BY R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM “Show me Sohail and I will show you the moon” LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO. 3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN Published by William Heinemann in 1898. Revised Edition issued by Duckworth and Co. in 1921. All rights reserved TO HAJ MOHAMMED ES SWANI EL BAHRI I DEDICATE THIS BOOK Not that he will ever read , or even , being informed of it , ever comprehend its nature , except in so far as to think it some “ Shaitanieh ” or another not to be understood . But I do so be

TO WAYFARING MEN . Sirs , the Holy Scriptures, which, as we know, were written for our learning, seem to imply that some of us are fools. This may be so, and when I moralise, wrapped in the frequent contemplation of my travels, upon lost opportunities, lack of discernment, and on the general folly incident to all mankind, but which each man deems centred in himself, I think so too.  But still a traveller in this travelling world, going perhaps to nowhere, or to some place that he would rather ne

South-south-west , a little westerly with a cloudy sky, and with long rollers setting into the harbour of Tangier, and the date October 1st in the last year of supposititious grace.  The old white town, built round the bay with the Kasbah upon its hill, and the mosque tower just shining darkly against the electric light, for Tangier passed from darkness to electric light, no gas or oil lamps intervening, gave the effect as of a gleaming horse-shoe in the dark.  Outside the harbour, moored twice

All Mogador we found much exercised about the province of the Sus, the very province in which the inaccessible Tarudant, the city of our dreams, was situated.  It seemed that about eighteen months ago, one Abdul Kerim Bey, an Austrian subject, had arrived and hoisted his flag as Patagonian consul.  Brazil and Portugal, Andorra, San Marino, Guatemala, Hayti, and San Domingo, Siam, the Sandwich Islands, Kotei, Acheen, the Transvaal, Orange Free State, and almost every place where there was revenue

Leaving the International Sanatorium of the Palmera at the hour that Allah willed it, which happened to be about eight in the morning of the 12th October, dressed in Moorish clothes, our faces far too white, and our ample robes like driven snow, the low thick scrub of Argan, dwarf rhododendrons, and thorny sandarac, and “suddra” [61a] bushes after five minutes’ riding swallowed us up, quite as effectually as might have done a forest of tall trees.  Mohammed el Hosein, fully aware of the importan

My journey all next day lay through low hills of reddish argillaceous earth, cut into gullies here and there by the winter rains, and clothed with sandaracs, Suddra (Zizyphus lotus) and a few mimosas.  The hills sloped upwards to the wall-like Atlas, and on the left the desert-looking plain of Morocco, broken but by the flat-topped hill known as the Camel’s Neck (Hank el Gimel), and bounded by the mountains above Demnat, and the curve the Atlas range makes to the north-east so as to almost circl

Pleasing to wake up under the fig trees with all our cloaks and blankets wet with dew, to find our guard, the Maalem, still sound asleep, and be accosted by a tracker who informed us that many of the cattle of the town had been driven off the night before, and who would hardly believe that all our animals were safe.  Soon parties from the town, armed and muffled up in cloaks against the morning air, rode out from underneath the horseshoe gateway, and spread in all directions, trying to strike th

Next morning rain was still coming down in torrents and we awoke to find our tent, in spite of all precautions, swimming in water.  Nothing to do, even without the “hospitality” of the Kaid, but to cower over a charcoal brazier, and to send Swani to try and buy provisions for our breakfast.  After a little he returned bringing the chamberlain, who informed us rather tartly that the Kaid Si Taieb ben Si Ahmed El Hassan El Kintafi [148] sold no provisions, but that we and our animals would be care

The 24th still found us, so to speak, in Poste Restante at Kintafi, the Kaid invisible, tobacco running low, food not too regular, and our animals becoming thinner every day.  Still the example of the prisoners, the Sheikhs from Sus, and a tent full of miserable tribesmen, all almost without food, and glad to eat our scraps, kept us for shame’s sake patient.  So we talked much to everyone, especially with the negro who had been in London, and found he was a man of much and varied travel, some ex

Just about daylight we began to load our beasts, looking anxiously the while to see if any notice of our proceedings was taken from the castle walls.  No one stirred, and hungry, without provisions for the road, our animals half-starved but lightly laden—for the greatest weight we had in coming had been food and barley—we prepared to start. In the other tents the people made no sign, it was so early that neither the slaves were in the fields, nor yet the prisoners come up out of their living tom

Though not so sanguine as Lutaif, as to the emollient powers of his epistle, I was pleased to find that for the first time, next morning, we received ample supplies of food, baskets of grapes and oranges, and for the first time people spoke to us without an air of breaking some command. During the morning a miserable bundle of rags arrived and stood before our tent, asking in broken Arabic if we were the Christians, and on being answered in the affirmative broke out into French.  It appeared he

Early next day the effects of our audience began to manifest themselves.  The sick, the halt, the lame, and impotent, all besieged the tent, having been kept away apparently by the uncertainty of the Kaid’s attitude towards the Nazarenes.  But as all Europeans are supposed not only to know something of medicine and to carry drugs about with them on all occasions, the afflicted fairly besieged me, and I dispensed my medicines with a freedom quite without fear of consequences, and not restrained a

Early upon the morning of the 30th we were astir, and heard a report that a rekass had been seen entering the castle-gates the night before.  Still, everything went on as usual at Thelata-el-Jacoub, men came and went, tall Arabs and squat Shillah; our animals all stood dejected and half-starved; a little pup having made friends with my Amsmizi horse, who played with him in a perfunctory way.  The prisoners on the flat roof sprawled in the sun, passing the Peace of God, on terms of absolute equal

Once through the olive groves of Tamasluoght, the city of Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin [263] lay glistening on the plain, almost hull down on the horizon.  Above the forests of tall date palms which fringe the town, the tall mosque towers rose, the Kutubieh and the minaret of Sidi Bel Abbas high above the rest.  From the green gardens of the Aguedal the enormous stone-built pile of the Sultan’s palace, all ornamented with fine marbles brought from Italy and Spain, towered like a desert-built Gibraltar over

The Shillah tongue, that is, the speech of the southern branch of the great Berber family, since 1799, when Venture de Paradis made his vocabulary, has greatly interested students of philology.  Its great antiquity is undoubted, the term Amazirgh by which the Shillah designate themselves occurring in the pages of several classical writers under the form of Mazyes, Mazisci, and Mazyes.  Though akin to the dialect spoken in the Riff mountains, and that of the Kabyles of Algeria, and possessing con

The author addressed the two following letters to the Daily Chronicle and the Saturday Review when detained at Kintafi.  The freedom which he now enjoys having brought with it a form of mind more fitting to an ideal captive, he now doubts whether he would not have done better to have addressed his two letters to the Record and the Rock .  Nevertheless he publishes his letters, hoping that an intelligent, and no doubt idealistic public will discern in them that resignation, trust in a higher powe

The following article appeared in the Saturday Review , and may serve to show one of the elements of difficulty against which I had to contend.  Quite naturally, the country people thought that I was a filibuster. The Voyage of the “ Tourmaline .” The southern province of Morocco—that which extends from Agadhir-Ighir to the Wad Nun—is called the Sus.  Hanno is said to mention it in his famed Periplus.  The Romans knew it vaguely.  Suetonius may or may not refer to it when he speaks of a rich pro

[x]   “And Jesus said, Truth is from heaven; Pilate answered, Therefore truth is not on earth” (Gospel of Nicodemus, chap. iii., verses 12 and 13). [2]   Since writing this it has been shown that he has more authority in the Sus than was thought, as witness the landing of the Globe Venture Company’s filibusters, which was promptly checked. [3a]   “Taleb” literally means a learned man, but in Morocco it is applied to everyone who can read and write, in fact, as the Spaniards say, “sabe de pluma”;