by Dean King
Both principals prudently concluded by lavishing praise on Ibrahim, acknowledging his justice and virtue and agreeing— at least for now— that he should adjudicate the matter. Ibrahim's reply was swift and firm: "You, Sheik Ali, my old friend, and Rais bel Cossim, both of you claim these five Christian slaves as your own property, and each of you has some reason on your side. Yet, as it is not in my power to decide whose claim is the best founded, I am resolved, with a strict regard to justice, and without going into further evidence, to keep the slaves in my own city, carefully guarded, until messengers can be sent to Swearah, who shall bring down Sidi Hamet. It is only then that a just decision can be made regarding all the claims. Bel Cossim, you will be as a guest, not a prisoner, for as long as you stay in this city."
It was now dark out. Honoring their word that they would abide by Ibrahim's decision, Ali and bel Cossim swallowed their mutual loathing and ceased their recriminations. They were then ushered, Arabs and slaves alike, into the freshly scoured streets of the town.
chapter 18
From the Mouth of a Moor
Bel Cossim and Sheik Ali and his men took up quarters in a building next to Moulay Ibrahim's house. Joined by Ibrahim, they sat on a mat at one end of a large room and carried on a lively discourse through the night. At the other end, the sailors, vexed by dysentery, painful hemorrhoids, and lice, huddled in a corner among the saddlebags and luggage. Sentinels armed with muskets and scimitars attended the doors to the room and the building as well as the town gates. The sailors ate couscous out of a common bowl and, by Riley's admission, succumbed to their physical and mental distress: they sobbed like children.
In the morning, bel Cossim brought Riley a pen, ink, and paper. The captain scrawled a second note to William Willshire, apprising him of their arrival in the town of Shtuka and their current trouble. Bel Cossim, who could not write, dictated a note to a scribe. With these, Seid, Sidi Mohammed, and Bo-Mohammed set off for Swearah.
William Willshire
(from Sequel to Riley's Narrative, 1851)
Vowing to return in four days, Sheik Ali also departed, giving Riley and his men some breathing room to recover their wits and their strength. After coming so close to regaining their freedom, the wait was excruciating. They could do little to help themselves but rest. Bel Cossim tried to buoy their flagging spirits. When Riley complained to him that he doubted he would live long enough to see freedom, as he was "extremely feeble and must soon perish," bel Cossim admonished him: "What! Dare you distrust the power of that God who has preserved you so long by miracles?" And he cajoled: "No, my friend, the God of Heaven and of earth is your friend and will not forsake you; but in his own good time restore you to your liberty and to the embraces of your family.
"We must say," bel Cossim added philosophically, " 'his will be done,' and be contented with our lot, for God knows best what is for our good. We are all children of the same heavenly Father, who watches over all our actions, whether we be Moor, or Christian, or Pagan, or of any other religion; we must perform his will." The Moor's tolerant thinking humbled Riley. "To hear such sentiments from the mouth of a Moor, whose nation I had been taught to consider the worst of barbarians," he admitted, "filled my mind with awe and reverence, and I looked up to him as a kind of superior being."
Bel Cossim knew he must counterbalance Ali's advantage of prior friendship with Moulay Ibrahim, so he invited Ibrahim to come for a private talk in the great room he was sharing with the Christians. In these more relaxed conditions, Riley admired the intelligence of the prince's face and his mild but active character. Although he could not understand everything they said, he could tell from the Arabs' expressions and the tenor of the conversation that bel Cossim was artfully flattering him. Bel Cossim inquired about his family. The prince had one wife, who had no children. "Does she have tea and sugar?" he asked.
"No," Ibrahim replied.
After the meeting, bel Cossim quietly solicited the help of one of the prince's young black slave girls in acquiring some wood and water. He built a fire and brewed tea. When Ibrahim was out, bel Cossim gave the girl a lump of sugar and sent her with a cup of very sweet tea to the prince's wife.
The girl soon returned. Her mistress, she told him, thanked him for the tea and said she would keep the lovely cup and saucer, the likes of which she had never seen before. She asked what she could do in return. "Tell your mistress," bel Cossim said, "that I only want to be Moulay Ibrahim's friend. If she could influence the prince in my favor, I would be most gratified."
An hour later, Moulay Ibrahim burst into the room and demanded to know what bel Cossim had been doing with his wife. With great deference, the Moor explained the harmless nature of his interaction with her and that he was only trying to do her the honor she deserved as his hostess and the wife of a great prince. "You had no need to curry favor through her," Ibrahim responded. "You already have my friendship."
The maneuver was effective, even if Ibrahim saw through it. The two went to pray in the mosque, and when they returned hours later, Riley saw that they had grown more intimate. Now bel Cossim was truly being treated as a guest and not a quasi prisoner. Taking advantage of his liberty, bel Cossim dispatched a messenger to an old and wealthy friend, who lived within a day's journey, asking him to come to Shtuka and bring money, not as much as Ali had demanded but enough, he believed, to appease him nonetheless.
That evening, Moulay Ibrahim talked and prayed with bel Cossim. Afterward, the Moor told Riley that Ibrahim had given his "princely word that he will protect both me and my slaves." He had even promised an escort into the sultan's dominion.
Early in the morning on November 3, according to Riley's calendar, Moulay Ibrahim entered his guests' chamber carrying eggs and salt for their breakfast. He left and soon returned with half a dozen chickens. Ibrahim himself even carried in firewood and water, as Riley marveled. The sailors boiled the eggs, salted them, and ate ravenously. Meanwhile, bel Cossim slaughtered the chickens, deftly clutching the birds' wings in his left hand, turning to face the east, and crying "Besmillah!" as he cut their throats. The sailors cleaned four birds and put them in the pot with salt and the vegetables Ibrahim had also brought them: onions, green peppers, turnips, and miniature squash.
Riley allowed that the resulting soup would have been thought savory in any country. In an unusual show of respect to a Christian, Moulay Ibrahim invited Riley to eat from the bowl that he and bel Cossim were sharing.1 While they ate, he asked the captain about his family, and Riley told him of the wife and five children awaiting his return.
From then on, Moulay Ibrahim made sure that the sailors received "all the relief and comfort in his power," according to Riley. Bel Cossim provided for them too. Late in the afternoon, his friend arrived with two mules loaded with couscous, eggs, and chickens. He handed bel Cossim the five hundred Spanish silver dollars he had asked for, but bel Cossim was now confident that Moulay Ibrahim would not succumb to Ali's reasoning or tricks. He told his old friend he did not need it. The old man insisted that he accept the food, and he agreed, he said, because it was a gift for Riley. The old man also stated that he would raise an army that day and use all of his influence to escort the sailors safely to Agadir, in the sultan's dominion. Bel Cossim thanked him but told him he believed he could count on Moulay Ibrahim's protection.
For three days they lived as well as they could wish on the old man's gifts. During that time, bel Cossim went to a fair in a nearby town. From there he proceeded to a shrine about fifteen miles outside Shtuka in honor of el Ajjh, "the pilgrim," a sharif famed throughout the region for his supernatural powers and feared and obeyed by all. At the shrine, bel Cossim had a vision. He returned to the fair and bought a small fat bull of the best quality. The butcher cut it into two sides. Bel Cossim sent a messenger with one side loaded on a mule to el Ajjh. "When you deliver the side and el Ajjh asks you who sent it," he told the messenger, "tell him a pious man who has lately come from Swearah, is now a guest with Moulay Ibrahim,
and wishes to be remembered in his prayers."
Bel Cossim returned to Shtuka with the other half of the bull for the prince. Meeting Riley, he told him what he had done and that he was sure that if the sharif accepted his gift, he would visit them before sunset. Then he explained rather cryptically, "It is not so much the real value of the present that is important but the manner of giving it, which can put the receiver under such an obligation as to make him your friend forever."
Going out to pray near dusk, bel Cossim encountered el Ajjh, who had come to meet the man who had sent him so generous a gift. El Ajjh asked bel Cossim what favor he wanted that caused him to send such a gift. The Moor related the story of the Christian sailors to him, telling him that he himself had paid for them. He asked el Ajjh to intercede with Sheik Ali and persuade him to allow them to continue on to Agadir. El Ajjh promised that he would bring his influence to bear— even if that meant by force.
On November 7, Ali returned to Shtuka.2 Confident of his alliance with Ibrahim, he arrived not with an army but with just a bodyguard. Bel Cossim sent an "express" messenger to inform el Ajjh of the sheik's arrival. The holy man, who was also an old friend of Ali's, came at once to pay him a visit.
Insisting that his business was urgent, el Ajjh took Ali aside to speak in privacy. "Brother, I have learned that Sidi Hashem knows of the Christian slaves," he deceitfully warned the sheik, referring to Tazeroualt's powerful Berber ruler. "He has secretly tried to buy them and been rebuffed, and he is determined to take them for himself by force." Hashem would be setting out the next day, el Ajjh told Ali, who knew the resourceful warlord all too well. When the sultan had sent an army against Hashem, the Berber had cleverly abandoned his stronghold, sending the women and children into hiding in the mountains. The northern army sacked the town, torched their fields, and rampaged unopposed for a week. Hashem baited Sulayman's troops with fleeting raids, giving the impression that this was all the resistance he could muster. Then, when the time was right, Hashem unleashed his angry forces. They routed the sultan's army and pursued the fleeing troops north, hacking them down one by one. A few survivors staggered into the town of Taroudant, bringing news of the slaughter and burnishing Sidi Hashem's reputation for blood and terror.
With Beyrouk of Wednoon, Hashem controlled the Tombuctoo caravans. He would covet the Christians if for no other reason than to prevent them from reaching Morocco and falling into the hands of his enemy Sulayman.
"You must immediately ride north into Sulayman's territory," the sharif told a shaken Ali. "Hashem will not venture there merely for the sake of the Christian slaves. If you do not go, you will surely lose the slaves and at the same time engulf all of Souss in a war." Ali thanked el Ajjh for his guidance and rushed back to Ibrahim's house to meet with him. Bel Cossim, meanwhile, slipped away to the town gate, where el Ajjh informed him of his conversation with Ali.
When Ali appealed to Ibrahim to allow him to seize the prisoners that night and carry them away, the prince responded firmly that he could not break his word. He must keep them there until all parties assembled to settle the matter. Convinced that no amount of begging, cajoling, or arm-twisting would budge him, Ali then found bel Cossim. He took a friendly tack, conceding to the Moor that he considered him to be a trustworthy man meriting his friendship. To demonstrate his sincerity and to avoid imposing on Moulay Ibrahim any longer, he would consent to removing the sailors north to Agadir, a port solidly within the sultan's realm, in the morning. He would accompany them and wait for Sidi Hamet's arrival there.
Bel Cossim played his hand coolly. "Now that you have stopped me and my Christian slaves against the laws of justice and hospitality and kept us here this long," he told the sheik, "I have no desire to move them, until Sidi Hamet arrives and proves that you have done wrong in detaining us." Ali and Ibrahim insisted that the men would be safer and happier in Agadir, where they might find a doctor as well. Bel Cossim gradually allowed himself to be talked into the journey, consenting to it only under the conditions that a guard of Ibrahim's men accompany them and that Ali provide all the sailors with riding camels. Ali agreed and left to make arrangements.
Under the direction of bel Cossim, the sailors spent much of the night preparing for the journey. They killed the last chickens, boiled the remaining eggs, and packed these away. At daybreak, five camels awaited them, all with better saddles than any the sailors had used in the desert, as well as bags of barley and empty ten-bushel sacks made of tent cloth. This gave them both more padding and something to hold on to as they rode. Each camel was accompanied by his master, who would serve as a guide, leading the beast on foot for the entire journey.
As the camels stood up with their riders, first the hind legs rising, then the forelegs, in their awkward way, Riley was thrown head over feet off the backside of an enormous beast, nearly ten feet tall. He had the good luck to land on his heels, jarring but not injuring himself.
The guides helped Riley back onto his camel, steadying his legs as it rose and imploring him to hold on. His mount's owner told him: "Allah be praised for turning you over. Had you fallen upon your head, these stones must have dashed out your brains; but the camel is a sacred animal, and heaven protects those who ride on him! Had you fallen from an ass, though he is only two cubits and a half high, it would have killed you, for the ass is not so noble a creature as the camel and the horse."3
The group left Shtuka in a hurry, accompanied now by Moulay Ibrahim, heading northeast across a broad, fertile plain shaped like a long compass needle, with its base at the sea and pointing northeast between the Atlas and Anti-Atlas. The mountains towered above them at more than twelve thousand feet. Ibrahim had discreetly deployed two hundred men on horses along their route. The guard shadowed the caravan, only occasionally coming into sight.
Other than Oued Souss, with its mouth at Agadir, there were virtually no streams here. The land was dry but fertile. The party passed an increasing number of villages, which were supplied with water by deep wells tapping the subterranean flow from the mountains to the sea. These sat amid grain fields now being plowed, vineyards, and orchards. The argan trees were still green, the figs barren. Riley, who felt strongly the pull of civilization, reveled in the groves of date, almond, orange, and pomegranate trees.
After six hours, the guides running beside the camels the entire time, they came upon another scene of devastation. A mile southwest of the trail, an eerie still life of seven silent villages with breached walls and abandoned battering machines loomed on the plain. A family feud between two of the villages had engulfed them all in a ruinous monthlong war. Bel Cossim, who was from near Agadir, told Riley that feuds were common here. He knew many families in good circumstances caught up in them. "They were seldom finished until one family or the other was exterminated," he told Riley, "and their names blotted out from the face of the earth."
Despite this second scene of human folly, Riley found the increasing signs of commerce and cultivation encouraging. By midday the white walls of Agadir— a Berber word meaning "fortified granary"— came into sight at a great distance across the plain. Though much of the land was still barren and lacking in forage for livestock, they saw many people around the small villages busily plowing fields and sowing barley. They passed a continual stream of men in unsoiled haiks, who were refreshingly unarmed. Their droves of camels and asses carried salt, dried fish from the coast, and other merchandise for peaceful trading. A flourishing merchant class working under safe conditions, Riley knew, was a hallmark of all civilized nations during peace.
Still, the landscape— a battleground of the earth's surfaces— embodied instability, and there was something eerie about it. The arable land seemed temporarily borrowed from the craggy Atlas foothills, the snowcapped mountains, the sea that had once covered it, and the sand that still might. Human existence was elemental and tenuous. That afternoon, as they angled toward the coast, they encountered the grasping tentacles of the Sahara— massive sand drifts twenty miles from the sea.
The walls and domes of aged saint houses still resisted the tide of "clean coarse beach sand" but only because the locals periodically pushed aside the drifts and tended to their walls. The company passed by the ruins of Rabeah, where Moulay Ibrahim was born. "It was a thriving place," Ibrahim told Riley, "until the sands toppled over the north wall and swallowed the town within a year."
They crossed a ten-mile band of high dunes and then came to the steep banks of a wadi that Riley identified as "el Woa Sta," but was probably Oued Souss or Oued Lahouar, since el Woa Sta, or Oued-i-Sta, lies much farther to the south. Nearly a hundred feet deep in places and perhaps four miles wide, the gorge accentuated the jagged mountains to the east and south of them buttressing the formidable Atlas range towering on the horizon. Even without scientific evidence, from the signs that water once filled much of the lowland and on the grandeur of the mountain range, Riley sensed that this might have once been "one of the fairest portions of the African continent."