — and the lady-love, 
 I wonder if she too remembered. 
 
 However, the crushing defeat of the Scots at 
 Dunbar taught Philip to recognize the Common- 
 wealth as a force, and an inconspicuous person called 
 Ascham was sent to Spain as Ambassador. He was 
 received with small courtesy at Cadiz and left to 
 find his own way to the capital. He crept into Madrid 
 late one evening and went, not to the " House of 
 the Seven Chimneys," but to a common inn. 
 
MADRID 251 
 
 Now there were five British soldiers of fortune 
 making merry in that posada, an Englishman, an 
 Irishman, a Scots trumpeter and two Welshmen. 
 Through the blunderings of Ascham's soHtary 
 servant they heard of his master's arrival and got 
 very excited. 
 
 They were sitting under the same roof with the 
 representative of the hated Parliament, the power 
 that had driven them into exile, to gather wounds 
 and grey hairs in hard campaigns and be buried 
 under alien turf. Overhead was a scoundrel who 
 had helped to murder that God-appointed saint and 
 martyr Charles I. ! They drank and drank, and 
 finally, unable to bear the strain any longer, clumped 
 upstairs, burst open the door and ran the wretched 
 Ambassador through and through. 
 
 It is significant that Madrid hailed these bold 
 spirits £LS popular heroes, and though the Common- 
 wealth protested, the Spanish authorities declared 
 themselves unable to arrest them. 
 
 So much for Madrid under the " Planet King." 
 During his reign greater Spain washed away like 
 a mud-bank in the floods; nevertheless, while 
 worthier monarchs are nothing now but dusty names, 
 he, the puerile, his trivial family and puppet Court 
 march on glowing and triumphant into posterity. 
 And the man who has worked this miracle of ever- 
 lasting life is Velazquez. Throughout all the wars, 
 riots, autos-da-fe, carnivals and extravagances he 
 was painting on undisturbed. 
 
 The result is that Philip IV. still holds his Court 
 in the marvellous galleries on the Prado. 
 
 Sit in the Sala de Velazquez and they are all about 
 you. Phihp himself, mounted and afoot, in youth 
 
252 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 and middle-age; his queens, Isabel of Bourbon and 
 Marianne of Austria; his sister Maria (Charles' 
 romance) ; his brother Don Carlos ; his daughter 
 Margareta Teresa; his baby son, Don Baltasar 
 Carlos, on his prancing stallion pony (which had to 
 be spanked into a proper frame of mind before it 
 was fit to ride) ; the Count Duke Olivares ; the 
 Count of Benavente; his men-servants and maid- 
 servants; his jesters and dwarfs. One sinks into 
 the seats in the Sala Velazquez with a sigh of mingled 
 wonderment and content, feeling that here is the 
 ultimate end of art and that one has come home after 
 a long journey. 
 
 I never remember hearing a foreigner say a decent 
 word for Madrid, whereas I have listened to them 
 abusing it by the hour. I do not agree. I call 
 it a very fine town. A thing need not necessarily 
 be hideous because it is modern. Macaulay's New 
 Zeadander will doubtless find beauty in objects which 
 we now consider blots on the landscape. 
 
 I think people are disappointed in Madrid because 
 they go there expecting to see it chock-full of comic- 
 opera bull-fighters and Carmens, and find the citizens 
 dressed very much like themselves. I like Madrid. 
 There is an electric tang in the air, a spice of malicious 
 wit in the crowds. The wind bites, but it also 
 enHvens. Life walks at the quick-step. The people 
 are alert, ironical and fired with intense civic pride. 
 Time and time again they have risen against op- 
 pressors, chanting the " Hymn of Riego," died like 
 men at their barricades, or, as on the heroic " Dos 
 de Mayo," armed only with ox-goads and cudgels, 
 withstood charge upon charge of Murat's ferocious 
 
MADRID 253 
 
 Poles and Mamelukes till the Gate of the Sun (Puerta 
 del Sol) was piled thick with their bodies. They 
 have not the kindly charm of the Andalusian, but 
 they have, at least, spirit. 
 
 There is nothing picturesque about the streets of 
 the capital — except the ponderous ox-carts. The 
 women cannot hold a candle to the Sevillianas for 
 looks. They do not wear mantillas, but prefer 
 Paris hats — which is most foolish of them. The 
 men wear ordinary clothes, black predominating, 
 giving the impression that there is a gigantic funeral 
 in progress. Madrid is purely a modem city, a child 
 among European capitals, and must be rated as 
 such. 
 
 Of Old Madrid hardly anything remains but the 
 Plaza Mayor, where its founder, the ignoble Philip 
 III., rides in noble bronze. A few streets bearing the 
 original names run roughly on the lines of the old, 
 but they are now clean, well-drained and airy. 
 After the gloom of nocturnal London they seem a 
 blaze of light. The Casas de Malicia have gone, 
 giving place to fine upstanding buildings. The 
 Bank of South America and the spacious Post Office 
 with its flying glass galleries and bridges are cases 
 in point. The city abounds in parks, of which El 
 Re tiro is the finest. It was here that Wellington 
 camped when, after taking the great fortresses of 
 Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz in eleven and sixteen 
 days respectively, he completed the rout by beating 
 " forty thousand Frenchmen in forty minutes " 
 at Salamanca and marched into Madrid in triumph 
 — a march which had the additional merit of inter- 
 cepting a good part of Joseph Bonaparte's baggage 
 train loaded with pictures, sacred relics, jewellery 
 
254 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 and Church and palace plate which the fugitive 
 was carrying into France to console him for the loss 
 of a kingdom. 
 
 El Retiro bounds the city to the east. On the 
 western side it halts abruptly on the edge of a cliff 
 which plunges two hundred and fifty feet down 
 to that insignificant trickle, the Manzanares. The 
 royal palace, an impressive eighteenth-century 
 building, stands on the brink of this cHff and looks 
 out over the sun-blistered plain of Castile. It was 
 standing on the marble staircase of this palace that 
 Napoleon turned to Joseph Bonaparte and exclaimed, 
 *' Mon frere, vous etes mieux loge que moi," and 
 gripping one of the ornamental lions, " Je tiens 
 enfin, cette Espagne si desiree." 
 
 It was up this splendid stairway that the mutineers 
 of the Guard Regiment swarmed on October 7th, 
 1841, to capture the young Queen Isabel, and were 
 held at bay all night by eighteen devoted halberdiers, 
 while the terrified royal children clung weeping to 
 their nurses and prayed that they might not be 
 killed. 
 
 But the chief glory of Madrid is the Prado Museum 
 with its staggering wealth of Velazquezs, Riberas, 
 Grecos, Murillos, Goyas, Titians, Correggios, Tinto- 
 rettos — in short, the wonder works of all masters 
 and all time, two thousand four hundred of them. 
 Possessing these alone Madrid might lift her head 
 high among the cities. 
 
 The visitor suffers from an embarras de richesse in 
 the Prado Galleries, he is overwhelmed and confused, 
 and hardly knows where to begin or how to leave 
 off, the masterpieces crowd so close. Other things 
 that crowd close are the copyists. I have counted 
 
MADRID 
 
 255 
 
 as many as eleven, male and female, in one room, 
 in some cases two to a single picture, completely 
 shutting it from the pubHc. I am told that some of 
 these folk stick to the same picture all their lives, 
 hour after hour, day after day, year after year. As 
 soon as one copy is done they start on another. 
 Dreadful ! 
 
 The Madrileno is first-cousin to the bat. He 
 sleeps during the day, 
 sailing abroad with the 
 fall of night. He does 
 his business between 
 naps. You can't buy 
 yourself a box of matches 
 before 10 a.m. The shops 
 and business houses close 
 again at noon, re-open at 
 four, and close finally at 
 six. In fact they open 
 and shut so quickly the 
 purchaser is in constant 
 danger of being jammed 
 in the door. If the worst 
 
 comes to the worst and I have to take to commerce 
 for a hving, it will be in Madrid that I shall hang 
 out my sign. 
 
 At the approach of evening all Madrid turns out 
 and walks and talks in El Retiro Park, the broad 
 Prado and its continuation, the Paseo de Recoletos, 
 pack the big caf6s on the Calle de Alcala or the 
 Puerta del Sol. Nobody thinks of dining before 
 nine. The best theatres open very late and the 
 plays, padded out with ungodly long intervals, 
 wander on into the young hours of morning. Even 
 
 ' Madrilefios " 
 
256 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 then the streets present a most animated scene, 
 especially the big square of the Puerta del Sol, 
 boiling with people, brilliant with the lights of the 
 cafes and innumerable trams which slide into the 
 great centre in continuous procession, circle, and 
 divide in pairs this way and that, as though perform- 
 ing a figure of some leisurely and intricate dance to 
 the music of clangorous gongs. 
 
 Castelar came to see me off at the Estacion del 
 Norte, presented me with a box of cigars, picked 
 me a berth, told the train staff I was King 
 George's favourite uncle travelling incognito and 
 must be treated with extreme deference, took 
 my arm and walked me up and down the 
 platform. 
 
 " Well, you'll be in Paris in a couple of days," 
 said he. " Give my love to Spinelly and Notre 
 Dame. I shan't stay here. Nothing to keep me in 
 Madrid. I shall go to Barcelona to-morrow. I have 
 a sister there. Write to the Gran Hotel Colon; 
 don't forget." 
 
 A train from Escorial came in at the next platform 
 and its passengers streamed past us towards the 
 exits. 
 
 " Hello ! " Castelar exclaimed, loosed my arm and 
 plunged into the stream. 
 
 I walked up and down, down and up. 
 
 Voyagers by the Paris express kissed their relations 
 good-bye, climbed into the train, descended and 
 kissed once more. I paced the platform. No sign 
 of friend Castelar. I went to the door of the entrance 
 hall. Castelar, his back to me, was conversing 
 vivaciously with a girl. I recognised her as the 
 
MADRID 257 
 
 South American we had met at Escorial. Very 
 handsome she looked too, with her dark sables and 
 darker hair. Castelar was in form, he made her 
 laugh. Her black eyes sparkled and she dimpled 
 delightfully. 
 
 Porters and guards set up a combined yell. The 
 Paris express was off. I clambered up the steps 
 just as it whistled and got under weigh. A man 
 burst out of the entrance hall and rushed towards 
 the train waving his hands — Castelar. 
 
 He galloped down the platform alongside the 
 window. " Sorry !" he shouted. "Met a man . . . 
 old friend . . . Au revoir. . . . Gome back some 
 day. . . . Don't forget to write ! " 
 
 " Gran Hotel Colon, Barcelona? " I yeUed. 
 
 "No, no," came Castelar's final trumpet; 
 " changed my mind . . . Staying Madrid after 
 all!" 
 
 I turned round and laughed loudly in the face of 
 a spade-bearded Frenchman, which surprised him 
 considerably. 
 
 THE LAST LOVE 
 
 *• A Prince he went a-courting a Princess of the Spains. 
 They dressed Madrid in flags for him and bade the trumpets 
 
 sound. 
 The gallants rode before him with their black and scarlet 
 
 trains ; 
 The donas wore their farthingales and curtsied to the 
 
 ground. 
 He saw the little Princess with her locks of honey-gold. 
 His passion lit like tinder — he was young and ardent- 
 
 souled. 
 But Olivares fooled him, and ' Steenie ' Villiers ruled him, 
 And the apple-bloom Maria she did as she was told. 
 
 Heigho ! 
 The pink and white Infanta she was cold, ah, cold 1 
 
258 THE COASTS OF ROMANCE 
 
 " A King he stood a- waiting at a window in Whitehall. 
 They hung the town in black for him, the drums beat 
 
 slow and stern. 
 The troopers ranked before him in a bristling iron wall, 
 And armed men closed beside, behind — there was no way 
 
 to turn. 
 The King he looked upon his troops, the troops they 
 
 looked away. 
 He looked upon the winter sky, the sky was ashen grey. 
 ' I have been a luckless lover, but that is past and over. 
 I will uplift my heart,' he said, ' on this my wedding-day. 
 
 Heigho ! 
 I go to meet a dark queen who will not say me nay.* " 
 
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