by Dean King
“Show Rais bel Cossim and the visitors back in,” Willshire told one of his servants. The deliberations went on for some time, with bel Cossim interpreting. At last they agreed that Sidi Hamet would remain in Swearah as a guest of Willshire while Sidi Mohammed guided Rais bel Cossim south to see Captain Riley and his men. Willshire gave instructions to his servants to prepare a number of items to be sent with bel Cossim. Finally, he wrote a note to Riley and handed it to the dependable Moor. “Rais, Godspeed,” he said. “Take your fastest mule and fly like the irifi to the house of Sidi Mohammed.”
On the night of the eighth day since Hamet and Sidi Mohammed had left for Swearah, the sailors heard footsteps outside the wall. Seid went out to see who it was and returned with Sidi Mohammed and another man, a Moor from Swearah. The two men approached the sailors, who were sitting on the cold ground in the yard.
When they reached Riley, the dust-covered Moor spoke, startling the sailors with his English. “How de-do, Capitan?” he said. The sailors jumped to their feet. Certain that this man was bringing the news that would determine their fate, Riley at first could not speak; his heart seemed to rise in his throat. Finally he took the man’s hand and blurted out his questions: “Who are you? What news do you have from Swearah? Is Sidi Hamet with you?”
“¿Habla español?” the self-possessed Moor asked calmly. Riley nodded. Then, speaking Spanish, the Moor introduced himself as Rais bel Cossim. “Your letter has reached one of the finest men in Swearah, an Englishman and a friend of mine. Mr. Willshire has agreed to pay the ransom,” bel Cossim said. “He sent me straight away to deliver you from this place. I barely had time to kiss my wife good-bye,” he added, “and then I rode night and day to get here.”
Flushed with emotion, Riley told this news to the men. “Our souls were overwhelmed with joy,” he reported, “and yet we trembled with apprehension lest it might not be true: alas! perhaps it was only a delusive dream, or some cruel trick to turn our miseries into mockery.”
The Moor handed him a letter. Riley opened it, but he was too overcome by emotion to read it. His hands shook as he gave it to Savage to read out loud. Numb, Riley sank to the ground as Savage read by firelight:
Mogadore, October 25, 1815
My Dear and Afflicted Sir,
I have this moment received your two notes by Sidi Hamet, the contents of which, I hope, you will be perfectly assured have called forth my most sincere pity for your sufferings and those of your companions. . . .
I congratulate you most sincerely on the good fortune you and your fellow sufferers have met, by being in the hands of a man who seems to be guided by some degree of commiseration.
I can in some measure participate in the severe and dangerous sufferings and hardships you must have undergone; but, my dear Sir, console yourself, for, thanks be to God, I hope they will soon have a happy issue; for which purpose I devoutly pray the great Disposer of all things will give you and your unfortunate companions health and strength once more to visit your native land.
This letter will be delivered you by Rais bel Cossim, in whom you may place the fullest faith . . .
While Willshire commended the messenger, he went on to warn Riley to trust no one else. “I have agreed to pay the sum of nine hundred and twenty hard dollars to Sidi Hamet on your safe arrival in this town with your fellow sufferers; he remains here as a kind of hostage for your safe appearance.”1 Keep the transaction as secret as possible, he counseled, “for should the Moors suppose you able to pay more, they would throw difficulties in the way.”
Then came the words that were almost overwhelming: “I have the most sincere pleasure to acquaint you, you will be at liberty to commence your journey for this town on the receipt of this letter.” But Willshire begged them to “make what stages you please on the road” so as not to risk their health through “over-exertion and fatigue.” He also instructed Riley to “write me an immediate answer, stating every particular relating to yourself, your crew, and vessel, as I have given orders to the Moor to forward it to me without delay.”
Riley knew that his own letter had been a single flare fired into a dark night sky. Miraculously, it had been answered. As he and his men celebrated with the self-restraint dictated by their circumstances, they were sobered even further by the angry roar of Sheik Ali, who had now learned the facts of Hamet’s negotiation from Sidi Mohammed. Ali railed at his fool of a son-in-law for ransoming the sailors at so low a price and for placing himself under the power of a “villainous Christian.” “Riley,” Ali bellowed, “will murder him, and steal his money as soon as he has these men in Swearah.”
As the mercurial sheik worked himself into a froth, Rais bel Cossim, sensing the danger of his escalating rage, intervened. In what Riley called a “very firm, but eloquent and persuasive tone,” the Moor addressed Ali, showing the quick thinking that gave Willshire confidence in him: “I bought the captain and his men with my own money,” bel Cossim said, though this was untrue. “I paid Sidi Hamet before I left Swearah. Sidi Hamet remained there voluntarily as security against my safe return with the slaves.
“We are all of the same religion,” bel Cossim soothed him. “We owe these Christian dogs nothing, and we have an undeniable right to make merchandise of them and use them as donkeys if we wish. That one,” he said, pointing accusatorily at Riley, “he calls himself the captain, but he is a despicable liar. He has deceived Sidi Hamet and you. He was nothing but the cook on board the ship. The captain has long been dead.”
Ali, a man well versed in the arts of subterfuge, glared at bel Cossim, smelling deceit. “If it were so, how could his note have convinced a stranger to pay so much money for him and the others?” he countered, despite having just claimed it was not enough. “No, he is a man of knowledge and standing. Perhaps you, though a Moslemin, have joined the Christians in a plot to rob and murder Sidi Hamet.”
“No, by Allah! I am incapable of such a betrayal,” bel Cossim declared. “Riley was indeed the cook. Look at him, he was stouter—fat, like a cook—and more able to endure. Look at the others. Give them paper, pen, and ink; they will show you they can write too, and better than Riley.” Bel Cossim’s gambit to downplay Riley’s status and thus his monetary value put Ali on his heels.
While the two sparred, Seid quietly glowered. Sidi Mohammed, now reinstated as master of his household and aware that nothing good could happen at this late hour, broke up the proceedings, as was his right to do in his own home.
Bel Cossim insisted that his slaves would stay with him and would no longer inhabit the cellar. The others protested but to no avail. Bel Cossim reasserted that he had paid a lot of money for the captives and made it clear that he did not intend to lose any of them. Sidi Mohammed led all of his guests to a mule stable, which, even though recently used by the beasts, was an improvement on the cramped cellar.
At one end of the stable, the Arabs gathered on a platform that Riley believed was made of ship timbers. Here they talked and slept. At the other end, bel Cossim revealed as discreetly as possible the contents of his saddlebags and a pannier he carried. Willshire had sent shoes and hooded woolen djellabas, much needed now that they were in the hills with winter approaching. Willshire had also sent food and strong drink, which did even more for their souls than for their famished bodies. Out of the bag came hard biscuits, boiled tongue, tea, coffee, sugar, and several bottles of rum. They unpacked a teakettle, teapot, cups and saucers, all remarkable luxuries given that they had been eating—when they were lucky—with their hands from shared bowls since landing on the desert.
In the lamplight, Riley parceled out slices of tongue and biscuits, along with neat tots of rum. “We all felt as if new life was infused into our hearts,” he recalled. They topped off this meal with a ripe watermelon.
Next the men slipped the soft leather shoes onto their toughened feet and wrapped themselves in the djellabas. Warmed inside and out, they lay down on the stable floor to sleep. But once again, even a moderate meal caused the s
ailors to writhe, according to Riley, with “such violent griping pains in our stomachs and intestines, that we could with great difficulty forbear screaming out with agony.” In the clutches of cramps and nausea they were unable to sleep and lay awake contemplating the opening salvos in the conflict between bel Cossim and Sheik Ali.
Early the following morning, bel Cossim roused Riley and told him to make tea. Riley gathered some sticks, lit a fire, and boiled water in the teakettle. Word had spread that Sidi Mohammed had returned from Swearah with a Moor, and the locals, most of whom had never left the area in their lives, began to arrive to congratulate Mohammed on his return and to see the stranger.
In a loud and condescending voice, bel Cossim directed Riley in serving each visitor a cup of tea well sweetened with sugar, cleverly ingratiating himself with the poor villagers and confirming his position as master, not rescuer, of the Christians. None of the guests had ever tasted tea, which had only recently been introduced in Morocco and was far from being the ubiquitous drink it would become, or seen a teacup, and many drank it reluctantly, pleased, at the same time, to be the recipients of the northerner’s gifts. Riley served all the guests until they left. Then he poured his men strong tea, which made their stomachs feel better. Bel Cossim turned to Sheik Ali and said, “I told you before that Riley was the cook, and now you see with your own eyes that he is the only one that can wait upon us.”
Around eight in the morning, bel Cossim and the five sailors set off from the village. Their escort consisted of Sheik Ali, who insisted on accompanying them with two bodyguards, as well as Seid, Sidi Mohammed, and Bo-Mohammed. Bel Cossim had tried to buy mounts for all the sailors, but none had been available at any price. They would have to take turns on their insufficient collection of camels, mules, and donkeys. Horace had recovered enough to be steady on his feet. Only Burns was unable to walk and so occupied a mule the entire way.
As they traveled, Riley related to bel Cossim the story of their journey so far. At the end, bel Cossim responded: “Praised be the Almighty, the most high and holy, for his goodness. You have indeed been preserved most wonderfully by the peculiar protection and assistance of an overruling Providence, and must be a particular favorite of heaven: there never was an instance of a Christian’s passing the great desart for such a distance before. Sidi Hamet is right. You are no doubt destined to do some great good in the world.”
They passed first southeast through a dry, sandy terrain of sporadic cultivated fields. When they were separated far enough from Ali, bel Cossim answered Riley’s questions about the sheik, whose presence alarmed them both. Ali was the chief of a tribe living in the hills to the south on the edge of the desert. “Sidi Hamet married one of his daughters but has since been at war with him,” bel Cossim told Riley. “In the contest the sheik destroyed Hamet’s town and took back his daughter but afterwards restored her again on making peace.” The ruthless sheik, it was said, could muster ten thousand men when needed. Bel Cossim believed Ali was scheming against them but told Riley: “Allah could turn his evil intentions to our good. The power that has protected you thus far will not forsake you until his will is accomplished.”
In the early afternoon, about twenty miles from Sidi Mohammed’s village, the men were brought up short by a ghastly sight.2 Not far from the path, around the breached walls of a silent village, the intermingled corpses of dozens of villagers and raiders lay sprawled on the ground. Most were little more than small heaps of dried bones picked clean by dogs and birds and bleaching in the sun.
Side by side, Muslim and Christian gazed out on a staggering scene of violent death beneath groves of unkempt date and pomegranate trees. No caretaker remained to prune their shaggy branches. No guard would ever again open the village’s heavy wooden gate, which was still locked in its stone arch. Riley did not detail the futility he felt standing there on a plain before a medieval scene an ocean away from his family and home, his withered shipmates too exhausted to climb down off their kneeling camels. There were no words for it. Although Europe had been embroiled in two decades of bloody war and the British had recently burned Washington, this small-scale scene of annihilation, so far from the tracks of history and where so little—not even a grave—was to be gained by the ruin and suffering, felt even more tragic.
Finally, Sidi Mohammed broke the silence to tell the tale of his neighboring village, with bel Cossim translating his words into Spanish. Under Omar el Milliah (Omar the Good), a friend and benefactor of Mohammed’s, the village of Widnah, built in 1775, had thrived. Upon Omar’s death in 1813, his son Ismael had assumed control of the town. Ismael was a hedonist who put more effort into expanding his harem than governing and defending his subjects. Finally he grew so depraved that he snatched the betrothed wife of his own brother, Kesh-bah. Enraged, Kesh-bah fled south to the mountains and sought the aid of Sheik Sulmin, an old enemy of his father’s, who lived there. Sulmin, eager to avenge past defeats, gathered an army of Arabs from the fringe of the desert with the promise of spoils of livestock, sacks of grain, clothing, virgins, and slaves.
The raiders had wheeled their siege machines right up to Widnah’s unguarded fifteen-foot stone-and-mud walls without raising alarm. These two battering machines still stood next to the village’s west wall, and Riley, whose profession was to command the most complex transportation machine of his day, examined them with a connoisseur’s eye. Each machine consisted of a scaffolding built of tree trunks and logs and bound together by massive ropes made of braided thongs of camels’ hide. From this, the attackers had suspended a boulder of several tons, which many men together pulled back with ropes, pendulum-fashion, and then sent crashing into the wall.
After they broke through, the carnage was great on both sides. The surprised villagers fought bravely, but the attackers, bloodthirsty and frenzied, prevailed, slaughtering every man and boy but two, who escaped carrying the alarm to the neighboring villages, and all the women and children, except for two hundred girls, whom they took alive.
Sidi Mohammed had been among those who had chased the fleeing attackers and caught up with them in the mountains the next morning. Sulmin sent his spoils on under heavy guard and fought the pursuit in a steep narrow pass, rolling boulders down the path on them. In a bloody, desperate fight, his wild men murdered or wounded half of those who had followed them. Mohammed pulled open his djellaba and showed a large scar where a musket ball had gouged his chest. Eventually the raiders dispersed on the Sahara, vanishing like the wind.
By the time the hunt for the enemy had been abandoned, Mohammed explained, the dead were too decomposed to approach and bury. “They had offended the Almighty by their pride, and none could be found to save them,” he reasoned, trying to make sense of the tragedy with the fatalism endemic to the desert. “Thus perished Widnah and its haughty inhabitants.”
Silently, the men headed east, mulling over the savage yet eerily tranquil scene. After three hours they reached a crooked northwest-flowing river in a five-mile-wide valley. As far as the eye could see, domed white sanctuaries garrisoned the arid banks of the river Riley mistakenly identified as Woed Sehlem.
In reality, it was probably Oued Massa, the area’s only major northwest-flowing river, albeit reduced by five years of drought to a miserable trickle. At its broad, now empty mouth lay the town of Massa on what bel Cossim, a merchant captain in the grain trade with Europe, told Riley was the best harbor on the coast. It was five miles wide at the mouth and superior even to that at Cadiz, Spain’s famous southern seaport. Bel Cossim had seen near Massa the ruins of a Christian town, which had been sacked long ago. Pieces of its walls protruded from the sand like gravestones.
Massa was also where British merchant James Grey Jackson once saw a pair of colossal whale jawbones arching up from the sand. A local informed him that they had always been there and that, when the whale had beached, a man named Jonah had emerged from its belly. Jackson laughed at the tale. His earnest informant responded only that “nobody but a Christian would
doubt the fact.”
Inland from the town where the patron saint of lost-luck sailors had allegedly been spewed from the whale, the Commerces discovered two fortified villages on the riverbanks. When the party paused to rest near an outlying house surrounded by vegetable gardens and ringed in dry thornbush, the hungry sailors furtively stole some of the prickly pears from limbs cascading over the thornbush. Fearful of being caught, they popped the fruit into their mouths whole. The punishment for this transgression was swift and excruciating. The needled skin of the fruit adhered to their tongues and the roofs of their mouths. The fine shafts broke off and their bases had to be painstakingly extracted, one by one.
The men crossed the shallow river where it was easily accessible for the camels and where villagers filled vessels and watered livestock. As the party carried on toward the coast, the riverbed broadened, and they began to see bright green pools of stagnant water where the ocean tide had filled deep bends before being choked off by the sand. All was blighted by the lengthy drought and locust infestation, until they came to a village Riley identified as Sehlemah. Here, ditches from a hillside irrigated dark fields and borders of grapevines and date, fig, and pomegranate trees. Men and boys harvested corn and barley in the fields, filling sacks and baskets and loading them onto camels and mules, which they drove inside the village walls. Trailing the harvesters, the villagers’ thin and scruffy livestock, including oxen, cleaned up the chaff.
William Willshire
(from Sequel to Riley’s Narrative, 1851)
At dusk, Rais bel Cossim’s party entered the village, which stretched for three hundred yards along the river. They made their way to a blacksmith shop near the gate. In one corner, a man worked large bellows made out of animal skins and attached to a charcoal-burning forge. Nearby sat a massive anvil, so squat that the smiths had to bend down to hammer on it. The sailors were given space on the shop floor while Sidi Mohammed and bel Cossim visited the village chief and asked for permission to remain overnight.