Paid Executioner for Sharper Death

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7201, 26 April 1930, Page 10

Paid Executioner for Sharper Death

The fatalism of the East is no mere figment of romantlo imagination. It is an unquestionable fact; even death itself is accepted with impassive resignation. During his travels in Morocco, Mr-. Frank Scudamore, the famous war correspondent, came into close contact with the peoples inhabiting thai strange and mystio land, and in the article below (written for the “World’s Pictorial News") he tells of a native who, instead of begging for mercy when he was about to be executed, struck a last minute bargain with his executioner. He paid him to get a sharper knife so that he could “make a quicker job."

HEN I made my first visit to Morocco I quite understood that I was essaying an entirely new field of observation. Turkey —both European and

Asiatic—l already knew, as you might say, from A to Z.' Syria and Palestine were familiar lands to me, and I had ridden —camel-back —not merely from Dan to Beersheba (as the Testament has it) but from Jerusalem to Mount Sinai, which'as you know, is on the Red Sea coast.

I had penetrated Abyssinia, as far as Gondar, then the capital, and knew something of the hinterland of Aden and the Akaba Oasis, and of Jeddah, the port for Messa pilgrims, and of Hodeidah, the gateway of the mysterious Yemen.

Let it stop at that. But Morocco was at that time to me as yet a sealed land—as indeed it was to most people. Why this should have been is somewhat unthinkable. Only a narrow nine mile 3 of Atlantic water separate Gibraltar from Tangier, which at the time I write was the only part of Morocco accessible to Europeans.

Tangier was even then a much favoured tourist resort. The ’Utle paddle wheel Gib-el-Tarik used to cnv.J lazily across the straits three times a week, bearing its happy load of British and American (mostly American) travellers, eager to gain a threedays’ knowledge of West Africa’s most storied port. Forbidden Land Outside Tangier was forbidden country. No one might travel therein, save by explicit permission of the far away Emperor, who had his fitful homes in one or other of his great capital cities, Marakh, or Fez, or Miknaz, from one to the other of which he progressed, altvays with an army of blood-thirsty brigands at his back, to collect his taxes.

Yet to these joyous tourists, sunburning at the Continental, the savage Maghreb occasionally offered an unexpected thrill. This was when the Assawi fanatics came down from their hill fastnesses and burst turbulent and vicious upon Tangier. Their visits were nor annual celebrations. They just happened when the spirit within the Aissawi believers moved them.

The Aissawi, I must tell you, are one of the nonconformist sects of the great Islamic faith, which are as many as are the "beads on the rosary (or Tesbah) carried by every devout Moslem, each bead implying an attrP’te of the Great Maker of the Univer. But' the Aissawi are more than bi-ordinary in their demonstrations of belief. The Story of the Jew

. Like St. Simeon Stylites and his followers, they practised their religion in their own peculiar way. They do not believe in pain or suffering—unless inflicted on someone else. And undoubtedly they are somewhat barbarous in their manifestations of culture.

Thus the fitful and turbulent incursions of Aissawi demonstrators were not welcome to the Sindies and the populace of Tangier. Folks shut their doors, and the Grand Soko was deserted, and all shops shut; and here and there, goats and sheep were tethered in the streets, upon which these devotees hurled themselves with shrieks, and tore them to pieces and these they devoured, hot, raw and quivering. Among the “Fossil Consuls of the Levant? at that time was at least one outstanding figure. British, of course—you would guess that. He was Sir John Drummond Hay, and he represented us in Morocco for 40 years.

Sir John was a bluff man. He held his own and upheld his flag (there were no telegraphs to Downing Street in those days) against all odds, and countered the, smooth with the rough. He became so respected by the arrogant Moors (and they were arrogant in that time) that they nicknamed

Condemned Man’s LastMinute Bargain Over Fatal Knife . . . Stories from the Morocco of Other Days . . •

him the “Bashador el Hellouf” (the Wild Boar Ambassador). In that day—as indeed later—a peculiar custom obtained in Morocco. When a foreign representative went on a visit to the Sultan—generally to

remonstrate against some salient act of wholesale inhumanity—he and all his formidable staff were the Sultan’s guests from the moment they left Tangiers until the time of their return. The Kald’s Insult This was very unpleasant to the heads of Foreign Missions, who would gladly have paid extravagantly and scattered largesse all along the route, for it meant that not the Sultan, who never paid anyone anything,, but the Kaids, the Governors of all the provinces traversed, had to supply all the requirements of the Sultan’s guests. As an ambassador to that wild land could not travel equipped only with a toothbrush and a spare suit of pyjamas, the expense involved was enormous; and the provincial Kaids resented it (I don’t blame them) and strove to show their resentment by insulting behaviour.

Something in the demeanour of this party mo4e the Englishman inquisi- • . o

The insults were generally designed with intent to impress the Raid’s followers,- and in the belief that the European would not understand. But the sturdy “Bashador” was up to all these mean tricks and dealt with them in, his own “wild boar” fashion.

Thus, on one oilier journey, he found a very hostile 1 surly Province Governor wait! to greet him in a huge reception tent surrounded by his henchmen. In the tent was only ’one chair on which the Raid, a bulky, black-bearded fellow, remained seated, extending a languid hand. Here was the insult, and the t ribesmen around grinned in anticipation of the visitor’s humiliation.

But somehow the thing didn’<; work to plan. “El Hellouf” stepped briskly up to his host, seized his harjd with the grip of a gorilla, and literally hauled the squirming Moor to his feet and seated himself.

Then, after lighting a cjgar, he crossed his legs and talked to the gentleman, as sailors say, “”.arsh,” in terse Arabic, of which —unlike most Ambassadors—he. Ijad complete mastery.

It was on this same jpurney—the Moors were in a nasty mood just then —that another chieftain made a tactical error. He welcomed England’s envoy smilingly, but put forth his left hand (a very signal ins/ult in Moslem lands) and the entourage grinned and sniggered.

But Sir John was not perturbed—not a bit. He looked at the proffered paw, spat into it as though it were meant for that employ, and spoke cheerfully about the weather. Paid For Own Death The position may be imagined; the assemblage shuddered, but no one dared help the Raid, and dignity forbade he help himself. The terrible Bashador held him in talk for quite * a time, the hapless Maghrabba glancing furtively at. the spittle in his palm now and again, till tears of mortification rolled down his fat cheeiks. # * » Sir John knew his Morocco and the Maghrabbin ae did no other white man in the country. Here is a story that he told us which throws a lurid light upon the character of this strange people. He was a young man at the time. He had set out at dawn from Tangier to make his usual morning ride to Cape Spartal—along the sandy shore. , As he passed through the great archway of the walled tciwn his attention was attracted by a little party of natives—early like himself. There were five of them. Two were soldiers fully armed; two were obviously prisoners—chained, manacled, and bearing marks of foul ill-usage. The fifth trailed pitifwlly behind. Something in the demeanour of this party made young Mr. Hay inquisitive. He approached and asked questions. There was no mystery or secrecy about the matter. The soldiers were quite ready to talk. The two chained and lacerated men, both young, were criminals —eon- 5 deraned to die, no matter why or what .

the offence. Probably they lacked sufficient money to buy their lives. The fifth man had been seized bargained .with to perform the * operation.' It was ' the condei .1 themselves, be it said, who found ilie f ee __flve talari each—for his services! (This w-as Morocco.) ‘ A Last Request Young Mr. Hay waited, and the painful business began. The elder condemned stretched himself on the sand, having kissed his fellow victim, and the executioner, kneeling, cut his throat. Then the waiting victim a plea—he had been talking singly to.his poor comrade throughout his agony. “Would the executioner,” he implored, “take another two talari (his mother would pay it), and buy a new knife to make a quicker job? He could get to the market and. back in half an hour.” The matter was argued, and at length a bargain was struck. The soldiers, for a consideration, guaranteed its fulfilment. Young Mr. Drummond Hay did not wait for the sequel.

Of course, under the marvellous protective administration of France, all things, or nearly all things, in the country of the Moors, have changed, and always for good. But it is my first purview of this extraordinary land that I describe to whom may read me.