In Sunset Land.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 108, 2 November 1907, Page 10

In Sunset Land.

The track wound in loops over a hill that was clothed with ancient olives, even as a. church lower in England is ■clothed with ivy . warmly, kindly, beautifully. The N'zraui traveller, who was from "Blad Londres, ' fiom London County, or England — that is, a curious and obse-rvant wight, accompanied only by his own body servant and a>Soud;mesa slave lent him by the Kaid of a village now twenty miles behind, where ho had enjoyed his midday sleep and breakfast — this Xazareno drew rein on the hill's summit because he thought the scene before him was perhaps the most chaiming he had coma upon in all the broad and blood-stained land of Al Moghreb. Grey-guen olives, old as Time by all seeming, sheltered the cup-hke hollow of the hill's, top upon all sides. The cup was full to th<? lips of small thatched houses, wLite-walled and homely looking. On the eastern edge of th<* cup stood a house some three or four times larger than the- rest, evidently the kashbah of the chief of that district. Round about it oleanders* and cacti j with here and there an orange tree, conveyed just that suggestion of half-wild garden, and of privacy, which your true Moor loves to have about him. Beside Kasbah was a natural terrace formed by a flat ledge of rock, the rim of that part of the cup which hold the little hiil village. Obviously "Satin c had intended this terrace for a. look-out place, for one of those points of vantage without which, as a place for evening gossip and meditation after tho late afternoon pTayer, no Moor can be happy. The place gave an uninterrupted view over the tops of countless olive trees, acioss a wide, ,Tiver-watered valley , to the rugged lina of hills which shut out the Atlantic. In the midst of it, in the oithodox Eastern attitude, which in Christendom is confined to tailors, sat a tall figure, wrapped delicately in snowwhite hank, beneath him- a mat of crimson felt, beside him a cup of fair water upon th.2 one hand, and upon the other the lemon-coloured slippers. The Christian traveller saw only the swathed back of this figure, but he knew it at aglance for that of the chief man of the place. Others to the number of perhaps half a score were grouped about this central figure ,andi tho onlooking N'zrani was able to imagine, without bearing them, tho devout ejaculations which ha knew were' every now and then issuing from the lips of these men as they gazed out over the valley, all bathed in that gloriously mellow light which precedes vunset in the Land of Sunset : "Eh, Ifllah! Y'AjUah-toof ! In aha' Allah!" and the like. ' Presently, the light having fallen so low that candles were needed in the kasbah, a number of domestic slaves filed .out from the courtyard of the big house, and each one bent low to kiss the hand of the chief figure on the terrace — a pretty custom of the country, which always precedes the lighting of candles and preparation of the- evening meal, an acknowledgment of the shelter and safety provided by the father of a household. One of these slaves caught sight of the X'zvani and his servants, and instantly conveyed news of the fact to the chief and his companions. These rose- now, and, stepping forward ,with slow statelj strides, bade the stranger good-evening and pronounced the Peace upon him. "Thou wilt sup and sleep here," said the chief, "for night comes, and travellers of thy blood are not precisely safe in this country-Bids' by night." The Christian thanked the Moor, and presently was seated by his side upon the terrace, sipping sweet green tea, mint-flavotned, from tiny, ilower-2m-bossed cups. He begged his host not to let his arrival interrupt the talk, and the host said, "Thou'rfc on my head. All that is in my house is thine." And so the talk proceeded, and the Nazarene listened, while noisily supping his tea, in accordance with Moorish etiquette, which declares that the silent drinker is not pleased with what he drinks. From the talk the Xazareno gathered that the village of his courteous host was deeply afflicted. The aged father, the uncle, and one brother of his host had been captured and flung into prison by a ceTtain very powerful Basha, who stood high in the favour of their Lord the Sultan. This Basha was convinced, or said he was, that much treasure was held in the village. He had seized the chief's, relatives by means of a cowardly stratagem ; his soldiers had attempted, unsuccessfully, to storm and ravage tho little hill-top village, and now it was said that tne chief's aged father was actually being put to the tortuie by this same unscrupulous Basha. Tho thought of it was unbearable, and the whole village had risen to put an end to this outrage. Tho villagers had scraped together every dollar they possessed, half their flocks had been sold, and the proceeds had been laid before the Basha by way of tribute, to secure the release of the chief's relatives. And now a curious letter from this Basha lay folded in the chief's lap. In this letter the Basha expressed the | utmost sorrow for all that had happened. He had found, he said, that the whole matter was the result of an error. He desired to make his peace with the hill-, top chief, and to show his sorrow. 'He desired that fiom now on, the chief should be one of the companions of his tight hand : and to that end besought him to descend from his hill-top and come to a supper on tho following evening, at which his relatives should attend, embraces should be exchanged, the tribute paid should bo returned, and men should know that for the future the Basha and the hill-top folk weie elos-a' friends. The Basha had never before understood rightly that which he had now learned past all dispute — that the hill-top chief was in truth a holy Shareef, with the blood in him of the great Mouldai Itlrees who founded Fez. It was neoessaTy for the Basha's peace of mind that he'should kiss the Shareef's hand and sit beside him at his humble board. , The comments of the hill-top folk on the Basha. ! a missive were many and various, but the chief said only :'— "El Mokri" (the Ba&ha) "is a 'dog, and the son of a dog Sok whelps, will uni|ue.siionably be permitted to gambol upon his tomb and upon those of his fa thei s. In the meantime, my father, and my uncle, and my brother iire under Ins thumb. He lies; he is a dog; but I must eat his salt, lest my father bo made to cat more diit. It is 'written so." It was nearly three jc;sts later that the same N'zrani ttaveller dismounted at the end of a long day's journey outMfle the Luibah of a Moorish city, whose whita walls siihl pink roots ovcilook the danciii" blue water-rows of the Atlantic. His hiifini'ss was to secure the release ft om prison of an old servant who had fallen upon evil <]a\.s by flaunting the little stoic of pelf he had in the neighbourhood of a naiticul;>rly rapacious oilicial. Ihe whole bbi»!> was only a matter of a tew dollars, though for this the B*fortunate servant, had languished tlirou^si four summer months in a dtmseon the leok of which made the C'linsti.in traveller faint duiintr the few moments h-o spout at its observation wicket. As Ihe Nnzaiene left the place with his released servant ho caught a plini|ise. of <t mail's leg, heavenly feltcml. at the hole in the wall?" he askml. ■■\Y!i,,t cnntiiuil is that Hiainerl m th.* ed^e nf o hole in the Alison wall ' That u> the bharcef Moi:!ai Hamet " [ "How lon£ has lie been there?"

'•The. Rhaivof has lain theie threeycais, and is liko to lie there till he rots. For him El llokri has no forgiveness, and our Lord the Sultan Knows no favour. He is too strong a man to he free. His old futher slept by me in the pnsou." The Sharcef was the chief of the hillton village, the same who had hospitably entertained the Christian traveller three years before. While he sat at, supper in El Mokri's house El Mokii's soldiers had fallen upon him and his people, and the chief had lain in chains since then,' with never a word of charge or trial. His village had been razed to the ground, his women distributed among the Kasha's followers. ' Three years later the. N'zrani sat on his horse in a ceitaiu Moorish marketplace which overlooks tho. sparkling strip of water that divides a land like Genesis from twentieth-century Gibraliar, ths Claphain Junction of the Mediterranean. The great outer Sole was thronged. The Bashn. of tho city ! had ridden out through Bab el Fas to ■ welcome and make submission to Shareef Moulai Hamet, the newly appointed Governor of the whole of thai countryside! The two dignitaries met, and the city Governor loiited low to his master I the new Governor of the district, behind whose milk-white stallion swarmed a I tribe of armed hill-men. I Moulai Hamet had survived his long I misery of chained captivity, aud escaped from it. But his attempt to secure justice, and the return of his property, and the liberation of his wrongfully imprisoned kinsmen, had failed utterly. For long he had pondered these matters on the rocky terrace outside his rebuilt kasbah on the hill-top ; and at length he had spoken, briefly and to the point, to a score among his followers. Two days later these men had seized the persons of a wealthy American resident, and his stepson, a British subject, and carried them swiftly, by wild ways, to Moulai Hamot's stronghold, where for weeks they lay as hostages, pending the meting out of justice to Moulai Hamet. They were treated as one hospitable gentleman treats another. They never had an ill-word to say of Shaieef Moulai Hamet. At length came ransom and the liberation of the Shareef's people. And now, in response to his own de mand, the Shareef had been made Governor of that whole district; and he knew, and his people knew, that he v.as capable of governing the country-side evenly and well, and maintaining peace and order there.- Perhaps he was* the man within fifty miles of whom that might safely be said ; a strong man, and, according to Arab lights, an honourable and just man; but above all, a strong man, rich, in that, forceful quality which all Arabs demand in a Governor, as tho price of obedience. A year passed, and the Christian traveller met Moulai Hamefc again, in the foot-hills below his kabash. The Shareef sat idle upon a small praying mat, and his dark, handsome face was lined and worn with care. A great sadness possessed him. "I find," he said, "that it is written that mine enemies shall triumph over mo. My end approaches. No, I do not grieve for that. Only fools grieve over that which is to be and must be. It is written,, and the one God Ho knmveth. But I grieve for the sake of my people, and I grieve for this my Al Moghreb. The whole of my people know that I can rule them fairly and well. I can keep the peace among them ; their villages are not eaten up under my rule. But, to bo sure, I have enemies. That may be said of any man whose right arm is stronger than a woman's. But these my enemies could -not harm me or my people; indeed, they would not seek to, knowing better, but for stronger men of thy colour, for men of Nazarene blood, who persistently stir up their .enmity against me for reasons of their own. Their ends can only be served by the fomenting of trouble' and disorder in this our Sunset Land. My'- quiet rule is death to their hopes. So, steadily, they stir up against me the forces of disorder. Their proteges among the tribe of my old persecutors are numerous. • At every turn I find against me — the hand of a Moor of that tribe — Yes, but behind it, the purse of a Nazarene, to pay for that which makes the powder speak, j bringing discredit upon our Lord the Sultan, clearing tho way for that disaster which is to leave our Al Moghreb in the hands of the Nazarenes. For [that, and for the fate awaiting, mine own people, I mourn ; not for mine own downfall, though I see that clearly too." The Shareef Moulai Hamet, "a man possessed of more good qualities than most, of hii countrymen is known to the newspaper-readers of Europe by the name of Eaisuli. — A. J. Dawson, in St. James's Budget.