| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Pillars of Hercules, Volume II (of 2) : A Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848
Author: Urquhart, David
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Pillars of Hercules, Volume II (of 2) : A Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848" ***
VOLUME II (OF 2) ***
THE
PILLARS OF HERCULES;
A NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS
IN
SPAIN AND MOROCCO
IN 1848.
VOL. II.
THE
PILLARS OF HERCULES;
A NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS
IN
SPAIN AND MOROCCO
IN 1848.
BY
DAVID URQUHART, ESQ., M.P.,
AUTHOR OF
“TURKEY AND ITS RESOURCES,” “THE SPIRIT OF THE EAST,” ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1850.
LONDON:
Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY and HENRY FLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.
----
BOOK III.
(CONTINUED.)
CHAPTER VI.
PAGE
ARAB DOMESTIC INDUSTRY 1
CHAPTER VII.
RUINS OF BATHS 18
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BATH 33
CHAPTER IX.
THE HELOT 89
CHAPTER X.
THE ARABS OF THE DESERT 102
CHAPTER XI.
RETURN TO RABAT FROM SHAVOYA 117
CHAPTER XII.
THE HISTORY OF MUFFINS.--THE ORIGIN OF
BUTTER.--THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST 140
----
BOOK IV.
EL GARB.
CHAPTER I.
DEPARTURE FROM RABAT 188
CHAPTER II.
SHEMISH, THE GARDENS OF THE HESPERIDES 213
CHAPTER III.
ARZELA 245
CHAPTER IV.
THE JEWS IN BARBARY 266
CHAPTER V.
TANGIER 274
CHAPTER VI.
DRUIDICAL CIRCLES NEAR TANGIER--CONNEXION OF
THE CELTS WITH THE ANCIENT POPULATION OF
MAURITANIA AND SPAIN 289
CHAPTER VII.
THE CLANS IN BARBARY 312
----
BOOK V.
SEVILLE.
CHAPTER I.
THE ISLAND OF ANDELUZ 332
CHAPTER II.
THE CATHEDRAL 350
CHAPTER III.
SPANISH PAINTING 361
CHAPTER IV.
PELEA DE NAVAJA,--THE OLD SPANISH SWORD 383
CHAPTER V.
THE DANCE 394
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF CANAAN AND MOROCCO 406
CHAPTER VII.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE FROM SPAIN 433
THE
PILLARS OF HERCULES.
BOOK III.
(CONTINUED.)
CHAPTER VI.
ARAB DOMESTIC INDUSTRY.
The sheik deploring the result of the day’s hunt, I expressed the
hope that we should make up for it next day; on this they were thrown
into paroxysms, and they set about the sheik, some by fair means, the
rest by foul, to prevent my doing anything save going along the main
road, or going any road except that to Dar el Baida, whither I had no
particular wish to go. Despite these difficulties, I found means to
concert privately a chase for the next day. We were to be limited to
twenty guns, and, with a good supply of beaters, to start early. In the
morning, Sheik Tibi and the other soldiers, after using every effort
to stop me, insisted on going also; thus, the sun was high before we
got a start. We drew two valleys with no better success than the day
before, expending two hours on each. Being satisfied that there was a
purpose in this, I persisted in trying further off, and being joined by
thirty or forty men from the next tribe, the oath was administered and
we proceeded. It was now a sight to see the boars, as they issued from
each of two valleys simultaneously beaten, running about, listening
and watching, starting and returning, as the roll of musketry came up
from both sides: it was like shooting hares in a well-stocked preserve,
without dogs. The scenery surpassed that of the day before. I was
now quite at home with these people, and it was only after it was
over, that we thought it might have been imprudent to start on such
an expedition, without knowing a word of their language, and not only
without, but in defiance of, the persons charged with the care of us.
The boars enjoy a state of unparalleled happiness under the fostering
shadow of Islamism and the law of Moses; a law not so observed in
ancient Judæa as in Modern Morocco, as may be seen by the denunciations
of the Prophets--the occupation of the Prodigal Son and the selection
made by the cast-out devils. These two laws have excluded from this
region domestic pigs and peopled it with wild ones.
The Arabs hold them to be transformed men and infidels; and converse
with them, interpreting into words their grunts and motions. Each Arab,
as he came up, soliloquised or addressed a curse to the carcasses,
as he would to a slaughtered doe. These notions are natural enough,
for they seem possessed of man’s reason with brute’s force. We had
commonly an alarm at day-break of boars close to the douar, and though
instantly pursued by dogs and horsemen, they managed to escape by
speed, dodging, and short turns. They move through the bushes with a
surprising facility of avoiding noise, squeezing by strength and with
their thick hides through places that appeared utterly impassable.
They get over everything, through everything, and lie as close under
cover as they are alert when up. In starting for a chase, the boys
commence by plaiting the rush-like palm leaves into a sling, for it is
only by stones that they can start them. No pigs are fed like these.
They have the run of the forests of cork, producing the bellota and
the palmetto-root: they prefer, however, the potato-like root of the
aram, which is called _yerni_, and grows generally in the bunches of
the palmetto. In substance it is like a milky turnip, of a sweetish
and mawkish flavour. Next to this they feed on the narcissus, the
plant of which is called _bugareg_, and the root _bililouse_. They
like very much the _loto_, of which I have yet to speak, and therefore
deserve the name of lotofagoi. It is called _folilla_. Their well-known
predilection for _turfel_--truffles--would be gratified in the extreme,
were it not that the taste of the Arab coincides with theirs. Every
square yard contains these plants, and when the vegetation is dried up,
these roots remain in the ground fresh and succulent. No wonder, then,
that they prosper, with free quarters and full commons.
The tribes of the Tahel are wood-destroyers. They consume constantly,
and never plant. A portion of their fuel is brushwood; but still the
olive, the oak, and the arar, the remnants of primeval forests, daily
disappear. Around Rabat, not a tree is to be seen; yet the firewood is
the roots which are dug out of the plain.
The copses, woods, and forests of the cork-tree, which I have
traversed, will have disappeared in a very few years. This, however,
is the effect of stripping them of their bark for exportation. It was
saddening to pass through these groves, where the ancient patriarch of
the forest was circled by the scalping-knife, which did not spare even
the young promise by his side; and, as if in savage ruthlessness, and
not blinded avarice, they sought to ensure the decay of the tree. They
had stripped the bark only to the height of a man, neglecting the rest.
They seek the bark only for tanning. The cork stripped off was lying
rotting around. The cork may be taken from the tree, without injury, as
it covers the real bark through which the sap runs. This the Spaniards
never touch.
Four years ago, this speculation was introduced by a French merchant.
He offered 4,000 dollars for the liberty of exportation, besides
four per cent. duty. The farm has risen this year to 25,000 dollars.
The Arabs seemed shocked at this work, but avoided the subject with
apparent uneasiness, whenever it was introduced. I asked them why
they did not plant trees for their children, as they were constantly
destroying those that their fathers had left? The answer was, “It is
not the custom; if we planted them there would be nobody to watch them,
and they would be destroyed.”
At present, large districts are destitute of douars from the deficiency
of fuel. A considerable portion of the country I have passed over
will soon be in the same condition, unless by the reduction of the
population the forests are again allowed to spread. The extent of the
change within a century is marked by the extinction of wild beasts.
Travellers, a century ago, narrate that they did not dare to pass the
night out of a douar for the lions and panthers. Reading these accounts
enables one to understand how the people of Palestine were not to be
driven out before the Jews in one month or in one year, lest the beasts
of the field should multiply against them. In the times of the Romans,
the lions and panthers must have been as numerous as are now the
boars.[1]
The chief lady of the douar was too busy for ceremony;--she left that
department to her husband. She was first lieutenant. But one evening,
as we were returning to the douar, she signified that she had something
to say, and conducting me into the tent, made me sit down, and, seating
herself opposite, said, “Christian,--since the wives and daughters
of your country’s sheiks neither cook nor weave, nor make butter,
nor look after the guests or sheep, what do they do?” Having already
avowed that the greatest sheik in the English country had not in his
tent or in his house a spindle or a loom, I explained how our ladies
occupied themselves. She shook her head, and said, “It is not good;”
but added, after a pause, “Are your women happier than we?” I answered,
“Neither of you would take the life of the other. But when I tell my
countrywomen about you, they will be glad to hear, and they will not
say, 'it is not good.’” “Christian,” she said, “what will you tell of
me?” I answered, “I will say I have seen the wife of an Arab Sheik, and
the mistress of an Arab tent, such as we read of in the writings of
old,[2] such as are the models held up to our young maidens; such as we
listen to only in songs or see in dreams.”
Had a voice spoken from the earth, I could not have been more
startled. It was Nature saying to Art, “What is thy worth?” What do
we know of the happiness and the uses that belong to the drudgeries
of life? Our harvest is of the briers and thorns of a spirit uneasy
and over-wrought. Here are no changes in progress--no revolutions that
threaten--no theories at war--no classes that hate--and why? The
household works. There is no subdivision of labour--the household,
not the man, is the mint of the state. It is so by its work, its
varying cares, and interchanging toil. These impose discipline,
nurture affection, knit and fortify that unit. Take away these cares,
this industry, this dexterity, this power of standing alone, and what
will--what can--a “home” become, save a crib to sleep in, with a
trough to feed at, supplied from the butcher’s cart and the huckster’s
stall? Take from the household its industrial character, and you take
away its social charm, and its public worth. You exchange domestic
industry for political economy--that is, the fictitious evils which it
classifies: for habits you substitute laws, that is, cumbrous mockery:
for happiness, refinement, that is, pretence:--and you become possessed
of the gifts of fortune--the few at least who draw the prizes, only to
lose the value, of life.
The change in our manners is producing, no doubt, an alteration in
the position as well as in the happiness of women. From my first
acquaintance with the East, I was struck with the erroneous notions
which we entertain regarding the state of the sex there. I could not
resist the evidence of their occupying relatively a higher station,
and I perceived that the difference depended upon the greater strength
of the family tie. I find in an official French work[3] my proposition
strengthened.
“In all the Sahara, the fabrication of stuffs is exclusively the
work of the women. The men apply themselves to the culture of the
date-trees. It has been already shown that in the movements and
expeditions, the women have their share equally allotted to them with
the men. Thus, in the produce of the labour of the Sahara, that of
the women amounts to one-half. In the intervals of their necessary
household occupations, they find time to contribute to the common
riches an equal quantity with the men. This is a fact which it appears
to us worthy of being placed in evidence, because it is impossible
that it should remain without influence on the condition of the female
sex. The inutility of the occupations in which they are engaged almost
everywhere else, explains perhaps, to a certain degree, and excuses
the state of dependence in which they are placed, and the disregard of
which they are the object; but where by the nature of the occupations
they are placed upon a level equal with that of man, he must cease
to regard himself as the sole chief of the domestic hearth, and be
prepared to share the family sovereignty with his companion. It is
certain that in the Sahara the merit of a woman is measured above all
by her talents and dexterity.”
In Egypt all things were consecrated, and then displayed in types. The
successive labours (as even to these days in Africa) were announced
from the sanctuary, accompanied by sacrifices and processions, and
amidst the richness of their ceremonials, and the pomp of their
temples. The changes of the seasons which they announced, appeared
to flow from their directing power, and the labours undertaken to be
the fruit of their providential care. Before calendars were printed,
all field labours had to be determined by astronomy, and especially
in the valley of the Nile, which was subject to disappear under a
deluge, and whose fertility consisted in the rise and duration of the
flood. Placing ourselves in the soft and yielding, the unlearned and
unprejudiced embryo of society; man groping his way, fearful to stray,
yet eager to advance, what more natural than a scientific priesthood
and a symbolical worship? The Greeks, copying these fruitful symbols,
sacrificed purpose and usefulness to grace. The name of Moses, we are
informed in Scripture, means _saved from the water_. The Muses was the
same word: nine months in Egypt are _saved from the waters_--these are
the Muses. Each had its festival, and the symbol of its occupation.
There were three other similar--these are the Graces--they are admitted
by the most learned Hellenists to be water-nymphs;--together they make
up the year. Here, then, we have the homeliest occupations the basis of
the religious pomps of Egypt, and of the mythology and art of Greece;
the distribution of these works filled up the year, combined field and
in-door labour, and linked the community, while furnishing the charm of
life.
The plough, the yoke, “The invention of gods and the occupation
of heroes;” are the loom, the spindle, and distaff of less noble
parentage? You sever the distaff and the plough, the spindle and the
yoke, and you get factories and poor-houses, credit and panics--two
hostile notions, agricultural and commercial. Poetry becomes politics,
patriotism faction; and a light-hearted and contented people rusts into
clowns or sharpens into knaves.
I made, amongst the Arabs, the discovery that home industry was the
secret of the permanency of their society. I made, on subsequently
visiting the Highlands, another, namely, that _home-made stuffs are the
cheapest_. I refer, of course, to the common clothing of the labouring
population. The comparison cannot be instituted where the habit
has been extinguished; for on the one hand, the implements and the
dexterity are wanting; on the other, fashion has set another way, and
new habits have arisen, adjusted to the articles and stuffs that have
been introduced. In the Highlands, however, the comparison is easy, and
I speak after thorough examination, and with perfect certainty, when
I say that a family clothed by its own homework, as compared with a
family which buys its clothes at the shop, saves one-third. Of course,
in the former case, no cotton will be used, and home-bred wool and
home-grown flax will be the staple.
The change in this respect is generally deplored; but it is considered
as inevitable, it being the result of cheapness, no hand-labour being
able to stand against machinery. But the heavy charges are not for
the operation but for the capital engaged, and the numerous transfers
and profits. Home-spinning _costs nothing_.[4] Twenty pounds of wool
converted unobtrusively into the yearly clothing of a labourer’s
family, makes no show; but bring it to market, send it to the factory,
bring it thence to broker, send it to dealer, and it will represent
commercial operations and apparent capital to the amount of twenty
times its value, and costs the labourer, when returned to him, twice
as much as it would cost him money in dyeing, spinning, weaving, &c.
The working class is thus amerced to support a wretched factory
population, a parasitical, shopkeeping class, and a fictitious,
commercial, monetary, and financial system. The landlord, for his
share, pays five shillings per acre poors-rates. And all this is the
result, not of cheapness, but delusion. The people of England were
better clothed and fed than at present, when there were no commerce
and no factories. At this moment, after exhausting human ingenuity,
they are returning to domestic labour, as a means of remedying the
evils of Ireland!
Hallam has admitted that in those times which we look back on with
pity, the labourer received twice as much as at present for his labour.
This is a terrible blow and a fearful avowal. Mr. Macaulay, on the
contrary, “sees nothing but progress, hears of nothing but decay.” He
must have transposed the two senses, or carefully selected the spots
for indulging in their use: if, indeed, by progress he means approach
towards a fair remuneration for labour, and by decay a falling away
from just judgment in important concerns. Or is it his purpose to cover
Hallam’s indiscretion?--“They say that in former times the people were
better off. The time will come that they will say the same of this.”
If we be in a state of progress, those who speak thus must be very
foolish, and if the proposition deserved notice it required refutation.
The Arab tent, without our waking follies, presents to us the reality
of our dreams. Property has there its value, wealth its honour, labour
its reward. On the one side, the fruits of wisdom without effort, on
the other the toil of the understanding without profit.
But the Arab woman asked, “Are your women happier than we?” The
European lady would be shocked at the bare possibility of comparison.
She shrinks from domestic occupation, yet is she not able to expel
nature, so as to despise Nausicaa and Naomi. We cannot refuse to bow
before the shades of the heroic or patriarchal times--our nature
acknowledges Abraham or Alcinous. Yet, if our condition be that of
refinement, how contemptible must be Tanaquil and her distaff, Penelope
and her loom?
An English lady, who had the means of comparison, has not hesitated to
assert that between an Eastern and an European household, the balance
of happiness leans to the side of the former; and in the Eastern
household it is certainly the women who have the larger share--who are
the idols, and who possess authority such as belongs not to our courts,
and affections on the part of those under their sway which belong not
even to our dreams. The most touching words of the wisest of men are
the description of the mistress of a household. It is an Arab woman he
describes.
“Look at the hand of man! The best gift of Providence! What so perfect
in mechanism, what so beautiful in form? Is it not given for work, and
ought not that work to be for the service of those we love? Can we omit
that use without the sacrifice of more than words can tell? Let not any
one who follows the picture disturb the effort of his own imagination,
to fill it up by thinking of the possibility of carrying it into
effect. Obstacles arise at every point. Our set habits all point the
other way. Julia could work for her husband because there was then a
noble and an antique costume. An empress, she could summon about her
her handmaidens, because there was a formula of ceremony which enabled
all ranks to associate without derogation or familiarity. Then there
was the hall to assemble in. 'The plant,’ still stood in every house.
Because all this is gone, are we not to count the loss? If we cannot
restore, let us not mistake. If we cannot return, let us not hurry
on--in the wrong direction. It is something to know whither we are
going, when the speed is the result of our own will.
“Nations are not changed by time or accident--they change themselves.
Progress of society--march of intellect! Good heavens! we can utter
such trash and call ourselves reasonable beings: as well speak of the
justice of a steam-engine, or the virtue of a rocket. What need to
examine their state;--their words suffice. When the phrases have gone
mad, what can be in order?
“It is something in the midst of empires crumbling to the earth and
civilization gasping for breath and struggling with itself for life, to
point to the permanency of single tribes, who have never reasoned, but
who have simple habits; and to be able to say to the wildly-frantic or
to the meekly-deluded, ‘Christians, ye are incorrigible.’”
Such were the concluding words of a series of articles by M. Blacque,
which appeared in the _Moniteur Ottoman_, in 1834. Since then fifteen
years--barren, save in convulsions such as many centuries have not
witnessed before--have justified his judgment on Europe’s condition,
and his anticipations of her fate. M. Odillon Barrot, his cousin, on
one occasion said that had he returned, he “would have played a great
part in France.” I answered, “He would have made France play a worthy
one.” He was offered the highest offices in the Russian Government, and
on refusing them was persecuted _by his own_. The Turkish Government
then adopted him, and he was poisoned while on his way to England.
The incidents of his life and death, no less than the passages left
by his pen, will serve at a future time, perhaps, to illustrate that
chimera with a brain of cobwebs and a heart of mud, which is called
civilization, and which we are pleased to designate as the child of
science and the parent of corruption.
But I do not speak of “civilization,” as an _entity_. It will be found
in no classical writer, Greek or Roman, English or French, German or
Italian. It is a word which belongs to us,--exclusively to us; let us
be either proud or conscious--its invention must be either a merit or a
shame.
_What is it?_ It is no standard. We have the words “excellence,”
and “perfection.” It is no description of a particular people, for
it neither does nor can describe or define. Its own sense has to
be defined. Whoever uses the word, conjures up to correspond with
it an idea of some aggregate condition, which never can have the
same parts in any two speakers’ minds, or in the mind of the same
speaker at any two moments. It is an unknown quantity, like _x_ in
algebra; but instead of concluding the operation by finding out its
value, we commence the proposition by supposing it known. These
are the reasons why you do not find it in any classical writer.
These are the reasons why it has been received as a discovery for
this generation. It facilitates talk without meaning, is a cloak
for ignorance and pretence, and covers, by an apparent “grasp of
intellect,” the shrinking from intellectual effort, which consists
in getting possession of the instruments we use, and in fathoming
the meaning and assuring ourselves of the accuracy of the terms we
employ. It is made up of things that have no ratio--virtue and science,
wealth and political order; so also, vice, ignorance, poverty, and
discontent--each of these must be found in it: to employ it logically,
you must class plus and minus quantities and rate each in decimals.
So in one country there would be so many degrees of positive, in
another so many of negative civilization. If you cannot do this, you
use an instrument that is necessarily false; the whole field of your
intellectual operation must be, as it is, reduced to that condition in
which our buildings, railways, and accounts would be, if arithmeticians
and engineers were to create an elementary sign of number, the value of
which was uncertain, and might be mistaken for an 8 or a 9. It is the
case, not of an error of opinion, but of false process, which renders
it impossible to be right. It is not opinions, but words, that ruin
states. Should a sane people occupy Europe after the Gothic race has
been put down or swept away, the title of M. Guizot’s great work will
suffice for the history of times distinguished at once by a fatuity
that cannot reason,[5] and an activity that will not rest. Alas for
man, if such things as we have seen since the conversation in the Arab
tent, which prompted these reflections, were the fruit of the proper
use of his faculties! Alas for folly too, if, with such men for its
apostles, institutions could endure or nations prosper!
[1] When the Romans first saw lions and panthers,
they called them African rats (_Mures Africanos_).
Pliny tells us, that Q. Scævola, when edile, first
exhibited lions in the arena. Sylla exhibited one
hundred; Pompey six hundred; Cæsar four hundred.
[2] “And all the women that were wise-hearted did
spin with their hands, and brought that which they had
spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and
of fine linen. And all the women whose hearts stirred
them up in wisdom, spun goats’ hair.”--_Exodus_ xxxv.
25, 26.
[3] Exploration scientifique d’Algérie.
[4] The spinning-wheel of the Highlands is one of
the most remarkable inventions. That formerly used in
England, and still lingering where here and there a
housewife has sense to say, “I cannot _afford_ to buy
in the shops stockings for my family,” was like that
used now in the East, and anciently figured in Egypt. A
wheel was turned by one hand, whilst with the other the
wool, cotton, or flax was prepared for the spindle: as
each portion was twisted the wheel was reversed, so as
to run it on the spindle; but in the _coil_ the thread
passes through an orifice in the axis of the spindle,
and is then carried by a bar to be distributed over the
_pirn_. The wheel runs always on, and when yielded by
the fingers, passes to the coil. Both hands are free
for the work. The wheel being turned by a treddle, it
is, compared to other spinning, as the delving of the
Basque provinces to all other methods of culture, and
performs at least twice as much work.
[5] Yet in M. Guizot’s organ such a sentence as the
following could be pronounced on “civilization,” and
such a verdict given for “barbarism.” “Amongst us, the
intelligence and the moral sense developed to excess,
are troubled with the habit of judging of particular
facts through the medium of general ideas, and more or
less complicated systems. Among the Arabs, reason is in
its simplicity, but also in all its primitive clearness
and rectitude: the idea of what is just and what is
unjust is always clear and sure.”--_L’Epoque_, April
11, 1846.
CHAPTER VII.
RUINS OF BATHS.
After a few days spent as those I have described, we started in a
south-westerly direction, and towards evening passed out of the land
of the Ziaïdas. Their territory extends a summer day’s journey from
north to south, and from east to west. We then entered that of the
Ladzian. Our guardians inquired from the shepherds touching different
douars, to select one for sleeping, but did not seem satisfied with
the replies. I urged going to one of the Lachedumbra, a tribe of the
Ladzian, and they reluctantly complied. This was the first douar we
approached as perfect strangers. We rode up to within two hundred paces
and halted. After we had waited about ten minutes we advanced half way
and halted again. Then one man walked slowly out; one of our party in
like manner advanced. They saluted. After some time the Arab shouted,
and instantly a single man advanced from each of the tents on the side
next us: they stood for some minutes as if holding council. The chief
then turned round, and walking straight up to me, took my hand in their
manner, and thrice repeated _Mirababick_; the others then advanced,
and pronounced the salutation all together. Each of the party was thus
greeted in turn. We were led inside. The whole douar set to work, and
in a few minutes our tent was pitched, and strewed with fresh shrubs. A
sheep was led up to the door, the customary present of the sheik, that
we might see it before we made our supper on it. This was a Sherriff’s
douar, and the government officers have no right to enter. Such was the
explanation given to me. It is difficult to ascertain, and impossible
to vouch for, the commonest fact in a country where one is not
thoroughly conversant with its habits, and when information is received
through interpreters, however intelligent and upright these may be;
and, indeed, integrity is next to an impossibility in an interpreter;
but this an eastern traveller learns, if at all, at the wrong end of
his experience.
I have seen no douar entered except by the free will, and in some cases
the formal consent, of the tribe. I was much perplexed at this, as it
appeared at first a contradiction to, and as I afterwards ascertained,
modification of the fundamental rule of Arab society. It doubtless
arose from the necessity of defence against a _central government_.
After they had pitched our tent, instead of pressing upon us as amongst
the Ziaïda, they drew off about thirty yards, and squatted down in
a circle: a few only came, and then it was to bring presents, or to
petition for medicine for a greasy heel, or a barren wife, as the case
might be. I proposed to the sheik a boar hunt, to which he readily
assented; but it was fixed for a future day.
From the high ground, as we approached it, Dar El Baida has an
imposing appearance: inside it is a heap of ruins. A house consisting
of a single room--a good one on a second floor, and entered from a
terrace--was prepared for us. Our horses were piqueted in the street
before it. We understood there was a French Consular agent and some
Europeans here, and consequently we brought for them a camel-load of
game.
This place is said to have been retaken from the Portuguese by the
following stratagem. A Moor pretended to become Christian, settled
in the town, and obtained permission to have a gate opened in the
wall close to his house for the convenience of sending in and out his
flocks. He one night brought in a number of his countrymen covered with
hides, as cattle among them. Such is the story of the place; and if you
doubt it, they say, “There is the gate.”
The Spanish name is Casa Bianca, just as if we chose to call it “White
House.” Its ancient name, “Anafe,” involves some obscurity. The same
name belonged to a colony in Asia Minor, and to an island close to
Crete, which forms an episode in the Orphic epic of the Argonauts.
The adventurers were rescued by Apollo, who discharging an arrow into
the deep, the island arose, and was called Anafe, from ἀνφααίνειν
[anaphainein], _to appear_. What this etymology is worth for the
Cretan Island, it must also be for the Lybian promontory: its present
name likewise implies brightness. It is on the other hand asserted,
that this is the new case of _lucus a non lucendo_, and that Anafe
means,--that is, in Hebrew not Greek,--dark and gloomy,[6] and that
the island was so called, not from having appeared in the light, but
by being shut out from the light by groves.[7] If so, the Lybian
promontory must likewise in those days have been green and feathered,
and not as now, naked and pale. The Phœnician Backs and Parrys did
not dot their charts with the names of the Admiralty Lords of Tyre.
They gave names descriptive or commemorative, as the other names of
this coast will vouch. That the name is Phœnician, not Greek, is clear
from finding it here. We have also Thymiatirium, where Arzilla now
stands, and which is interpreted in Hebrew--an open plain. Ampelusa
was on the northern promontory, and its interpretation coincides with
the descriptions left of groves delightful to the eye, filled with
fruit grateful to the taste. This must have been one of the spots
first named, and this name seems to confirm what we derive from so
many sources regarding the primeval horticulture of this land. Had the
Phœnicians come to plant vines, and gardens--that is, to cultivate and
civilize--they would not have given such a name. These glimpses of
the well-being in the most early times bring up the contrast with the
present. The parched and naked brow of the once shady Anafe, further
recalls an island nearer home, once, also, named after its forests,[8]
where now scarce a tree is to be found. Would that the resemblance were
complete! If Moorish rule has blasted the oak, it has at least spared
the man. What Moorish rule has worst done it has done with a purpose,
and neither on principle nor for philanthropy.
A quantity of grain was in store, and much arriving destined for
England. The stores were filled all along the coast, but there are no
means of shipment. This port is a principal place for the exportation
of bark and wool, both managed by Scheik Tibi, who, last season,
when the country was otherwise impassable, went and came, conducting
caravans of seventy and eighty camels; by his personal character
ensuring safety on the road. The schooner which had been in company
with us during our voyage, lay on the beach high and dry. An English
brig at anchor in the open roadstead was pitching bows under, though
there was scarcely a breath of wind, and had narrowly escaped shipwreck
two days before from her cables having been cut by the rocks.
There is here a sort of bay. The southern horn is a headland running
a little way out, and distant four or five miles. On its bald black
brow I was told that traces of the Phœnician city were to be seen.
I was all impatience to reach the spot, for it was just a site for
them, and no one since would have gone there. So here was the site of
a Lybo-Phœnician city, and any fragment was precious. I found nothing
standing, yet was not disappointed; for the stones in the fields were
rolled fragments of building: the mortar was of such consistency that
it wore or split only with the stones imbedded in it, and these were
crystalline: the stones were small, the mortar abundant; the masses
looked like amygdaloid. For the first time was I assured that I beheld
a piece of Tyrian rubble. I would have travelled many a mile for this.
Mortar was used by them--and what mortar! But this was not the only
architectural point I had to mark this day.
As I sat on the brow of the headland, watching the great waves which
went and came over long shelves of rocks, stretching out to the west
and southward in the line of the declining sun, and playing under his
rays, my eye was attracted to a singular mass immediately below: it
was a cone indented all over with deep semicircular cavities, and,
therefore, bristling with truncated points. The sandstone hollows out
in this manner[9] by the action of the water, and the points which are
left are sharp as a knife. The substance is black and porous, like a
sponge. When the foam dashed over this rock, the basins filled; the
white froth, as the wave retired, poured in cataracts from basin to
basin, on every side, and so continued almost till the next long wave
came to shroud it in spray, and replenish it with foam. As I watched
these changes, familiar forms floated before me, till at last becoming
more distinct, I distinguished those singular pendants that belong to
the Moorish vault, and the indentures of its arch. The stalactites of
caverns might have furnished the type of the last, but could not of
the former. The fair creations of art have models in Nature, and here
is that of the Moorish. The substance in which it is exhibited lines
the whole coast, and must present an infinite variety of such effects.
I had few occasions of seeing that coast, but the very next time I
reached it, about twenty miles north of Rabat, I saw the same figure
reversed, or as we see it in the Moresco vault, depending from the roof
like the stalactites in a cave.[10]
I returned to the same place next morning, but the tide was out, and
the rock without the foam was a common stone. The ledges of rock which
the evening before had been so lashed by the waves, were white (quartz)
rock. On them were patches of coarse recent madrepores, looking like
gigantic sponges. Further out the rocks were black, and on inspection
proved to be so because completely covered with mussels, the largest
I have ever seen, and the finest I have ever tasted. Such is the fury
of the waves, that beautifully-rounded quartz-stones, some of them
three-quarters of a hundred weight, have been cast up into a bank
thirty feet above high-water-mark.
Amongst the mass of ruins within the walls of Dar el Baida one building
alone could be made out. It was a bath. If London or Paris were
laid low, no such monument would survive of their taste, luxury, or
cleanliness. The people called it “Roman,” meaning Portuguese. When
I was at Algesiras, some excavations were making, and on examining
them, the building proved to be a bath. Within the circuit of the
walls of old Ceuta, which unquestionably belonged to a very remote
period, the only edifice, the purpose of which is distinguishable, is
a bath. The vestiges of the Romans, which from time to time we fall
upon in our island, are baths. The Romans and the Saracens were the
most remarkable of conquerors, and are associated in the relics which
they have left-fortresses and baths. The first is of necessity, but how
should the second be ever found conjoined, unless it played some part
in forming that temper which made them great, or in conferring on them
those manners which rendered them acceptable? A nation without the bath
is deprived of a large portion of the health and inoffensive enjoyment
within man’s reach: it therefore increases the value of a people to
itself, and its power as a nation over other people. From what I know
of the loss in both respects which those incur who have it not, I can
estimate its worth to those who had it.
I now had the opportunity of examining a public bath of the Moors
belonging to their good times. The disposition varies from that of the
ancient Thermæ and the modern Hamams. The grand and noble portion of
the Turkish and the ancient bath was a dome, open to the heavens in the
centre. Such a one, but not open in the centre, is here; it was the
inner not the outer apartment. The vault has deep ribs, in the fashion
of a clam shell, and is supported upon columns with horse-shoe arches
spreading between. Instead of a system of flues through the walls, only
one passed through the centre under the floor. To get at it, I had to
break through the pavement of beaten mortar covering a slab of marble.
It was nearly filled up with a deposit, partly of soot and partly of
earthy matter, which I imagined to be the residuum of gazule, on the
use of which hinge the peculiarities I have noticed in the structure
and distribution of the building.
I turned to Leo Africanus, expecting a flood of light upon a matter
with which he must have been so familiar. All I found was this:--“When
any one is to be bathed, they lay him along the ground, _anointing him
with certain ointment_ and with certain _instruments clearing away his
filth_.” The ointment is evidently the gazule; the instrument can only
be the _strigil_. He mentions a “Festival of the Baths.” The servants
and officers go forth with trumpets and pipes, and all their friends,
to gather _a wild onion_; it is put in a brazen vessel, covered over
with a linen cloth, which had been steeped in lees of wine; this they
bring with great solemnity and rejoicings, and suspend in the vessel in
the portal of the bath. This would indicate an Egyptian source, were it
not for the absence of all trace of the bath on their storied walls,
and among their ruins.
The onion, however, being the emblem of the planetary system,[11] may
be a trace of Sabæism. The festival and ceremony savour much of those
of the “Great Mother,” and of course preceded Christianity. No original
superstition arose here; no original bath appears among the Arabs. The
Phœnicians brought their religion and found the bath, and to it the
people adapted the new religious practices.
Part of the funereal rites of the Moors was to convey the corpse to the
bath.[12] Such a practice is unknown in any other country, and seems to
identify the bath with the primitive usages.
The gazule furnishes, however, the strongest intrinsic evidence in
favour of my conclusion, which indeed it requires but scanty proof to
establish, for the rudest people may have had the bath. The Red Indians
are fully acquainted with it, and the means they employ are heated
stones and a leather covering. They crawl in and throw water on the
stones, and soak till the same effect is produced as the Balnea of
Rome obtained. In Morocco they are of primitive and modest structure,
and of diminutive proportions. Add to this, the rude simplicity of
the process, and the exclusive use in them of natural and native
productions. Before coming to this point, I wish to refer to historical
evidence.
Augustus borrowed a stool, called _duretum_,[13] from Spain. Mauritania
was inhabited by the same people, so that two thousand years ago the
Romans copied the Moors.
Few Iberian words have come down to us--one of them is _strigil_. It
applied to a species of metal; and strigils were made of metal. The
early use of this strigil, and its connection with the East, is shown
by one of the celebrated bronzes of antiquity--a group of two boys in
the bath using the strigil, which was attributed to Dædalus.[14] The
Etruscans and Lydians also had it.[15]
The Phæacians, as elsewhere shown, were Phœnicians. Homer mentions
their baths at the time of the Trojan war, when the Greeks had none.
The term Ἡρακλεία λούτρα [Herakleia loutra] seems to identify baths
with that people as much as letters were by the term Καδμεία γράμματα
[Kadmeia grammata]; and as the Greeks got everything from them, the
baths of the Greeks are in themselves a testimony in favour of the
Phœnicians, my inference being, not that the Phœnicians brought thither
the tice, but that they learnt it here.
That the Arabs, when they issued from their deserts, should have
adopted the Thermæ and Balnea of the sinking Roman empire, does not
necessarily follow; indeed it is rather to be assumed that they would
not, and that it was from a people who became by religion incorporated
with them, and from whom, indubitably, they derived their architecture,
that they had it. This view is supported by the use of the glove, which
is not Roman, and the disuse of the strigil, which was so. It would
thus appear that Morocco had conferred on antiquity and the East of the
present day, the chief luxury of the one, and the most beneficial habit
of the other.
There being a bath in the unoccupied house of the Governor of
the Province, I made the attempt to complete my investigation by
experience, and privately applied to the guardian of the mansion, who,
to my surprise, immediately acceded to my request. Soon after, he came
to inform me that the Caïd had been very angry, and had forbidden him
to let me use it. It was suggested that there were mollifying methods,
such as a civil message, a box of tea and some loaves of sugar. While
these were preparing, an elderly Moor walked in and seated himself.
This was no other than the Caïd. He plunged at once _in medias res_,
and the following dialogue ensued.
_Caïd._ No Christian or Jew can go to the bath. It is forbidden by our
law.
Can a law forbid what it enjoins?
_Caïd._ It is the law.
Where is that law?
_Caïd._ (After a pause.) The wise men say there is such a law.
The wise man is he who speaks about what he knows.
_Caïd._ Do the wise men err?
Have you read the book?
_Caïd._ I have heard it read.
Did you hear the word--the Jews and Christians shall not bathe?
_Caïd._ I may or may not have heard.
I have read the book, and have not seen that word, for in it there is
no name for bath. The Mussulmans, when they came to “the West,” found
the bath in your towns as they are to-day, and here first learned how
to bathe, and you were then Christians. How then do you say you have a
law which forbids the Jews or the Christians to go to the bath?
_Caïd._ (laughing). The Nazarenes are cunning. In what Mussulman land
do Christians go to the bath? Missir, is it not a Mussulman land?
Stamboul (Constantinople), is it not a Mussulman land? Now, I will ask
you questions. Where, except in this dark West, do Christians not go to
the bath with the Mussulmans? Why do I want to go to the bath? Have we
got the bath in Europe? From whom did I learn it?
_Caïd._ How can I tell?
I have gone to the bath with doctors of the law (Oulema), and Rejals of
the Ali Osman Doulet: I have been shampooed by vizirs. From Mussulmans
I have learned how to wash myself, and here I come to Mussulmans,
and they say, “You shall not bathe.” This is not Islam, this is
_Jahilic_.[16]
_Caïd._ You shall not say our faces are black. You shall go, but--only
once. To-morrow I will keep the key: it shall be heated when the
Mussulmans are asleep. I will come, and you shall go and be satisfied.
He then got up and walked off. Presently a sheep arrived as an earnest
and propitiation.
It was so often and so confidently repeated to me by the resident
Europeans that I could place no reliance upon his word, that I gave
up all idea of it. Next night, as we were disposing our beds and
preparing to occupy them, there was a rap at the door, and on its being
opened, who should walk in but the Caïd. His abrupt salutation was,
“The bath is ready--come.” While I was re-dressing, he told us that he
had forgotten, and having business of importance with a neighbouring
sheik before sunrise, had started on his journey, when recollecting his
promise, he had returned.
Finding he was making dispositions to accompany me, I begged he would
not take the trouble; but not staying to answer, he seized with one
hand a candle out of the candlestick, laid hold of my hand with the
other, conducted me down stairs, lighting me and lifting me through the
dirty streets over the different places, as if I had been a helpless
child. Arrived at the place, he took the keys from his breast, and
opened the doors. I thought his care was to end here, but he squatted
himself down on a mat in an outhouse, as if to wait the issue. Every
other argument failing, I said, that if he remained there, I could not
stay long enough. He answered, “I will sleep. If I went home I could
not sleep, for something might happen.” The deputy-governor stripped to
officiate as bath-man. But for this weighty matter I must take breath,
and honour it with a special chapter--a chapter which, if the reader
will peruse it with diligence and apply with care, may prolong his
life, fortify his body, diminish his ailments, augment his enjoyments,
and improve his temper: then having found something beneficial to
himself, he may be prompted to do something to secure the like for his
fellow-creatures.
[6] Hebrew: ענפה Anepha. Ramosa et opaca.--BOCH. _Pheleg._
[7] The spot is thus described by Apollonius:--
τοὶ δ’ ἀγλαὸν Ἀπόλλωνι
Ἄλσει ὲνὶ σκιερῷ τέμενος σκιόεντά τε βωμὸν
Ποιέον.
[toi d’ aglaon Apollôni
Alsei eni skierô temenos skioenta te bômon
Poieon].--L. 4. v. 1714.
[8] Ireland was anciently known as Fiodha Inis, or
the Woody Island.
[9] The “Chaudière Falls” are so called from
cavities like kettles hollowed out by stones of harder
consistency getting into a hollow, and there revolving
by the action of the water. On the Clyde the operation
may be seen.
[10] These pensile figures are by all writers on
Moorish architecture held to be an _imitation_ of
stalactite. Nothing can be more absurd: stalactite is
produced by successive coatings or deposits, whereas
the process by which they must have been formed is
abrasion, the salient points being obtained by the
concavity of the intervening surfaces.
[11] The slices representing the orbits of the
planets. We have derived our word from ON I ON; a
reduplication of ON, the Sun, in his chief temple in the
city, called after him, where the onion, being the
symbol, was supposed to be worshipped.
[12] Mision Historial de Marueccos, p. 45.
[13] “Ungebatur enim sæpius, et sudabat ad
flammam: deinde perfundebatur e gelida aqua vel sole
multo calefacta. At quoties nervorum causâ marinis
Albulisque calidis utendum esset, contentus hoc
erat, ut insidens ligneo solio, quod ipse Hispanico
verbo 'duretum’ vocabat, manus ac pedes alternis
jactaret.”--SUETON. in _August._, c. 82.
[14] See Pliny’s Catalogue of Celebrated Statues.
[15] Naked youths with strigils appear on a
vase.--Mus. Gregor. II., tav. lxxxvii.--See _Schol.
Juvenal, Sat._ iii. v. 262.
See plates in Fellows’s “Lycia.”
[16] The word means “folly,” but it is applied
to the period before conversion to Islam, and here
insinuates infidelity.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BATH.
... Quadrante lavatum,
REX IBIS. HOR. _Sat._ i. 3.
It is amusing to hear people talk of cleanliness as they would of
charity or sobriety. A man can no more be clean than learned by
impulse, and no more by his will understand cleanliness than solve
equations. Cleanliness has the characters of virtue and of vice--it is
at once beneficial and seductive. It is also a science and an art, for
it has an order which has to be taught, and it requires dexterity and
implements. It has its prejudices and superstitions: it abhors what is
not like itself, and clings to its practices under a secret dread of
punishment and fear of sin. It has its mysteries and its instincts:
it regards not the eye or favour of man, and follows the bent of its
nature without troubling itself with reasons for what it does; it
has its charities and its franchises: the poorest is not without the
reach of its aid, nor the most powerful strong enough to infringe its
rights.[17] It is suited to every condition: men and women, the young
and the old, the rich and the poor, the hale and the sick, the sane and
the insane: the savage can enjoy it no less than the refined. The most
polished have prized it as the chief profit of art; the simple receive
it as the luxury of Nature--a cheap solace for the cares of life, and a
harmless medicament for the infirmities of man.
The philosopher prized it as essential to happiness,[18] the austere
to virtue, the dissolute to vice.[19] To corrupt Greece and Rome it
furnished a gratification that was innocent; to the rigid sectarians
of the Koran an observance that was seductive; multiplying the
sensibilities and strengthening the frame, it increased to all the
value of life. No sacrifice is required for its possession. Nothing
has to be given up in exchange: it is pure gain to have, sheer loss
to want. Like the light of heaven, those only walk not in it who are
blind. Where not practised, it is not inducements that are wanting, but
knowledge: “they don’t know how.”[20]
Our body is a fountain of impurities, to which man is more subject
than the beast.[21] The body of man, far more than that of the brutes,
is exposed to be contaminated; and by an artificial mode of life and
food, he has further multiplied his frailties. By casing his body in
closely-fitting clothes--integuments rather than covering--he has shut
out the purifying elements. Without the means of cleanliness of the
brute, he is also without the guidance of its instinct; what then, if
in the culture of his body, he should lose the light of reason? If
reason and not instinct be his portion, it is because he is endowed
with a mechanism, to keep which in order instinct would not suffice.
What if that mechanism receive at his hands not such care as would be
bestowed upon it, if it belonged to the beast of the field or the bird
of the air!
What filth is to the body, error is to the mind; and therefore if we
are to use our reason in regard to the former, we must have a standard
of cleanliness as well as of truth; such a rule we can owe neither to
freak nor fashion. We must look for one tested by long experience and
fixed from ancient days:--this standard is THE BATH. This is
no ideal one; it is at once theory and performance; he who has gone
through it, knows what it is to be clean because he is cleansed. I
shall use as synonymous the words, “cleanliness,” and the “bath.”
I must beg the reader to dismiss from his mind every idea connected
with that word: unless I thought he would and could do so, I should
persist in speaking of _Thermæ_, _Balneum_ or _Hamâm_, but I trust I
may venture to naturalize, in its true sense, the word in our tongue as
a step to naturalise the thing in our habits.
A people who know neither Latin nor Greek have preserved this great
monument of antiquity on the soil of Europe, and present to us who
teach our children only Latin and Greek, this institution in all its
Roman grandeur, and its Grecian taste. The bath, when first seen by
the Turks, was a practice of their enemies, religious and political;
they were themselves the filthiest of mortals; they had even instituted
filth by laws and consecrated it by maxim.[22] Yet no sooner did they
see the bath than they adopted it; made it a rule of their society, a
necessary adjunct to every settlement; and Princes and Sultans endowed
such institutions for the honour of their name.[23]
In adopting it, they purified it from immorality and excess, and
carrying the art of cleanliness to the highest perfection, have made
themselves thereby the most sober-minded and contented amongst the
nations of the earth. This arose from no native disposition towards
cleanliness, but from the simplicity of their character and the poverty
of their tongue.[24] They had no fallacious term into which to convert
it, and no preconceived ideas by which to explain it. Knowing they were
dirty, they became clean; having common sense, they did not rush on a
new device, or set up either a “water cure,” or a joint-stock washing
company; but carefully considered and prudently adopted what the
experience of former ages presented to their hands.
I have said that the Saracens, like the Romans, have left behind them,
_temples_, _fortresses_, and _baths_: national security reared its
battlements, public faith its domes, and cleanliness, too, required
its structures, and without these no more could it exist, than
defence or worship. I shall not weary the reader with ground-plans or
“elevations,” and shall confine myself to the leading features, in
so far as they are connected with use. They are vast and of costly
materials, from their very nature. Before describing the Moorish bath,
I must request the reader to accompany me through the bath as it is
used by the Turks, which, as more complete and detailed, is more
intelligible.
The operation consists of various parts: first, the _seasoning of the
body_; second, the _manipulation of the muscles_; third, the _peeling
of the epidermis_; fourth, the _soaping_, and the patient is then
conducted to _the bed of repose_. These are the five acts of the drama.
There are three essential apartments in the building: a great hall or
_mustaby_, open to the outer air; a middle chamber, where the heat is
moderate; the inner hall, which is properly the _thermæ_. The first
scene is acted in the middle chamber; the next three in the inner
chamber, and the last in the outer hall. The time occupied is from two
to four hours, and the operation is repeated once a week.
On raising the curtain which covers the entrance to the street, you
find yourself in a hall circular, octagonal, or square, covered with
a dome open in the centre: it may be one hundred feet in height; the
Pantheon of Rome may be taken as a model. This is the _apodyterium_,
_conclave_ or _spoliatorium_ of the Romans. In the middle, a basin of
water, the “sea” of the Jews, the “piscinum” of the Romans, is raised
by masonry about four feet; a fountain plays in the centre. Plants,
sometimes trellises, are trained over or around the fountain, and by it
is placed the stall to supply coffee, pipes, or nargelles. All round
there is a platform, varying in breadth from four to twelve feet, and
raised about three; here couches are placed, which I shall presently
describe. You are conducted to an unoccupied couch to undress; your
clothes are folded and deposited in a napkin and tied up; you are
arrayed in the bathing costume, which consists of three towels about
two yards long and under a yard in width, thickened in the centre with
pendant loops of the thread, so as to absorb the moisture, soft and
rough without being flabby or hard, with broad borders in blue or red
of raw silk. This gives to this costume an air of society, and takes
from it the stamp of the laundry or wash-house. One is wrapped with an
easy fold round the head, so as to form a high and peculiar, but not
ungraceful turban; the second is bound round the loins, and falls to
the middle of the leg; this is the ordinary costume of the attendants
in the bath, and appears to be the costume known in antiquity as
περίζωμα [perizôma], _præcinctorium_, and _subligaculum_, and which
have been of difficult interpretation, as implying at once a belt and a
clothing. The third is thrown over the shoulder like a scarf: they are
called _Pistumal_, as are all towels, but the proper name is _Futa_, a
word borrowed, as the stuff is, from Morocco. While you change your
linen, two attendants hold a cloth before you. In these operations,
which appear to dispense of necessity with clothing and concealment,
the same scrupulous attention is observed. It extends to the smallest
children. I have been on a bathing excursion to the sea-side, where
a child under four years was disappointed of his dip because his
bathing drawers had been forgotten. There is nothing which more shocks
an Eastern than our want of decorum; and I have known instances of
servants assigning this as a reason for refusing to remain in Europe,
or to come to it.
Thus attired, you step down from the platform height; wooden
pattens,--_nalma_ in Turkish, _cob cob_ in Arabic,--are placed for your
feet, to keep you off the hot floors, and the dirty water running off
by the entrances and passages; two attendants take you, one by each arm
above the elbow--walking behind and holding you. The slamming doors are
pushed open, and you enter the region of steam.
Each person is preceded by a mattress and a cushion, which are
removed the moment he has done with them, that they may not get damp.
The apartment he now enters is low and small; very little light is
admitted; sometimes, indeed, the day is excluded, and the small
flicker of a lamp enables you to perceive indistinctly its form and
occupants. The temperature is moderate, the moisture slight, the
marble floor on both sides is raised about eighteen inches, the lower
and centre part being the passage between the two halls. This is the
_tepidarium_. Against the wall your mattress and cushion are placed,
the rest of the chamber being similarly occupied: the attendants now
bring coffee, and serve pipes. The object sought in this apartment is
a natural and gentle flow of perspiration; to this are adapted the
subdued temperature and moisture; for this the clothing is required,
and the coffee and pipe; and, in addition, a delicate manipulation is
undergone, which does not amount to shampooing: the sombre air of the
apartment calms the senses, and shuts out the external world.[25]
During the subsequent parts of the operation, you are either too busy
or too abstracted for society; the bath is essentially sociable, and
this is the portion of it so appropriated--this is the time and place
where a stranger makes acquaintance with a town or village. Whilst
so engaged, a boy kneels at your feet and chafes them, or behind
your cushion, at times touching or tapping you on the neck, arm, or
shoulder, in a manner which causes the perspiration to start.
_2nd Act._--You now take your turn for entering the inner chamber:
there is in this point no respect for persons, and rank gives no
precedence,[26] but you do not move until the bathman, the _tellack_ of
the Turks, the _nekaës_ of the Arabs, the _tractator_ of the Romans,
has passed his hand under your bathing linen, and is satisfied that
your skin is in a proper state. He then takes you by the arm as before,
your feet are again pushed into the pattens, the slamming door of the
inner region is pulled back, and you are ushered into the _adytum_,--a
space such as the centre dome of a cathedral, filled--not with dull
and heavy steam--but with gauzy and mottled vapour, through which
the spectre-like inhabitants appear, by the light of tinted rays,
which, from stars of stained glass in the vault, struggle to reach
the pavement, through the curling mists. The song, the not unfrequent
shout, the clapping, not of hands, but sides;[27] the splashing of
water and clank of brazen bowls reveals the humour and occupation of
the inmates, who, here divested of all covering save the scarf round
the loins, with no distinction between bathers and attendants, and
with heads as bare as bodies and legs, are seen passing to and fro
through the mist, or squatted or stretched out on the slabs, exhibiting
the wildest contortions, or bending over one another, and appearing to
inflict and to endure torture. A stranger might be in doubt whether
he beheld a foundry or Tartarus; whether the Athenian gymnasia were
restored, or he had entered some undetected vault of the Inquisition.
That is the _sudatorium_. The steam is raised by throwing water on the
floor,[28] and its clearness comes from the equal temperature of the
air and walls.
Under the dome there is an extensive platform of marble slabs: on this
you get up; the clothes are taken from your head and shoulders; one
is spread for you to lie on, the other is rolled for your head; you
lie down on your back; the tillak (two, if the operation is properly
performed) kneels at your side, and bending over, gripes and presses
your chest, arms, and legs, passing from part to part, like a bird
shifting its place on a perch. He brings his whole weight on you with a
jerk, follows the line of muscle with anatomical thumb,[29] draws the
open hand strongly over the surface, particularly round the shoulder,
turning you half up in so doing; stands with his feet on the thighs
and on the chest and slips down the ribs; then up again three times;
and lastly, doubling your arms one after the other on the chest, pushes
with both hands down, beginning at the elbow, and then, putting an arm
under the back and applying his chest to your crossed elbows, rolls on
you across till you crack. You are now turned on your face, and, in
addition to the operation above described, he works his elbow round
the edges of your shoulder-blade, and with the heel plies hard the
angle of the neck; he concludes by hauling the body half up by each arm
successively, while he stands with one foot on the opposite thigh.[30]
You are then raised for a moment to a sitting posture, and a contortion
given to the small of the back with the knee, and a jerk to the neck by
the two hands holding the temples.
_3rd Act._--Round the sides there are cocks for hot and cold water
over marble basins, a couple of feet in diameter, where you mix to the
temperature you wish. You are now seated on a board on the floor at one
of these fountains, with a copper cup[31] to throw water over you when
wanted. The _tellak_ puts on the glove--it is of camel’s hair, not the
horrid things recently brought forth in England. He stands over you;
you bend down to him, and he commences from the nape of the neck in
long sweeps down the back till he has started the skin; he coaxes it
into rolls, keeping them in and up till within his hand they gather
volume and length; he then successively strikes and brushes them away,
and they fall right and left as if spilt from a dish of macaroni. The
dead matter which will accumulate in a week forms, when dry, a ball of
the size of the fist. I once collected it, and had it dried--it is like
a ball of chalk: this was the purpose for which the _strigil_ was used.
In our ignorance we have imagined it to be a horse-scraper to clear off
the perspiration, or for other purposes equally absurd.[32]
_4th Act._--Hitherto soap has not touched the skin. By it, however
strange it may appear to us,[33] the operation would be spoiled--the
shampooing would be impossible, and the epidermis would not come off;
this I know by experience. The explanation may be, that the alkali of
the soap combines chemically with the oily matter, and the epidermis
loses the consistency it must have to be detached by rolling. A large
wooden bowl is now brought; in it is a lump of soap with a sort of
powder-puff of _liff_,[34] for lathering. Beginning by the head, the
body is copiously soaped and washed twice, and part of the contents
of the bowl is left for you to conclude and complete the operation
yourself. Then approaches an acolyte, with a pile of hot folded _futas_
on his head, he holding a dry cloth spread out in front--you rise,
having detached the cloth from your waist, and holding it before you:
at that moment another attendant dashes on you a bowl of hot water. You
drop your wet cloth; the dry one is passed round your waist, another
over your shoulders; each arm is seized; you are led a step or two and
seated; the shoulder cloth is taken off, another put on, the first over
it; another is folded round the head; your feet are already in the
wooden pattens. You are wished health; you return the salute, rise, and
are conducted by both arms to the outer hall.
I must not here omit all mention of an interlude in which Europeans
take no part. The Mussulmans get rid of superfluous hair by shaving or
depilation.[35] The depilatory is composed of orpiment and quick lime,
called in Turkish _ot_, in Arabic _dewa_. The bather retires to a cell
without door, but at the entrance of which he suspends his waist towel;
the bath-man brings him a razor, if he prefers it, or a lump of the
_ot_ about the size of a walnut. In two or three minutes after applying
it the hair is ready to come off, and a couple of bowls of water leave
the skin entirely bare, not without a flush from the corrosiveness of
the preparation.[36]
The platform round the hall is raised and divided by low balustrades
into little compartments, where the couches of repose are arranged, so
that while having the uninterrupted view all round, parties or families
may be by themselves. This is the time and place for meals. The bather
having reached this apartment is conducted to the edge of the platform,
to which there is only one high step. You drop the wooden patten, and
on the matting a towel is spread anticipating your foot-fall. The couch
is in the form of a letter M.[37] spread out, and as you rest on it the
weight is everywhere directly supported--every tendon, every muscle
is relaxed; the mattress fitting, as it were, into the skeleton:
there is total inaction, and the body appears to be suspended.[38] The
attendants then re-appear, and gliding like noiseless shadows, stand
in a row before you. The coffee is poured out and presented: the pipe
follows; or, if so disposed, you may have sherbet or fruit; the sweet
or water melons are preferred, and they come in piles of lumps large
enough for a mouthful; or you may send and get kebobs on a skewer; and
if inclined to make a positive meal at the bath, this is the time.
The hall is open to the heavens, but nevertheless a boy with a fan of
feathers, or a napkin, drives the cool air upon you. The Turks have
given up the cold immersion of the Romans, yet so much as this they
have retained of it, and which realizes the end which the Romans had
in view to prevent the after breaking out of the perspiration; but
it is still a practice amongst the Turks to have cold water thrown
upon the feet. The nails of hands and feet are dexterously pared with
a sort of oblique chisel; any callosities that remain on the feet
are rubbed down: during this time the linen is twice changed.[39]
These operations do not interrupt the chafing of the soles,[40] and
the gentle putting on of the outside of the folds of linen which I
have mentioned in the first stage. The body has come forth shining
like alabaster, fragrant as the cistus, sleek as satin, and soft as
velvet. The touch of your own skin is electric. Buffon has a wonderful
description of Adam’s surprise and delight at his first touch of
himself. It is the description of the human sense when the body is
brought back to its purity. The body thus renewed, the spirit wanders
abroad, and reviewing its tenement rejoices to find it clean and
tranquil. There is an intoxication or dream that lifts you out of the
flesh, and yet a sense of life and consciousness that spreads through
every member. Each breastful of air seems to pass, not to the heart
but to the brain, and to quench, not the pulsations of the one, but
the fancies of the other. That exaltation which requires the slumber
of the senses--that vividness of sense that drowns the visions of the
spirit--are simultaneously engaged in calm and unspeakable luxury:
you condense the pleasures of many scenes, and enjoy in an hour the
existence of years.
But “this too will pass.”[41] The visions fade, the speed of the blood
thickens, the breath of the pores is checked, the crispness of the skin
returns, the fountains of strength are opened; you seek again the world
and its toils; and those who experience these effects and vicissitudes
for the first time exclaim, “I feel as if I could leap over the moon.”
Paying your pence according to the tariff of your deserts, you walk
forth a king from the gates which you had entered a beggar.
This chief of luxuries is common, in a barbarous land and under a
despotism, to every man, woman, and child; to the poorest as to the
richest, and to the richest no otherwise and no better than to the
poorest.[42] But how is it paid for? How can it be within the reach
of the poor? They pay according to their means. What each person
gives is put into a common stock; the box is opened once a week, and
the distribution of the contents is made according to a scale: the
master of the bath comes in for his share just like the rest. A person
of distinction will give a pound or more; the common price that, at
Constantinople, a tradesman would pay, was from tenpence to a shilling,
workmen from twopence to threepence. In a village near Constantinople,
where I spent some months, the charge for men was a halfpenny,[43] for
women three farthings. A poor person will lay down a few parahs to show
that he has not more to give, and where the poor man is so treated he
will give as much as he can. He will not, like the poor Roman, have
access alone, but his cup of coffee and a portion of the service like
the rest.[44] Such rules are not to be established, but such habits
may be destroyed by laws.
This I have observed, that wherever the bath is used it is not confined
to any class of the community, as if it was felt to be too good a thing
to be denied to any.
I must now conduct the reader into the Moorish bath. First, there was
no bath linen. They go in naked. Then there is but one room, under
which there is an oven, and a pot, open into the bath, is boiling on
the fire below. There were no pattens--the floor burning hot--so we
got boards. At once the operation commenced, which is analogous to the
glove. There was a dish of gazule, for the shampooer to rub his hands
in. I was seated on the board, with my legs straight out before me; the
shampooer seated himself on the same board behind me, stretching out
his legs. He then made me close my fingers upon the toes of his feet,
by which he got a purchase against me, and rubbing his hands in the
gazule, commenced upon the middle of my back, with a sharp motion up
and down, between beating and rubbing, his hands working in opposite
directions. After rubbing in this way the back, he pulled my arms
through his own and through each other, twisting me about in the most
extraordinary manner, and drawing his fingers across the region of the
diaphragm, so as to make me, a practised bather, shriek. After rubbing
in this way the skin, and stretching at the same time the joints of
my upper body, he came and placed himself at my feet, dealing with my
legs in like manner. Then thrice taking each leg and lifting it up, he
placed his head under the calf, and raising himself, scraped the leg as
with a rough brush, for his shaved head had the grain downwards. The
operation concluded by his biting my heel.
The bath becomes a second nature, and long privation so increases the
zest, that I was not disposed to be critical; but, if by an effort of
the imagination I could transport the Moorish bath to Constantinople,
and had then to choose between the hamâm of Eshi Serai or my own
at home, and this one of the Moors, I must say, I never should see
the inside of a Moorish bath again. It certainly does clear off the
epidermis, work the flesh, excite the skin, set at work the absorbent
and exuding vessels, raise the temperature, apply moisture;--but the
refinements and luxuries are wanting.
A great deal of learning has been expended upon the baths of the
ancients, and a melancholy exhibition it is--so much acuteness and
research, and no profit. The details of these wonderful structures,
the evidences of their usefulness, have prompted no prince, no people
of Europe to imitate them, and so acquire honour for the one, health
for the other. The writers, indeed, present not living practices, but
cold and ill-assorted details, as men must do who profess to describe
what they themselves do not comprehend. From what I have said, the
identity of the Turkish bath, with that of the Romans, will be at once
perceived, and the apparent discrepancies and differences explained.
The _apodyterium_ is the _mustaby_ or entrance-hall; after this comes
the sweating-apartment, subdivided by difference of degrees. Then two
operations are performed, shampooing, and the clearing off of the
epidermis. The Romans had in the _tepidarium_ and the _sudatorium_
distinct attendants for the two operations; the first shampooer
receiving the appropriate name of _tractator_; the others, who used the
strigil, which was equivalent to the glove, being called _suppetones_.
The appearance of the strigil in no way alters the character of the
operation. They used sponges also for rubbing down, like the Moorish
gazule. They used no soap; neither do the Moors;--the Turks use it
after the operation is concluded. The _Laconicum_ I understood when
I saw the Moorish bath, with the pot of water, heated from the fire
below, boiling up into the bath. I then recollected that there is in
the Turkish baths an opening, by which the steam from the boilers can
be let in, although not frequently so used, nor equally placed within
observation. Many of the Turkish baths have, doubtless, been originally
Greek. The change in respect to the use of cold water is compensated
for[45] by the cold air of the outer room, into which the Turks come,
and is preserved in the partial use of cold water for the feet. The
hot-water reservoirs, the _labrum_ and _solium_, are still to be seen
in the private baths; they are in those of the Alhambra. When used,
the character of running water, an essential point among the Turks,
is given to them, by a hole being left below, which is unplugged,
and a stream kept running in above from a cock. It would appear that
the Romans followed the same method. The _piscinum_ of the Romans
is found in the Moorish gardens. In the use of depilatories, or the
shaving off the hair, the practice of the Turks is exactly that of the
Romans; the parts of the bath appropriated to that purpose being the
same. The _olearea_ are alone wanting. The Mussulmans would consider
this smearing of the body with oil or ointments not as a part of the
bath, but a defilement, for which the purification of the bath was
requisite.[46]
The Romans used the bath to excess, taking it daily; the Mussulmans
restricted its use to once a-week. The Romans entered the bath
naked; the Mussulmans have introduced a bathing costume; the Romans
allowed the two sexes to enter promiscuously, the Mussulmans have
wholly separated them. Preserving the good, they have purified it
from excesses, which, to a people of less discrimination, might have
appeared to constitute its essential characters, or to be entailed as
its necessary consequences. Our studies and learning have furnished
us with no such results. These very excesses have been assigned as
a reason for the disuse of the bath by the early Christians. If the
explanation were true, the difference between the Christians and the
Mussulmans would amount to this, that the first could see and reject
the evil, the second perceive and select the good.
There is one point connected with the bath on which I must say a
few words, especially as in this case our usages do not present any
obstacle to the adoption of a good habit, and I have repeatedly had the
gratification of finding that the suggestions which follow were of use.
Those who wash the rest of their body, often except the head;--the
practice of smearing it with oil almost universally prevails. The
Easterns do the reverse--they shave it. A greater comfort there cannot
be than a bald pate. Washing the head is in no case prejudicial. Unless
you wash the head, the washing of the body is neither complete nor
satisfactory: the refreshment of washing the head may often be procured
when it is impossible to wash the body. Soap and water are injurious,
not to the hair, but to the hair-dressers. The men in the East have
no hair to show, but if soap and water injure the hair, whence comes
the luxuriant abundance of that of the women? The hair of the head,
like the fur of animals, is made to bear rain and wind, and to be a
protection against them. You cover it up! The fur of animals thickens
and strengthens when exposed to air and wet. Your hair falls off, and
you oil it. If it grows weak, change its habits. If it is not washed,
and if it is oiled, begin to wash it, and leave off oiling it.
Every week an Eastern lady has her hair thoroughly washed at the bath.
It is first well soaped and rubbed. They are very particular about
soap, and use none but that made of olive oil. The Castile soap,
which in this country is sold at the apothecary’s, is the soap the
least injurious to the skin. This is twice repeated. After the soap,
they apply a paste of Armenian bole and rose-leaves. This is rubbed
into the roots of the hair, and left to imbibe all the grease of the
head; it is then, like the soap, washed off with bowls of hot water,
and leaves the locks perfectly clean and silken. From time to time
they dye it. On these occasions an attendant mixes up a handful of
henna-dust in hot water, and thoroughly smears with it the hair, which
is then turned up into a ball and bound tightly with a napkin. In this
state they go through the bath. When the napkin is removed, and the
henna-paste washed out, the hair, if before black, will have become of
a bronze auburn, and if grey, red. The bath occupies from three to four
hours, with the smoking, chatting, music, and dancing, which accompany
it, in an atmosphere that excludes every unpleasant sensation. The
women are not, like the men, contented with the bathing-linen and
apparatus, which they find there; but are followed by female slaves,
who bear bundles of towels in silk and satin wrappers, boxwood pattens,
incrusted with mother of pearl, silver basins and bowls, or sometimes
enamelled ones, and aloe-wood and ambergris to perfume both the
apartment and their coffee. This finery is less than what they indulge
in in their private baths.
The Romans and Greeks, in like manner, were accompanied by their
slaves, and did not trust to the service of the _thermæ_. Each person
brought his strigil and his anointing vase (strigilis et ampulla,
λήκυθος καὶ ξύστρα [lêkythos kai xystra]),[47] or sent them by his
slave. The practice furnishes the familiar metaphors which express the
different conditions.[48] The strigil was the sign of comfort, and
also of sobriety and industry. It was, according to Cicero, necessary
to the happiness of the Roman citizen; it had to do with the fortunes
of the Roman state. Rome was indebted to her strigil as well as her
sword for the conquest of the world.
This constant washing occasions, it may be supposed, an enormous waste
of water. A Turk uses less water than an English gentleman. It is
true, every Turk, high and low, uses the same quantity, and washes in
the same manner; but the utensils and conveniences are differently
adapted. There are no wash-hand basins and ewers in bedrooms, no
foot-pans, hip-baths, shower-baths, &c. They do not dabble in dirty
water, defiling a great quantity. They wash under a stream of water,
running from a fountain, urn, or ewer. A handful serves to moisten
the soap and to rub with it, and a couple more rinse it completely
off. The fountains are placed in the passages, staircases, &c. By the
mosques, and in the streets, they are so arranged that, by sitting on a
step, you can wash the feet and the head. When you wash in a room, one
attendant brings the basin, _laen_, with its pierced cover and kneels
before you; another the ewer, _ibrik_, with its long, narrow neck to
pour the water.[49] In the bath, steam and perspiration cleanse, and
two or three large saucerfuls suffice for rinsing;--fifty persons may
be bathed with the water that serves to fill our trough for washing one.
What a difference it makes in domestic comfort to be certain that every
person around you, and every thing you touch and eat are absolutely
clean! After this manner of life, the habits of Europe are most
painful: you are constantly oppressed with the touch, or sight, or
knowledge of things which, by the European, are not considered clean,
and submitted to as unavoidable. It would but faintly describe my
impressions to say, that I felt as if passing from a refined to a rude
condition of society. Neither do we know how to cultivate or handle the
body. One of the first thoughts was, “What shall I do in sickness?” All
Europe’s seductions and luxuries put together will not make up for this
one.
The European is clean, in so far as he is so, for appearance; he has
clothes and shoe-brushes, blacking, starch, smoothing-irons, &c.; in
these consist his _neatness_.[50] The clean shirt is put upon the
dirty body; the hands and face being alone open to the air and sun
and the eyes of the neighbours, are washed. Nothing is filthy that is
unseen.[51] The Eastern has no brush or blacking; no care is expended
or expense incurred for neatness. He has his religious ablutions for
prayer.[52] He will not tell you that he washes for his comfort or his
health, but because it would be a sin not to do so.
Whatever proceeds from the body is impure; to touch anything with it is
sinful, were it even a beast. To spit on a dog is wicked.[53] If by act
or accident the Mussulman is rendered unclean he has to wash himself.
The soiling of his carpet may entail the ablution of the whole body;
while it remains unperformed he is _ipso facto_ excommunicated--can
take part in no ceremony, say no prayer. He is strictly in the
scriptural sense “unclean.” All injunctions of the same sort are in
like manner enforced. These are the first lessons taught the child,
and become a second nature; and, re-acting on the belief from which
they spring, give to it that surprising hold over the mind. They pass
through life, generation after generation, without probably a single
instance of the infringement of rules brought into operation every hour
of the day.
Following the instinct of the dog, and obeying the injunction of the
ceremonial law,[54] their canon law inhibits defilement of the public
roads, the streets, water-tanks and courses, fruit-trees, and any
places which serve for resort, shade, repose, or retreat.[55] In “Hadji
Baba” is a ludicrous account of the perplexities of a Persian in one of
the modern adaptations of civilization to cleanliness--his ineffectual
attempts to get at the gushing water, his inability to work the
machinery or comprehend the purpose. In that part of their house there
is a water-cock for use. The flooring is of marble--the water falls and
runs, and high wooden pattens are used. The outer cloth garments are
left outside--the ample sleeves are tucked up. If there be no fixed
pipe a ewer is at hand, and a servant waits outside with basin, ewer,
and napkin. In consequence of the offices attached to every mosque,
their cities do not present offensive smells, disgusting filth and
revolting indecency. One hand is set apart for noble, the other for
ignoble service. The left hand on its dying day has not so much as
touched the mouth; the right is in equal ignorance of other parts of
the body. This is the natural sense of the words: “Let not thy right
hand know what thy left hand doeth.”[56]
I have not hesitated to allude to matters which our false refinement
forbids to mention, and thus the sensibility given us to put away what
is impure is diverted merely to its concealment. The reader must fill
up this faint sketch from his imagination, and when he has done so, he
will understand why an Eastern cannot endure Europe, and why Christians
amongst Mussulmans are called “dogs.”[57]
Why should the ladies of the East have enjoyments from which ours are
debarred, and sensations too of which they know nothing? It may be said
the Turkish ladies so make up for their “exclusion from society:”--they
have no balls or operas, morning concerts or fancy fairs, and therefore
they take up with these merely sensual indulgences. They would no more
exchange their bath for your balls, than you would your balls for a
Yankee camp-meeting. There is no necessity for exchange. Why not have
both? Would it be no comfort, no pleasure, no benefit to an English
lady, on returning from a ball, and before going to bed, to be able,
divested of whalebone and crinoline, and robed as an Atalanta, to enter
marble chambers with mosaic floors, and be refreshed and purified from
the toil she has undergone, and prepared for the soft enjoyment of the
rest she seeks? The hanging gardens of Babylon were devised by the love
of Nature of a Median woman; the palaces and groves of the Azahra laid
out by the taste of a Numidian:--why should not England owe to the
delicacy of an Englishwoman[58] the restoration of the _thermæ_?
Our intercourse with the lower orders is broken off by there being
no settled occasion on which we are in contact with them, and by the
want of cleanliness in their persons. Here both classes are constantly
brought into the presence of each other. Contempt and distaste are
removed on one side, degradation and irritation on the other: they know
one another: the intercourse of various ranks requires and sustains a
style and demeanour which strike all Europeans, who are astonished
that the bearing of the peasant is as courtly as that of the Pasha:
he is as clean as the Pasha. Think of a country where difference of
rank makes no difference of cleanliness! What must Easterns think
of us where the difference of condition can be traced--in speech,
manner, and washing. The bath is of as great value to the society
as to the individual. A political economist, glorifying his age,
exclaims--“Augustus in all his splendour had neither glass for his
window nor a shirt to his back.” The slave and the beggar in Rome were
daily in the enjoyment of luxuries which no European monarch knows.
There is an impression that the bath is weakening. We can test this
in three ways; its effects on those debilitated by disease, on those
exhausted by fatigue, and on those who are long exposed to it.
1. In affection of the lungs and intermittent fever, the bath
is invariably had recourse to against the debilitating nightly
perspirations. The temperature is kept low, not to increase the action
of the heart or the secretions; this danger avoided, its effect is to
subdue by a healthy perspiration in a waking state the unhealthy one
in sleep. No one ever heard of any injury from the bath. The moment a
person is ailing he is hurried off to it.
2. After long and severe fatigue--that fatigue such as we never
know--successive days and nights on horseback--the bath affords the
most astonishing relief. Having performed long journeys on horseback,
even to the extent of ninety-four hours, without taking rest, I know by
experience its effects in the extremest cases.
A Tartar, having an hour to rest, prefers a bath to sleep. He enters
as if drugged with opium, and leaves it, his senses cleared, and his
strength restored as much as if he had slept for several hours. This
is not to be attributed to the heat or moisture alone, but to the
shampooing, which in such cases is of an extraordinary nature. The
Tartar sits down and doubles himself up; the shampooer (and he selects
the most powerful man) then springs with his feet on his shoulders,
cracking his vertebræ; with all his force and weight he pummels the
whole back, and then turning him on his back and face, aided by a
second shampooer, tramples on his body and limbs: the Tartar then
lays himself down for half an hour; and, perhaps, though that is not
necessary, sleeps. Well can I recall the hamâm doors which I have
entered, scarcely able to drag one limb after the other, and from which
I have sprung into my saddle again, elastic as a sinew and light as a
feather.
You will see a _Hammal_ (porter), a man living only on rice, go out of
one of those baths where he has been pouring with that perspiration
which we think must prostrate and weaken, and take up his load of five
hundred-weight, placing it unaided on his back.
3. The shampooers spend eight hours daily in the steam; they undergo
great labour there, shampooing, perhaps, a dozen persons, and are
remarkably healthy. They enter the bath at eight years of age: the
duties of the younger portion are light, and chiefly outside in the
hall to which the bathers retire after the bath; still, there they are
from that tender age exposed to the steam and heat, so as to have their
strength broken, if the bath were debilitating. The best shampooer
under whose hands I have ever been, was a man whose age was given me as
ninety, and who, from eight years of age, had been daily eight hours in
the bath. This was at the natural baths of Sophia. I might adduce in
like manner the sugar-bakers in London, who in a temperature not less
than that of the bath, undergo great fatigue, and are also remarkably
healthy.
The Romans furnish another example. Unlike the Arabs, who restrict
its use to once a week, they went into it daily. The temperature was
gradually raised, until in the time of Nero it came to be excessive.
Their habits in other respects were not such as to be conducive to
health, and must have disqualified them for enduring the bath: if it
did debilitate, it served therefore as an antidote to their manner of
life, and relieved the excess of the Patrician, as it does to-day the
fatigue of the Tartar.
Life is chemical and galvanic, but both these agencies result in, and
depend upon, motion: the vessels are constructed for conveying fluids,
the muscles for generating power. Thus, shampooing exerts over the
human body a power analogous to that of drugs administered by the
mouth. A blow which kills, a posture which benumbs;--pressure, which in
long disease becomes a chief obstacle to recovery, exercise which gives
health and strength--are all evidences of the influence of motion over
our system.
Who has not experienced in headaches and other pains, relief from the
most unartful rubbing? You receive a blow, and involuntarily rub the
part. Cold will kill; the remedy is brandy and friction. The resources
of this process surely deserve to be developed with as much care as
that which has been bestowed upon the Materia Medica. Where practised,
human suffering is relieved, obstructions are removed, indigestion
is cured, paralysis and diseases of the spine, &c., arising from the
loss of muscular power, are within its reach, while they are not under
the control of our medicines. Here is a new method to add to the
old. Wherever it can be employed, how much is it to be preferred to
nauseating substances taken into the stomach; how much must the common
practice of it tend to preserve the vitality of the whole frame! Even
if disregarded as an enjoyment of health, it offers a solace which
ought to be invaluable in the eye of a medical man, as of course it
must be of the patient. We have all to play that part.
Where the practice is familiar, it is used not merely in the bath,
but upon all occasions. It is to be found without the bath, as among
the Hindoos, some Tartar tribes, the Chinese, and the Sandwich
islands:--the latter presents one of the most remarkable of phenomena.
The different ranks are those of different stature. The chiefs are
sunk in sloth and immorality; and yet it is not they, who, like the
grandees of Spain, are the diminutive and decrepit race;--they are
shampooed.[59] A practice which our epicures and our stoics, our
patients and our doctors, would turn up the nose at, counteracts the
consequences of gluttony, intoxication, debauchery, and sloth, and
supplies the place of exercise and temperance; and a people which can
boast no school of philosophy, whose nostrils have never been regaled
by the compounds of Beauvilliers, and whose pulse has never been
stretched out to a Halden, is able to combine the health of the Brahmin
with the indulgence of the Sybarite, and the frame of the gymnast with
the habits of the hog.
Turner in his Embassy to Thibet, (p. 84), describes the gylong or
class of priests, as “more athletic” than their countrymen, although
they “lead a life in an extreme degree sedentary and recluse.” They
perform ablutions in which their compatriots do not join. The physical
superiority of the aristocracy of England may be owing to a similar
cause, cleanliness being with us a mark of station.
In Denmark, shampooing has recently been hit upon as a scientific
process, and a college has been instituted, as I understand, with
considerable success, for the practice of what they are pleased to call
_medicina mechanica_.
What am I to say of our medical science, what of our medical
practitioners, what of our philanthropy, what of our selfishness, in
not having the bath as a means of curing disease?[60] Never was a
people more heroically self-denying or extravagantly insensate. We
must love the racking of pain, the flavour of drugs, and the totals of
apothecaries’ bills; for with our classical acquirements and love of
travel, we cannot be ignorant, that all maladies, with the exception
of epidemical ones, were less common in Rome than in modern London,
notwithstanding our many advantages from the improved state of medical
knowledge; and that several painful diseases common amongst us were
exceedingly rare amongst the ancients, and are almost unknown in
Mahometan countries. There are those who are of opinion that contagious
disorders, “dreadful scourges of the human race, might never have taken
root, nor if they had, would now be spread so widely, had the hot bath
been in use amongst us.”[61]
The human body is formed for labour, and requires it, and this labour
is accompanied by perspiration. It is the safety-valve for the heart,
the sewer for the secretions; the scavenger for the skin. Those who are
thrown repeatedly into perspiration, possess, however seldom washed,
many advantages over those who have not to undergo severe bodily toil,
however often they may use soap and water to the surface.
The bath substitutes an artificial and easy perspiration, and this
explains the extraordinary fact, that the people who use it do not
require exercise for health, and can pass from the extreme of indolence
to that of toil.
The functions for carrying on life are of the nature of a steam-engine,
and a chemical apparatus: lethal gases are given forth as from a
furnace; poisons are produced by every organ; from every function there
is residuum, and the body, while soiled by labour, is rusted by repose.
This rust, this residuum deposits on the skin.
The extremities of the vessels become charged with unctuous matter;
the deadened cellules of the epidermis are covered with a varnish,
which is partly insoluble in water, and this internal accumulation and
external coating prevent the skin from performing its functions, which
are not confined to those of shielding the body, but are essential
to the chemical processes within. The skin has analogous duties to
those of the lungs, supplying oxygen to the blood at the extremity of
its course, and when most completely in need of it. It has to aid at
the same time the action of the heart. In its health is their health,
and its health is cleanliness. Unlike the two other organs, it is
placed within man’s reach, and confided to his care; and curiously
interspersed through it are glands secreting peculiar odours, that the
touch and sight shall not alone warn, but a third sense be enlisted in
this guardianship, crying aloud on every remissness, and charging and
reciprocating every neglect.[62]
The Russians come out of a bath of 120° to roll themselves in the snow.
This we explained by the fervour of the circulation, which enables
them to withstand the shock. If so, the strong and healthy might bear
it--not the weak and suffering, the octogenarian and the child. The
sudden passage from a Russian bath[63] to a glacial atmosphere, is
attended by neither shock nor danger; and far from the oppression that
would result from the absorption of vital action in the efforts of the
heart to overcome the violent contraction of the circulation, by the
cold, there is a sense of ineffable relief. You seem to take in and
throw forth your breath in mere playfulness, no longer dependent upon
it momentarily for life. In fact, the lungs and heart are discharged in
part from the toil of that unceasing labour, which, beginning with the
cradle, ends with the grave. Of what service must it not be to aid a
machine, the efforts of which, in the most delicate girl, are equal to
a steam-engine of fourteen horse-power?[64]
Who can reflect on this, and be content with mere wonder, nor bethink
himself of the means by which the purposes of Nature can be aided, and
the gifts of Providence enjoyed?[65]
The bath has the effect of several classes of medicines; that is to
say, it removes the symptoms for which they are administered; thus, it
is a cathartic, a diuretic, a tonic, a detersive, a narcotic; but the
effect is produced only when there is cause. It will bring sleep to the
patient suffering from insomnia, but will not, like opium, make the
healthy man drowsy; and relieve constipation without bringing on the
healthy--as aloes would--diarrhœa: it is thus a drug, which administers
itself according to the need, and brings no after-consequences.
The opium-like effect has often been remarked, and I have repeatedly
experienced after the bath sensations like those it produces. If it
has not the same power in relieving bodily pain, it has unquestionably
that of assuaging mental suffering. It is quite as natural an impulse
amongst Easterns, to seek the bath when they are labouring under
affliction as when disposed to give way to gladness. And this may be
considered as one part of its curative virtues, having the faculty of
calming the disturbed spirit without extinguishing, and indeed while
increasing, the dispositions to cheerfulness.
Reader! consider that this is not a drug in a shop, to be exhibited by
prescription after a visit to a patient. It would be something if I
suggested a new simple, or an improved plan of administering a known
remedy in any one disorder. It would be much by such a suggestion to
diminish in a few cases the pains of sciatica or of rheumatism, the
tortures of gout or stone; what I suggest, is a _habit_, one which
shall become, when adopted, that of the whole people.
A bath might be had for one quarter of the price of a glass of gin; for
we have water in more abundance, and at a cheaper rate than at Rome.
To substantiate this estimate, I prepared some calculations, but
having visited the baths and washhouses recently established, I find
the case illustrated to my hand by practice, and affording an entire
confirmation of all, and more than all, that I have said. It is not
long since that there was not a hot bath to be got in London under
two shillings; what would then have been said if any one had had the
hardihood to advance, that hot baths might be got for two-pence? and
that bathing establishments, charging from one penny for cold baths up
to sixpence, should become profitable concerns? Such nevertheless is
the fact. There is here no new idea, no new process, no new demands: it
has simply been suggested to build larger establishments, and to throw
them open at a smaller sum; so that we have hitherto been deprived of
these advantages through the partial blindness of those who have, in as
far as they do see, deplored the blindness of others, not thinking that
probably other films intercepted their own sight.
I will therefore take the result obtained in these baths and
wash-houses, as the basis of the calculation which I wish to establish.
For a thousand baths, the charge for water varies from twenty to
twenty-eight shillings; the coals for fuel from fifteen to thirty
shillings; the other charges from fifteen to twenty shillings. In all
these cases, the lower sum is of course above what the charge will be
when experience has pointed out improvements and economy. Taking the
most economical of these establishments, we have baths at the rate of
fifty shillings a thousand, that is, at a little more than a halfpenny
a piece. The allowance of water for each bath is forty-five gallons;
fuel enters for one-third into the charge: reducing these charges to
what would be incurred in the Turkish bath, there would be a saving of
eight-ninths for the water, and probably five-sixths for the fuel, and
an entire saving for the charge of attendance for the poorer classes,
(the σεαυτοὺς βαλνεύσουντες [seautous balneusountes]); thus we should
have on the thousand baths, the charge for water and fuel reduced
from thirty-five to five shillings; and the charge of attendance being
withdrawn from the poorer classes, the expense incurred would amount to
one penny for sixteen baths, or four baths for a farthing.
Here I am going upon the data supplied by these bathing establishments,
where the water is furnished to them at a very low price, namely,
fifteen shillings for the one thousand barrels, of thirty gallons,
and where the coals consumed are of an inferior quality, at nine
shillings a ton; and these are the points in which England and its
capital possess such great advantages. In these establishments they
can furnish between one and two thousand baths a-day, at an outlay
of 15_l._ or 16_l._ a-week; and as the experiment has so far so well
succeeded, two hundred of them would supply London, at the rate of a
bath to each person, weekly, for which the weekly expenditure would
be 3000_l._ or 150,000_l._ per annum, which would occasion a daily
use of 126,000,000 of gallons of water. In the Turkish manner, the
expenditure of water would be 15,000,000; and taking the proportionate
saving in fuel, there would be a saving of one half the outlay, or
75,000_l._ a-year; but, as the facility thus afforded, and the habits
so engendered, would lead in our climate, and in our circumstances,
to a much more frequent use of the bath than once a-week, and as it
would constantly be had recourse to by the lower orders, without their
going through the whole process, the establishments would have to be
proportionately larger, and the expenditure greater. At all events, it
is now no longer a theoretical matter: these baths are in use, and are
extending; and the question is, whether we shall introduce a perfect
instead of a defective method--an economical instead of an expensive
one. But, if this new charge be incurred, we have, on the other side,
to look forward to the possibility of retrenchments in consequence of
the altered habits of the people. The one that first presents itself
is the diminution of maladies, doctors’ and apothecaries’ fees and
drugs, loss of time from sickness, and attendance;--and here, to say
nothing of the different value of life, the saving for London alone
will have to be reckoned by millions. Next are temperance and sobriety.
At first sight the connection will not appear so immediate; it will,
however, be unquestionable to those familiar with countries where the
bath is in use. I know of no country, in ancient or modern times, where
habits of drunkenness have co-existed with the bath. Misery and cold
drive men to the gin-shop: if they had the bath--not the washing-tub,
but the sociable hamâm, to repair to--this, the great cause of
drunkenness, would be removed; and if this habit of cleanliness were
general, restraints would be imposed on such habits by the feelings of
self-respect engendered.
Gibbon has indulged in speculations on the consequences for Europe that
would have followed, had Charles Martel been defeated on the plains
of Tours. One of these effects would have been, that to-day in London
there would be no gin-palaces, and a thousand baths.
In London and its suburbs there are nearly two millions of inhabitants;
of these, one million and a half at least cannot afford those baths
which we use.[66] Deducting a fifth for infants under forty days
old, and persons confined to bed, there would remain twelve hundred
thousand, so that two hundred thousand bodies, which now carry their
filth from the cradle to the grave, would be daily washed. Judging
by the scale of prices at Constantinople[67] or Rome, the cost of a
bath might begin from one penny or twopence, and range upwards to five
shillings; striking the average at sixpence, we should have 5000_l._
daily, or 1,500,000_l._ per annum. An ordinary bath will accommodate
two hundred persons daily. At Constantinople, for a population of five
hundred thousand (Turks) three hundred are requisite. In Cordova, there
were nine hundred; in Alexandria, when taken by the Arabs, there were
four hundred. One thousand baths would be required for London, and each
would have for its support 1500_l._ a-year. The cost of erection would
be provided, as for hospitals, churches, &c., by foundation, donations,
bequests, subscriptions, or municipal charges.
The poor of England have never had an opportunity of knowing the
comfort which is derived on a cold day from the warmth imparted by such
an atmosphere. How many of the wretched inhabitants of London go to
their chilly homes in the winter months benumbed with cold, and with no
means of recovering their animal warmth but by resorting to spirits and
a public-house fire. The same sixpence which will only procure them a
quartern of the stimulant, which imparts but a momentary heat, would,
if so expended, obtain for them at once warmth and refreshment.
Do not run away with the idea that it is Islamism that prevents the
use of spirituous liquors; it is the bath. It satisfies the cravings
which lead to those indulgencies, it fills the period of necessary
relaxation, and it produces, with cleanliness, habits of self-respect,
which are incompatible with intoxication: it keeps the families united,
which prevents the squandering of money for such excesses. In Greece
and Rome, in their worst times, there was neither “blue ruin” nor
“double stout.”
The quantity of malt consumed in former days is referred to as a
test of relative well-being. This I do not deny; but there can be no
question that pure water is the most wholesome drink,[68] as it is
unquestionable, that if London were Mussulman, the operative, as the
rest of the population, would bathe regularly, have a better-dressed
dinner for his money, and prefer water to wine or brandy, gin or beer.
The bath, therefore, would secure at once cleanliness and temperance.
Where Christianity first appeared, cleanliness, like charity or
hospitality, was a condition of life. Christ and the apostles went
through the legal ablutions. When the relaxation took place at the
first council of Jerusalem, in favour of the Gentiles, these points
could never have been raised or called in question, for in this respect
the habits of the nations were in conformity with the Jewish law.
Reference is made to it in the fathers,[69] not as a practice only,
but as a duty.[70] In the primitive Church of England the bath was
a religious observance: the penitent was in some cases forbidden its
use; but then cold bathing was enjoined. Knighthood was originally a
religious institution, and the conferring of it is a church ceremony.
The aspirant knight _prepared himself by the bath_. The second
distinction which it is in the power of the Sovereign of England to
bestow, is entitled “The Order of the Bath.” Now, the Sovereign who
confers, and the knights who receive the title, never saw a real bath
in their lives.[71]
When tesselated pavements of Caldaria, or fragments of Laconicum and
Hypocaust come to light in our streets or fields, the modern Goth gazes
with the same stupid wonder, without the same respect[72] with which
the barbarians of this land look upon their fathers’ works;--you can
tell them the date of their ruins; they could explain to you the use of
yours. The Romans could recall the time when their fathers only washed
their hands and their feet;[73] the Turks, the time when their fathers
washed neither. We have to recall the times when our fathers knew what
it was thoroughly to be washed, and to be wholly clean; and, reversing
the experience of these people, and combining in our progress their
points of departure, we have arrived at washing hands and feet only, or
washing neither.
Britain received the bath from the Romans, Ireland from the
Phœnicians,[74] Hungary from the Turks, Spain from the Saracens[75]--
everywhere it has disappeared. In Greece it was as common as in
Turkey. Greece became independent, and the bath took wing.[76]
Everywhere throughout Europe the point of departure is cleanliness,
the result of progress is filth. How is it that a habit so cleanly,
associated with edifices so magnificent, leading to intercourse of the
classes of society so useful to the state, and conferring on the
poorer orders so large a measure of comforts and enjoyments, should
have disappeared, wherever light, learning, taste, liberality have
spread? When abstractions have got possession of the brain of a
people, you can no more reckon upon its tastes, than upon its acts.
“What ruler in modern times can make a comparison otherwise than
degrading to himself between the government over which he presides and
those of ancient Greece or Rome? Can he reflect, without taking shame
to himself, that the heads of the republics of Athens and Sparta, the
tribunes, ædiles, consuls, censors, and emperors of Rome, thought they
had not rendered the condition of the poor tolerable, unless they
had afforded them the gratuitous enjoyment of baths, theatres, and
games, to make them forget for some hours of the day the hardships and
privations which poverty brings with it? The boasted happiness of the
English common people (if, indeed, any one can be hardy enough to
vaunt it now-a-days) is infinitely lower than was that of the plebeians
of Greece or Rome.”[77]
The evils of our system do not spring from the violence of passion, but
from fallacies. We, of course, cannot grapple with our own fallacies;
therefore all that philanthropy and science can do, is to try to heal,
one by one, the sores which legislation engenders wholesale. The bath
is an idea which the simplest mind may grasp; it is a work which
industry, not genius, is required to accomplish. We found hospitals for
the sick, we open houses of refuge for the destitute; we have recently
been engaged in finding nightly shelter for the homeless; wash-houses
have even been established. How many are anxious to find some sort of
holiday, or innocent recreation, for the classes, whose commons we have
enclosed, and whose festivities we have put down;--how many seek to
raise the lower orders in the moral and social scale? A war is waged
against drunkenness, immorality, and filthiness in every shape. Here
is the effectual weapon!--here is an easy and a certain cure! It is no
speculation or theory; if it were so, it would easily find apostles and
believers.
The good-will and means that run to waste through our not knowing how
to be clean, are enormous. A small town in the New Forest, with Roman
daring, planned a bath as a work of public utility, but built it with
English coin, of which it took 8000_l._ There are steam-apparatus,
reservoirs for sea-water,[78] &c. It was a model bathing establishment.
It is now selling as bricks and old iron! Close by there are large
boilers for evaporating salt, over which, at the cost of a few planks,
a Russian vapour-bath might have been had. The use of the vapour was
not unknown. There were persons who repaired thither for cutaneous and
other disorders, and were cured.
Consider the heat and steam throughout the manufactories of England,
which the instinct of a Russian boor, or Laplander, or Red Indian would
apply for the benefit of the miserable population engaged in those
works, and now allowed to run to sheer waste. The filthiest population
exists, with the most extensive means of cleanliness. A nation that
boasts of its steam, that is puffed up with its steam, that goes by
steam, does not know how to use steam to wash its body, even when it
may be had gratis.
The people that has not devised the bath, cannot deserve the character
of refinement, and (having the opportunity) that does not adopt it,
that of sense. Servility, however, we do possess, and any person
of distinction has it in his power to introduce it. That which all
despise, when only a thing of use, will be by all rushed after when it
becomes a matter of fashion. The sight of a bath of a new fashion,
and enjoyed by another people, has impelled me to make this endeavour
to regain it for my own. Is Europe ever to remain on the map the
black spot of filth? Can she owe the bath only to the Roman sword or
Moorish spear? Must she now await the Cossack lance? After ridicule for
warning, the day may come that I shall suffer reproach for deprecating
the event, and it will be said to me, “_These_ barbarians, who,
Providence-like, have come to compose our troubles; Roman-like, to
teach us to be clean.”
[17] A bronze statue of a bather by Lysippus was
removed by Tiberius from the baths of Agrippa to his
own palace, and placed in his bedroom. The Roman people
“infested the emperor with reproaches and hootings
whenever he appeared in public, till their Apozymenos
was restored to them.”--PLINY’S _Nat. His._ b.
xxxiv. c. 35.
[18] “Nisi ad illam vitam quæ cum virtute degatur
ampulla aut strigiles acceperit.”--CICERO, _De Fin._ l.
iv. sec. 12.
[19] Balnea, vina, Venus consumunt corpora nostra,
Sed faciunt vitam balnea, vina, Venus.--MARTIAL.
[20] Returning on one occasion to Europe by
Belgrade, I brought some Turks by the steamer up to
Vienna to show them a little of Europe. After a night
on board, my _levée_ proved an awkward business. In a
Turkish household all the servants attend their master
while he dresses. That is the time to prefer petitions
and make complaints. Every one is there, and may say
what he likes. On the morning in question, they were
mute as statues; knowing the cause, I dared not look at
them. They had seen the Europeans _wash_. Silence being
at length broken, they began to narrate what they had
seen. Among other jottings for a book of travels they
would have mentioned, that a _priest_ had taken water
in his mouth, and then slobbered it over his face. I
told them that these were not my countrymen, and asked
them if they had not seen the two English officers wash
(I had observed from the single cabin on deck, which
the captain had given up to me, canteen dishes, soap,
towels, &c., going down for them); after a pause one of
my Turks said, “_Zavale belmester_. The unfortunates!
they don’t know how!”
[21] Under the Jewish dispensation the body of
man was held unclean, but not that of beasts. The
observances of the ceremonial law were directed to
awaken our sensibilities to expel the impurities
attendant on every function.
[22] In the _Jassi_ of Tchengis Khan, washing of
the clothes was forbidden, and of the hands or person
in running water: he denied that any thing was unclean.
[23] Pliny, urging on Trajan the repairing of the
bath of Brusa, says, “The dignity of the city and the
splendour of your reign require it.”--l. x. c. 25.
[24] The Turkish is the poorest language in
vocables; the most powerful in construction. The verb
not rules only, but sustains the sentence: it is
dramatic philology.
[25] One of the luxuries of the Roman baths
consisted in their brightness, the command of the
prospect around, and in various strange contrivances.
By one of these, the bather, while swimming in warm
water, could see the sea; by another, the figures of
the bathers within, were seen magnified without. “They
were not content unless they were coloured as well as
washed,” says Seneca (_Epist._ 87).
Multus ubique dies radiis ubi culmina totis,
Perforat, atque alio sol improbus uritur æstu.
STAT. lib. i.
This excess of light in a bath, savours of
indecency (See Suedon. Apoll. lib. ii. epist. 2). It
was not the early practice of Rome, nor certainly
of those from whom the Romans took the bath. “Our
ancestors,” says Seneca, “did not believe a bath to be
warm unless it was obscure.”
“Redde Lupi nobis tenebrosaque balnea Grilli.”--MART.
i. 60.
[26] The Roman expression, “quasi locus in
balneis,” was equivalent to “first come, first served.”
[27] The bathing-men give signals for what they
want, by striking with the hand on the hollow of the
side.
[28] “Let the air of all the rooms he neither
particularly hot nor cold, but of a proper
temperature, and middling moist; which will be
effected by plentifully pouring temperate water
from the cistern, so that it may flow through every
room.”--GALEN. _Therap. Meth._ lib. x.
[29] “Percurrit agili corpus arte tractatrix
manumque doctum spargit omnibus membris.”--_Mart._ iii.
82.
The _tractatrix_ was the female shampooer.
[30] “Et summum dominæ femur exclamare coegit.”--JUVENAL,
SAT. vi. v. 422.
[31] These basins are the _pelves_ of the Romans.
[32] “The _strigil_ was used after bathing, to
_remove the perspiration_. The hollow part was to hold
oil to soften the skin, or to allow the scraped grease
to run off.”--DENNIS, vol. ii. p. 426.
[33] Whenever our writers touch on these matters,
they fall into inevitable confusion.
“In the baths of the East, the bodies are cleansed
by small bags of camels’ hair woven rough, or with
a handful of the fine fibres of the Mekha palm-tree
combed soft, and filled with fragrant saponaceous
earths, which are rubbed on the skin, till the whole
body is covered with froth. Similar means were
employed in the baths of Greece, and the whole was
afterwards cleansed off the skin by gold or silver
_strigils_.”--_Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece_,
J. A. ST. JOHN, vol. ii. p. 89.
[34] Nut of the palm, and consequently hard and not
fit to use on the person. The Moors, though they do
not use soap in the bath, always use their soft _liff_
with their soft soap, which practice the Turks have
imperfectly followed.
[35] “Toutes les femmes Mahometanes sont dans
l’habitude de s’épiler, et cela encore par principe
religieux. Elles y emploient une argile très fine
(oth) d’une qualité mordante, les hommes en font
de même. Le plus grand nombre cependant se sert du
rasoir.”--D’OHSSON, vol. ii. p. 62.
[36] The Romans had the same practice, “Pilos
extirpare per psilothri medicamentum.”--PLINY. The
_terra Media_ was used, Dioscorides tells us, for
depilation.
[37] The _duretum_ introduced by Augustus at
Rome: “On trouve alors des lits delicieux: on s’y
repose avec volupté, on y éprouve un calme et un
bien-être difficiles à exprimer. C’est une sorte de
régénération, dont le charme est encore augmenté par
des boissons restaurantes, et surtout par un café
exquis.”--D’OHSSON, t. vii. p. 63.
[38] “Strange as it may appear, the Orientals,
both men and women, are passionately fond of indulging
in this formidable luxury; and almost every European
who has tried it, speaks with much satisfaction of the
result. When all is done, a soft and luxurious feeling
spreads itself over your body; every limb is light and
free as air; the marble-like smoothness of the skin is
delightful; and after all this pommelling, scrubbing,
racking, par-boiling, and perspiring, you feel more
enjoyment than ever you felt before.”--CHAPMAN AND
HALL’S _Library of Travel_.
[39] Galen (Method. Therap. l. x. c. 10,) says,
“Let then one of the servants throw over him a towel,
and being placed upon a couch let him be wiped with
sponges, and then with soft napkins.” How completely
this is the Turkish plan, one familiar with the bath
only will understand: explanation would be tedious.
[40] If you desire to be awakened at a certain
hour, you are not lugged by the shoulder or shouted at
in the ear; the soles of your feet are chafed, and you
wake up gently, and with an agreeable sensation. This
luxury is not confined to those who have attendants,
few or many; the street-porter is so awakened by his
wife, or child, or brother, and he in turn renders the
same service. The soles of the feet are exposed to a
severity of service which no other muscles have to
perform, and they require indulgent treatment; but with
us they receive none.
[41] Motto of the Vizir of Haroun el Raschid, when
required by his master to find one which should apply
at once to happiness or adversity.
[42] Volney once entered a Turkish bath, and in
horror and dismay, rushed out, and could never be
induced to enter one again. Lord Londonderry was more
submissive, and endured its tortures to the end; but
rejected the coffee, and pipes, and civilities then
proffered. He has given us a detail of his sufferings,
which appear to have been notional. Sir G. Wilkinson,
in his work on Thebes, cites them at length, and this
is all that he deems it requisite to tell the strangers
who arrive in Egypt, on the subject of the Hamâm.
[43] The charge at Rome was a quadrat, or one
farthing; children paid nothing.
“Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.”
JUVENAL, _Sat._ ii. v. 152.
In some baths it would appear that even grown
persons were admitted gratis.
“Balneum, quo usus fuisset, sine mercede exhibuit.”--JUL.
CAPIT.
[44] A poor man will go to the shambles and cut
off a bit of the meat that is hanging there, and the
butcher will take no notice of it. If he goes to have a
cup of coffee, and has not five parahs (one farthing),
he will lay his two or three on the counter, instead of
dropping them into the slit; the next customer will lay
down ten and sweep them in together.
[45] “On entering, they remain in the hot air,
after which they immerse themselves in hot water,
then they go into cold water, and then wipe off
the sweat. Those who do not go from the _sudatory_
at once into cold water, burst out on returning to
the dressing-room, into a second sweat, which at
first is immoderate, and then ceases and leaves them
chilly.”--GALEN, _Method. Med._ l. x. c. 2.
[46] While it is essential to cleanliness to clear
away the oily matter that exudes from the skin, the
oil afterwards applied to the cleansed body, seems to
be beneficial, and to keep open instead of closing the
pores.
[47] The two instruments were slung together. The
_guttus_ was round, and from its round flat orifice,
the oil distilled. _Guttatim tenticulari forma, terite
ambitu, pressula rotunditate._--APULEIUS. On coins,
vases, and bas-reliefs, it has been mistaken for the
pomegranate, for a bulbous root, or a lustral vase. A
curious Greek papyrus, in which a reward is offered for
a runaway slave, or Lechythophoros, has cleared this
matter from all ambiguity. Mr. Letronne has restored and
translated the papyrus. It is also to be seen in the
Lycian tomb, of which a cast is in the British Museum,
and one of the groups given in colours in Fellows’s “Lycia.”
[48] Αὐτολήκυθος [Autolêkythos], signifies a poor
man.
Οὐδ’ ἐστὶν αὐτῇ στλεγγὶς οὐδὲ λήκυθος
[Oud’ estin autê stlengis oude lêkythos].--ARISTOPHANES.
Ἐμαυτῷ Βαλανεύσω [Emautô Balaneusô], was equivalent
to “I am my own butler.” “Have you dreamt of Lechyth,
or Xystra? that is the sign of a woman that attends to
her household (οὐκουρὸν [oukouron]) or of a faithful
handmaid.”--ARTEMID. _Oneiroc._ i. 64.
[49] I find the most convenient substitute, a vase
holding about two gallons of water, with a spout like
that of a tea-urn, only three times the length, placed
on a stand about four feet high, with a tub below:
hot or cold water can be used; the water may be very
hot, as the stream that flows is small. It runs for a
quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes. The Castilian
soap should be used in preference to the made-up
soaps of England. Of English soaps, the common yellow
washing soap is the best. N.B. A clean sheet on the
dressing-room floor and no slippers.
[50] “Neat,” and “proper,” are two words which we
have changed from their original sense to cleanliness.
[51] “Granting that the English are tolerably clean
in the matter of their faces and hands, their houses
and clothes, it must be confessed that they do not seem
sufficiently impressed with the importance of keeping
their whole bodies clean. Suppose the English were the
cleanest people in the world, it would be fearful to
think, when we know what they are, how dirty the rest
of the world must be.”--_Family Economist_, p. 40.
[52] The _abdest_ of the Mussulman consists in
washing hands to the elbow, feet, face, and neck, five
times a day in cold water without soap. The _wadhan_ of
the Jews is only three times, and does not extend to
the feet. The priests washed feet and hands.
[53] Spitting, blowing the nose, weeping, or
perspiring, do not entail _as acts_, the necessity of
ablution, which follows every other secretion. While a
sore runs, they are defiled and cannot pray. If they
have not _spoiled their abdest_, the washing before
prayers need not be repeated, but the abdest is spoiled
by a tear, or by perspiration.
[54] Deut. xxiii. 12.
[55] See D’Ohsson, vol. ii. p. 8, 57, 58.
[56] The defilement attached to the secretions is
conveyed in the natural sense of the antithesis used by
Christ (Matt, xv., Mark vii.), between “what proceedeth
from a man,” and “what entereth into a man.”
[57] I was desirous to bring to Europe a young
Turk, and he was nothing loath: his mother, however,
made objections, which I could not get from him. At
last, he said, “You must talk to her yourself.” I
went consequently; and when I introduced the subject,
raising up her two arms before her face as they do when
depressed or abject, with the hands turned down and
wringing them, she exclaimed: “Vai! Vai! are not your
ships made fast under my windows, and do I not see how
the Franks wash?”
[58] A plan has recently been successfully adopted
for drying horses after hunting. Two men, one on each
side, throw over him buckets of water as hot as he can
bear it: he is then scraped and rubbed with chamois
leather, the head and ears carefully dried with a
rubber, and his clothing put on. In twenty minutes he
is perfectly dry, and there is no fear of his breaking
out again: the old plan of rubbing him dry took from
one to two hours of very hard work, and he generally
broke out once or twice, and would often be found in a
profuse sweat at twelve or one o’clock at night. The
bath might be adopted for horses. The Muscovites used
to mount from the dinner table on horseback; at present
we shampoo our horses, and clear off the epidermis,
while we bestow no such care on our own bodies.
[59] “The chiefs of either sex are, with very
few exceptions, remarkably tall and corpulent. For
this striking peculiarity various reasons may be
suggested.... But in addition to any or all of these
possibilities one thing is certain, that the easy and
luxurious life of a chief has had very considerable
influence in the matter: he or she, as the case may
be, fares sumptuously every day, or rather every hour,
and takes little or no exercise, while the constant
habit of being shampooed after every regular meal,
and oftener, if desirable or expedient, promotes
circulation and digestion, without superinducing either
exhaustion or fatigue.
“Whatever may be the cause or causes of the
magnitude of the Patricians, the effect itself so
seldom fails to be produced, that beyond all doubt,
bulk and rank are almost indissolubly connected
together in the popular mind, the great in person
being, without the help of a play upon words, great
also in power.”--SIR GEORGE SIMPSON’S _Voyage
round the World_, vol. ii. p. 51.
[60] “Balneis calidis constitutis, ut remedium
ægrotantibus et lenimen labore defessis afferantur, quæ
sanè curatio longè melior est quam medici parum periti
medela.”
[61] MS. of Dr. Meryon, the only practical and
really useful essay which I have seen on the bath, and
which, I trust, will not be left on the shelf.
[62] “Rectè olet ubi nihil olet.”--PLAUTUS.
[63] In the Russian bath the heat is obtained,
like that of the Mexicans, by stones heated in a
furnace, and on which water is thrown. They have seats
at different heights, and by ascending increase the
temperature (the _concamerata sudatio_, as painted in
the baths of Titus). They have a cold douche, which
descends from the top of the chamber, and is repeated
twice during the bathing. They do not shampoo, but with
a bunch of birch, with the leaves on, thrash the body
all over, laying it along, first on the back and then
on the face.
[64] The vessels running through the skin, would
extend in a straight line twenty-five miles: the
respiratories coming to the surface of the body, and
opening through the epidermis, amount to seven millions.
[65] “The heart at every contraction expels about
two ounces of blood, and at sixty in a minute one
hundred and sixty ounces are sent forth; in three
minutes the whole blood (about thirty pounds), must
pass through the heart, and in one hour this takes
place twenty times. Who,--reflecting on the tissues
to be permeated, the functions to be discharged, the
secretions to be formed from, and the nutritious
substances to be taken into the circulating fluid;
and reflecting upon how soon each particle, each
atom of blood, after having been deteriorated in its
constitution, and rendered unfit for the discharge
of its important duties, is again driven through
the lungs, and again aerated,--can retire from the
investigation without feelings ennobled, and the whole
man rendered better!”--DR. ROBERTSON.
[66] The trough full of hot water called a bath,
used to cost in London at least one shilling and
sixpence, so that persons with less than 200_l._ a
year could not afford to use them. In Paris, with fuel
and water so much dearer, baths can be had as low as
one-third. The recent washing-houses are something,
but only as a commencement, and an earnest. Such
contrivances will not change a people’s taste.
[67] Everything is dearer in England than in
Turkey, except those things which are wanting for
the bath: fuel is at a third of the cost, water
is infinitely more abundant, and we have the same
advantages over every other capital of Europe. When the
charge for the bath was at Rome a quadrant, the price
of wheat differed little from what it is at present in
England.
[68] “Two patients in adjoining beds, one
seventy-five, the other fifty, father and son, were
suffering from diseased liver, and other effects
of intemperance. The attention of the party (the
governors, inspecting the Bedford Infirmary) being
drawn to these cases, I observed that the elder would
recover, and the younger would not. On being asked the
grounds for my opinion, I said, the one is the son of
a beer-drinking, the other of a buttermilk-drinking
father. The event confirmed my anticipation. During
the youth of the elder, he had never tasted beer or
tea,--milk and buttermilk were then the people’s drink.”
[69] No one entered a church without washing the
face and hands.--TERTULL. _de Orat._ cap. ii.
Clemens Alexandrinus, prescribing rules to
Christians for bathing, gives four reasons;
cleanliness, health, warmth, pleasure.--_Pædag._ l.
iii. c. 9.
[70] The Mussulmans say, “the physician is before
the Imaum, for if your bowels are disordered you cannot
play.” Like the Romans, they have superseded the
physician by the bath. The Brahmins hold disease to be
sinful.
“What worship is there not in mere washing!
perhaps one of the most moral things a man, in common
cases, has it in his power to do. This consciousness
of perfect outer pureness--that to thy skin there
now adheres no foreign speck of imperfection--how it
radiates on thee, with cunning symbolic influences,
to thy very soul! Thou hast an increase of tendency
towards all good things whatsoever. The oldest eastern
sages with joy and holy gratitude had felt it to be
so, and that it was the Maker’s gift and will. It
remains a religious duty in the East. Nor could Herr
Professor Strauss, when I put the question, deny that
for us, at present, it is still such here in the
West. To that dingy operative emerging from his soot
mill, what is the first duty I will prescribe, and
offer help towards? That he clean the skin of him.
Can he, pray, by any ascertaining method? One knows
not to a certainty; but, with a sufficiency of soap
and water, he can wash. Even the dull English feel
something of this: they have a saying, 'Cleanliness is
near of kin to godliness:’ yet never in any country
saw I men worse washed, and, in a climate drenched
with the softest cloud water, such a scarcity of
baths.”--SAUERTEIG.
[71] Being present with a Mussulman at one of the
most splendid ceremonies of the Catholic church, I was
anxious to note the impression he received. As he was
silent, I put questions to him; called his attention
to the incense, the chants, the dresses, the white
lace over the coloured vestments--but all in vain. I
afterwards asked him what had been passing in his mind.
He replied, it was very magnificent, adding, “I could
only think of their feet.”
[72] The Duke of Wellington, notwithstanding the
remonstrances of the clergyman of the parish, had the
pavement of a bath, discovered at Silchester, filled
in, because his tenant was annoyed by people crossing a
field to look at it.
“D O M. The walls, which stranger, you behold,
are the remains of the baths which the city of Pisa
anciently used. Of these, consuming time has destroyed
the rest, and left only the Sudatorium, which,
overturned neither by an innumerable series of ages,
nor by the injuries of barbarians, allures the eye
studious of antiquity. Approach and contemplate, and
you will see the beautiful form of the edifice, you
will observe the plan of the lights, and how the heat
is sent through tubes. You will have to complain of no
concealment, nor will you affirm that anything of this
kind can be found more perfect elsewhere. And you will
return thanks to the great Duke Cosmos III.; who, lest,
this illustrious monument should altogether perish,
made it his peculiar care and custody.”--_Inscription
on the Roman bath at Pisa._
[73] “Nam prisco more tradiderunt brachia et
crura quotidie abluere quæ scilicet sordes opere
collegerant.”--SENECA, _Ep._ 87.
[74] By the merest accident I made this discovery.
A lady mentioned to me, “a practice of sweating,” which
she had heard of in her childhood among the peasantry.
I subjoin an extract of a letter written in reply to
inquiries.
“With respect to the sweating-houses, as they are
called, I remember about forty years ago, seeing one
in the island of Rathlin, and shall try to give you a
description of it:--It was built of basalt stones, very
much in the shape of a bee-hive, with a row of stones
inside, for the person to sit on when undergoing the
operation. There was a hole at the top and one near
the ground where the person crept in, and seated him
or herself; the stones having been heated in the same
way as an oven for baking bread is; the hole on the top
being covered with a sod, while being heated; but, I
suppose, removed to admit the person to breathe. Before
entering, the patient was stripped quite naked, and on
coming out, dressed again in the open air. The process
was reckoned a sovereign cure for rheumatism and all
sorts of pains and aches. They are fearful-looking
things, as well as I remember.”
[75] In the fifteenth century, baths were still in
common use in Spain; for a law of Castile forbids the
Moors and the Jews to bathe with the Christians.
[76] A Greek sailor once sat down to eat with me
with dirty hands; observing my look of astonishment, he
said, flourishing them, “No one will accuse me of being
Τουρκόλατρος [Tourkolatros] (worshipper of the Turks).”
What kind of people must that be whose enemies make
their patriotism consist in filth!
[77] Dr. Meryon.
[78] That horrid sea-water in which a savage will
not bathe unless he has fresh water to rinse himself,
is one of the infatuations that utterly bewilder one.
Bathers of course in the sea get air and exercise, but
do not imagine that there is virtue in impure water, or
sense in exposure of delicate forms to cold and chill.
CHAPTER IX.
THE HELOT.
Three days which I spent at Dar el Baida were occupied in a hot contest
with my soldiers, and every person in the town seemed to have got
involved on the one side or the other. They insisted on my returning
straight by the sea-road to Rabat. The ingenuity and perseverance they
displayed was of the highest order, considering that every step they
took was a failure. Their object was to get back as soon as they could;
but, as they dared neither leave nor constrain me, I successfully
opposed the _vis inertiæ_ to all their devices. At last they gave in,
declaring they were ready to accompany me when, where, and how I liked;
but, just as we were setting forth, and were all assembled on horseback
near the only gate, I discovered a fresh plot to frustrate a boar-hunt,
which I had fixed for the following day.
I slipped off my horse, and gliding round a corner, and otherways
deceiving their vigilance or observation, I got away without being
observed by any one, for the whole of the inhabitants were collected to
see the start. There was but this one gate; but in my archæological
researches I had discovered a part of the wall which was scalable: I
made for it, got over, and dropped on the other side. After sitting on
their horses’ backs for better than an hour, and fatiguing their poor
necks, they got alarmed, instituted a search, ransacked the town, and
were at their wits’ end, when a gardener entered the gate with his ass,
bearing a load of mussels, which, he informed them “the Nazarene” had
gathered on the rocks off the “point.” They now started in pursuit,
accompanied by every person in the place who could muster a horse or
mule. I was seated on the top of the promontory as they galloped up. I
was prepared for a frantic scene, but the first glimpse, as their faces
came in sight over the cheek of the hill, satisfied me that they had
passed into a new phase. I had entered on the hereditary privileges of
a saint or madman. I was adjured and entreated, and suffered myself to
be lifted on the horse brought for me, and from that hour experienced
nothing but affability, and the readiest assent to whatever I proposed.
At the boar-hunt next day they mustered on foot, stripped off their
sulams and haïks, ready to join in the sport, and one of them sent a
bullet through a boar’s heart.
After a few days spent in hunting, we were at our last bivouac before
entering Rabat; and again amongst the Ziaïda, we entered a douar
without parley, trusting to Sheik Tibi’s authority, but were bluntly
told that they had “no room.” After some talk, our men marched out of
the circle, and commenced unloading the camels fifty yards off. I
was delighted at the thought of a quiet night away from the cattle,
dogs, and “Lancasterian method;” but this was only a ruse. Presently
a chief came out, and seized in his arms the pole, with the pendant
roof ready to be stretched. Our people, after a simulated attempt to
pitch, yielded, and tent and baggage were carried into the centre. Some
of the tribe inquiring who and what we were, a grotesque attendant,
with a face like a mask, and a mouth like a cavern, replied instantly,
“This,” pointing to me, “furnishes the Sultan with guns, gunpowder, and
balls, for he is a great friend of his. This,” pointing to Mr. Sernya,
“is the representative of the seven kings of Christendom, and I am Abd
Rachman of Sus.” I asked how it could come into his head, to say that I
furnished guns and gunpowder to the Sultan? He answered, “I wished to
make them know that it was good for us that you were here, and I spoke
what they could comprehend.”
Here was a living hieroglyphic, exactly the manner in which the old
Egyptians took, to figure things in lines and drawings. What they
looked to, was the phantasm produced upon the mind. Hanno, in his
Periplus, the moment he turned Cape Spartel, comes upon flocks of
pasturing elephants, and these elephants were unknown to the Egyptians,
as they were unknown amongst the Greeks, until Alexander sent one home.
Consider then the enormous prices paid for ivory; how completely the
Phœnicians kept the ancients in ignorance of the sources of the supply
even in their neighbourhood. But I refer to this, not on account of
the ancient quadruped population of Mauritania, or the commerce of the
Mediterranean, or the traffic of the Phœnicians, but as illustrating
the hieroglyphic method of introducing me by my Breber attendant. The
first notice that we have of the elephant, is amongst the Ethiopian
tribute to Tothmas the Third; that is to say, I find there the
elephant, though there are no signs of it in the figures. There are
two bulls with curious little heads of Blackamoors between the horns,
which at the extremity are divided as if they were antlers.[79] Now in
this I read “Elephant.” The tusk in all ancient languages was called
_horn_, the trunk _hand_. The painter had to represent a “bull with
horns and hands.”[80] But as bulls had already horns, there was nothing
remarkable therein. How to give a bull a hand was a matter of some
difficulty. By placing the little human head upon the centre of the
forehead, the symbolical character of horn and hand was achieved.
During the discussion respecting our admission to the douar, the word
“Helot,” was shouted out by a sharp lad, who insisted on taking me
under his protection. This was the gist of the matter--we were Helots,
and I wondered if it was some Spartan mode of expressing contempt. It
was the very Spartan word, and the Helots of Laconica and the Kabyles
of Algeria are derived from the distinction--of which I was now made
aware--between the Ziaïde _el Gaba_ and the Ziaïde _Helots_, and which
I suppose would be more accurately rendered Ziaïde _el Gabal_ and
Ziaïde _el Loto_.
Marmol speaks of them as a tribe; he says, “The whole country between
Fez and Morocco is peopled with Beribas and Helots, who are a mixture
of Africans and Arabs, besides other powerful Arab tribes who possess
the country, and pasture their flocks between Fez and the sea. The two
most powerful races of Mauritania and Tangitana, are the Ibue Maliks
Sophean, and the Helots. They furnish 11,000 horse to the Sultan.”
In our boar-hunting expeditions, we constantly stopped to gather
blackberries from a tree between the olive and the myrtle, which,
afterwards, when I had the opportunity of consulting authorities, I
found to be the very _Lotus_.[81]
Add to Loto the Arabic article, and you have at once Heloto, Helot.
Unless I had been particular in my inquiries, I should have imagined
that Heloto was the name of a people. A descriptive term derived from
the tree may have therefore been applied in Greece, and mistaken by
travellers in Sparta, or commentators at Athens, just as this has been
mistaken by Marmol and Bochart.
The turpentine-tree had also the same name, _eloth_, and it is curious
that the same learned critic has derived the names of the two Jewish
roots, from exactly the same distinction as that which prevails between
the two branches of the Ziaïde. Eloth from the tree, Ezion Gaber from
the rocky nature of the country.[82] He traces the etymology by a
different process, which I will not follow. I content myself with the
coincidence of results.
There was a plant of the name as well as a tree. The Egyptian Lotus was
a stock that came up by the water with a head like a poppy, containing
grains like millet. They were allowed to ferment, and then dried and
pounded. It was the lightest and pleasantest of bread when eaten warm;
but, like Indian corn, became heavy and indigestible when cold. Those
who lived on it suffered from no diseases of the stomach. It was
therefore considered a cure for all these.
The tree was the object of religious veneration, and was brought
to Italy at a very early age.[83] It was planted in the temenas of
temples. The deities so distinguished were those peculiarly Asiatic.
One at the temple of _Diana Lucina_, was four hundred and fifty years
old in the time of Augustus: it was called Capellata, because the
_Vestal Virgins_ brought them and concentrated their hair. Another,
equally remarkable for its enormous roots, stood by the temple of
Vulcan. The word lotophagoi was derived from the tree, not the plant,
for Pliny applies to the tree what Homer has said of the lotus and
its fruit. The plant has played a part in nomenclature, such as no
other can aspire to, not even the laurel, cedar, myrtle, platanus, or
oak--giving its name to a people in Homeric time, and continuing to do
so after thirty centuries. It may not therefore be so extravagant to
look for traces of the name, to the north of the Mediterranean, whither
not only the Phœnician rites, but the tree itself had been transplanted.
The origin of the Helots is a mystery: the Doric conquerors of Laconia
subjugated the original inhabitants, and these are distinguished
into two classes, the Perioikoi, and the Helots; the Perioikoi, or
“Dwellers around,” was a general term applying to the Messenians, and
Laconians. The Helots being distinguished from them, must have been of
a different race.[84]
The fables, which strangers coming to Sparta report of their manners,
and their introduction into public festivals, preserves to us distinct
features and characters which, as Müller suggests, identify them with
those people of Asia Minor who worshipped the Great Mother.
Such a connexion might in some degree account for that very
extraordinary event, the colonization of Cyrena by Spartans, which is
the reverse of the current of ancient colonies. It furnishes also a
key to the idea of the people of Judæa, of their relationship with the
Spartans. When the Jews sent ambassadors to Rome, they directed them to
go and salute their brethren at Sparta.
Commentators and etymologists have endeavoured to explain the fact
away, but the shout of the child in this sheepfold, while pointing,
“There Helots;”[85] and “Here El Gaba!” seems to me to throw light
upon portions of Greek history, which Thucydides has not elucidated,
and which Potter and Fuller have not explained, and on passages of the
Maccabees and Josephus, which Michaelis has amended and explained into
nonsense and confusion. As to the name Helot, we are left equally in
the dark. That it was not their own name for themselves is shown by the
etymology suggested, and no one would accept it, but because he can
find no other. The derivation from the town _Helos_ is ungrammatical,
and would only shift the difficulty of admitting its derivation from
the participle of the verb “to capture;” the word, however, occurs in
another shape. There was a festival called Heloteia--the Helotean--the
festival of the Loto. It was held in Crete (a Phœnician settlement).
It was to commemorate the rape of the Phœnician Europa. Here is a new
puzzle. Again is introduced the easy expedient of the participle; then
it is supposed that the Phœnicians called a virgin Helotes. Bochart
exposes the absurdity of these suggestions, and remarks that Europa
was no longer a virgin when she came to Crete. He derives it from
_Halloth_, Hebrew for _epithalamium_, forgetting his own objection of
the minute before, and moreover that her marriage could not well be
celebrated after her death; besides, there was another festival called
Heloteia at Corinth, where there was no question of “virgin,” or of
“capture,” or of “marriage.” It was held to commemorate the staying
of a plague. Having then swept away all these suppositions, let us
see what the Heloteia was. It was a festival in honour of Europa. The
_boves_ were carried in procession, and surrounded by an _enormous
wreath_ or garland, thirty feet in circumference. This garland had a
name: it was _Hellotis_, Ἑλλωτίς [Hellôtis].
It was not uncommon to designate festivals after the garlands which
surrounded the objects of veneration. That for the return of the
Heraclidæ was called _Stemmataïa_, from the garlands round the figure
of the rafts upon which they came into Peloponnesus. It is said,
indeed, that the Hellotis was a garland of myrrh. The Loto is very like
myrrh. The Greeks adopted the myrrh itself from the Easterns. It was
appropriated to funeral ceremonies. It is mentioned by Nehemiah as one
of the four trees used in the festival of the tabernacles, and classed
with the palm, the olive, and the fir. In the traditions of Arabia,
Adam fell from Paradise with three things--“A branch of myrrh, a date,
and an ear of corn.”
The word is found, little altered, scattered all over Greece. There
is the district of Elatea in Epirus, Elatea city of Phocis, Helos in
Laconia, Helos again in Macedonia, Laitæ on the Sperchius, and Hellopia
is so often repeated, that it must have been a generic term. It applies
to one third of the island of Eubœa. It is also a town there. It is
found again to the south-east of the Pindus, and it is the name given
to the district of Dordona. But it does not stand alone. The multitude
of Phœnician and Hebrew names could never have been found there,
unless it had been inhabited some time by tribes speaking the one or
the other language; as for instance, the Laleges, the Bryges, and the
Helots. The twin term to Loto has played a not less important part. It
has penetrated into all the languages of Europe, and is spread over a
large portion of what to the ancients was the known world. It is still
to be traced in the name of the mountains, which were the limit between
the Phœnician and Celtic races. We have it in Gabii of the Etruscans;
we have it in the centre of Africa; we have in the Holy Land, _Gaba_,
_Geba_, _Gabala_, _Gibeon_,[86] _Gibbethon_, _Gibeah_,[87] _Gebal_,[88]
the _Gabenes_. The Solymi in Asia Minor (who we are told spoke Hebrew)
are called by Strabo (Καβάλλεις [Kaballeis]) _Cabailes_,[89] from
the rugged nature of their country. Gabatha was a Hebrew term for
rugged countries,[90] also for stones, thence for building, and thence
_Gebil_ was builder; this was then used as an epithet of God--the
“master-builder.”[91] Thus, _Gavel-kind_[92] and _Gibelee_, tobacco
(lotchia), _Cybele_ with her crown of towers,[93] the _Gabelles_ of
France and _Cabals_, Caballus, Cheval, Cavalry, &c.; the strength of
the Cabyle is estimated at the number of horse.[94] As the Ziaïda are
called Heloto from the woody country, so were their cognate tribes in
Laconia; and as the Ziaïda are called Gaba from the rocky country,[95]
so were their cognate tribes, the Solymi, in Asia Minor.
The numbers of the tribes were given me as follows:
_Ziaïda et Gaba._
Tents.
Ouled Talca } 100
Ouled Califa }
Ouled Taninia } 700
Ouled Yahia }
Ouled Zada } 300
Ouled Hamed }
Druri Ouled Tarfea 300
Beni Oura 300
---- 1700
_Ziaïda Helota._
Ouled Arif } 500
Ouled Tirem }
Ouled Kidamia 150
----
650
----
2350
====
The province of Shonayea contains the
Ziaïda 2300
Mediuna 6000
Zien Usualem 8000
Herris }
Ali } 16,000
Emdacra }
Ensub 4000
Buris 36,000
------
72,300
======
The province pays 70,000 ducats. Tedlu pays the same, and is composed
of
Beni Heran.
Ismala.
Beni Calif.
Ouled Efkar-Kiber.
Beni Efkar Segir.
Beni Zamia.
Ouled Smir.
Oniti Urbah.
Beni Mousa.
Beni Sepkdan.
Beni Melal.
Beni Madan.
Ducala without the Brebers pays the same.
[79] This group may be seen in plaster, full size,
in the British Museum.
[80] Heeren quotes the hand-like horns, in support
of a theory of his, that the Africans artificially
trained the horns of cattle, and he infers from the
absence of the elephant in this procession, that that
animal had not then been rendered serviceable to man.
“Long-horned cattle, whose heads are ornamented
with the hands and heads of Negroes, probably
artificial. They would scarcely have decapitated
their own people to adorn their offering to a foreign
prince.”--WILKINSON’S _Thebes_, vol. ii. p. 224.
[81] Ὁ δὲ καρπὸς ἡλικὸς κύαμος πεπαίνεται δὲ ὥσπερ
οἱ βότρυες, μεταβάλλων τὰς χροιάς. Φύεται δὲ καθάπερ
τὰ μύρτα παράλληλα, πύκνος ἐπὶ τῶν βλαστῶν, ἐσθιόμενος
δὲ ἐν τοῖς Λωτοφάγοις καλουμένοις γλυκὺς, ἡδὺς, καὶ
ἀσινής. [Ho de karpos hêlikos kuamos pepainetai de
hôsper hoi botrues, metaballôn tas chroias. Phuetai de
kathaper ta myrta parallêla, pyknos epi tôn blastôn,
esthiomenos de en tois Lôtophagois kaloumenois glykys,
hêdys, kai asinês.]--THEOPHR. l. iv. c. 4.
[82] “Nomen _Elath_ etiam _Eloth_ est a terebinthis,
quæ arbor est frequens, &c.”--CHANAAN, lib. i. c. 43.
“A vicinia talis alicujus ῥαχίας [rhachias] dicta
est _Azion Gaber_.”--Ibid.
[83] The wood was used for the handles of swords
and daggers, and for musical instruments; the bark
served to colour leather, the root to dye wool.--PLINY,
_Nat. Hist._ l. xxi. c. 21.
Virgil speaks of the myrtle as furnishing weapons
for war, and the Swiss still use it for dyeing and
tanning.
[84] By submitting to Spartan discipline, Helots
became Spartans.--ZELES _apud Stob. Florileg_, 40, 8.
In the Messinian war, a Helot was taken to replace
each Spartan who had fallen. They were called _Epunactæ_.
[85] Chrest. Arabe vii.-xi. p. 285.
[86] “A city situated on a hill.”--DENNIS.
[87] There were two places so called. “It is certain
there was a place called _Gibeah_ on a _hill_ near
Kerjath Jearim.”--ONNON.
[88] The same name occurs in Josephus: _Gibalene_--
Gabale--Pliny. From the same place Solomon had his stone
cutters, _Giblites_.--BROWN. See Wilson’s “Lands of the
Bible,” vol. ii. p. 40.
[89] Derived by Bochart from גבליה _Gabala_.
[90] Φοῖνιξ δὲ γλῶσσα Γάδαρα λέγει τοὺς λιθοστρώτους,
ὡς οἱ Ἑβραῖοι Γαβαθὰ τοποὺς λιθοστρώτους. [Phoinix de
glôssa Gadara legei tous lithostrôtous, hôs hoi Hebraioi
Gabatha topous lithostrôtous.]--TZETZES, _Chil._ 8 _Hist._ 216.
[91] Master-builder, algabil אלגאבל; whence Heliogabalus.
[92] _Gavel-kind_, a word Arabic and Teutonic,
signifying what it is, “tribe-children.”
[93] The name is attempted to be derived from κύπτω
[kyptô], because she made her followers bow their
heads. This is nonsensical. I have shown elsewhere that
_kupto_ and _tupto_ come from the Moorish term _tapia_.
_Gaballa_, in the old Spanish dictionaries, is given
for _market-place_. The _alcavala_ was ten per cent.
imposed at the market on all sales.
[94] From the Arabic we have _hack_, _nag_, and
_horse_. _Haca_, a camel in the seventh year; _naga_,
a she-camel; _hors_, an epithet of fleetness; whence
also, perhaps, _hoarne_.
[95] The country they _at present_ inhabit is
neither woody nor rocky. I at first took the word
_gaba_ for _garb_, west.
CHAPTER X.
THE ARABS OF THE DESERT.
The Moors divide their country into four zones, running north and
south. First, the _Zahel_, or sandy, unwatered, and level ground;
secondly, the _Tiersh_, or deep black land, without trees or mountains,
and composing the centre and chief portion of Morocco; thirdly, the
_Gibellu_, or cultivated portion on the side of the Atlas; fourthly,
the _Tell_[96] (the earth), on the other side. Beside these, there is
the subdivision into _Heloto_ and _Gaba_.
Mr. Parke heard the name Zahel in the interior, and thought it meant
“north country.” Mr. Jackson corrects him. “Zahel,” he says, “signifies
an _extensive plain_. Thus, the plains south of the river of Suz, and
the low country on the coast near Walhadia, are called Zahel; and if
an Arab were to pass over Salisbury Plain he would call it Zahel.” Mr.
Jackson is as much mistaken as Mr. Parke. The word means _a thing that
is easy_. The wealth of the Zahel tribes consists in cattle and flocks:
their sole culture is grain. They produce corn, wool, butter, hides and
skins; they buy nothing except arms and fruit; they treat their money
as they do their corn. This year a fine imposed in consequence of the
recent troubles was paid without difficulty, though equal to several
years of their customary taxes.
The Zahel is one half the year exposed to scorching heat; it is
destitute of trees and water, and could scarcely be cultivated by
people having fixed habitations. The Arabs shifting their domicile to
find pasturage for their cattle sow as they proceed, and return in
like manner to reap. They sow from November to March. The harvest soon
follows. The summer is, so to say, their winter, for the sun is their
Boreas. The seasons are reversed. The flowers that were budding only
on the plains, I found in full blossom on the hills: under the genial
influence of cold, vegetation had re-commenced. Their culture consists
in scraping the light soil in opposite directions with a primitive
plough; a pointed piece of wood unshod with iron and a single handle,
which the ploughman carries a-field upon his shoulder. They do not even
clear the ground of the palm shrub, but plough round it. Sometimes,
indeed, you see the land in very good order, for there are no weeds.
The first idea suggested is that of depopulation. On closer inspection,
one is astonished at the numbers of the people. They subsist on
little. They draw comparatively a great deal from the soil, and the
rudeness of their implement is not unadapted to its lightness. The
tribe does not cultivate in common, but the families do: the daughters
have half portions: they average a plough per tent, some having four or
five, or more, others not even a pair of cattle, but managing one with
another, so that each shall cultivate a plough land. Oxen are generally
employed, but horses are so also: you may see pairs of horses driven
by the reins. Some of their teams are grotesque enough. I have seen a
camel and an ass ploughing together. Whatever animosity there may be
amongst the tribes, whatever insecurity for their cattle, even in the
midst of their encampment, common necessities have consecrated the
standing corn, and every tribe respects its neighbour’s landmark.
They have as little trace of limits, as the dogs of Constantinople,
which maintain their bounds so well; or of laws, as a community of
bees. I have had, however, a terminus pointed out to me between the
Ziaïda and their neighbours. It was a plant of the Silla kind. They
have the custom of “beating the bounds,” and understand it in a literal
sense. The children are taken out and thrashed at appropriate places,
that they may recollect them well. On the other hand, they run no risk
of flogging for a false quantity in a dead language. Behind these
zones, Zahel, Tiersh, Gibellu and Tell, lies the Zahara. Along the
Medelmah the zones run east and west, following the direction of the
coast; but here the first three are wanting; there is only the Tel, and
behind it the Zahara. The regularity, however, of the distribution is
disturbed by the great mountain block of the Cabylie, which lies in the
rear of Algiers, and which is nearly insulated by the Desert.
Adjoining the Moorish Tell, and deeply encroaching on the Desert, is
the Beled-el-Gerid, or oasis of Tafilelt, the inner Moorish kingdom;
and, so to speak, its fountain. This is the land of dates and of
Morocco leather. Here is the inaccessible retreat to which in all
dangers the Moorish princes retire, and from which they issue to
recover their lost power. Here are deposited the treasures accumulated
during seventy years by two thrifty monarchs, and which are estimated
at tens of millions sterling. It is a little world within Morocco,
entrenched behind the Desert and the Atlas. It takes ten days across
the Desert to reach it from the nearest point of the regency of Algiers.
To the south of the neck of the Atlas which runs out to the cape of St.
Cruz, lies the fourth kingdom composing the empire; the parallel zones
are here arrested by the Atlas. The country partakes of the nature of
the Beled-el-Gerid, and is a great oasis, exceeding, indeed, all the
others in richness and variety of produce.[97] It is entirely inhabited
by Shelluk, or southern Brebers, over whom the authority of the Sultan
is held by a very precarious tenure: it was there, however, that the
dominion of the shereffs was first set up, and from it they issued to
conquer Morocco and Fez. Suz and Tafilelt are said to possess resources
not inferior, though hardly different, to those of the other two.
The population has been rated as high as sixteen millions. It is half
Arab, half Breber. The climate is admirable, being tempered by the
westerly breezes and the snows of Atlas. The middle region is composed
of alluvial plains of inexhaustible fertility: the two capitals lie
in tertiary basins resembling those of Paris and London. The fruits
and produce comprise all those of the tropics and the temperate
zones: harbours alone are wanting, but this deficiency is more than
compensated to this people, by the security which the difficulties of
the coast afford.
The first thought on setting foot upon the land of Africa is, of
course, the Desert. When starting on my first journey, I indulged in
the fancy that I was approaching it;--what was my surprise on asking
one of my companions to describe it, to be told, “Look round, this is
the Desert.” Our notion of a moving sea of sand is a delusion; there
is no considerable district where, as in the insulated points in the
Indian and Pacific oceans, man has not found an abode. Africa is not
a vacant and a useless space. Extending from the valley of the Nile
to the Atlantic, and from the narrow slip along the Mediterranean
down to the kingdoms of Guinea and Bourno, &c., it has its mountains
and plains, its valleys and forests, and even its streams and rivers.
One of the men who were with me described the road from Fez by Suz
to Tafilelt, round by the south, a journey of about a thousand
miles, as through a rich, well-watered--or if not well-watered,
well-wooded--country, with the olive, oak, arar or date. On the road
from Tafilelt towards Timbuctoo there is the great oasis of Tuat,
which is distant about two weeks’ journey. There are either trees or
brushwood the whole way. “The map of the Sahara,” says M. Revon, “will
be one day covered with rivers, hills, and an immense number of names
of wells, stations, and countries. The Desert being entirely inhabited,
or traversed by nomade people, they require to designate by particular
names the places that furnish subsistence for their flocks during half
of the year, the countries that they are obliged to avoid and to pass
round, the wells so indispensable to their existence, and the beds of
the rivers, which at certain seasons of the year furnish them with
water.”
This unique country, taken together with that character of the people,
which they must have in order to be able to inhabit it, has preserved
a class of the human race in its primitive state. There are nowhere
resources, so that there should be large accumulations of people to
pass through the various phases which in other portions of the world
humanity has presented. There is not the sea to divide or to conjoin;
they cannot muster in strength (save as dependent upon the northern
country) so as to be formidable abroad, and they are so movable within,
that they are not liable to domestic oppression. Pasturage and rapine
are the two avocations. Culture is not unassociated with the first,
and rapine, as managed here, is not incompatible with traffic and good
faith.[98]
There are four methods of travelling; the regular trade caravans,
small companies on fleet dromedaries, single messengers on foot,
and the peregrinations of the tribes themselves. Of the first, or
the _cafileh_. These are periodically fixed, and connect the three
regencies in the north with the Negro countries of the south, taking in
the two great bases, the Fezzan and Tuat, with Timbuctoo. Their speed
is about twenty to twenty-five miles a-day, and, laden as they are,
they have often to avoid the shortest roads, and to make great circuits
in order to obtain supplies of water.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that the traveller in the Interior
is reduced to dependence upon these caravans. On the dromedary fifty
miles can easily be performed. A tract of three hundred miles without
water, at least where there is insecurity as to finding it, imposes on
a cafileh the necessity of carrying ten days’ supply to a party which
can traverse it. During four days it presents little inconvenience:
being all mounted, they can easily carry water and provision for
themselves for the distance which the dromedaries can travel without
water.
Their provisions consist in barley, roasted and bruised, and, if they
are luxurious, honey and butter. The meal is mixed up with any of
these, that is to say, with either honey and butter or water, the first
being used as the morning meal and the latter for the evening; and this
food not only enables them to do their work, but also to support thirst.
The cafileh must be strong enough to fight its way. Solitary
travellers, or small companies, can only pass by one of two methods,
having with them a saint, or the relative of a saint, or having a
friend or a hired guide, _mehri_, belonging to the tribes through which
they have to pass. These they exchange from tribe to tribe.[99]
Messengers and couriers on foot carry with them their skin of
meal, and, when requisite, their skin of water; and with a similar
protection, will traverse these vast regions at the rate of forty miles
a-day.
Lastly, comes the most interesting of all these movements--a tribe in
march, which is then called _nafla_. Some of these, on the northern
side within the regency of Algiers, where more is known of their
movements, yearly perform a journey of six hundred miles backwards
and forwards, from the date-growing region to the Tell, carrying down
dates, and bringing back grain, and pasturing their flocks as they come
and go. The season so corresponding, they have to come down to the
lowlands for their pasturage at the time of the harvest of grain, and
to return to the south at the time of the harvest of dates. Nothing
can exceed the interest of these ambulatory cities, which carry
everything with them; where are commingled signs of domesticity[100]
and circumstance of war. They are merchants and soldiers, shepherds and
manufacturers, cultivators and wanderers; they carry with them their
children and their law--their judge in peace, their chief in war; they
may be called at any moment to traffic or to fight; they are on the
alert for a verdant plain, sending forth scouts to discover a fountain
or a hostile camp. If suspicious signs appear, then every man falls
into rank, knows his place, and it is a regiment that advances or
encamps. There is the council of the elders, to determine whether it is
war or peace; and a treaty may be signed or a battle engaged. By these
necessities certain proportions are given to these bodies. They must
never be too weak to defend themselves, nor too strong, to devour the
pasturage, or drink up the water.
We know only the discipline of men, but the discipline of the Zahara
extends to the family. The utensils, the home itself, everything is
compact, and all as ready as the people are alert. Our armies are
liable to lose themselves at once, either with the people they subdue
or with the people through whose territories they pass. An invading
Arab carries with him, and plants his home, as we do a standard; and
where it comes it is not a victor’s banner that is reared, but a
hostile roof that is upset. The idea of resisting the shock of such
a horde, could it be let loose on a European community, is not so
much as to be entertained. But M. Thiers thinks the Arabs very bad
soldiers.[101]
Thus is the surface of Africa converted into a plain, covered with
lines along which move, and circles round which revolve, these
planetary bodies. Man lives where it appeared a wilderness, and order
rules where it seemed a chaos. There is no land that is not owned;
there is no pasturage that is not assigned. The fields may appear
deserted, and the space vacant; but, with the times and seasons, they
return, traversing the same vales, drinking at the same fountains,
cultivating the same valleys, and as indestructible in their race as
they are regular in their motions. Like the ocean which guards them,
they will fill, as they have filled, their space; and, like the seasons
they resemble, they undergo the changes of the year; and summer and
autumn will find them again and again at their appointed task and place.
With the beauty of order is associated the drama of life, as if the
planets were moved in their sphere with love or hatred, and propelled
and attracted, or connected with each other. The chords of sympathy are
so stretched, that the dissensions of the most insignificant members
of this vast community in the centre of the Desert may be felt and
responded to on the borders of the Mediterranean or Atlantic.[102]
The people of the town are a distinct nation. On the face of the land
alone is to be seen the stretched canvas of the fleeting sons of the
Desert. From the tent reared and displaced in an hour, what an age is
passed, as you cross the city gateway![103] In the Arab dwelling there
is no sense of age; there is no mark of newness, nor sign of mouldering
decay.
The soil on which they tread, and from which they feed:--carved by no
fosse, confined by no bound, and bearing no load, is a nature--subdued
indeed, but untravestied--and presents the wildness of the Desert
without penury, its freedom without solitude: the gifts it gives are
favours rather of Providence, than fruits of toil.
Pass the yawning barbican and ruined walls--enter the city, the work of
Cyclops or Titan--of Philistine, Hebrew, Lybian, Roman, Goth, Vandal,
Saracen, Portuguese, or Spaniard--and there is man! nothing but man! It
is not, as in other cities, the men and things of to-day, but of old
times and ages. Thinly scattered, these are each a nook in the stream
of time, when the wrecks of successive storms are cast up--a Bantry Bay
in the Atlantic of eternity.
Zahara means resplendent. Zeara, in Hebrew, is round. The first was an
ancient epithet of Venus; the second, a name for the moon.[104] Thus,
the region of death and terror, of the Zamiel and the locust, appears
to them a place of light and splendour. It has the charm of battle for
the brave--of ocean for the rover--of rocks for the mountaineer. But
what need comparison? it is the Desert to the Arab.
It is not the ambition of visiting the mud huts of Timbuctoo which has
led so many European adventurers to peril their lives, and to lose them
in that vain attempt; but it is the indescribable charm of the Desert
life of which they have felt the influence, or caught the contagion.
Without the protection of constituted governments, despite all
obstructions, danger, distance, thirst and hunger, commerce is carried
on nowhere in the world with more regularity, integrity, and security.
There are no internal fluctuations, no international barriers;
_exchange presents no difficulty_, although they have a standard of
value. This is an ideal money, or a coin of account. In the south
it is the “bar,” in the north it is “Pezetta;” in other districts,
“Naia,” &c. A piece of iron, a Spanish coin, a measure of dates--any
other object would serve equally well to constitute this unit, which
represents value with absolute perfection, precisely because it is a
measure--as an inch or a pound.
They do not say a bar is so many pounds, so many ounces, and so many
grains; and this quantity of metal shall be the standard of value; that
is, the value of all things shall be changed to meet the accidental
fluctuations in this quantity of metal; for, according to their
barbarous notions, that would be not an ingenious device to facilitate
business, but a piece of knavery too barefaced to be dangerous. If iron
becomes cheap, two bars of iron go to “_the_ bar;” if it becomes dear,
half a bar of iron goes to “the bar.” The ideal standard is preserved
because it is ideal. Yet, here are barbarians! This subject is at
once the most practical and scientific,--money, arithmetic, commerce,
property! Well may Solomon exclaim, “God made man, but he has found
out many inventions.”
Ebn Khaldoun has a passage which seems at once to throw light on the
origin of the term and the antiquity of the practice. “In the times of
ignorance the Arabs counted by various dirhems; the _tabori_ was the
weightiest, the _bagli_ the lightest.” The Mussulmans fixed a middle
term, and adjusted to it fines, &c. A discussion then arose on the
ancient value of these coins, and as to whether they were, or were not,
known in the time of Mahomet. Ebn Khaldoun decides as follows: “The
valuation of the dirhem was known, but there was no corresponding coin;
nevertheless, judgments were regulated according to the valuation of
that money.”
If any one is curious to know the meaning of the words “currency law,”
he will find it all in this sentence of the late Lord Ashburton: it is
a process by which, “in the event of a deficient harvest (or any other
internal disturbance), _a few shrewd capitalists can so control the
supply of gold as to enrich themselves and ruin the nation_.” This is
all that it requires to know on this subject, to be perfectly happy
and content; for, as to doing anything, that is out of the question.
The “press,” and “public opinion” may upset ministers, and substitute
theory for theory; but, against any deep purpose or design, they can
avail nothing, even supposing that they were not the blind instruments
of the designing, and stormed and ranted against them from Land’s End
to John o’ Groat’s. A pasquinade, stuck at night to a pedestal under
the papal government of Rome, had more effect on the affairs of that
government than all the free press of England thundering together could
have on its government--at least, when the really important points are
concerned, viz. the profits of the capitalists or the service of the
Czar.
[96] This word I at first thought to be a trace
of the Romans, but the word is spread over Asia and
Africa, far out of Roman reach. “_Tel_ is generally
used for _village_ in the Delta; _kom_, in Upper
Egypt.”--WILKINSON’S _Thebes_, vol. ii. p. 76.
[97] “The country is completely cultivated: it is
backed by four regular rows of limestone hills, which
serve as a kind of embankment against the Desert. They
are now cutting the corn, which produces more than
one hundred fold, most of the seeds throwing out four
stems, and some five.”--DAVIDSON’S _Journal_, p. 83.
[98] “Mirum dictû ex innumeris populis pars æqua in
commerciis aut in latrociniis degit.”--PLIN. _Hist. Nat._
vi. 32.
The Arab enjoys the benefits of society, without
forfeiting the prerogative of nature.
[99] “Up to the time that you have reached the
point determined upon, the _mehri_ is responsible for
his companion. Before whom? Before God, without doubt,
who reads the hearts of men. The faithfulness of a
guide is a virtue innate amongst the Arabs.”--_Carette._
[100] “If any people can be justly called happy,
the Arabs on the borders of the Sahara are so.
Confident in the power of their religion to gain them
paradise, creating for themselves no artificial wants,
and perfectly satisfied with what nature provides for
them, they calmly resign themselves to the will of
Providence, and are strangers to all cares. They are
more wild in their appearance, but far more cultivated
than the Arabs of Asia: nearly all of them can read,
and a great many write.”--DAVIDSON’S _Journal_.
[101] “Vous dites qu’il faut que tout le monde soit
soldat à son tour. Savez-vous quelles sont les sociétés
où tout le monde est soldat? ce sont les sociétés
barbares. Chez les Arabes, tout le monde est soldat, et
mauvais soldat. (Interruption.) Oui, dans les sociétés
où tout le monde est soldat, on n’a que de mauvais
soldats.”--_Speech_, October 21st, 1848.
[102] “Often a quarrel in the streets of Algiers
is the echo of one between two tribes in the sand,
three hundred leagues distant, and when the quarrel
becomes animated between the mother tribes, the
distant colonies can no longer inhabit the same
district.”--CARETTE, p. xlvii. _Introduction_.
[103] “Divina natura dedit agros, ars humana
ædificavit urbes.”--VARRO _de Re Rustica_,
lib. iii. 50.
[104] Deuteronomy iv. 19.
CHAPTER XI.
RETURN TO RABAT FROM SHAVOYA.
During my absence two daring crimes have been committed: a Shereff
stole one of the Sultan’s horses from the midst of the camp. The
Sultan sentenced him to lose his head. He then put in the plea of his
birth. “Then,” said the Sultan, “cut off his right hand, that he may
be disabled from disgracing his blood in this way in future.” There is
no executioner: the butchers are bound to perform this duty.[105] The
chief Jewish and chief Mussulman butcher being called, they offered
for a substitute by a sort of public auction, the crier commencing in
this way:--“Who will cut off a head” (or a hand) “for a dollar?--one
dollar offered,” and thus they ran up and down the street. No one
offering, they increased the bid to two, three dollars, &c. When they
had arrived at two doubloons (7_l._ 10_s._), a tall black stepped
forward and said, “That is my price.” A tub of tar was brought: the
black hacked off the hand in a hurry, and on dipping the stump into
the tar it proved to be cold. He had, however, bound the arm before
the amputation, and they ran to the neighbouring blacksmith’s shop for
embers, which they threw into the tar, and, setting it on fire, the
stump was then plunged in, and so scorched and burnt. The Shereff was
then let go.
In the other case, the culprit, a man from the interior, had killed a
lad who was ploughing, and carried off his cattle. The Sultan said to
the mother of the lad, “Excuse his life, and take one hundred dollars:”
she said, “I want the life of him who took the life of my son.” The
Sultan three times repeated his question, doubling his offer: she said,
“I ask what the law gives me, and that law you are Sultan to execute.”
The culprit was led out to execution: the head, as we returned, was on
the market-gate, and the dogs swarmed round the carcass.
The news of a change of ministry in England was conveyed to me in a
letter from Gibraltar, without any explanation: I sent to notify the
fact to the government. Mustafa Ducaly came to learn the particulars,
none of which I knew; and I explained to him what I supposed to be
the cause and circumstances, viz., the corn laws; and I added that
I expected the next news would be that Sir Robert Peel was again
in office with more tractable colleagues. This greatly damped the
excitement which the news had created, for they expected, on the return
of the former foreign minister to office, a war with France. They
were, however, interested in this event on other grounds, namely, the
admission of corn into England. I did not repeat to them a long-formed
conclusion, that Sir Robert Peel would be the man to open the ports,
as the reduction of the price of corn, without a relaxation of the
currency laws, was merely an augmentation of the value of money.
The Sultan is to remain here the winter, which I look upon as ominous
for the town, as, besides the inconvenience of his abode, there are
no resources in the place for this assemblage; and it is not in the
memory of man that the Court of Morocco has held the festivities of the
Baïram, or spent the winter out of one of the capitals, except in time
of war. The explanation given is, the disturbed and disaffected state
both of Morocco and Fez; but this is no explanation, for the presence
and not the absence of an Emperor of Morocco is the remedy against
disaffection. Fez is entirely commanded by the fortifications, and in
Morocco the Sultan is himself fortified. If there were danger from
either capital, the troops would be sent there, not kept here.[106]
The rumour of the discovery of mines had reached Rabat with speed and
exaggeration. Full of childish impatience, the Emperor sent immediately
for the specimens I had brought. Twenty camel-loads of the ore were
ordered down, and messengers were despatched to Rif to bring some of
the best workmen in iron. I asked for such workmen as they had to erect
a furnace, and we commenced operations in a little court behind the
consulate; but the furnace they made was only good enough for copper,
with the smelting of which they are familiar: we had, therefore, to
turn masons and bricklayers ourselves. We got what they assured us
were bricks of fire-clay; and we succeeded so well with the furnace
and the blast that we melted, like water, not the ore--but the bricks.
However, we did fuse a portion of the ore, and thus saved our credit.
After expeditions in search of fire-clay, and various renewed attempts,
I had to dissuade them from proceeding thus recklessly; and told them
that they might find as rich mines more conveniently situated, or
mines of some other metal better worth working; or iron, if not so
pure, more malleable (for on this their present instruments could make
no impression), or, in fact, coal and iron in juxta-position. They
answered, “No! no!--the tribes where these mines are, are submissive:
we don’t want to make the others fat.” Nothing would do but the new
hobby. They proposed to form a company of all the merchants. They were
bountiful in offers: one half of the proceeds of the mines in Shavoya,
and of that which they already worked in the Rif should be mine if I
would undertake to send proper persons to conduct the enterprise.
I thought this a favourable moment to press my request to be permitted
to go to Fez: I was told that if the Sultan were there, there would
be no difficulty, but at present it was impossible. I have therefore
determined on returning to Gibraltar, and visiting, if possible,
the mountainous district lying to the eastward of Larache, called
Serser, where sulphur, lead, and salt are already known, and there are
indications of coal.
The smelting is not the only business in which we have been engaged
in the back-yard. I had brought two camel-loads of boars, the produce
of our last day’s sport, before re-entering Rabat, with the design of
curing the hams. Our first construction of furnaces was for boiling
water for pig-scalding, in which, in consequence of the time that
had elapsed, we failed. The saying about a “pig coming to be shaved”
occurred to me, and I got a Jewish barber to do that work--and a
strange sight it was! It was hot work, between the smelting and the
boar-shaving, and we got more assistance in the one enterprise than
the other. Inexperienced in jointing and paring hams, I think we made
very sightly work of it. I was more at home at a _ragoût de Sanglier_,
of which an enormous cauldron figured among the operations of that
court-yard, to the high applause of all the Nazarene population that
chanced to be at Rabat. It was not, however, very easy to get at it
when cooked; for to all the plates, knives, and forks, saucers, and
tea-cups, &c., it was taboo.
While these operations were proceeding in the court-yard, the other
parts of the consulate were equally put in requisition for the purposes
of science. We had constructed a hydraulic blow-pipe, and the Moors
were delighted to behold spinning glass and little men, ships, &c.,
and no doubt many of these records of our visit will be treasured up
for future times. The kitchen was the scene of other labours--the
preparation of the wonderful _majoun_, made from the plant well known
as _hashish_, which is here grown as any other crop, and of which the
consumption is next to universal.
HASHISH.
This plant seems to have been known and used, as at present in Morocco,
in very ancient times, from the confines of China to the Western Ocean.
It appears as the _potomantes_ of the Indus, the _gelatophylis_ of
Bactria, the _achimenes_ of the Persians, the _ophisnu_ of Ethiopia,
the _nepenthes_ of the Greeks. The apparently contradictory qualities
ascribed to these may all be found in the hashish: like the ophisnu,
it recalls consciousness of the past and inordinate fears, on account
of which it was given as a punishment to those who had committed
sacrilege; but, above all, it brings too that forgetfulness for which
Helen administered to Telemachus the nepenthes, and which no doubt she
had learned in Egypt. Equally does it become a poison which absorbs all
others. It will explain the incantations of Circe, and the mysteries
of the cave of Trophonius. When taken without suspicion, its effects
would appear as the workings within themselves of the divinity. It goes
some way to account for the long endurance of a religious imposture, so
slightly wove and so incessantly rebelled against. Here was a means at
the disposal of the priest, diviner, and thaumaturgist, and beyond all
appeals to the mere imagination. The epithets which the Hindoos apply
to their _bangue_ might equally serve for the _hashish_--“assuager
of sorrow,” “increaser of pleasure,” “cementer of friendship,”
“laughter-mover.” Bangue, however, when often repeated, “is followed by
catalepsy, or that insensibility which enables the body to be moulded
into any position, like a Dutch jointed doll, in which the limbs remain
in the position in which they are placed, and this state will continue
for many hours.”[107]
It seems from an early period to have been used in China medicinally.
Fifteen hundred years ago, it was employed there as chloroform
recently has been in Europe; so that it may truly be said, “there
is nothing new under the sun.” The following passage occurs in “The
Compilation of Ancient and Modern Medicines,” published in China at the
beginning of the sixteenth century:--
“If the complaint is situated in parts upon which the needle, the
moxa, or liquid medicaments cannot produce any action--for instance,
in the bone, stomach, or intestines--there may be given to the
patient a preparation of hemp (_ma-yo_), and in a very short time he
becomes so insensible that he seems intoxicated or deprived of life.
Then, according as the case may be, the operations are performed, of
amputations, &c., and the cause of the malady is removed. Subsequently,
the tissues are brought together by sutures, and liniments are
employed. After some days the patient is restored to health, without
having felt, during the operation, the least pain.”[108]
Among the ancients of our part of the world, it appears to have been
employed by the mystics only, and not to have been in common use;
whereas, in China there was no more mystery attending it than in the
exhibition of any other drug; consequently, from China and from India
the Saracens may have got it. The term _hashish_[109] means plant in
general, but the preparation is called _majoun_--perhaps from the
Chinese _ma-yo_.
It was in Egypt, between the tenth and the fourteenth centuries, that
hashish was in its glory. He who wishes to know to what excess of
passion the use of this narcotic can inspire, may find his curiosity
gratified in an account, by Makrizi, of the “Herb of the Fakirs;” and
the notes appended to it by Mr. Silvestre de Sacy.[110]
In Mr. Von Hammer’s History of Hassan Saba, hashish figures as nerving
the arm of his followers to strike at ministers in the midst of their
guards, and at monarchs in the centre of their capitals.[111] The
terror with which these fanatics inspired the nations reached even to
this island, and the Commons of England obtained, as an antidote for
the hashish,[112] the serjeant-at-arms and the mace.
To this sect was given the name of Assassins. According to the highest
authorities, it comes from _ashasheen_, or eaters of hashish. But a
real existence is now denied to those enchanted gardens of Alamoot, and
they are explained as merely the visions created by the intoxicating
plant.[113] Visionary speculation! The preparation requisite for such
deeds was not opium or alcohol, far less a plant, the effect of which
exceeds intoxication, and approaches insanity.
The Ismalian departed on his journey of death _alone_. He followed his
victim for months and years; he traversed deserts and sojourned in
populous kingdoms and cities. It was an intoxication of the spirit,
not of the senses, that could so dare and so endure; neither softened
by intercourse, nor dismayed by solitude, and proof alike against the
virtues and the vices of our nature. If such deeds were the product of
this drug, they would appear when it was used.
Hassan Saba was one of those men, who being incomprehensible, is the
source of fables, devised by those who do not understand the results
they would account for. He combined leadership of men with the
priesthood of a sect, and inspired his followers with that boundless
awe and affection, which made them appear under the influence of a
supernatural agency. When he answered the demands of Malik Shah by
ordering two of his followers to cast themselves from a precipice, he
prepared them by no drug. The Ismalians, acting as men out of their
senses, would be called hashasheen, just as we would say Bedlamite. If
any set of men in Barbary were so conducting themselves, they would be
called hashishlee, though they had _never_ tasted majoun.
I was led to take an interest in this plant from the following
circumstance. A lady, suffering from spasms, arising from an affection
of the spine, had obtained some years ago a small portion of hashish
(at the time a name unknown), when all other narcotics had failed:
it afforded her an almost miraculous relief. Medical men had been
applied to in India to procure the bangue, but it failed. The hemp of
England had been tried in vain. I wrote to Mr. Lane, then in Egypt,
requesting him to obtain some, but he found it a disgraceful thing
to make inquiries on the subject. All these endeavours ended in
disappointment. Still I remained satisfied that there was such a plant.
At Tangier I observed a diminutive pipe, about the size of a thimble;
I asked what kind of tobacco they were smoking. I was answered, _kef_
(literally, enjoyment),--it was the hashish. I found that it was also
taken inwardly. Either the leaves are swallowed with water, after
being crushed, or it is prepared, and boiled with sugar or honey, and
butter, like horehound, a great variety of seeds and spices entering
into the composition, which is thus said to vary in its effects, and to
be gifted also with medicinal powers. This preparation is the majoun.
Its effects were described as those of the laughing gas, except that,
instead of a few minutes, it lasts for many hours. Some cry, some
laugh, some fall into drowsy listlessness; some are rendered talkative
and funny. They see visions, imagine themselves reduced to poverty,
or become emperors and commanders of armies, the natural disposition
predominating in the derangement. Men under its influence were pointed
out to me in the streets. They walked along with fixed eye, heedless of
all around them. Some take it daily in small quantities, producing, as
one of them described it to me, “a comfortable state of mind,” without
appearing to impair the general health. Under its influence the mouth
is parched; it is not in their power to spit. Their eyes become red and
small. They are ravenous for food. Everything that one hears of it has
the air of fable; and I should have been inclined to treat it as such,
but for the evidence of my own senses.
Finding that I could not understand from description either the mode
of preparing it, or the effects, I determined to get those who were
accustomed to make it to bring the materials, and prepare it before
me, and then to try it myself, and on as many others as I could. I was
so engaged for a week after my return to Rabat, for I had successively
the three most noted confectioners to try their skill against each
other. They have not a regular or uniform process, and the majoun is
consequently of very unequal strength and efficacy. Our first attempts
were failures. The first proof of the success of our preparation was
in the case of a young English clergyman, to whom some of it had been
given as a sweetmeat. Some hours passed without any visible effects,
when a musician, who had the faculty of strangely distorting his
features, came in, dressed as a mummer. The Englishman took him for the
devil, and a most laughable scene ensued. Next morning, on inquiries
after his health, he said he had slept soundly and agreeably, “as the
windows and doors were bolted.” Later in the day the effect disappeared
entirely, and he seemed to recollect the circumstances with a confused
pleasure, describing various things that had never happened.
The first time I took it was about seven in the morning, and in an hour
and a half afterwards I perceived a heaviness of the head, wandering
of the mind, and an apprehension that I was going to faint. I thence
passed into a state of half trance, from which I awoke suddenly, and
much refreshed. The impression was that of wandering out of myself. I
had two beings, and there were two distinct, yet concurrent trains of
ideas.
Images came floating before me--not the figures of a dream, but those
that seem to play before the eye when it is closed, and with those
figures were strangely mixed the sounds of a guitar that was being
played in the adjoining room: the sounds seemed to cluster in and
pass away with the figures on the retina. The music of the wretched
performance was heavenly, and seemed to proceed from a full orchestra,
and to be reverberated through long halls of mountains. These figures
and sounds were again connected with metaphysical reflections, which
also, like the sounds, clustered themselves into trains of thought,
which seemed to take form before my eyes, and weave themselves with the
colours and sounds. I was following a train of reasoning; new points
would occur, and concurrently there was a figure before me throwing
out corresponding shoots like a zinc tree; and then, as the moving
figures reappeared, or as the sounds caught my ear, the other classes
of figures came out distinctly, and danced through each other.
The reasonings were long and elaborate; and though the impression of
having gone through them remains, every effort has been in vain to
recall them. The following scene was described by me, and taken down at
the time:--
A general, commanding an army, and doubting whether he should engage
the enemy, consulted the oracle. The oracle answered, “Go with the
fortune of Cæsar.” He gave battle, and was beaten; his king ordered his
head to be cut off, but the general accused the oracle: the king said,
“The oracle is not in fault; it did not tell you that you were Cæsar;
you were twice a fool to mistake its meaning, and your own worth.” The
general answered, “Then is the fault his who sent a fool to command his
armies.” “Nay,” answered the king, “thou shalt not twist one phrase to
thy benefit, and another to my loss.” This scene seemed to pass before
me, and in the region of Carthage, which was all familiar, though I had
never been there. The general was an Abyssinian, the king a white man
with a black beard.
The next time I tried it, the only effect was to make me lose a night’s
rest; the first time, it had given me a double portion of sleep: on
both occasions it enormously increased my appetite. It was followed by
no depression. The third time I took it, at half-past four, and after
it, a liqueur glass of caraway spirits to hasten the effect. An hour
afterwards, walking on the terrace, I began to experience the effects.
I did not feel cold, while those who were walking with me, and wrapt
in mantles were complaining of it. They profess to be able to prepare
it, so that it shall serve a man instead of clothing. Then came an
unsteadiness of gait--not that of one who fears to fall--but of one who
tries to keep down, for I felt as if there were springs in my knees,
and was reminded of the story of the man with the mechanical leg, that
walked away with him. I sat down to dinner at half past six o’clock.
There was a glass between me and the rest of the company, and an inch
or two interposed between me and whatever I touched. What I ate, or how
much, did not matter;--the food flowed like a river through me. There
was a wind going by, blowing over the table, and carrying away the
sounds, and I saw the words tumbling over one another down the falls.
There is a dryness of the mouth, which is not thirst. The dryness
radiated from the back of the throat, opposite the nape of the neck. It
was a patch of dark blue colour; the food, as it reached this point,
pouring down, and taking the colour of the patch. I was under the
impression that I described all this at the time, but was told that I
would not say anything about myself, or describe what I experienced.
I should have been relieved if some one present had been under the same
influence. The bursts of laughter to which I gave rise were not at all
pleasing, except when they were excited by any observation I made which
was not connected with myself. I never lost the consciousness of what
was going on; there were always present the real objects, as well as
the imaginative ones; but at times I began to doubt which was which,
and then I floated in strange uncertainty. It came by fits at--as I
thought--hours of interval, when only minutes could have elapsed.
Sometimes a week seemed to pass between the beginning and the end of a
word. I fancied my head an inverted pendulum, which it cost me a great
deal of labour to keep straight, when I could resist no longer, and let
it go, and it went back as if a blow had been discharged. I struggled
against each relapse, out of a sense of politeness towards the company,
of which I did not fail to inform them, notwithstanding their roars of
laughter. The back of my neck was the pivot; there was a heavy upper
weight on the top of my head, and the pendulum was swinging between my
legs; but the pendulum was attracted upwards to the table, and I had
to struggle to keep it down by keeping my head up. The swinging fit
was accompanied by bursts of laughter. I derived great pleasure from
allowing my head to go back; but the laughter was unlike any mortal
merriment; it seemed as never to end, and to press me, and to lead up
to a mountain-top. When any one put his hand behind my head, fearing
the effect of the jerks, or that I should throw the chair over, I was
very much annoyed, because it disturbed, as I said, “the isochronism of
the oscillations.”
I afterwards saw a similar effect produced on a European who did not
know what he had taken. He was constantly throwing back his head and
looking at the ceiling, and exhibited no other symptom, which only made
this the more ludicrous.
After keeping the party for four hours in a state of continual
convulsion, I became irresistibly drowsy, and was moved away to bed.
This operation sickened me, and brought on a slight vomiting. The
instant I was in bed I fell asleep, and slept without intermission
for nine hours; I then awoke, perfectly recovered, and fresh, with a
feeling of lightness, and in high spirits.
One of the most remarkable effects was, that it seemed to lay bare your
inmost thoughts, and to present a mirror, on which was reflected every
act of your life, and that you were constrained to reveal and confess
it all; which exactly agrees with effects attributed to the ophisnu.
The Jews are in the habit of taking hashish on Saturday, as it
ensures, they say, their doing no work on Sunday. A party of them will
agree to take it together, and go out to a garden. One of them, being
asked to describe a scene of that kind, said, “We were eight, and seven
took to laughing, and one to crying, and the more he cried the more we
laughed, and the more we laughed the more he cried, and so we spent the
night, and in the morning we went to bed.”
After being satisfied with my preparation, I devoted a day to the
trying of the experiment on a number of patients. Two or three took it
in the morning, and each as he had taken it became exceedingly anxious
to administer it to others, so that patients were sought in every place
and by every means. Many who took it went away, so that I did not see
the effect on more than a dozen. On the whole I was disappointed: there
was not one interesting case, though there were not two alike.
The master of a Portuguese vessel, to whom it was given without his
being aware of its nature, thought himself bewitched, and his crew were
on the point of securing him as deranged. He saw a ship stranded on the
bar, and ordered out his boats to her assistance; he then saw the devil
cooking in the caboose, and with the demeanour of an insane person, was
all the while reasoning on the evidences of his insanity.
Having at one time been in the habit of taking opium, I am able
to compare the effects. The idea of a strong resemblance has been
generally admitted; but in this I cannot agree. In De Quincy’s
“Confessions of an Opium-Eater,” there are passages which might pass
for a description of hashish, but they do not appear to me to be
descriptive of opium: opium does not give the double identity, and the
hashish draws towards insanity: the hashish does not affect either the
nervous system or the viscera. The length of time that elapses before
it begins to act, shows that it has first to be taken into the blood.
I have witnessed its effects in relieving pains and spasms, which
differ from those of ordinary narcotics.[114] It is an anodyne and an
anti-spasmodic, producing intoxication without its consequences, and
dispelling its effects.
The French have become intoxicated with hashish. A number of works
and essays have been published on the subject in Paris. Multitudes of
experiments have been made, and endless visions seen or described. From
these I select one specimen, which to him who has eaten hashish bears
intrinsic evidence, _pour le fond_, of being genuine. “It appeared
that his body was dissolved, that he had become transparent. He
clearly saw in his chest the hashish which he had swallowed, under the
form of an emerald, from which a thousand little sparks issued. His
eyelashes were lengthened out indefinitely, and rolled like threads of
gold around ivory balls, which turned with an inconceivable rapidity.
Around him were sparklings of precious stones of all colours, changes
eternally produced, like the play of the kaleidoscope. He every now
and then saw his friends who were around him disfigured--half men,
half plants; some with the wings of the ostrich, which they were
constantly shaking. So strange were these, that he burst into fits of
laughter; and to join in the apparent ridiculousness of the affair,
he began throwing the cushions in the air, catching and turning them
with the rapidity of an Indian juggler. One gentleman spoke to him
in Italian, which the hashish transposed into Spanish. After a few
minutes he recovered his habitual calmness, without any bad effect,
without headache, and only astonished at what had passed. Half-an-hour
had scarcely elapsed before he fell again under the influence of
the drug. On this occasion the vision was more complicated and
more extraordinary. In the air there were millions of butterflies,
confusedly luminous, shaking their wings like fans. Gigantic flowers
with chalices of crystal, large peonies upon beds of gold and silver,
rose and surrounded him with the crackling sound that accompanies the
explosion in the air of fireworks. His hearing acquired new power:
it was enormously developed. He heard the noise of colours. Green,
red, blue, yellow sounds reached him in waves. He swam in an ocean of
sound, where floated, like isles of light, some of the airs of 'Lucia
di Lammermuir,’ and the 'Barber of Seville.’ Never did similar bliss
overwhelm him with its waves: he was lost in a wilderness of sweets;
he was not himself; he was relieved from consciousness--that feeling
which always pervades the mind; and for the first time he comprehended
what might be the state of existence of elementary beings, of angels,
of souls separated from the body: all his system seemed infected with
the fantastic colouring in which he was plunged. Sounds, perfume,
light, reached him only by minute rays, in the midst of which he heard
magnetic currents whistling along. According to his calculation, this
state lasted about three hundred years; for the sensations were so
numerous and so hurried, one upon the other, that a real appreciation
of time was impossible. The paroxysm over, he was aware that it had
only lasted a quarter of an hour.”
The Moors have long been in possession of Dr. Hunter’s idea,[115] that
certain qualities are conveyed by certain kinds of food: his notion is,
however, limited to corporeal effects. Thus, a person with an affection
of the liver should eat the liver of animals--the heart, &c. The Moors
imagine that the mind can in like manner be affected, and that the
quality of the animal is conveyed to the eater. The flesh of the fox
gives cunning, the heart of the lion inspires courage. Probably it
was to improve her complexion that the African Cleopatra ate pearls.
To designate a stupid person, they say, “He has eaten the head of a
hyena;” and as the hyena is very fond of hashish, his fixed eye and
stupid look are attributed to the effect of that plant, for he will
sit in the bottom of his den and allow it to be entered by a man who
shoots, stabs, or nooses him. They give it also to horses, as it was
told me first, to make them fiery; but on further inquiry, I found that
it was given to them as a purge, and that afterwards they leave them in
repose like men, as they are unable to keep their feet.
There are several other plants which they employ for producing similar
effects--that which I afterwards found at Medea, and which is there
described as the _surnag_,[116] which is found in the Atlas, and which
is used for the same purpose; also the nuts of a species of the Palma
Christi, which they mix with food, and the effect of which lasts but a
few hours. This is said to be used to make people speak the truth, and
discover their inward thoughts.[117]
Extensive as is the use of this drug, it is not used by the gentleman.
On him observances are heaped which the vulgar escape, and indulgences
denied which they enjoy. A Moorish gentleman is more constrained and
more observed than the same class in any other country: he must be
punctual in the discharge of his religious duties, which are neglected
by the mass of the people; he must pay the regular alms to the poor; he
abstains from all kinds of fermented liquors: he does not smoke or take
snuff.
[105] “The butchers, that they might not be
compelled to execute this sentence, took sanctuary.
A stranger, and a ruffian, was found, who consented
to perform the service. The gates were shut to keep
the people in meanwhile. When over, and the gates
were opened, the soldiers refused to protect the
executioner. He was then chased like a mad dog by the
children into the country, and then shot by a relation
of the deceased.”--HAY’S _Western Barbary_.
[106] I may here anticipate the event which occurred
a fortnight afterwards. One morning the leaders of the
revolt, amounting to eighteen, were secured, Mike Brettel,
of course, among the number. The whole was considered a
master-stroke of policy, dexterity, and dissimulation:
however, it failed in one point. By such influences as
Walter Scott exhibits in the opening of the Tolbooth of
Glasgow to Rob Roy, some of the chiefs _who belonged to
clans_, escaped the Sultan. He thought it needless, and
perhaps imprudent, to proceed against the mere citizens.
[107] Dr. Thompson’s Notes to M. Salvert’s Occult
Sciences, vol. ii. p. 10.
[108] Kou-kin-I-Tong, as quoted by M. S. Julien, in
a recent memoir to the Academy of Sciences.
[109] The proper name in Morocco is _shazar_. The
young plant just sprouting is called _nucla_.
[110] Chrest. Arabe, tom. i. p. 210. See also
Sonnini, Voyages, vol. iii. p. 103; Kiempfer, Amœnit.
Exoticæ, Fasc. iii. ob. xv. p. 638.
[111] Hassan Saba founded the Ismaelians of Persia
at Rudbor in 1090.
Their most illustrious victims were, Ameer Billah,
Calif of Egypt, A.H. 524; Mostarschid, Calif
of Bagdad, A.H. 529; Nezam al Mulk, the
celebrated Vizier of the Seljucks, 485.
[112] See “Merchant and Friar,” by Sir W. Palgrave.
[113] “L’effet du hachich étoit de leur procurer un
état extatique, une douce et profonde reverie, pendant
laquelle ils jouissaient, ou s’imaginaient jouir de
toutes les voluptés que embellissent le paradis de
Mahomet. Les jardins enchantés, où le Vieux de la
Montaigne fasait porter les jeunes gens, étaient un
fantôme produit par l’imagination de ces jeunes gens
enivrés par le hachich, et qu’on avait long temps
bercés de l’image de ce bonheur.”--SILVESTRE DE SACY.
[114] In an interesting article in Chambers’s
Magazine of November 1848, the writer says:--
“It is the nervous system that is affected, no
other part of the body being acted upon; hashish thus
materially differing from opium, whose power is marked
upon the muscular and digestive systems, retarding the
action of the organs, and leaving them in a complete
state of inaction. The circulation does not seem to
be affected; but it is not with impunity that the
brain becomes disordered with frequent indulgence in
the delicious poison: it becomes incapable at last of
separating the true from the false.”
[115] See his Cookery Book.
[116] Marmol, vol. iii. p. 4.
[117] In Hunter’s “Captivity” there is an interesting
account of the plants used by the Red Indians for smoking,
inhaling, and also for sweating.
CHAPTER XII.
THE HISTORY OF MUFFINS.--THE ORIGIN OF BUTTER.--THE
ENGLISH BREAKFAST.
The day we landed at Rabat we heard a little tinkling bell through
the street, just like the four o’clock muffin-bell in London. One of
the party asked if it were tea-time amongst the Moors, and the others
laughed, thinking it a good joke:--there was no joke in the case. These
cockney cakes are just as common here as within the sound of Bow bells,
and served for breakfast in Barbary when Queen Elizabeth’s maids of
honour had for theirs beefsteaks and ale, or herrings and bread and
cheese. They are a little larger than those in London, and exactly the
_peiklets_ of the midland counties.
To find muffins and crumpets here is, indeed, in the language of modern
philosophy, a “great and a twofold fact.”[118] It is, however, one
which great men have overlooked; because, although a cook must be a
philosopher, it is not required that a philosopher should be a cook.
The incident set me upon considering the nature of the muffin, and
opened to me a large field of speculation, culinary and historical. I
first perceived that there were combined in the greasy accompaniment
of our tea-tables characters so diverse, that it must have a history,
and an eventful one; that it must have undergone vicissitude and
persecution in the course of its wide career, the range of which in
space and time could not be doubtful, from the place in which I found
it.
Let me dispose first of the word _crumpet_: it is clearly a recent one.
Peiklet is still used in the interior of England, and one name is given
to both by Moors and Jews, _sfen_; I shall, therefore, equally employ
for both the word “muffin.”[119]
The muffin is _bread_, _cake_, and _dish_:[120] like the first, it
is fermented; like the second, baked or toasted on a griddle; like
the third, it requires to be cooked before it is eaten. Our method
of cooking, by toasting first and then softening by butter, appears
at the first glance the travestie of some lost method. The use of
the toasting-fork could not have preceded coal-fires and grates with
upright bars, an invention not earlier than the Georges; nor could it
have preceded the use of butter, which cannot be traced beyond the
Dutch stadtholder. In America, they do not toast and butter muffins,
but eat them hot, as baked. They were, therefore, originally a part
of the regular cookery of the country, and, indeed, could not belong,
as at present, to “breakfast” and “tea,” which meals are of recent
invention. Morocco presents the original practice: here they are
simmered in oil or butter, and then dipped in honey. I did not see
them used in dressed dishes; but Marmol, writing two centuries ago,
describes them as employed in this manner. He says, “In Morocco, there
are two ways of making bread--baking in an oven, as we do in Europe,
and preparing it in pans to be eaten hot with honey and butter, or with
oil. These cakes are sometimes stewed with the flesh of goats, for that
of sheep is difficult to be got at, and that of cattle they do not
consider wholesome.”[121]
The Moors and the Jews cook them differently, the former using butter,
the latter oil: they thus connect baking and cooking, and illustrate
differences between Judaism and Islam, or, perhaps, between Jew and
Gentile. With these data it may be worth while to endeavour to find
traces of them in ancient times.
Baking in Greece had attained to the highest perfection, as exhibited
in separating or bolling the flour,[122] and in kneading the
dough.[123] The art of baking, as connected with religious festivals,
possessed an importance which, to us, is inconceivable. Among the Greek
states, Athens was most distinguished for its bread; yet there were
there foreign bakers--and these Lydians.[124] There was bread known by
the name of Cappadocian, and the Phœnicians were held bakers of first
repute. This people was said to possess as many kinds of bread as there
were days in the year: their merit, however, does not seem to have
consisted in baking, properly so called, but in combining preparations
of flour with other viands; and in the Old Testament we have constant
references to the mixtures of flour with oil and honey, all which
approach to the Moorish sfen.
The names of only three out of the three hundred and sixty-five kinds
of Phœnician bread have been handed down: the three resemble one
another. This must have been the kind of bread for which Phœnicia was
celebrated, and the descriptions apply to the muffin and the sfen,
still preserved in countries which they colonized. The three kinds are
_lackmar_, _chebrodlapson_, and _maphula_: lackmar is evidently derived
from lackma, to swallow (whence _lick_), and must have been remarkably
soft. Athenæus calls it “ἄρτον ἁπαλόν [arton hapalon].” It was prepared
with milk and oil: the Syrians were celebrated for making it. That it
was known to the Jews is proved by the word _lachmanigoth_, which
occurs in the Talmud.[125] It was known to the Arabs, and is described
by Mininski as a fritter of flour, dried grapes, oil, and fresh wine:
of chebrodlapson, we only know that it was prepared with honey. How
these were baked is not stated; but the third, maphula, was not
fired in the oven, but on the hearth, or on a griddle. In the three
collectively, we have all the ingredients and the methods at present in
use in Morocco,[126] viz. flour, milk, oil, honey, and a griddle for
firing them.
In maphula, we have the word employed in England. Taking away the
final vowel added by the Greeks, and changing _l_ for its cognate _n_,
maphula or mufula becomes mufu_n_.[127]
These names have puzzled the most learned. Bochart avows his
perplexity; Casaubon avers that “we ought not to be ashamed of
confessing our ignorance of what we do not know, and, _ipso facto_,
confesses his own.” Their difficulties disappear, as usual, before the
knowledge of habits. Flour, milk, oil, and honey mixed up together
would, indeed, form a sorry dish; as the critics, not being cooks,
could not devise the process by which they could be converted into a
palatable one. Bochart, with his usual sagacity, has detected the union
of cooking and baking, and also that the Jews and Arabs cooked the
muffin differently. He has, however, mistaken the distinction; he makes
the Jews use oil _or_ butter, the Arabs fat: the Jews cook it in oil
only, the Arabs prefer butter.
The griddle on which muffins are baked in London,[128] is precisely
the same as that used in the East, and fixed in the same manner over
the fire. It serves for a variety of other dishes and preparations of
flour.[129] On it is made the pastry of the East, which all travellers
have tasted, which many have pronounced exquisite, and yet which none
have described, or suspected, perhaps, to be different from that of
Europe.
The secret of French pastry consists in bringing the butter and the
dough to exactly the same consistency: this is effected by temperature
for the butter, by water for the dough, cooling down the one or
softening the other. When so adjusted, the butter in one mass is
covered in;[130] it then spreads under the rolling-pin equally as the
dough spreads, each in its own plane. Folded over and over again, the
two keep distinct, and thus are obtained the flakes.
The butter of the East is fluid, and runs like oil; how, then, can
they have flake-pastry? It was this difficulty which spurred their
invention, and produced the unrivalled method which I shall now
describe.
Wheat is steeped till it sprouts; it is then rubbed down, or pounded
in a mortar, till it acquires the consistency of cream. In this
state it is poured in ladles on the griddle, rubbed with butter.
Instantly hardening, it is tossed off, sheet after sheet: the name is
_youfka_.[131] It is then strung, and hung up: when wanted, a bundle of
it is laid into the dish, or _taien_,[132] for the under-crust; the
contents, sweet or savoury, of the pastry, are then put in, and the
upper-crust in the same manner laid on. By this process are attained,
in the highest degree, all the objects of French pastry--fineness of
flour with a certain _agro dolce_ flavour, softness in the substance,
fineness and equality in the flake. It has the advantage, also, over
our pastry, of facility and economy of time.
Old Arabic writers mention two kinds of food prepared by making
_Khebes_, which are compared to the banana and _Neïdeh_ described by
Abd Allatib, as follows: “Wheat is soaked until it sprouts; it is then
boiled until its whole substance passes into the water; the water is
then clarified, and boiled down until it gets thick; at this point a
little flour is thrown in, and it sets; it is then taken from the fire,
and sold at the price of bread.” This is _Neïdeh Albousch_; but when no
flour is added, and it is boiled until it coagulates, it is better and
sells for a higher price, and is called _Neïdeh Makoudeh_.[133]
Soyonti speaks of it as one of the things in high estimation in Egypt,
and quotes an old writer, who says that it was discovered by the Virgin
Mary. Being without milk, she was inspired with the idea of preparing
it for the Infant Jesus. P. Sicard saw this dish at Meuschieh, and thus
describes it: “The grain is steeped for several days till it sprouts;
it is then dried, pounded or ground, and boiled for use. A sweet and
agreeable confection is then made without sugar, and the people of the
country esteem it much, and are very fond of it.”[134] In the time of
Sonnini it had disappeared from Meuschieh. Here we have the steeping
of the grain, the grinding, and the diluting of it in water, as in the
present Eastern pastry. Although we have not the toasting of it on the
griddle, more cannot be wanted to carry this process back to ancient
times, and to those celebrated baker-cooks of Tyre and Sidon.
The neïdeh is still preserved in Britain under the name of _Frumenty_
or _Furmity_. The method of preparing it is now in the hands of a
few persons only, and has become a secret; and, probably, in another
generation it too will have died out, under the crushing roller of
subdivision of labour. Where still used, it is only on one occasion
in the year, _Mid Lent Sunday_. When brought to market it is of the
consistence of thick gum. Those who have eaten it describe it as an
excellent dish. The festival when it is used may have some connexion
with the Arab tradition concerning Mary’s milk.[135]
In the Highlands there is at once the neïdeh, the cadaëf, and the
youfka; not, however, by malting, but by fermentation. Oat seeds are
steeped for ten days till they ferment, the water is then boiled till
it thickens. This is _sowans_;[136] or it is poured on the griddle and
made into _scons_,[137] which are used on festal occasions, but chiefly
at Christmas.[138] That the Highlanders understood malting is shown in
their whiskey, which they did not wait for Paracelsus to teach them to
distil.
The first step in preparing flour or meal for food, is the ashes
on the griddle; the next and last is, the oven. The peculiarity of
bread resides in the baking in the oven; fermentation is called in as
an auxiliary: the process is elaborate and complicated. When first
invented, the oven and its produce, the baking and the bread, would be
known by the same name. In early times words had to do severe duty. A
soft flat roll, resembling the common bread of Barbary, is called in
Scotland, _bake_. If so called because it is baked, it must have been
so at the origin of baking. “Bake” would thus belong to the earliest
ages, and go back to the first discovery of an oven, which, by one
peculiar and horrid ceremony, we can trace to Sabæa.[139]
Now, this very word is written in a book two thousand three hundred
years ago, and then as an old one--as one of the oldest in use among
men.[140] There we learn that the Phrygian name for bread was _bake_;
bake was, therefore, asked for three thousand years ago, by Pelethite
or Cerethian at Escalon or Gorja, just as to-day by the barefooted
callant of Paisley or Linlithgow. It may be objected that the word,
if in use in Canaan, would not have been mentioned as Phrygian; but
the colony may have retained an ancient word which the metropolis
had lost,[141] or the metropolis may, without losing the one, have
introduced new names for new inventions. The Phœnician words which have
been preserved are of that description. Lackmar, Chebrodlapson, are
fine terms, such as would strike strangers more than the homely one
in common use. The Egyptians, besides, were not given to travel; and
with shoals of travellers and clouds of books, see how difficult--nay,
impossible, it is to get at the simple things of any country.
However, “bake” and “muffin” do not stand alone: they are accompanied
by a goodly array of emigrants from the Holy Land. I adduce them, not
to prove any affinity of Hebrew and Celtic, or of Indo-Germanic and
Semitic, but to establish the intercourse of our forefathers with those
countries. Thus have come to us _cake_,[142] _bun_,[143] _scon_,[144]
_sowans_,[145] _bread_,[146] _broth_, _bear_[147] (old Teutonic for
grain), _beer_, _barley_, and I may, perhaps, add _ham_[148] and
_meat_,[149] which, with those given before, make a baker’s dozen.
I will now leave it to the antiquarian to determine whether sfen came
hither with the “diggers” for tin, or with those later “Afers,” whose
persons and wares increased in the eyes of William the Norman, as the
author of “Harold” narrates, the attraction of the capital of England.
But anyhow, this remains certain, that muffins and crumpets were served
at Hiram’s table.
A stranger from Europe is little surprised to find _butter_ in Morocco.
I had spent years in the East, and never had seen butter. I had myself
introduced it both in Greece and Turkey; what, then, was my surprise to
find it here. You may see in a boy’s hand a roll sliced--yes, sliced
bread in a Mussulman’s hand, with a lump of butter inside for his
breakfast, just as in England. It is pale, sweet, cowslip-flavoured,
and smelling of the country[150]--I mean the country of England. To us
butter comes so naturally--it is so necessary--that we cannot imagine
ourselves without it, nor call up the difficulties in the way of its
first discovery, which is one of the latest of uncivilized articles
among the barbarous.
We read of butter in ancient times, but it was _gee_. The merit of ours
is its being made from cream thrown up cold. The milk of kine alone has
that property; and that milk during many centuries was unknown to man
as food.
The great event of primeval society was the employment of cattle in
tillage. To preserve and increase the breed was the first care of
legislators: this they effected by consecrating the cow,[151] and its
milk was surrendered to its own offspring. The practice outlived the
occasion; and it was not till horses came to be substituted for oxen
in the flat lands of the north that cows’ milk returned into general
use,[152] as it had originally been among nomade tribes. Cream was
unknown to all antiquity. There is not even the word in any ancient
language. This statement will appear extraordinary, and may, perhaps,
be set down as contrary to reason and unfounded in fact, for reference
to cream in so many authors will immediately recur. The fact is, that
none of those who have illustrated ancient manners and language have
noticed this point, and they and travellers have not been conversant
with the dairy; consequently they have transferred their own ideas to
the languages they translated, the usages they described, or even the
very things before their eyes.[153]
Up to the time of this discovery the diet consisted, as in the East,
of a repetition of the same meal twice in the day. The breakfast
differed not from the dinner, except that it was a smaller meal--the
dishes were the same. Butter revolutionized the kitchen. About the
same time two remarkable adjuncts to our diet were introduced from
China and Arabia, tea and coffee. In their native countries they were
no part of the people’s food, and furnished forth no meal; they were
only used as a slight refreshment. In our adaptation of them they lost
their flavour,[154] and no longer served their original purpose. Our
coarse preparation required to be mellowed by cream or milk, and sugar.
With the aid of butter, they assumed the consistency of a refection,
and with eggs, in the shell,[155] of a meal. This did not, however,
suffice as a substitute for both meals. Beef ruled the evening repast:
the road diverged; two distinct meals came into existence, and the
“English breakfast” assumed its dignified station in the domestic
world. It has spread far and near, but only where preceded by the
discovery of cream, and accompanied by the manufacture of butter.
Morocco having butter, has the two descriptions of meals.
They make their butter without churn or cream. A goat’s-skin, with the
hairy side in, is filled two thirds with milk; four poles or reeds, six
feet long, are set up like a triangle. The skin is slung between them,
a leg stretched out to each reed. A woman, seated on the ground, pushes
and swings it, and presently the butter is churned. This is the simple
imitation of what accident first taught; and in the desert the butter
is, to this day, churned by the camel, not by the dairy-maid.[156]
The variety of its forms is wonderful. It _sours_, it _ferments_, it
becomes _sugar_--it may be distilled into _alcohol_. It changes to
_curd_; it becomes _cheese_; it hardens to _stone_,[157] or acquires
the tenacity of _cement_;[158] it leavens into _yourt_; it dries into
_paste_;[159] it is separated by heat into _caimah_; by greater heat
into _gee_; by repose it gives you _cream_, by agitation _butter_.
The peculiarity of the compound resides in the mode of mixture of the
oil and water. These are not chemically united, for the oil is obtained
without a reagent. Globules, as in the blood, have been detected. These
by agitation cohere, probably by atomic polarity. Heat causes oil
to appear, by bursting them. This is the difference between gee and
butter. The globules being congested in a granular state, in butter
and cheese, these when melted cannot be restored, like wax or lard,
to their original condition. The cases of these globules are the part
contributed by the animal; and, generated in the udder, must be the
caseine, which is acted upon by the rennet, and becomes curd. However,
as these compounds are not to be imitated by art, so have they not been
as yet explained by science.
From this diet of milk has sprung the invention of butter. In the
Zahara the animals are milked once a-day. All the kinds of milk are
poured in together, and the distribution is made round and round to
a family in the same cup or bowl. This is the whole meal.[160] What
remains over is left for the old men, and poured into a skin, and
put on the camel’s back, that it may be given to them at the next
encampment. On their arrival it is churned, and thus butter becomes
their perquisite, and is forbidden fruit to the younger portion of the
community.
There is no mention of butter in Homer. Herodotus[161] and Hippocrates
mention it as a Scythian word. But it is not satisfactory to
me that butter is meant. The most particular description is by
Hippocrates.[162] He introduces it as an analogy, to show the effect of
disturbance on the humours of the body. He makes in that case the bile,
as the lightest, rise to the top; the blood remains in the middle, and
the phlegm falls below, just as the Scythians, by agitating mare’s
milk, get three substances-the βούτηρον [boutêron], on the top, the
ὀῤῥὸς [orrhos], in the middle, and the ἵππακα [hippaka], at the bottom.
Milk is never so treated, and produces no such substances. We accept
the description, because of the manner of treating it, which resembles
churnin and the word butter. That butter should have been used among
the primitive Scythians, while yet pastoral, would concur with what
we see elsewhere, but it is not proved by the passages in question.
The word butter may have been known to the Greeks, as used by some
barbarians, and therefore used for all oily preparations from milk, on
this occasion. The agitation, or churning, is the chief link; but this
again becomes very slight, when we know that the Tartars to this day
employ that process in preparing milk for distillation,[163] and get
from it their kermis.
In the domestic economy of the Zahara, milk assumes an importance
which to us is scarcely credible. Periodically throughout that vast
region--and among some of its tribes constantly--[164] it constitutes
the sole and entire food of the population. “Impossible!” the animal
chemist will exclaim. “Man requires a pound of nutriment; milk contains
seven per cent., or say one ounce to the pound. He would have to drink
sixteen pounds of milk, that is, two gallons, for the supply of mere
waste of muscle. But milk does not supply the chemical ingredients for
the animal laboratory. We want carbon for the great furnace of the
lungs to supply heat and life.” I can only allege the fact. I have
myself lived for months almost entirely on milk, curds, and cheese, and
have not found the animal heat decay. On this diet the frame is able to
support labour and privation, and to last long.
If we are to credit a fraction of the tales that are told of the age
to which the Galactofagi attain, we should have to set it down as the
perfection of food.[165] Nor are the effects of this diet confined to
our species: milk is provender for cattle. It is given to horses where
grain cannot be procured, and, together with dates, is the ordinary
food of those fabulous steeds, the “Breath of the Desert.”
Milk contains nothing that is superfluous, to impose toil on the
digestive organs, or to produce disturbance in the animal laboratory.
It is, properly, neither an animal nor a vegetable substance. It is not
dead flesh, of which we make our stomachs the sepulchre; nor is it the
cold vegetation of the earth, for the decomposition of which we make
them a trough. It is generated in the body of one animal, in order to
be adapted for the food of another. It is drawn from the blood, and
undergoes a change, which brings it near to chyle, so as to fit it
to pass readily again into blood.[166] It is a food prepared, and a
dish cooked, by Nature’s own hand, and served, if not hot, warm. It
is adapted to the stomach before it can bear anything else, being the
first transition from the blood circulated into the animal without the
intervention of its own organs, and conveying into the body all that is
requisite for its growth and development.[167] Like death, it equalises
all ranks, all races, nay, even brings to the same level different
orders of creation. It is the only food which the prince and the
beggar, the tiger and the lamb, the Jew and Gentile, have in common;
and, in common with other special favours, of which we are the objects,
we least appreciate where we are most indebted.
Men may accustom themselves to a fetid atmosphere, and even to
poisonous food, and they are then unable to appreciate what they lose,
or what they suffer; but the simplest pabulum must best serve the
purposes of life, and in proportion as any other is substituted, must
there be a dissipation of vital power, and a consequent curtailment of
existence;[168] and thus it is that, amongst the Koords and Zaharans
life is sustained by an amount of nutriment which, according to our
calculations of expenditure and waste, is wholly insufficient. No
nation understands so little the use of milk as the English. To one
familiar with the cookery and diet of other countries, nothing can be
more afflicting than to visit the abodes, and inspect the food of those
classes amongst ourselves who cannot afford meat. The fashion of tea,
and the mania for baker’s bread, have expelled popular knowledge in
the culinary art, together with the use of this natural diet, which is
also proportionally diminished by the enclosure of commons, the methods
of agriculture, and the disuse of ewes’ milk, even when the number of
flocks increase.
Pliny derives the Latin word from the Greek βόος [boos] τύρα [tyra],
without explaining how butter could ever come to be called cows’
cheese, or observing that mares, not cows, furnished it. What he tells
us of butter refers to “the barbarians, who,” he says, “use it instead
of oil, to anoint their children, and hold it to be the daintiest of
meats. It is forbidden to the inferior classes; they employ it as a
medicine, and esteem it the more, the stronger (more rancid) it is.”
The two latter points exactly coincide with the practice in Africa.
For higher classes, read old men. They use butter medicinally, and
for that purpose keep it till it becomes rancid. The commentators,
however, would amend Pliny by substituting _minus_ for _majus_! The
Roman naturalist in all he says refers to oiled butter or gee, and not
to butter produced by agitation or churning. He is astonished that the
barbarians possessing butter are ignorant of cheese; but is by no means
surprised at his own countrymen, who, liking milk and cheese, could
neither make butter nor adopt it. The words _cheese_ and _butter_,
supposed to be derived from the Latin, were, as will presently appear,
derived by the Romans from the barbarians.
Butter is mentioned in the Old Testament. The commentators, however,
are agreed that it is a mistranslation. I admit that it does militate
against its antiquity that it should be so seldom mentioned there.
The imagery of the Scriptures is drawn from the most homely objects.
The worthies of Israel were as good cooks as Crœsus or Patroclus; the
high-priests were butchers by profession; and all the prophets did not
live on locusts and wild honey;--probably there was not one who had not
used the basting ladle. If, therefore, they had possessed that delicate
and valuable substance, with which we have become too familiar for its
just appreciation, is it possible that it should occur but eight times
from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of the New?
The explanation is furnished in the aversion of the Jew to butter, to
which I have already adverted. The same distinction between the Jew and
the Philistine, no doubt, held in the time of David.
The Jews interpret the injunction “Thou shalt not seethe the kid in
the mother’s milk,” to mean, that butter be not mixed with meat;[169]
consequently they do not allow it to touch any pan, dish, platter,
knife, spoon, or dresser used for their ordinary food. “Antagonism”
being thus established between butter and their common diet, butter
does not make “progression,” nor even hold its own. It is to be
inferred, that the butter they knew contained,--in part at least,--the
milk of goats, as would be the case in the Zahara method of churning.
It is first mentioned when Abraham entertains the angels. He took
“butter and milk, and the calf he had dressed.”[170] Four centuries
later, we have “Rivers of honey and butter;”[171] and butter compared
with oil for “washing one’s steps.”[172] It then occurs in Moses’s
song: “_Butter_ of _kine_, _milk_ of _sheep_, and _fat_ of lambs.” It
next appears in Deborah’s and Barak’s song: “He asked for water, and
she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.”[173] It
is brought for David when he is fleeing from Absalom.[174] The wise
man speaks of it as a wise man ought: “The _churning_ of milk bringeth
forth butter.”[175] The last mention is the most remarkable; it is
Isaiah’s prophecy respecting Christ: “Butter and honey shall he eat,
that he may know to refuse evil and choose good.” The word translated
butter is _imae_,[176] which Calmet explains as “the scalded cream in
use in the East.” Gesenius says, “Butter by the ancients, as well as by
the orientals, was only used medically.” By others it is interpreted
“curdled milk,” “cheese,” &c. In a word, the commentators have been
as much put out by Jewish butter as the scholiast by Phœnician bread.
Had curds or sour milk been meant, the proper name would have been
given. Had Calmet known anything of the scalded cream “in use in the
East,” he never could have supposed that it would be employed to
wash with. None of these could be obtained by _churning_. Then it is
answered, that the Jews had no churn. There is no such word in Hebrew:
the passage of Solomon is, “As the _churning_ of milk bringeth forth
butter, so doth the _wringing_ of the nose bring forth blood, and the
_stirring up_ of wrath bring forth strife.” The same word is employed
throughout--_mitz_. But the word which could be translated “churning,”
“wringing,” and “stirring up,” seems most happily adapted to describe
the jerk and swing of the skin full of liquid on the camel’s back, or
the process by which it was imitated.
In none of these passages, save the last, is butter spoken of as in
use among Jews after the promulgation of the Ceremonial Law. Abraham
and Job are anterior, so is the period to which Moses refers when he
speaks of the good things which they had abused, and thereby incurred
God’s displeasure. When brought forth in a “lordly dish,” it was by a
Midianite offered to a Hazorite.[177] There was much conveyed to the
Israelite in the epithet given to a dish in which butter could never
be placed by him. When brought to David it is offered indeed to a
Hebrew under the Ceremonial Law, but it might be for the Pelethites
or Cerethian, who accompanied him; it is presented too by “one of the
children of Ammon.” Solomon might be describing the practice of the
neighbouring Arabs or Canaanites. In both the cases in which it is
mentioned by Isaiah (ch. vii.), viz., that Christ shall eat it, and
that the people shall be reduced to eat it, no reference is made to a
present practice, and in both cases the sense of breaking the law may
be conveyed.
The Old Testament thus entirely establishes the present usage of
Morocco, and its identity with Palestine. There, as here, butter was
made, and then, as now, the Philistine fried his muffins in butter, the
Jew in oil.
One of the forms in which milk is most generally used, and of all,
perhaps, the most healthful and agreeable, is unknown in Europe, and
has no name amongst us: it is a curd (yumed) without rennet. It is used
fresh, but may be drained of its whey and kept a considerable time. In
travelling, it is hung in a bag, and, when very dry, rubbed down with
fresh milk or water. This is the _leben_[178] of the Arabs and the
_yourt_[179] of the Turks: it is also made in India, and called _tyre_.
It is made as follows:--the milk is heated to the point of boiling, and
then allowed to cool down until the finger can be kept in it while you
count three: a spoonful of the old yourt, mixed first with a little of
the milk, is then poured in. It is put in a warm place (the temperature
must not be under 70°), and in two or three hours it will have set.
The process is one of fermentation: the milk is leavened. The first
leaven of yourt, they say, was brought by Gabriel to Abraham. They,
however, profess to be able to make it anew by repeating the above
process during a fortnight, using on the first occasion a crab pounded
in vinegar, or a silver spoon or button: I have succeeded in obtaining
it without either the crab or the spoon. Milk after being brought to
the boiling point, was allowed to sour; a spoonful of it was mixed on
the second day, that again on the third, and so on till the fourteenth,
when perfect yourt was obtained.
When staying at Lamlin in Hungary, I used to have yourt sent over from
Belgrade: the Germans were very glad to get it, but had no idea of
making it for themselves. So travellers from all countries of Europe
have become acquainted with it, and learn its value as an economical
food and its qualities as a healthy diet. Most of them like it, some
of them give it the preference over everything else; yet no one has
thought of introducing it at home. In Greece, before and during the
revolution, it was, like baths, common use. “Civilization” came, and a
wholesome food and a healthful practice were straightway expelled.
This species of curd, without the aid of the liquid found in the
rennet of young animals, offers the explanation of practices of the
Greeks, and suggests the possibility of unknown uses even of milk. The
Greeks had cheese--or substances to which they applied that name--not
made with rennet, and of which the description applies equally to
yourt.[180] Their name for cheese, τυρὸς [tyros], is supposed to be
derived from Tyre: the Indian name for _yourt_ is _tyre_. The Hindoos
would not touch anything prepared with rennet. The Greeks made curd by
vinegar,[181] pepper, burnt salt, the flowers of bastard saffron, and
the threads on the head of the artichoke.[182]
Next to yourt comes _caïmac_: it is not, however, to us equally a
stranger. The first day I spent in Devonshire was occupied in a
discussion respecting the Phœnician settlements. It was maintained by
several learned natives that of these there was no _direct_ proof.
The next morning, walking with one of these gentlemen, we entered
a cottage. “There,” I said, pointing to the fire, upon which some
Devonshire cream was preparing, “is what you wanted last night.” There
was an Eastern dish made in an Eastern manner--the earthenware pots
and wood-fires:[183] the cottage was built of _tapia_. The name of
the adjoining village was _Torr_; direct proof why every second name
is Hebrew. Besides the village there is _Tor_quay, _Tor_bay, _Tor_
Abbey. To the eastward there is _Sud_bury; and, if that name be not
derived from the ancient metropolis of Phœnicia, no one will dispute
the derivation of _Marazion_ (Great Zion) from the Jewish metropolis.
_Beer_-Ferrers and _Beer_ Alsten are Hebrew for the Well of Ferrers,
the Well of Alsten. Then there is the _Menar_ rock, the river _Camel_,
and so many more.[184] Sir Richard Carew describes, in his day,
mattings for hanging _upon the walls_:[185] they are precisely so used
in Barbary. The Moorish house is the fac-simile of that of ancient
Judæa; we may expect, then, to find a Phœnician dish in villages which
retain Phœnician names, and are built according to the Phœnician
fashion, and were covered, as late as the seventeenth century, with
Phœnician matting.
Devonshire cream is made by heating the milk in a pan upon the fire,
then allowing it to stand; the creamy and caseous parts collect on the
top, and the watery part is drained off below. It may then be churned
into butter: the “scalded cream of the East” is made by a similar
process. The milk is poured into small shallow earthenware basins,
which are put in the oven with a slow heat: the lighter part rises, and
crusts. Gradually it hardens and thickens, until, by gathering up the
whole substance, it forms a little dome. It is then lifted off like a
cake, and a little colourless fluid remains at the bottom. This cream
derives its name from the process of making it, _caïmac_, which means
_burnt_.[186]
“Cream” has in Latin the same meaning: it could not, therefore, have
been originally applied as at present, and the first cream the European
nations who employed the word had seen must have been “burnt;”--that
is, caïmac. It was probably invented during the Crusades. All the
nations of Europe use this word. It follows, that none of them could
originally have had it; for, in that case, they would have had an
original one. Spain is, however, an exception: the Spaniards did not
take part in the Crusades.
Professor Ritter has made use of this art in tracing the ancient
Scythians, and W. Von Humboldt has in like manner employed it in his
remarkable work on the Basques. This is high tribute to the value of
cookery in the profoundest inquiries; but the results show that, before
it can be safely or successfully employed, philosophers must be cooks.
Ritter confounds cheese and butter;[187] assumes, on the strength of
the passage of Hippocrates,[188] on which I have above commented,
butter to be a Scythian name, and butter to have been made by the
Scythians. He then connects the Scythian compound from mares’ milk with
the butter used as a medicine in Greece, which we know was made from
cows’ milk, and the source of which I have already given. He does not
trace any of the parallel words, or show a Scytho-German origin for
“cream,” “milk,” “cheese,” &c.
Humboldt considers his case to be fully made out, and says that the
same thing holds with the Iberians;[189] but, as to whether we are
to infer that the Iberians were Scythians or Germans, he does not
explain. He refers to no one term in use, or to any practice. We have
seen that cream has no native name in any European dialect; that the
name for butter in every land expresses gee, not churned butter; and
the same thing holds even of the Tartars and Chinese, who, like the
Slaavs, call it “cows’ oil.” The Spanish peninsula is an exception, and
exhibits, not only one, but two systems of its own.
The Spanish has original words for cream and butter; the first is
_nata_,[190] the second _manteca_. Manteca means also fat, so that it
could not have been with them primitive: they do not use it now, save
as an imported habit.
In the Basque provinces it is indigenous, as among the tribes of the
Zahara, and for the dairy, in all its branches, they have original
terms: milk is _eznea_, butter _guria_, and cream _bicaño_. These
terms are wholly distinct from Aramean, Greek, Scythian, German, or
Celt. Between the north and south of the peninsula the difference in
practice coincides with the difference of its terms; and both prove
that two distinct people anciently inhabited it. It was next to
impossible that such primitive terms should have been lost. The things
were unknown to the Romans, and the words introduced to supplant them
were not Roman. (_Nata_ is an adaptation of the Latin _natare_.) More
is not wanted to confirm the statement of Strabo, that the “_Hispani_
restrict the term _Iberia_ to the portion bounded by the river Iber.”
The two races were Hispani and Iberi.
Connected with this subject is another peculiarity worth mentioning.
The Greeks had two names for bread; the one the vulgar name, which
I have already traced to the Brebers, and which is preserved in
the modern dialect of Greece and of Andalusia, in ψῶμι [psômi] and
_acemite_. The other is _artos_ (ἄρτος [artos]). Now this word is pure
Basque, and is found in a variety of compounds in their tongue. They
have two words for bread, _artoa_ and _oguia_: the first at present
applied to maize, the second to barley; but the first is the primitive,
being derived from “grinding with a stone;”[191] and as supplying the
word for “dough,” _artaoria_ (_orea_, mass). They have _artochiquia_,
_artopella_ for different preparations of flour. Now it may be asked,
could the Greeks derive so primitive a word as “bread” from the
Basques?[192] The explanation is given, by Socrates: “The Greeks had
many words from the barbarians who were _before them_;” and the Basques
were not always confined to the north of Spain. We know that they
colonized Sicily, and traces of the language are to be found on the
shores of the Euxine.
The settlement of the Celts in Italy was coeval with Rome. If they
had known cream and used butter, the Romans must have had them: their
ornaments, their bedding, the square and lozenge patterns, their
soap, &c., are known to us. The words and usages are thus not to be
considered as belonging to their common race, but as derived from the
incidents of their own adventures.
In Gaelic, or more properly _Erse_,[193] the word for butter comes
nearer to that of the Old Testament than the word employed by the Moors
and Jews in Barbary. It is _fin_: in the genitive case it is the same
as the Hebrew, _fine_. They have a second word which approaches equally
to the Semetic gee. It is _ce_. This appears to be the oiled butter
which has now fallen into disuse.[194] Like the ancients they used it
medicinally, and kept it till it was rancid. This is the third kind
of butter known; and they have a third name, _butter_. This word they
got where they got _fin_ and _ce_. The medicinal use of butter has in
these days been reduced to one spot of Africa--that is, Suz; and thence
a traffic in it is carried on to Negroland, just as formerly it must
have been exported from the whole coast of Barbary to Europe. This
preparation is known to-day in the interior of Africa--precisely in the
region where neither European nor Roman, nor Greek, could have spread
it--as _Budra_. The word is given, and the substance described, in
Jackson’s Vocabulary of the Shelloh dialect.
I have already shown that Pliny did not know whence the Romans had the
word, and they never had the thing. The clans derived it directly
from Barbary or Judæa hundreds of years before Pliny wrote. I need not
here repeat what I have elsewhere said regarding the transposition of
cognate letters. _D_ and _T_ are such. In adding, according to the
Greek and Roman fashion, their termination, they would for euphony say,
Butyron for Budron.
Cheese in Erse, is _Caise_,[195] pronounced Caishee. This, too,
is supposed to come from the Romans, and the probability of this
derivation is increased by Pliny’s statement, that the barbarians
had no cheese; but we know that the Greeks had their cheese from the
Phœnicians, since the word τύρον [tyron] is explained at least, as
Tyrian. Phrygia exported even cheese of asses’ milk.[196] The old Arabs
had a cheese of goats’ milk, not learnt from the Romans, for it had
another name, _Raïb_. It is clear, then, that the Semetic races did
not know the use of cheese, though, perhaps, as at present, they were
not partial to it, and did not excel in making it. In the interior of
Africa they do make cheese, and in the dialect of the great interior
tribe extending from Morocco to the Red Sea, the name is _agees_. It is
given in the French and Breber dictionaries.[197] The nearest approach
the Romans could have made to agees would be _acaseus_: their word is
_caseus_. There is no need of the intervention of Rome to bring caise
to the Celtic tribes.
In respect to the manufacture of butter by the clans;--even without
the aid of etymology we must carry it to times long antecedent to its
use in Europe. It is associated with their superstitions[198]--that
is, their mythological era. They make it by the process still in use
in Barbary from the whole milk,[199] as well as by that now employed
in the north of Europe, from cream thrown up cold. They eat it mixed
with sweetmeats and honey; and this practice is no less peculiar still
in some parts of the East than in the Highlands.[200] Preserves may be
traced back to the immediate progeny of Abraham. Jacob sends down to
Egypt a present for Joseph. It is the choice things of the land, of
course, and things not common in Egypt. The first is balm, the second
honey;[201] but honey could be no rarity in Egypt. The word in Hebrew
is _dipsi_. That is the name still in use for preserves made of grapes;
and in Shaw’s time, the village of Hebron alone exported annually three
hundred camel loads of it to Egypt.[202] There being no grapes in the
Highlands, the clans took to other fruit, not forgetting the oranges
they had been accustomed to in Spain. Butter--that I mean in present
use--being a preparation of cream, and cream being, as I have shown, of
very recent invention, and not yet traced to its source; the principal
evidence of the originality of butter among the clans, must rest on the
proof of their having been in possession of cream, and this, I think,
I can establish most satisfactorily. I have said that the word cream
is not known to them. Now, they have for it two rare names: _hachdar_,
which, like the nata of the Spaniards, means the “part that swims,”
and _barr_, which signifies “top.” Skimmed milk they call _bainne
lòm_, or milk “bare” or “naked;” they have also a term for “milk under
cream,” which is _bainne ce_, or _bainne fo che_. It is impossible
that so many, so comprehensive, and such descriptive terms, all of
them ancient, should have been in use, if the substance to which they
apply was not known, and if the invention had not been original. And
this is remarkable, that while the names of the preparations in use in
Judæa may etymologically be traced to domestic tongues, all the names
for this one, which is not to be found in the east, are pure Celtic.
Cream is a constituent part of the national food, and is so general,
that the very dishes of the dinner-service have been modified to suit
it. Dessert plates are like small soup plates, as it is the necessary
accompaniment of every sweet dish.
They have the Eastern caïmac in the shape of Devonshire cream. It is
known as “Carstorphine cream,” but it is going out of use. In the
village which has given to it its Lowland name, it is no longer to
be found, although the last generation of Edinburgh citizens used to
repair thither on festal days to regale themselves all unconsciously on
this Phœnician dainty.[203]
In Turkey neither of the Semetic words for butter has been adopted:
they have an original one,--like the mantica of the Spaniards. It is
_yagh_. It applies equally to butter, fat, and oil; the last they call
_zeïtin yaga_, “olive-butter;” and butter they sometimes qualify by
_jost_, or “milk-butter.” They, therefore, had none of their own; but
I refer to their word from a singular coincidence with the Erse, in
which language “tallow” is _igh_. It is at present pronounced _ce_, but
the orthography is a record of a more ancient pronunciation. The great
Sclavonic family is in like manner without a word for butter. They call
it oil.[204]
The last point of identification with the East which I shall adduce,
is the name of the substance which is the basis of all these
compounds--_milk_. In Erse, it is _bainne_; in Arabic, _chaleb_.
Here are not two consonants the same; to the ear there is no trace
of resemblance, yet they are from one root, from which also come
_gala_,[205] _lac_, and _milk_. Bainne is derived from the Gaelic,
_ban_, white. _Lebanon_ (without the Greek termination _Le ban_), is
known to have been so called from its colour, white. Leben is sour milk
in Arabic, and from the same root as chaleb.
The clans are indebted to no one for their cheese; for their name
for coagulated milk is derived from the _maw_, in which the rennet
is found. It is called _a bhinnbeach_. The stomach, or rennet, is
_binid_. They have a variety of other dishes[206] and names--[207]
so extensive, indeed, as to lead to the inference that at some time
they must have been essentially, if not like the tribes of the Zahara
exclusively, pastoral, and restricted for their food to the produce of
the dairy.
The Highlanders have the greatest variety of dishes made from milk.
They have the richest dairy, and the richest vocabulary: the words are
partly derivative, partly original, as might have been expected from
a practical and pastoral people, taking service amongst the different
nations with whom these preparations were in use. They learned the
usages of each, and retained them, with their names, so that the usages
and the words show the Highlanders to have been in communication
with the people who had Turkish _caïmac_, Hindoo _gee_, and Moorish
_simin_;--in other words, that they had been in the Holy Land before
Phœnician usages had been extinguished, or, that when they were in
Morocco the present habits were to be found.
“It often happens, that in seeking for the origin of a word a much
wider field of inquiry opens, and if carefully pursued, leads to
unexpected conclusions, bearing on the history, belief, manners,
and customs of primitive times, and so as to leave no doubt of the
occurrence of particular events, or of the existence of peculiar
customs, respecting which history is entirely silent, and of the
falsity of other things, handed down undoubtingly in her pages.
Etymology is the history of the languages of nations, which is a most
important part of their general history. It is the lamp by which that
which is obscure in the primitive history of the world will one day be
lighted up.”[208]
It is, indeed, the lamp, but not the light. The wick must be touched by
living flame before it ignites. That flame is custom. The pursuit of
mere sound--the affinities of roots--are but landscapes in the clouds,
until you get things substantial, with which they are associated, and
on which the light of etymology may be brought to shine.
A distinction between the use of butter and oil for simmering muffins
and crumpets in Morocco, furnishes a link between those eaten in
the Temple of Solomon and those sold in the streets of London, and
thereby supplies evidence to fix the Cassiterides, while incidentally,
it disposes of a great historical and ethnographic question, the
wanderings of the Celts.
An admirable product has been used for thousands of years in this
region, and no Jason has come to carry it away. Yet Julius Cæsar
and Count Julian, Sartorius, and Belisarius, Charles V., with many
other shrewd persons, have tasted Moorish butter. The Andalusians
are delighted to get a little pot of it, but as to learning how to
make it, that never entered into their philosophy. So yourt, made in
every tent or hut, from the Yellow Sea to the Adriatic, is unknown in
Europe. A magic line defines the domain of chops, of boiled potatoes,
of chocolate, of coffee. One race can boil, another cannot: _e.g._
the English.[209] One race can roast, another cannot; and each is
utterly incapable of comprehending the faculty conferred on the other.
There is a land congenial to pilaff, another to kuskoussou, another
to mutton-broth. Devonshire cream, polecuta, poi curry, have, like an
insect on a moss, their zone. You may transplant trees, and transfer
royal houses, carry forth religions, and distribute all around slips
of constitutions--but a dish!--no!--as there is more in a costume than
covering the back, so is there more in a dish than filling the belly.
There yet remains one term unexamined. Whence comes _dairy_? There is
no such word on the Continent; it is neither Latin nor Teutonic. It
has no Celtic root. I have been describing the douar, which is indeed
a camp; but the features which forced themselves upon my attention
belonged to the sheepfold. The people are shepherds. In every tent the
chief utensils are the milk-pails, leathern churns, and butter-pots;
the chief produce and food, milk and butter. Why is the Arab camp a
circle? It is to fold the cattle. Thence the name, douar and deïra. The
exploits of Abd-el-Kadir and his _Deïra_ have made the word familiar to
us in Europe. It is the very word we apply to the fold’s produce.[210]
From the same root is _gadeira_, _gadir_, an enclosure--the name of
Cadiz, the only city upon earth in which the cow or ewe is not to be
found, nor any animal whatever giving milk! How, it may be asked, could
the word come to us? _Tally ho!_ is in English an unmeaning word. The
rallying cry of the Arab in war is _Talla hu!_ Tally ho! doubtless, was
brought by the Crusaders. Dairy may have been learnt then, or many a
century before.
The pursuit of a word is like “hunt the slipper.” It is here, it is
there. There would be no game unless it were slipped under. There was
_Babia_, the goddess of infants, in Phœnicia; there are _babies_ in
England. No doubt it is the same slipper, though we cannot tell under
what petticoat it has slipped.
Sheeps’ heads, with the skin left on, are in Morocco, as in Scotland,
carried to the smithy to be singed. “Singed heads” were never twice
invented in the world.[211] Things that are worth anything, are only
invented once. The crop is sown, the weeds only come up of themselves.
There is nothing without its history, if we only knew it. Whatever is,
had a beginning. That only is worth looking for which we do not know.
[118] See “History of Civilization,” passim.
[119] The Americans call crumpets muffins, so that
the latter must have been the common name at the time
of the early emigration westward.
[120] In the culinary language of our country, I
use this term to supply the place of “plat,” and “met.”
[121] Africa, vol. ii. p. 4.
[122] Poll. Onomast lib. vi. 74.
[123] Ὁ δὲ σιτοποιὸς χειρίδας ἔχων καὶ περὶ τῷ
στόματι κημὸν ἔτριβε τὸ σταὶς ἵνα μηδὲ ἱδρὼς ἐπιῤῥέῃ,
μήτε τοῖς φυράμασιν ὁ τρίβων ἔπνέοι. [Ho de sitopoios
cheiridas echôn kai peri tô stomati kêmon etribe to
stais hina mêde hidrôs epirrheê, mête tois phyramasin
ho tribôn epneoi.]--ATHEN., lib. xii. 70.
[124] Athen. lib. iii. 77; Idem, lib. xiv. 54;
Poll. lib. vi. 32; Idem, lib. vi. 75; Schol. Aristoph.
Archar. 86.
[125] Rabbi Solomon translates it “wafer.”
[126] Abdul-melich asked the old Mechyumian,
what meat he liked best; he answered, an ass’s neck
well seasoned and well roasted. “What say you,” says
Abdul-melich, “to a leg or shoulder of a sucking lamb,
well roasted and covered over with milk and butter?”
Abulpheda remarks on this passage, “the Arabians had
not then changed their cookery from what it was in the
time of Abraham.”
[127] The Crusader, Baldwin, is known to the Arabs
as Bardui_l_. Portugal they make Portgu_n_. Labunitus
of Homer, is written Nabunitus by Berosius. The
exchange of _b_ and _m_ is so common, as almost to be a
rule; and thence, perhaps, that strange word biffin for
baked apples, resembling in shape the muffin.
Mr. Layard mentions, that the Yezidis, who abhor
all imprecations, will not use the word _naal_,
“horse-shoe,” because it approaches to _l_aa_n_ a
“curse.”--_Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 296.
[128] The Dutch have one of the best sweet dishes,
which they peculiarly honour by decorated booths at
their fairs, set apart for its preparation. Like the
muffin, it is flour and water set for three hours to
ferment: it is then poured, not on a griddle, but on
heated tongs with deep bars, so that it comes out with
the shape of a portcullis; it is then eaten like the
sfen, with sugar or honey.
[129] The Turks call the muffin _Gassi Cadaëf_.
This is also run on the griddle through a tin mould
with holes, and so forms coils of thread like
vermicelli. This is called _Tel_ (wire) _Cadaëf_. These
dainties are described in a Turkish cookery book;
Genek Rizalisè, by Negib Effendi, A.H. 1259,
A.D. 1842.
[130] The English roll out the dough and then put
dabs of butter on it, and then roll it again. The fee
for learning to make flake-pastry, as described above,
is five guineas.
[131] They also use rice for the same purpose,
reducing it by boiling. The pastry prepared from it is
called _kuladj_.
[132] The round copper dish in use in the East, and
which is carried hot from the fire and placed on the
_sofra_, or table, the τήγανον [têganon] of the Greeks.
[133] Khalil Dhaheri mentions it also. The passage
is quoted by Volney, and he translates it _indigo_. May
there not be some connexion between the Egyptian name,
and the old goddess Neith, and also with the English
word _knead_?
[134] Nouv. Missions, t. ii. p. 73.
[135] On making inquiries respecting it, I have
received the following reply from Cirencester.
“I cannot tell how the wheat is prepared, as we
procure it in a state of jelly from an old woman who
knows the secret. A pint of this jelly is melted in a
quart of milk; it is slightly boiled, lemon peel, and
cinnamon, and sugar being then added; the yolks of
five eggs beaten up, are mixed in, and it is served in
a tureen. Raisins and currants, all stewed well, and
plumped out with hot water, are served up separately;
they are cold, a spoonful or so being added to each
helping. The name is _frumenty_; this shows perhaps the
antiquity of the dish, and is an interesting specimen
of etymology. It is only made at Easter.”
[136] The Breber “Assowa.”
[137] _Carscones_, pancakes, “Redemption cakes,”
are eaten on Easter Monday.
[138] These facts throw new light on the knowledge
of the ancients, respecting the fermentation of liquors
and brewing. They did malt grain, and indeed they seem
to have been aware of the advantage of so treating it,
for fattening animals. We know that Penelope steeped
the grain which she gave to her geese.
[139] Hollinger de Rel. Sabæ. b. i. ch. 8.
[140] Herodot. l. ii. c. 2.
[141] “Their learned Rabbis were quite at a loss
for the meaning of that text of the prophet Isaiah, 'I
will sweep thee with the besom of destruction,’ till
they heard accidentally an Arabian maid-servant call a
broom by that same name, which was common to the Hebrew
and Arabic tongue, the meaning of which was quite lost
in the Hebrew, and only preserved in the Arabic.”
OCKLEY.
[142] The Passover bread _Khak_.
[143] Bunuclos, Spanish for crumpet.
[144] This word I have before explained.
[145] _Assowa_, a preparation used by the Shellahs,
similar to that called sowans in Scotland.--See
Jackson’s Vocabulary.
[146] The Teutonic _Brod_, made broth, broze, is
contained in _Chebrodlapson_.
[147] _Barr_, whence the three words in the text.
[148] _Ham_ in Arabic is beef, but it is applied to
dried flesh.
[149] _Zumeita_ (Breber), _Zimita_ (Shellah),
_Azamotan_, mentioned in Glass. Hist. of the Canaries,
and described as “barley-meal fried in oil,” is the
preparation used in crossing the Zahara. It is toasted
barley-meal mixed with water in the corner of the
haïk, exactly as the Highland drovers used to mix it
in the corner of their plaid. It is also mixed with
butter or with honey, and in this form it constitutes
the early meal. “_Meat_,” and the French _met_, which
signifies every kind of food, are going a begging for
an etymology. From Zimita come ζυμίται [zymitai] (Poll.
lib. vi. 32), ζυμὸς, ζυμὴ, ψῶμι [zymos, zymê, psômi]
(leaven broth and bread), and _Zimid_, the Turkish
bread baked with butter, _acemiti_, Spanish.
[150] Dr. Forbes, in his “Physician’s Holiday,” has
given some valuable suggestions on this matter:--
“In looking at the horrid compound sold in England
as salt butter--at least, the cheaper sorts of it used
by the poorer classes--I cannot but believe that its
supersession by the boiled butter of Switzerland would
be advantageous, both to the comfort and health of a
large proportion of our countrymen. It can hardly be
believed that such an offensive, briny, and semi-putrid
mass, as the cheaper sorts of our salt butter, can
be without serious detriment to the health of the
consumers, any more than the salted meat formerly
issued to our seamen was so.”
He describes a melted butter used in Switzerland,
and earnestly recommends the adoption of the same
practice for culinary purposes. It consists in boiling
it slowly after it is made: the process takes six
hours, two to heat it, two to cool it, and two to
simmer it. There is a white, hard cheesy sediment
which has carefully to be removed. He also describes
a process, by which the whole of the butter of these
Alpine pastures is preserved sweet, without salt. “On
a board, four or five inches wide, wooden pins two to
three feet in length, are fixed upright; the butter is
placed daily around these pins, beginning at the lower
end, in a mass not exceeding the width of the board.
Every day, as more butter is added around the pin, the
diameter is gradually enlarged, until the upper part
overhangs the base, like an inverted bee-hive. When one
pin is filled, another is proceeded with. The exposed
surface of these masses gets soon covered with a sort
of hard film, which effectually excludes the air.”
[151] “The cause why the idolaters magnify the
kine, is their use in agriculture--as much as to
say, it is not lawful to slay them.”--(Talmudists on
the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, apud Hollinger de
Religion. Sab. l. i. c. 8.) A Roman citizen was once
indicted and condemned by the people for killing an
ox. “For this beast,” says Pliny, “is our companion,
and labours together with us in ploughing the field.”
Yet in Rome everything was based upon pasturage, not
tillage: libations of milk were used in sacrifice.
_Pecunia_ was money, and the public revenues _Pascua_.
For laws against the slaughter of cattle used in
husbandry, see Ælian, Var. Hist., l. v. c. 14; Athen.
l. ix. ex Philloc.; Varro de Re Rustica, l. ii. c. 5.
The Hindoo code, of course, forbids the killing
of cows at all ages. The Mussulman code forbids the
killing of calves.
[152] A line of Euripides might appear conclusive
against me;
καὶ τορὸς ὀπίας ἐστὶ καὶ βοὸς γάλα.
[kai toros opias esti kai boos gala].--_Cycl._ v. 136.
But he is speaking of the food, not of common men,
but of Silenus. However, Athenæus will no way admit
the thing, or even the word. He corrects it (l. 14),
Διὸς γάλα [Dios gala], or milk _fit_ for Jupiter,
meaning goats’, not cows’ milk; so unnatural did the
latter seem. Consult Eustath. in Odyss. δʹ [d’]. Homer
calls the Hippomolgians galactophagoi, and otherwise
commends them, (Il. νʹ [n’]. 6). He only twice mentions
milk, and both times speaks of it as that of ewes or
goats;--πίονα μῆλα ἔμελγα [piona mêla emelga], Od.
ιʹ [i’]. 237; δ’ ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγας [d’
emelgen oïs kai mêkadas aigas], Od. ιʹ [i’]. 244. He
mentions cheese twice (Od. κʹ [k’]. 234; Il. λʹ [l’].
638): on the last occasion, he calls it goats’ cheese,
αἴγειον τυρὸν [aigeion tyron], and it was hard, for it
was raped with a bronze rape, κνήστι χαλκείῃ [knêsti
chalkeiê].
[153] Chandler (vol. ii. p. 245) describes the
process of making butter in Greece, by putting _cream_
in a goat’s skin, and trampling on it. The method
referred to I shall presently describe: no cream is
used.
Silvestre de Sacy translates the title of Kholil
Daheri’s work on Egypt; “_Cream_ of the Exposition.” It
occurs in the taunting letter of Shah Rock to Timour;
he says,--
“Your expressions are the _Zebed_ of language.”
The word is translated elsewhere _foam_ (caïmah).--Cf.
Chresth. Arabe, t. ii. pp. 11, 76.
“That they skimmed the milk is evident, whatever
they may have done with the cream. Philostrates mentions
vessels filled to the brim with milk, on which the cream
lies rich and shining.”--ST. JOHN’S _Ancient Greece_,
vol. ii. p. 286.
The passage referred to has not a word about
cream; it is as follows; ψυκτῆρες γάλακτος, οὐ λευκοῦ
μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ στίλπνου. καὶ γὰρ στιλβεῖν ἔοικεν ὑπὸ
τῆς ἐπιπολαζούσης αὐτῷ πιμελῆς. [psyktêres galaktos,
ou leukou monon, alla kai stilpnou. kai gar stilbein
eoiken hypo tês epipolazousês autô pimelês].--_Icon._
i. xxxi. p. 809. “Vases of milk, not only white but
shining, for they appeared to shine from the floating
fat.” The shining skin which covers boiled milk is here
accurately described.
[154] The art of making tea consists in pouring the
water on and off immediately, so as to get the flavour.
Coffee-making is a more intricate affair, and cannot
be conveyed in a recipe. A docile spirit, that will
dismiss every received idea, and not reason, may make
something out of the hints I now submit. The fire must
be very low, half embers (wood), half ashes; the cup of
coffee small; and a small pot so as to make it cup by
cup. The coffee must be slowly roasted, not burnt, and
brought only to an umber brown; it must be roasted day
by day. The flavour dissipates in a few hours; it must
be reduced by pounding to an impalpable powder. These
are the conditions under which coffee can be made. In
making it, two opposite and apparently incompatible
ends are to be secured,--strength and flavour; to
obtain the first it must be boiled,--by boiling, the
second is lost. The difficulty is surmounted by a
double process; one _thorough_ cooking, one _slight_
one; by the first a strong infusion is obtained, by the
second that infusion is flavoured. Thus, a large pot
with coffee-lees stands simmering by the fire; this is
the _sherbet_: when a cup is wanted, the pounded coffee
is put in the little tin or copper pan and placed on
the embers; it fumes for a moment; then the sherbet is
poured on; in a few seconds the froth (caïmah) rises;
presently an indication that it is about to boil is
made manifest, when the coffee is instantly taken from
the fire, and carried to the apartment, and turned into
the cup and drunk.
[155] There is one thing new under the sun, and
that is an egg cup: no egg cups are to be found in
Etruscan sepulchres, in Egyptian pyramids, or Assyrian
palaces; eggs were only boiled hard in the shell. Small
spoons, egg-, or tea-, or salt-spoons, are also a
modern discovery, and all pertain to the new meal.
[156] One of the four-and-twenty romances of the
Arabs before the times of Mahomet, turns on a jar of
butter. Zouhaji pushes with his bow an old woman who
brought it. Thence arises a tribe-encounter, in which
the chief loses his life. There have been handed down a
lament by his son, and a pæan by his conqueror, which
Antar soon turned to an elegy.
[157] The discus of the ancients, as that used by
the modern Italians, was supposed to be cheese.
[158] It is an ingredient in Vancouver cement.
[159] The recent attempt to preserve it for use at
sea.
[160] A pastoral scene in Homer comes near this;
Ἐξόμενος δ’ ἔμελγεν ὄϊς καὶ μηκάδας αἶγας
Πάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπ' ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ.
Αὐτίκα δ’ ἥμισυ μὲν θρέψας λευκοῖο γάλακτος
Πλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισιν ἀμησάμενος κατέθηκεν.
Ἥμισυ δ’ αὖτ’ ἔστησεν ἐν ἄγγεσιν, ὄφρα οἱ εἴη
Πίνειν δαινυμένῳ, καί οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη.
[Exomenos d’ emelgen ois kai mêkadas aigas
Panta kata moiran, kai hyp’ embryon hêken hekastê.
Autika d’ hêmisy men threpsas leukoio galaktos
Plektois en talaroisin amêsamenos katethêken.
Hemisy d’ aut’ estêsen en angesin ophra hoi eiê
Pinein dainymenô, kai hoi potidorpion eiê].
--_Od._ ιʹ [i’]. 244-249.
which in substance is;--he milked the ewes and goats, and
divided the milk into two parts: the one he _turned_, and
laid the curd to drain in wicker baskets, the other he kept
for supper.
[161] L. iv. c. 2.
[162] Ἐγχέοντες γὰρ τὸ γάλα ἐς ξύλα κοῖλα σείουσι.
Τὸ δὲ ταρασσόμενον ἀφριεὶ καὶ διακρίνεται, καὶ τὸ
μὲν πῖον βούτηρον καλέουσιν, ἐπιπολῆς διΐσταται,
ἐλαφρόν ἐόν· τὸ δὲ βαρὺ καὶ παχὺ κάτω ἵσταται, ὃ καὶ
ἀποκρίναντες ξηραίνουσιν· ὁ δὲ ὀῤῥὸς τοῦ γάλακτος ἐν
μέσῳ ἐστίν. Αὕτως δὲ καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ταρασσομένον,
κ.τ.λ.
[Encheontes gar to gala es xyla koila seiousi. To
de tarassomenon aphriei kai diakrinetai, kai to men
pion boutêron kaleousin, epipolês diïstatai, elaphron
eon; to de bary kai pachy katô histatai, ho kai
apokrinantes xêrainousin; ho de orrhos tou galaktos en
mesô estin. Hautôs de kai en tô anthrôpô tarassomenon,
k.t.l.]--_De Moribus_, l. iii. sec. 5.
[163] “The Tartar tribes prepare a spirit from
milk, by allowing it to ferment with frequent agitation.
This agitation converts the milk sugar into lactic acid,
and another portion into grape sugar, which becomes
converted into alcohol. Animals that live entirely on
vegetable matter, produce the largest quantity of
spirit.”--FOWNES.
[164] Richardson meets a few Touanez women in the
Desert by themselves; the men having gone to Fezzan,
he asks them why they have not gone also; one of them
asks, “Why should I go away? what better shall I find
in Mouryuk of Ghat? can they give me more than milk!
God is everywhere!” They bring him milk, he dwells
with pleasure on the hospitality and modesty of his
entertainers: “Nothing was given for the milk for we
had nothing to give. But if offered, it would not be
accepted by the laws of hospitality among these desert
Arcadians.”--_Sahara_, vol. ii. p. 204.
[165] The ancients used it largely as a medicine.
Cows’ milk was for this purpose not only used, but
preferred as more aromatic. It was applied externally
for all diseases of the skin, abstinence from animal
food being at the same time enjoined. It was prescribed
at Rome for ague; in Arcadia it was given for atrophy
and gout; it was considered an antidote to various
poisons, and a specific for hardness of the spleen.
Uncooked, it was held to be unwholesome; a prejudice
still subsisting in the East.
[166] One other food resembles it, and that is eggs.
[167] All the blood, the muscular fibre, cellular
tissue, nervous matter, and bones, derive their
origin from the nitrogenized constituent of milk, the
caseine--the butter and sugar containing no nitrogen.
[168] In the life of Cornaro it is stated, that
up to the age of forty he laboured under various
diseases, which made his existence a burden to him. He
then commenced a diet of bread and _milk as drawn from
the animal_; he became robust, vigorous, and enjoyed
perfect health, for one hundred years. Had he omitted
the bread, and drunk the milk alone, he might perhaps
have drawn out his lease of life to the fabled limit of
the patriarchs of the Zahara.
[169] There is a work by Maimonides upon this
subject. The title, as translated, is “Carnis cum lacte
non commedenda.”
[170] Genesis xviii. 8.
[171] Job xx. 17.
[172] Job xxix. 6.
[173] Judges v. 25.
[174] 2 Samuel xvii. 29.
[175] Proverbs xxx. 33.
[176] Hebrew: חמיאה.
[177] There is an Arab counterpart to the story
of Sisera, and a fact. Shanfara asks a woman of the
Salamana tribes for water; she gives him _agit_ and
_raïb_--salt cheese and spirits--from milk; he is thus
driven by thirst, in the dead of night, to a well where
his enemies are lying in wait for him.
[178] Leben also signifies butter-milk, &c. See
Burckhardt’s Notes, vol. i. pp. 239, 241.
[179] Among the Tartars, the districts are termed
“Yourts,” as the Armatobo Greeks used to term their
districts, _Psomi_, bread.
[180] Καὶ τρυφαλὶς ἐφ’ ἑτέρου φύλλου νεοπαγὴς καὶ
σαλεύουσα. [Kai tryphalis eph’ heterou phyllou neopagês
kai saleuousa.]--PHILOST. _Icon_, p. 809, i. 31.
A celebrated cheese of goats’ milk made at Tromileia,
called ὀπίας [opias], was curdled not by rennet, but by
the sap of the fig tree.--ATHEN. lib. xiv. 76; EURIP.
_Cyclop_ v. 136.
The Dutch cheese called _Gouda_ is turned by muriatic
acid.
[181] Devonshire Junket is made by pouring gently
a spoonful of vinegar into a bowl of milk; the top
is then brased. Pounded sugar-candy is dusted on and
brased again; this is several times repeated. It may
also be made with rennet, and seasoned with brandy.
[182] See St. John’s Ancient Greece, vol. ii. p.
288.
[183] Copper pans and coal fires are common in the
North of Devonshire; but probably in twenty years, all
recollection of pottery and wood will have died away.
[184] _Tamer_, _Philleg_ (Pheleg), _Cuddan_,
_Chynhals_, _Barrak_, _Lieber_, The _Mozins_, _Zeinior_,
_Carracks_, _Stam_, _Oaz_. Search the rest of England
through, and you will not find two names in one county
that could be strained into Phœnician.
[185] These have not long gone out. Pope in
describing the death scene of the Duke of Buckingham,
says:
“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mats half hung,
The floor of plaster and the walls of dung.”
[186] That of Erzerum is much esteemed: it is sent
to Constantinople.
[187] “This Aristæus, the companion of Zeus, according
to Diodorus, was called the augur, the inventor of the art
of healing, and father of bees; according to Aristotle,
the inventor of the olive (as Buddha in India, and Hercules
among the Greeks); according to him and Appian, he was the
discoverer of the ART OF MAKING BUTTER (τὴν τὲ τοῦ γάλακτος
πῆξιν [tên te tou galaktos pêxin]), which, hitherto unknown
to the Greeks, was, according to Herodotus and Hippocrates
(who found it of great service as a medicine), known to the
Scythians, to the north of the sea of Pontus, by the native
name of butter, and made from mares’ milk. This name was
consequently northern, and has remained German, and probably
from the name, is of Buddhistic origin,” &c.
Πῆξις [Pêxis] is from πήγνυμι [pêgnymi], to coagulate,
and means cheese. Cheese is not known to the Hindoos; nor
butter to the Buddhists.
[188] Hippocrates introduces it in various unguents
and emulsions, with a certain produce of Arabia, oil of
cedar, and other strange and rare ingredients from the
south; one of these is “the liver of the sea-serpent dried
in the shade.”
[189] “Compare the profound and astute observations
of Ritter (Vorhalli Euro. Völler, p. 357) on the source of
the preparation of butter (buttervercitung), which came
from the barbarians to the Greeks, and has remained a
distinguishing character of the northern and German people.
That it belonged to the Iberians demonstrates the source
of that people.” Dendit auf den Ursprung des Volkes kin;
Prüfunz uber die Überv der Urbewohnu.
In the same page he says, “butter is only mentioned
among the mountaineers of the north.” For this statement
he does not quote his authority. That it was used by them
and only by them, is sufficiently attested, by the
subsisting habits and language, but it would be interesting
to find the statement in an ancient writer.
[190] Brocense, Aldrete, &c. describe nata as the part
of the milk thrown up _by boiling_; in the seventeenth
century, the Spaniards were still unacquainted with cream.
[191] Humboldt derives this word from acorn. “If the
edible gland is formed in the north of Spain, and if this
name (artea) is there given to the oak that bears it, then
it may be supposed that the Basque _artoa_, comes from this
and from the ancient habit of acorn bread,” referred to by
Juvenal (Sat. vi. 10), “glandem ructante marito,” this is
nearer than _Aratu_ to plough, or the Greek ἄρτος [artos].
I cannot answer for the three suppositions, but when acorns
are eaten, they are not made into bread. Juvenal speaks of
acorns, not of bread. Larramandi in his introduction, gives
the etymology I have quoted in the text; as to deriving a
Basque word from the Greek, as well might you so derive
a Hebrew or Egyptian one.
[192] Elephas (in the genitive, elephantos) in Greek
applies to “ivory,” and the “elephant,” the etymon of it,
as accepted in our dictionaries, is the “el fil,” of the
Arabs; but in Basque it is _Elefandia_; _Elia_, “great,”
_Andia_, “bull,” or “beast.”
[193] This is the name given by the clans to their
tongue, as distinguished from the Celtic.
[194] In corroboration of the former use of gee, I may
cite the following words. _Blathach_ is “butter-milk,”
from _blath_, “warm,” “curds and cream,” are _Gruth 'us
ce_, as if Devonshire cream was meant, which is the first
stage to gee, or to caïmac, the difference being, that
greater heat is used in the first case, and a slow one
in the second: they have a mixture of _curds and butter_,
but for that there is another name, _crowdy_ in Scotch,
_fuarag_ in Erse.
[195] In Welsh it is _Ecaus_, butter _menin_, cream
_hefen_.
[196] Anat. Hist. Animal. l. iii. c. 20.
[197] The following words are from the same dialect,
_aufkee_ and _ikfee_ milk, _dahan_ butter, _swaag_ beaten
milk, _agroumi_ bread.
[198] “They give new-born infants fresh butter to
take away the _miconium_, and this they do for several
days.”--MARTIN’S _Western Islands_ (p. 195). In the western
islands there was a supposition that cream could be charmed
away to another churn. The use of butter must have extended
far beyond the period when it was first known in Europe.
They have a proper name for churn _muidhe_.
[199] In Ireland they churn the whole milk. The
striplings (the last milk from each cow, which is the
richest) are put together in a deep crock, morning and
evening till full. Any cream or whole milk which has
remained over is added, it is not churned till it has
become quite thick, this takes two or three days in summer,
but in winter more, unless the temperature is kept up. The
butter milk that remains, is far more nutritive than that
from the churned cream, and is used for various domestic,
culinary, nursery, and poultry-yard purposes.
[200] “One of the ladies of the dwelling brought a
plate of fresh and exquisite honey, and a small plate
of fresh butter, as part of our meal, and instructed us
how they were to be eaten together.”--CARNE.
[201] Gen. xliii. 11.
[202] Travels, vol. ii. p. 144.
[203] Crock, obsolete Irish for butter, may apply
to this dish.
[204] _Maslo_ originally meant oil, and does so
yet in certain Sclavonic dictionaries. Butter is a
secondary signification--Durick, apud Lindi Polish Dic.
[205] The Greek term γάλα [gala] is a form of the
Arabic. In the genitive, it is γάλακτος [galaktos]
(galactos) hence the Latin _lac_; by transposition the
verb ἀμέλγω [amelgô], to milk, is held to be formed,
whence the Latin _mulgere_, we, from the verb, have
re-formed a substantive, mulg, mulk, milk, which is
spread over the north of Europe as the derivatives of
lac are over the south; in the Polish and Russian it is
_mleko_.
[206] A remarkable preparation is _hatted kit_,
in Erse, _Bainne ce_. Buttermilk is put into a kit
with a spiket, and left to stand for twenty-four
hours: warm milk is poured on twice a day, for three
or four days; the top is then a sort of coagulated
cream; the lower part is let to run off. It is now,
like Carstophine cream, falling into disuse. It is
mentioned in the Gowrie trial, two centuries and a
half ago. “Ane fyne hattilkit wt sukar, comfietis, and
wyn.”--PITCAIRN’S _Trials_, part iv. p. 285.
_Crowdy butter_ is made as follows: The milk is
yearned, and then placed on a dish, and left till the
whole of the whey has run off. The curds are then
worked up with butter or cream, and it will keep for a
month: it spreads soft like butter, and gets softer the
longer it is kept.
[207] For instance, curds _gruth_, whey _miog_,
curds and whey _slomban_, frothed whey _adhan_, kinds
of syllabub _chranochan_, _bainne-cobhar-bhar_, _bainne
sadte_, biestings, _nos_.
[208] Talbot’s Etymologies, Introduction.
[209] I must make a reservation in favour of
Northumberland, where I have fallen upon persons who
did know how to boil. They spoke of “seasoning” the
water, and of things being spoilt that were “knocked
about” in the pot. Here was the apprehension of the two
points to be kept in view, that the water be not hungry
so as to exhaust the meat, that the bubbles should not
be generated at the bottom of the pot so as to scorch
it and harden the fibre. Any one born with the instinct
of a cook, will, however bred in prejudice, from these
two hints, gain all that is requisite. He who has not
these instincts, will not learn how to boil if a waggon
load of cookery books were shot over him. Strange it
is, that the only people who have not a conception
of boiling, should alone persist, generation after
generation, in sending up to table vegetables and fish
plain boiled! Fish, however, differs from flesh in
this, that the hotter it is boiled the better; thus oil
or butter, which rises to 600° before boiling, is best
for it.
[210] Thence also the Greek word δαῆρες
[daêres].--See Eur. Phœn. v. 90. The convents in Syria
are called _derr_.
[211] The peculiarity of the “singed head” is,
that the skin is left on, which of course is connected
with the manner of slaughtering and flaying animals.
The Egyptians, as Herodotus mentions (l. ii. c. 38),
“cut off the head and then skin the body.” He says
that no Egyptian will eat the head of any animal,
which Wilkinson contradicts (Thebes, vol. ii. p. 232),
because a mendicant receives one: this rather confirms
than confutes the assertion.
BOOK IV.
EL GARB.
CHAPTER I.
DEPARTURE FROM RABAT.
I never had greater difficulties of the kind to encounter, than in
getting away from Rabat. Ali Bey, in the narration of his pilgrimage,
mentions that, after starting from some place, the whole caravan
commenced a violent dispute about the loading of the animals; after
lasting about two hours, it suddenly ceased. On inquiring the cause
of this phenomenon, it was told him, that from such a place to such a
place, “the Arabs dispute.” Our dispute had no limits, save those of
the journey. A large party accompanied us across the water to the Salee
side, and a slave of Mustafa Ducali’s privately suggested that it was a
great pity that I should go away, that it was better to stay at Rabat
than to go. “If you stay,” said he, “you will have a nice house like my
master’s, and two or three pretty wives, the daughters of caïds.”
We left the beach about two o’clock, turning to the right to avoid
Salee: we passed through one of the gates of its old walls, enclosing
the ancient harbour; turning again to the left, we passed between the
gardens and the back of the city. When opposite one of the gates, we
sent in for corn to carry with us, and I was much tempted to enter the
forbidden city, but contained myself, not to commence dissensions with
the guard at the very moment of starting.
Rambling on while the guard awaited the messenger, we came on a
cleft in the rock, the bottom occupied by an orange grove, most
inviting, with its green lustre and deep shadow, cool, damp, dark,
and fragrant. To this retreat, many a seafarer has returned to enjoy
the fruits of his industry: how many a tender “Rover,” has been here
formed by listening to his sire’s tales of Maltese galleys, Christian
argosies and Andalusian maids. While we were looking from the backs
of our horses over the wall that ran along the edge of the cliff,
the proprietor came up, and invited us to descend: there was nothing
piratical about him, so we yielded. The first flight of steps brought
us to a small tank, covered with a trellis of vines, surrounded by
a little walk, through which there were grooves for the water to
circulate, without wetting your feet, and it fell from all sides into
the tank in little cascades. At one side there was a little kiosk with
a window opening upon the orange grove below. Here we found a party
of Moors seated in one corner, and the inseparable tea-things in the
other. My host hurried me down, and walked me all over the grounds,
gathering sweet and bitter lemons and oranges, and seemingly anxious to
stock me with a supply of every variety. Suddenly, having got me alone,
he stopped, and with ominous signs and emphasis, pronounced the word
_Serser_! I was now in my turn anxious to know what he had to say, and
wished to call a Jew I had got as an interpreter; but this he would
not suffer, and seemed to expect to succeed in making me understand by
speaking very close to my ear:--he was much opposed to the working of
mines, and apprehensive of my safety. When I admired in one place the
culture of the garden, he said, “this is the ‘Madem’ (mines) of the
Arabs;” he then asked me to stay some days at Tangier, and he would
come and see me there. On taking leave, he insisted on walking with me
a quarter of a mile, till I was outside of the aqueduct, and in the
open country, and gave me the name of a person at Larache, to whose
house he desired me to go. This person was absent on my arrival there.
Towards sunset we entered a douar, without asking anybody’s leave,
and pitched in the middle of it without a question being asked us by
any one: the change was as great as if one had fallen through from
one century into another, yet all external objects were precisely the
same. There were, however, only so many cottagers living in tents: we
had entered a village, not a douar. Had I gone from Tangier to Rabat
by land, I should, by passing through these successive changes, have
become gradually familiarized with them; fortunately I had seen the
southern country. Everything in this douar was for sale at extortionate
prices, each bargain accompanied by great squabbling. The Sheik did
come, and did bring, as a present, a jar of milk. This was all that
recalled to me the tribes to the south.
Early the next day we arrived at Medea. Lying on the edge of a ravine,
we were almost at the gate before we saw it. Like the other towns, it
is built at the estuary of a river, which descending through a chasm,
has carved out through the rock and sand, its way to the ocean, where,
met by a heavy surge, it heaps up a bar, which the waves incessantly
lash.
The fortress is a parallelogram. The contents in people, and in value,
could not be equal to a douar. Below and between the town and the
river, there is an enclosure of walls in the form of a rectangle, and
about four hundred yards long: the walls are in Tapia, and vary from
twenty to forty feet in height, and from five to seven in thickness.
Seen from above, it appears like a labyrinth; there are large square
spaces and passages running round them; the interval between the
walls is at times not greater than their own thickness; there are no
windows or doors, or the spring of arches for covering in. Bare dead
walls compose the vast chambers, or narrow passages; a small aperture
is seen here and there, by which a man might creep through. There
is a Moorish gateway, but it is a modern addition. Being outside the
fortress, and under it, this building could not have been intended in
any way for defence. It was neither a reservoir for water, nor a store
for merchandize. The deputy governor who accompanied me was perfectly
certain that it was built by Christians: when I expressed doubts, he
became angry, and vociferated loudly, “Eusara,” “Romani.” It was so
fresh, that the walls might have been just finished or still in process
of construction.
I found the caïd superintending the mending of an oar. He reiterated
his salutations of welcome at least a dozen times (it has to be
repeated three times) and pressed me to stay that night, or at all
events to dine. We, however, were anxious to get on, and the cattle
were conducted down to the boat, while the caïd sent his deputy--who,
like himself, every inch a Moor, is a negro in complexion, but whose
features are European--to conduct me over the building I have already
noticed.
We intended here to get if possible fresh horses, not less on account
of the wretched quality of those we had, than of the annoyance we
suffered from their owners. After they had received their money,
they wanted to decline performing the journey, and when I expressed
surprise, they answered, “We have no law--we have no flag: we are
neither Mussulmans, Jews, nor Christians.” This answer I comprehended,
knowing them to be Oudaïas, a tribe broken and dispersed, and holding
no ties with the world, its enemy--a Poland of the Desert.
The boat in which we crossed was about forty feet by ten, pulled by a
couple of oars. Their ingenuity had not arrived at making a platform
for embarking cattle. The camels stride in fastly enough, and stow
easily: they are made to crouch down head and tail, and a row of
their strange heads projects over both sides. Getting in the horses
is a laborious operation: they have to be unladen, and then walked
into the water, and beaten until they spring in, first getting their
fore-legs into the boat, and then with a second spring their hind-legs:
some of them, however, are very expert. Our horses had to perform
this operation four times between Rabat and Tangier--at Rabat, Medea,
Larache, and Arzila.
Just as we had got our cattle embarked, the caïd was seen on horseback
winding his way down the rock. We put back to take him in; and he came
into the stern, where we were seated upon our baggage, carrying in
his hand a handkerchief containing a large provision of hard-boiled
eggs. He said, “As you would not stay to eat, I had these boiled that
you might not be hungry on the way.” One of the packages of majoon
appearing amongst the baggage, the conversation turned upon that
composition; and he told me that he was then going, in consequence of
an order he had received that morning from the Sultan, to gather for
him roots, from which another and superior kind of majoon was made,
and which were only to be found at an hour’s distance from whence we
were, and if we would wait for him at a certain well, he would himself
bring a specimen of the plant. As soon as we reached the indicated
place, he appeared on the hill above, coming towards us at full speed,
and presented me with one of the roots, which was like a large parsnip:
it appears to be the plant called surnag by Leo Africanus. He had also
the consideration to bring some of the leaves, that I might recognise
it again. I forgot to ask the mode of preparing it, which I have since
been unable to ascertain, as it is not used by the people; though the
most strange stories are told of its effects. It is said to have been
discovered by the Emperor Ismael, and to its use is attributed the
numerous progeny of that sovereign, reported at sixty births per month.
The Seboo is the largest river of the kingdom of Fez; it is here about
half a mile in width: the bar is so fierce as to be wholly impassable.
It rises in the Atlas, and passes near Fez and through Mequinez. A
branch of it passes through the city of Fez: it is there termed the
“river of pearls,” and was formerly called the “river of gold.” It was
once navigable as far as Fez, and it still has all the appearance of
being so; yet the corn is carried thither to be ground at an expense
of transport exceeding its value, and then the flour is carried back
again, for at Fez they seem to have good mill-stones, and do not use
the common sand-grit. But, probably, the navigation of the stream
has been purposely disused, in pursuance of their standing policy of
closing the door against Europeans, and sacrificing the advantages of
the present to security for the future.
The Seboo, more than any other river in Morocco, abounds with the
shabel; that of Azimore is the finest in quality. It is about the
size of a salmon, which it resembles: the flesh is soft, fat, and
delicate, and those who have tasted the kiran of the Lake of Ochrida
have eaten something that recalls it. The Seboo bore signs of passing
through a chalk country, showing that the region around had still all
the aspect of the Zahel. The river, while we crossed it, was covered
with bees that were dropping in. There are thousands of hives in the
neighbourhood: the bees were perishing in great quantities from its
being a foggy morning.
A broad and level beach of sand bordered the river, and exhibited a
beautiful pattern in colours, resembling that Moorish ornament which
is at once the richest and the commonest. On pointing it out to one
of those who were with me, he exclaimed, “That is the figure on the
Tower of Hassan.” It is so remarkable that it must have been imitated
in their buildings. It is produced by there being sands of different
colours, which also vary in size and specific gravity. Each warp of
a wave sets them in motion, and then deposits them with mathematical
precision. The river abounds with black sparkling grains of iron, which
they use for dusting on their writing: this was the first time we had
seen it. To the south there was no lime: the iron on the surface is
red, being oxide: here the chalk commenced, and the iron is carbonate.
Besides this, there are three or four sands of different shades of
yellow and red, falling into different portions of the patterns. There
is the blue,[212] brown, and yellow figure, as if laid on with a touch
or stamped with a block. This beach presents at once the origin of the
peculiar Moorish tracery and colouring, with which no other style has
anything to compare.
That night we encamped in a douar, which was near the southern
extremity of the long marsh or lake, El Marga, which runs parallel to
the sea. As we passed along its placid waters, we had on the left the
incessant roar of the ocean, which we never saw. From the sea, the
country must appear a perfectly barren waste; and yet, at the back of
the cliffs, there was a vale of forty miles thickly peopled and well
cultivated. The lake seemed very shallow, and was so covered with
waterfowl that they might have been rained upon it. We saw some boats,
not pulled with oars, but punted. The lake varied in width from one
mile to five. The douars were close to each other all along its banks
on both sides; but, on the side on which we were, the tents might be
seen in lines, or irregularly scattered. They had seines and cast-nets,
and the fish was chiefly a very fat but flavourless barbel. They did
not shoot the water-fowl, but caught them with gins of horse-hair,
into which they ran their necks while swimming. The swans, in one place
seen from a great distance, appeared like a white streak: we could
scarcely believe they were birds till we came near. Next to that on
the Lake of Mexico, I imagine that this is the largest collection of
waterfowl on earth.
That night, when our people were at supper, there was an attempt made
to carry off one of our horses. The alarm was given, not by the dogs,
which only barked as usual, but by the women, who set up a frightful
yelling--the classic _ululatus_. We had pitched a little way from the
tents to avoid the noise. After this, men were drafted from the douar
to sleep and watch all round us. The robbers were suspected to be of
the tribe of Azamor, near Mequinez, two of which tribe were sitting at
supper with our people at the very time.
The whole of the next day we travelled along the shore of the lake. We
had in sight before us a range of hills, one of which was covered with
snow; and here snow upon a mountain in the middle of winter is the sign
of a greater height than it would be with us in the middle of summer. I
performed most of the journey on foot, wearing only shirt and drawers;
and I got away from the party that I might have a better chance of
seeing the people, and I always met with the utmost kindness. They were
always surprised that I was on foot, but never that I was alone. I was
invited to their tents; or they would come running from a distance,
bringing milk. I was amused with the alertness with which they always
set to work to teach me Arabic words.
About sunset, and after travelling ten hours, we came to the head
of the lake, and chose for pitching, a sward on a projecting angle
running into it, and some hundred yards from a douar. This was the
first time that we got away from the tents, and I revelled in recalling
the night’s repose of Eastern travel. The Arabs came and helped us to
pitch; brought us all we required, and then made a blazing fire of
cork-bark. As the night closed in, the water-fowl near us in the angle
of the lake, came swimming in to a clump of bulrushes not fifty yards
distant, just as tame ducks might do. There is abundance of boars in
the neighbourhood; and the Sheik offered to turn out with all his tribe
if I would stay or return for a day’s hunting.
Next morning, while the animals were lading, I strayed along the
water’s edge, and was suddenly assailed by a rush of dogs from the
tents. With my back to the water, I defended myself with a stick for
some time.[213] Presently, a woman and a girl ran down from the tents
to the rescue; and after belabouring the dogs, and setting me free,
they seemed overjoyed with their exploit, ejaculating incessantly,
“Eh, Nazarene!” examining me all over, feeling my hair and skin, and
bursting into fits of laughter. Our conversation, if not _spirituelle_,
was lively. When the interpreter came up, I learnt that my deliverer
was the wife of the Sheik: she was a comely middle-aged woman, with
a head to delight a phrenologist. She said she had a question to ask
me, if I would answer her. On my promising to do so, she resumed: “You
have come to our country, and seen it: now, tell me which is best,
your country or ours?” I answered her, “God is the father of all men,
and the maker of all lands, and he has given to his children the land
that best suits each: your country is good for you, and ours for us.”
I in my turn proposed a question:--“In your country, which is a good
country, tell me what is the best thing?” She reflected, and said,
“We have no good things.” I then asked, “What are your bad things?”
She answered, “God’s evils.” The explanation was, “old age and bad
weather.” I told her that, if she had seen my country, she would know
that with them the one was rare and the other late. She then asked how
much I had seen of their country; and having told her that I had been
into Shavoya, and amongst the Ziaides, she began to expatiate on her
own tribe. “God,” she said, “has given us a fertile and a pretty land;
he has given us plain, and forest, and marsh; he has put a sea beyond
the hills, that no one should harm us; we have a lake that has fish and
birds; we have cattle, sheep, milk, and butter; we have reeds, honey,
and firewood; we have corn in store, and gold and silver; and, if we
live under tents, and not in the city, it is because we choose it.”
Our conversation was put an end to by the rest of the tribe thronging
around us; and an old woman entertaining, or pretending, great alarm, a
little pantomime was suddenly improvised. The Sheik formally announced
that they had in their tents a slave escaped from England, whom it was
their intention to deliver up that I might take her away, upon which
they recounted her services and merits to show how useful a slave she
was that they were giving up--and one of her services was to supply the
douar with wild sows’ milk. On this the old woman ran for her life, and
all the children after her: she was, however, caught, brought back, and
delivered up, and by this time our horses were laden and we took our
leave.
Nothing can exceed the richness of the women’s hair--it falls like
clusters of black grapes or knots of snakes: it is plaited on both
sides of the head, and falls behind. They increase its volume by silk
or worsted cords; and I could not help thinking that the hair of the
women of Carthage was not so despicable a substitute for standing
rigging, especially if they used, as the Jewesses to-day, a turban of
silk thread (_shoualif_) made to imitate it.
I here saw one of the boats. It was certainly the great grandfather of
skiffs; the hollow tree, or monoxyllo, is to it a modern invention. It
was simply a bundle of rushes tied together, and raised at the point
like an Indian canoe, with “thwarts,” to keep it hollow: it was open
at the stern, and floated merely by the buoyancy of the rushes. It had
nothing in the form of fastening; no rulucks; and was propelled by a
pole. I now saw _the_ “basket”[214] in which the mother of Moses placed
her child, and which does not exactly tally with the notions of Poussin
and Guercino. The name of the rushes is _scaif_, and that is the Arabic
for ship. When I heard it before, I thought it must have been derived
from the Greek σκάφη [skaphê], which again is derived from σκάπτω
[skaptô], to hollow out; whence also σκαπτὴζ [skaptêr], a digger, σκάφη
[skaphê], a ditch. If this be so, then the Arabs, in borrowing their
word from the Greeks, proceeded to call by the same name a plant spread
over the whole land; displacing the ancient name--which it must have
had, as also the roots made from it, a thousand years--and before the
Greek islands were visited by Cadmus. If this is too absurd, then the
Arabs called the boats after the reed, and the Greeks, adopting from
them the name, constructed out of it this root, their verb _to hollow_,
and all its derivatives. The modern Greeks have not this word, but have
taken the Arabic one for caravan (καράβι [karabi]). The Arabs have the
same word for boat and camel, _merkeb_, not because it is the “ship of
the desert,” but because it is “mounted.”
The Highlander calls a beehive _scape_, the French, _ruche_: the
English “skiff” and “ship,” the German “schiff,” come all from _skaff_.
The Portuguese preserve the old Greek word _naus_. _Bastimento_ and
_bâtiment_ are from _beit_, a house or building; and our sea-terms
generally come from the Arabic. The aloe is called _kordean_, which
applies equally to the plant and to the fibres extracted from it.
Thence we may have got the _Gordian_ knot. At all events, it is good
as an etymon for _cord_. Their word for cord is _kenab_, from which
the Greeks and Romans took their name for hemp. The continental name
for pitch (_alkitran_, Spanish; _goudron_, French) is from _kitran_;
hammock, from _hamaca_ (Hebrew); cable, from _habl_ (Arabic). The Greek
word for boat-fare, ναῦλος [naulos], is from the Arabic _naulbabi_,
mother of harbours.[215] _Frigate_ is mentioned as a Moorish name
for longboats by a writer at the beginning of the last century, who
says, “We call them brigantines.”[216] Brigantine or breck, seems to
come from _coffee-pot_; _ibrek_, a coffee-pot. _Corvette_ is also
Phœnician.[217] An Arab sailor mentioning the different winds, called
the sirocco, shiloh. The same term is applied to the southern Brebers,
which therefore designates the country from which they came, and makes
the sirocco a derivative from the Arabic. Again, _dabét_, which they
give to compasses, their compasses being made like our boats’ davits.
The new French dictionary of the dialect of Algiers has the following
words: _spaolon_, twine; _dmane_, helm; _saboura_, ballast. The Greek
for twine is σπάον [spaon]. The French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, &c.,
for helm is _timon_ or _timoni_, and the common Levant term for ballast
is _savoura_.
After quitting the lake we ascended a hill, and passed by a saint’s
tomb. I had not been so close to one before, and was surprised at their
not leading me away from it. There were quantities of rushes lying
around for sleeping on, and I found that it was a common practice for
travellers to sleep there, as in the Heroa of Greece, where they were
always secure. They even asked me if I had ever slept in one, so that
the fanaticism of the towns is here unknown.
The snow-white saints’ tombs are very beautiful, seen across the lakes,
and reflected in them. The resemblance was striking with the Mussulman
tombs of India. The half-globe is placed on the cube, and within the
spandril the Gothic arch. Whether was the Indian building derived from
the Moorish, or this from the Indian; for as yet, as in the other parts
of Moorish architecture, I had not seen any natural type or human work
from which it could be derived. The tents, however, had now assumed a
new form, and looked like cottages, being closed in at the bottom by
mats of reeds, made into hurdles, over which the tent itself stood,
like a roof. The population is here more stationary. In the centre
of the circle the mosque, instead of being a tent, was constructed
with reeds, like a tall beehive; and, as they have no carpenters, the
entrance was by a round hole, three feet from the ground, to prevent
the entrance of pigs, cattle, sheep, or poultry, which might defile it.
As we advanced, we found numbers of these beehives, sometimes one to
each tent, and used as dormitories for the children.[218] While I was
considering the origin of the tombs, I observed one of these cones,
against which a square hurdle had been placed to close the orifice, and
there was in rushes the perfect model of the stone building.
The round hole is the origin of the horse-shoe arch, which is a circle
slit down. The walls of the tombs are finished off with the ornaments,
to represent the obtruding ends of the reeds in the hurdles. I was
confirmed in this supposition when, on asking the name of the reeds, I
was answered, _Kasob_, which is the name of a fortress, _Kasaba_. The
first fortresses, or stocades, were of course constructed of reeds.
I beheld in these shining edifices on the borders of this marsh, the
rudiment of the swelling dome on the banks of the Tiber, and the type
of the mausolea of Akbar and Jhanju, on those of the Indus. In their
substance they are the very root of all building, as in their forms
they are of all architecture.
[Illustration: architectural forms]
I must refer the reader to what I have said elsewhere on Moorish and
Gothic architecture.
From our early studies probably no more pleasing impressions remain
than those connected with the funereal solemnities of the ancients. The
feeling they convey goes home to the mind, and the manner in which it
is expressed, and the ceremonies, rites, and laws connected with it,
take possession of our youthful imaginations. Indeed, funeral rites
constitute in a great degree our idea of the life of antiquity, as
funeral monuments furnish the largest proportion of its records. But,
if we are thus moved in reading of what existed thousands of years
ago, and are made to partake in the, to us, strange veneration that
consecrated the tomb into a temple[219]--that converted it into a
sanctuary for the criminal--that made it sacrilege to tread upon the
grave[220]--that enjoined the utmost cleanliness in the arrangements
and preservation of sepulchres, and (among the Jews) imposed the yearly
white-washing of them--how much more so, in seeing those very practices
amongst an extant people! Treading the Continent that bears the load
of the Pyramids, the sight of these tombs suggests other reflections:
the connexion of the honour of the dead with judgment on his acts--with
recompense and punishment, and therefore with an after-existence--with
a Creator of man, the Giver of life, the Receiver of the soul.[221]
They prepared for the belief in a future state by creating for
themselves a future here; and in the treatment of their mortal remains
lay punishments and rewards, that surpassed any that present things,
except in this anticipation, could furnish.
In after times there was a superstitious veneration for the dead--not
so in early times. The corpse was judged by those who had witnessed
its life, before it received the _honours_ of sepulture. Until this
sentence was pronounced, the body was an uncleanly thing, and polluted
those whom it touched. And thus the denial of sepulture remained for
ages the direst of misfortunes that could befall a man, and the darkest
dishonour that could be inflicted on his kindred. We have instances
amongst the Jewish kings of both extremes;--a sepulchre raised for a
good king above all the rest, and the ashes of a bad one cast out from
the tombs of his ancestors.[222] And thus those wonderful structures
which, of the earliest ages, will survive all that has since been
constructed on the earth, are but evidences of the reverence paid
to judgment at their death upon the lives of men. The height of the
Pyramids assumed a scale in rating human conduct, and thereby conveyed
the transcendant worth of those whose ashes they concealed.
The first, the greatest structures thus rose, not to shelter the
living, but to receive the dead. I am describing what I see around
me. This land contains no houses but for the dead. The few cities are
formed of edifices that resemble tombs, being built upon their model,
in the forms that mourning piety had devised, and by the arts that
sepulchral edifices have preserved.
So also have the arts sprung from their hallowing and judging the dead.
Painting and sculpture have their origin in the art of embalming.
The covering presented the human form; the resemblance was completed
by colour. The case that contained it was in like manner fashioned
to preserve the likeness; and thus, in the first of solemn duties
and ceremonies, in the cerement (wax-cloth) itself, were united, in
primeval times, painting, sculpture, and carving. A step further was,
to present, instead of the corpse, the man as alive, as reposing on, or
rising out of his tomb. These we have in Etruria, calling into being or
adopting a new art--that of the potter.
In the centre of Africa it is a custom among some of the tribes for
mothers who have lost young children, to carry about with them little
wooden dolls to represent them; and to these they offer food whenever
they themselves eat. Have we not here the origin of the _imagines_
of the Romans, derived from the Etruscans, derived by them from the
Egyptians, as by these from the Abyssinians,--beyond whom we cannot
ascend; and that people was the fellow race to the Lybians. And here
we have uninterrupted the traditions which have floated down the Nile,
crossed the Mediterranean, and flourished so long in ancient Europe.
In a region where Islamism universally prevails, we might expect few
traces of pagan ceremonies, and here Islamism was the successor of
Christianity, so that there had twice been the sweeping away of the
old land-marks; but here, at all events, it is not a thousand years
that have made any difference--the differences are only in so far
as positive change has been effected by some event--there has not
been a perpetual process of change going on. This people is a true
society:--the man perishes, but the society is deathless.
In Barbary there are no longer the judges of the dead, or the scales
and feather. There are no longer the games in their honour, the
embalming of their bodies, or the sacrifices to their manes. No longer
are mountains of granite piled on high, to signify their worth, nor
caverns burrowed in the rock to prevent their dust from desecration;
but still there is on the houseless waste the house of the dead, not of
the common and vulgar, or the mighty and proud--but of the venerated,
the saint by the decree of public judgment, whether misguided or not.
There it stands in the form of ancient days, with its shady olive or
locust grove--the only green spot that greets the eye, with its well or
fountain for the thirsty to drink, where the weary may repose, or the
devout may pray--here are safety for the wayfarer and sanctuary for the
guilty.
And meaner sepultures have not lost their all. Tread not where the dead
repose; it is holy ground! not consecrated for their use, but hallowed
by their presence: there the sorrowing festival is kept, there are
gathered the mourners with the revolving sun; there the feast of the
dead is prepared and left for the stranger to partake, and bless the
memory of the departed. Is not this a record of ancient days?
I cannot dismiss the subject without pointing to the strange contrast,
in merely worldly sense or wisdom, between the careful attention, which
marks all antiquity, to render the dead innocuous to the living, and
our negligence in this respect. This negligence has cost more lives
and suffering than probably all the swords of all the conquerors.
Epidemics, endemics, slow fever or rapid plague, ever present in deep
vengeance or savage fury, are the produce of our enlightened contempt
for superstitions, and mark the imbecility of that intellectual
presumption which blights in our hands the fruits of science, the
impulses of benevolence, and the benefits of freedom. There was no
plague in ancient Egypt, thickly peopled as it was--they embalmed their
dead; elsewhere, when numbers rendered such precaution advisable, they
were burned. But, where neither embalming nor burning was practised,
they took care at once to remove the dead from the dwellings of the
living, in apprehension of the evil consequences, and through respect
for the repose of the departed. The scenes that may daily be witnessed
in the metropolis of England, it would have been impossible for an
ancient to have conceived, save as existing among some race of hitherto
undiscovered savages destitute of the common instincts of nature.[223]
We are now striving to remedy this evil by legislative means. It may
not be cared about, but its enormity no one will dispute, and it fills
with astonishment and disgust those who are induced to examine into
it. But here, as in so many other instances, the work is done and the
evil prevented by some simple and ancient habits, which are entered
in the traveller’s note-book as at best interesting curiosities, or
amiable weaknesses.
The superstition of the Mussulman lies, however, the other way,
and hence the plague that ravages at present most other Mussulman
countries, and which we shall see again in Europe--or rather in
England--unless the condition of our London cemeteries be ameliorated.
They do not, indeed, bury in the towns; but, in making the grave, they
leave a hollow space above the body, in the belief that it has to
sit up finally, to surrender the soul to the angel of death. Boards
are then placed two feet above the body, and over this but a slight
covering of earth. Thus the gases from the decomposing flesh are
collected, and escape; and being heavier than the atmospheric air, flow
around, seeking the lowest level, and pour downwards, so that when the
cemetery is above the dwellings, these are periodically subject to the
plague. I have observed this so constantly, so regularly, that, on
merely glancing at the position of a town, I can tell whether it is
or is not subject to the plague, in what quarters it is so subject,
and, judging by the winds that prevail, at what season. I do not
speak of those vapours as immediately and necessarily producing the
plague, but as favouring its extension. Our typhus, a low plague,
is never wanting in cities peculiarly exposed to the vapours from
overstocked grave-yards. In fact, as decomposed vegetable matter gives
us intermittent fevers, so does decomposed animal matter furnish,
according to the climate and atmosphere, putrid fever, typhus, yellow
fever, and plague.
[212] The iron sand gets a bluish tint from the
yellow.
[213] The plan adopted by Ulysses, as described by
Homer, has the effect of stopping an onslaught of dogs.
Squat down and drop your stick--the dog will crouch
too; but he will immediately rush at you, if you move
or take up your stick.
[214] The rushing of these boats is represented in
tombs of the fourth dynasty.
[215] Marmol, t. i. p. 4.
[216] Boyd’s Algeria.
[217] “Tardiores quam _corbitæ_ sunt in tranquillo
mare.”--PLAUTUS.
[218] Highland cottages are divided into “but,”
and “ben.” The first is the kitchen, the second the
sleeping apartment. They say “Come _ben_” or “I
am going _but_.” I know not whether this usage is
connected with the practice here, but it is singular
that the names should run so close.
The Hayme here assumed the form of the beit, or
house, and the reed hut by it is occupied by the
children--_beni_. It is constructed, like a beehive, of
_scaff_. There are in the Highland home, but, and ben,
and scape.
[219] “Fuit in tectis de marmore templum,
Conjugis antiqui miro quod honore colebat.”
[220] Treasure also was placed in them, and used
perhaps centuries after, as a last resource, in the
necessities of state. Thus in the tomb of David, opened
in the siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus, 3000 talents
were found, which served to avert the storm.
[221] Diod. Sic., p. 17.
[222] Ahaziah was not suffered to be buried in the
tomb of his fathers.--2 Kings viii. 16-21; 2 Chron.
xxi. Joash also was denied royal burial.--2 Kings xii.;
2 Chron. xxiv. Hezekiah had a tomb raised higher than
the rest.--2 Chron. xxxii. 33. The high priest Jehoiada
was honoured with a royal burial.--2 Chron. xxiv. 16.
[223] “It is one of the most odious and
debasing features of civilization, that death is
habitually desecrated, and the grave ceases to be a
refuge.”--ST. JOHN’S _Greece_, vol. iii. p.
430.
CHAPTER II.
SHEMISH, THE GARDENS OF THE HESPERIDES.
We very soon came upon another lake which has no regular opening to the
sea, though the bank of sand is occasionally moved. It must have been
here that Don Sebastian projected making the entrance for his internal
harbour; but the lake with which this entrance communicates is of small
extent, apparently of no great depth, and separated from the long lake
by a neck of land of no great elevation, but which from its sandy
nature it would be a great enterprise to cut through. We passed over a
good deal of flat ground, like Hungary, completely under cultivation,
and the fields perfectly clean: the douars had the look of villages,
and we could scarcely believe that there were not built houses amongst
them.
Towards evening we came upon a country of a new aspect--broken ground,
aluminous shale, covered with a straggling oak forest. Herds of cattle
were pointed out to us, which were said to be turned out there to
multiply without the care of man; and we came upon a douar in the
midst of this forest, where I was very much tempted to bivouac for
the night. It was like a scene in one of the wooded vales of Western
Greece: however, we pushed on for Larache, the gardens of which we
entered long after it was pitch-dark. The road between them was sand:
there was no possibility of getting water either by fountain, stream,
or well--such is the site of the Gardens of the Hesperides! I had to
postpone the satisfaction of my curiosity till the morrow’s light,
and entered the capital of the King of the Giants with that sort
of reverence and awe which I had felt in approaching the ruins of
Stonehenge.
We were led through a labyrinth of strange and precipitous streets,
till we came down to the lower wall on the side of the harbour:
the houses looked like the little tombs at Pompeii by the wayside.
We were received by the English Consular Agent, a Genoese, whom,
notwithstanding his European habiliments, we might have taken for a
Moor by his quiet demeanour, and his unobtrusive attention to all our
wants. A scene rose next morning such as deserved to shine on the
groves of the Danaïdes. Before one sweeps with many a bend the stream,
on whose tranquil breast reposes the wreck of the navy of Morocco--a
corvette, two brigs, and a schooner. A high bank of sand shuts out
the sea, save at the narrow bar. In front of the town a verdant plain
is spread; all round it flows the river, and beyond it rises an
amphitheatre of broken hills of a lively mountain aspect, and with
other forms and other colours than those of the Zahel. Over these were
scattered gardens; but the gardens of Morocco, which, unlike those of
any other land, are embellished by the bank of cactus, that serves them
for a wall, and painted with the leaden green of the aloe.
To the east, and opposite the sea entrance, there is a detached hill,
like that upon which are situated the ruins of Epidaurus, a spot which
must be ever green in the memory of travellers in Greece. Considering
this to be a last chance of finding a Phœnician city, I commenced
inquiries, and was told that the hill was covered with ruins which had
been deserted from the memory of man, and that the hill was called
_Shemish_. I at once determined to delay my journey in order to devise
means to visit it. This was no easy matter, and I thought the best plan
was to try and get into a boat without my guards, and then trust to
chance and perseverance for being able to push on.
Having no suspicion, they allowed me to get into a boat, accompanied
by a soldier of the town. We embarked at a jetty, close to which lay
in tier in a strong tide-way, four tolerably-sized European vessels,
laden with corn, bark and wool, waiting for an opportunity of getting
over the bar. We kept close to the bank of sand thrown up by the sea,
behind which lay the dismantled and perishing vessels I have already
mentioned. The water was much discoloured; and, like that of the Seboo,
bore traces of chalk. I observed something white on the bank: pulling
to the spot, I found it really to be chalk, an outlyer standing on its
edge. It was harder than the common chalk of England. The flints were
large masses, and there was a coating on them of crystals of carbonate
of lime. The masses of flints were evidently the same as those which
had become gasule. Close by there was a hill like an artificial mound,
and on it the regular sheep-walks of our chalk ranges. Under it we
landed, as it adjoined Shemish and was connected with it by a low neck.
The rocky eminence of Shemish is sandstone, not that which encrusts the
Zahel, but a compact and ancient rock, and sometimes approaching to
granular quartz.
From the top of Shemish the prospect is striking, from the
extraordinary windings of the river to the south and east: it turns
back upon itself, more like the windings of a serpent than the
meanderings of a stream. Hence it derives its name of _Elcos_, or the
boa; hence, too, the fable of the dragon. There was no fable in the
guardianship. The protection was not in his folds, but in his foaming
head--the bar that closed the entrance.
In Pliny’s time the little plain was only partially formed. “At
thirty-two thousand paces from this place (Tangier) is Lixos, of which
the ancients relate so many fables, and which was made a colony by the
cruelty of Claudius Cæsar. There was the kingdom of Anteus; there his
strife with Hercules; there the gardens of the Hesperides. An estuary,
with a meandering course, communicates with the sea, over which the
dragon is said to have kept watch: an island is embraced within the
curves of the water, which, though but slightly raised above the
surrounding land, is never covered by the tide. There is a temple to
Hercules, and some wild olives that are found there are all that remain
of its groves, said to bear golden fruit.”
He then proceeds to speak of the “portentosa mendacia” of the Greeks in
respect to this site; and it reminded me of the “quicquid Græcia mendax
audet in historia” of Juvenal, speaking of the canal of Xerxes, which,
disbelieved by the Roman satirist, may be seen and traced at this hour.
So, in like manner, the golden fruit of Lixos blossoms and ripens to
this day, despite the incredulity of the Roman naturalist.
These ruins have not been hitherto described; they will soon be
demolished. Walls which, I was told, had been some years ago
continuous, and much higher than at present, surround the crest of an
irregular hill: the circuit may be three miles. Where I first came upon
them I found walls in tapia and mortar, and stones, having entirely
the Moorish character. I began to apprehend the repetition of the
disappointment I had so often experienced.
The rolled fragments of stone and lime would not alone do. I wanted
some chiselling, and something to resemble the bulwarks which Nonnus
tells us Cadmus (_i. e._ the Phœnician) gave to the hundred cities he
planted in this border:--
δῶκ’ δ’ ἑκαστῇ
Δύσβατα λαϊνέοις ὑψούμενα τείχεα πύργοις.
[dôk’ d’ hekastê]
[Dysbata laïneois hypsoumena teichea pyrgois].
And I did come on evidences indisputable. These were hewn stone,
neither Roman, Hellenic, nor Cyclopic. They were large, not in regular
tiers, nor polygonal, and joined with cement. One stone which I
measured was ten feet by three. The angles were thus constructed. The
walls were in rude work of stone and lime, which, but for the connexion
in which I found them, might have passed for recent. They exactly
resemble the ruins which are called “Old Tangier.”
I now at length did see a Phœnician wall, and knew what it was. On the
summit of the hill a more ancient building seems to have been converted
into a magazine:[224] it is roofed in and terraced over. Near it there
is the circular end of a building, standing about twenty feet in height
and thirty in diameter. There were long, vaulted chambers, in pairs,
like congreve locks, arched and double, twenty feet long, six feet
wide, and twelve feet high. They were scattered all over the place,
within the walls and without. I went into nine or ten of them. There
was no mark of water on the sides. I hardly think they could have been
cisterns. I could not imagine to what use they were destined.[225] This
was all I could make out by scrambling through the thick brushwood for
the greater portion of the day.
The emblem of peace is busily engaged in upturning these precious
remains. The branches of the wild olive are rounded like the oak,
and do not, like those of the grafted tree, adjust themselves to the
form of the buildings in which they have struck root, as in the ruins
of Greece and Italy. They are here thickly planted, and their roots
and branches are so many wedges driven into the walls. I observed a
stone, which could not be under ten tons, lifted up from the top of a
wall, between the branches of a tree, which again was yielding under
its weight. It reminded me of the admired, but false, metaphor of
Lamartine, when he compares the heart, early love-stricken, to a tree
that bears aloft the hatchet-head, which had been buried in its stem.
The rock was covered with a variety of plants, which would have
presented a rich harvest to a botanist: I can notice but some belonging
to the times of old. Hesperus, fresh leaping from the ocean, here found
in every season all flowers for his wreath; the lotus, the myrtle,
and the palm; the pine, the arar, which represents the cypress. The
acanthus covered the ground with its deep green, glossy, and spreading
leaves. The ivy, instead of crawling over stones or trunks, spreads
over the boughs of trees, and hangs in festoons between them, with a
thin cord-like stem, and delicate leaves studding it upon either side.
The berries are in clusters, like diminutive bunches of grapes, and the
image of the vine is completed by spiral tendrils. I now saw why it was
that the ivy had been appropriated to Bacchus; it was the image of the
vine fitted for a crown. I took one of its long shoots, and wreathed it
into a chaplet, and placed it on the head of one of the wine-denying
Moors, a boatman who had accompanied me, and he was no less delighted
at the implied courtesy than I at the real beauty of the object.
Perhaps, however, the connexion of the ivy and Bacchus may be no more
than a pun. To him were consecrated a plant and a bird, and both had
the same name, κίσσα [kissa] and κίσσος [kissos], the magpie and the
ivy. Bochart makes out the proper name of Bacchus to have been nearly
the same, and himself the chief of the first of the wine-growing
countries, the founder of an empire which conquered India, and which
has left behind monuments to substantiate any fable which Greek fancy
could create. In fact, Bacchus is no other than Chus, or _Bar Chusii_,
whom we call Nimrod, and the Greeks Nebrodes, being a great hunter, and
therefore painted with the skins of wild animals--chiefly the tiger, or
_nimra_--the spoils of which cover the shoulders of Bacchus, while the
captive animal is yoked to his car.
The crown for the festivities of Apollo, I now saw was neither our
laurel nor the bay, the branches of which never could have been used
for such a purpose, as any gem or statue will show. At Shemish a
plant luxuriates which possesses all the qualities requisite for this
ornament. It is a bush, standing four or five feet high, which sends
up yearly twigs, round, smooth, green, and pliant. The leaves are set
along it alternately, and these are soft, glossy, delicate in texture
and elegant in form, and yet of extraordinary durability; and the twigs
are just the length required for a chaplet: a red berry hangs to the
leaf by a fine thread, while simultaneously it bears the flower, which
is a small star of six fleshy points, of the palest green, with an
amethyst cup in the centre.[226]
The tree of Minerva, in all its stubborn and unsubjugated vigour,
here flourishes in scorn on Neptune’s border, and the oak of Jupiter,
presenting food for man, completes the assemblage of these leafy
reminiscences of time gone by, veiling the grey ruins that the elements
had not yet destroyed, nor man laid low. Here were the things of
Nature, which they in their time admired, leaf for leaf, and line for
line; bright, gay, verdant, with their shining dewdrops, and their
buzzing insects; and there, after thirty centuries, lay the stones they
had chiselled, and the mortar they had mixed. The air of such a place
breathes of nepenthes,--the poppy of memory, not forgetfulness. It is
covered with a mirage of recollections, on which the spirit floats,
and with which it mingles. Its solitude invited the busy throng of
other times. There was the work of their hands, the place of their
choice, the field of their labour, the haven of their traffic. There
the horizon they looked upon; the plants they gathered, the trees they
cultivated, the sun that awoke the wind that refreshed them. I saw them
in the choice they had made, and lived amongst them, in seeing what
they saw, and feeling as they felt. As an angel that has conversed with
man, they have taken their flight--they have disappeared, as if, like
the sun, to visit other climes. Their western-bound prows, perchance,
followed his course, flying from the Chaldean or the Macedonian; their
last glances may have rested on this height, where I first beheld walls
which their hands had reared. Or this might have been the end of their
pilgrimage. They were beyond the reach of the conqueror and Libya,
which had offered an asylum to the fugitives of Jericho, and Moab might
have yielded one also to those of Tyre.
I had been astonished at finding no fragment whatever of marble. I
cannot say but that this raised some doubt in my mind; but on getting
down to the bank of the river, to the southward, I came upon _nine
lime-kilns_. There was a little commerce established, a landing-place
for the boats, and large sugar-casks for the lime. They have now
exhausted the quarry. The quantity extracted must have been immense,
for they have been at work for two years. The contents of one kiln had
been drawn out, and they were about to slake them. I pulled out entire
one morsel, which resembled the front part of the Egyptian Pshent.[227]
The lime is used for a new palace of the Caïd, for government stores,
and the repairs of the batteries, suggested by the French bombardment.
Thus have been disposed of relics that might have thrown light on the
early history of this portion of the world, and supplied in some degree
the loss of the libraries of Carthage and Alexandria. To add to the
provocation, close by they had an inexhaustible store of material, more
easily calcinable, had they but known. I have been informed, however,
that it was with the purpose of destroying an object of interest to
Europeans that the order was sent. If so, this is one of the effects of
the _journée_ or _déjeûner_ of Isly.
“Sit ne aliqua super spes,” exclaims Eckhel, “fore ut plus lucis his
Phœniciorum reliquiis adfundatur? Aio superesse exiguam nisi ex terræ
sinu proferantur monumenta copiosiora.” How many, alas! since he wrote
have been plastered into walls. Strange fate, that of these explorers
of the land and sea--these instructors in all art and science--every
trace should have disappeared! There remains no shred of their tissues,
no tint of their dyes, no limb of their statues, no corner of their
palaces, no stone of their temples: no annalist has noted for us
their facts; no epic has been built up from their story; no Sophocles
replaced their heroes on a mimic stage; no Pindar prolonged the echo of
their chariot wheels.
But though until I visited this place I did not know even where to go
to look for a wall of this construction, from the scanty fragments that
have been gleaned we learn, that all that Greece and Rome could boast
are nothing more than monuments of _their_ greatness,[228] and of a
greatness in which they have no compeers. All other dominations have
extinguished what it overshadowed, and devoured what it covered.
Is not this the interpretation of the fable of the Phœnix?--a bird
perishing in fire; a new life springing from its ashes. It was not the
procreation of the breed; it was not the colonies that had gone forth
from its loins. The parentage was spiritual, and the type revived in
new matter. There was but one Phœnix. There has been but one Phœnicia,
and all that we have of light and letters to this day has come from
her. Her name, that of a bird, and a tree--the palm of Judæa, and the
wings of her sea-faring sons.
It occurred to me that Larache, as the city of Antæus and the giants,
must have been that belonging to the original population, and
Shemish the Phœnician settlement. This would explain that remarkable
expression, “Libo-Phœnician cities.” It was not Phœnician or
Carthaginian territory: it was their _cities_. It was not their cities
among an uncultivated people; the Libyans had cities too. The cities of
both were linked together, and here they were. Nor is it at this place
alone. At Tangier it is precisely the same: the old city, which now I
know to be Phœnician, is on the opposite side of the bay. At Arzela
there are ruins of the same kind across the river; at Dar el Baida
they are on the neighbouring headland. The still existing cities I, of
course, take to be the original ones. They are in couples: in none of
these cases could the one have supplanted the other. They owe their
conjoint existence to the peculiar nature of the Phœnician settlements:
they lived together, each requiring his own establishment, but neither
encroaching on or displacing the other.
Carthage, in the height of her power, paid ground-rent. It was not
till the latter time, and in her struggles with Rome, that she sought
to govern and possess, according to our present notions; and it was in
Sicily and Spain that she set her hands to this craft, and brought down
her own ruin.
The greatness of Carthage was founded on the confidence that the native
population had in her integrity. _Punica fides_ could not have been
turned to a reproach, had it not at first represented a truth. Had she,
like the English or the French, the Spaniards or the Portuguese, been
even suspected of being a grasping power, she must either have become
mistress of Mauritania, or been expelled from its border, or shut up
in useless rocks upon its coast; and the word “Libo-Phœnician cities”
would never have descended to our time.
We are without any direct and positive information respecting the
internal management, or the external relations of those cities,
or their ties with the parent state; but a city, in every respect
similarly situated, has been described by ancient authors, in a
sufficiently distinct manner to put what I have said on more secure
grounds than that of mere reference. The city I refer to is Emporiæ,
one of the great settlements of Spain; the only one, then, not
Phœnician, but founded by that branch of the Ionic Greeks which drew
nearest to them in character and enterprise, and with whom alone of the
Greeks they had made friendship on the field of battle.[229] It was the
counterpart in Iberia of Marseilles in Gaul, and completed the range of
Phocæan traffic. It was exactly what the Libo-Phœnician cities were, as
its name alone suffices to show; for Emporion is not, as is supposed, a
Greek, but a Phœnician word, and all these cities had the generic name
of Emporiæ, having their proper name besides.
Like Tyre, Emporiæ was originally on an island: on being abandoned,
it was called in like manner _Palæopolis_. The colonists then joined
with the Hispani in the same town, which seems to have been called
Indica; the tribe was called Indigetes. They were received as guests,
and allowed to join their city to that of the Hispani:[230] it was
thence called _Dispolis_. The part belonging to the Greeks looked to
the sea, the other to the land: the first was four hundred paces in
circuit, the second three thousand. Each people preserved its laws and
customs. Intercourse, except for purposes of commerce, was forbidden;
and thence, according to Livy, no dispute ever arose to interrupt
the harmony of their neighbourhood during the ages of this common
habitation. So unwearied was the watchfulness of the Greeks, that
one-third of the male population nightly mounted guard.
This vigilance--the striking contrast between those really living
communities and our heaps of sand--was not peculiar to the Phocæans;
nor was the disposition to grant sites for cities, and the privileges
of self-government to settlers, peculiar to the Indigetes. Here is a
picture of the times; and, with such modifications as circumstances
cast over the delineation, we see all the other Emporia on the coasts
of Libya or Iberia.
I have said that Emporion was not a Greek word. The Chaldæan paraphrase
(Genesis xxv. 3) has _Emporius_ for merchants, _Emporioth_ for
merchandise. Leptis is mentioned, both as one of the Emporia and one of
the Lybo-Phœnician cities.[231] Livy says that Scipio spent his time
between the “_Punica_ Emporia gentemque Garamantum.” He went now to
visit the natives, now the commercial establishments, which, instead of
bolts, had fortresses for their defence.
Scylax couples the cities and Emporia. “The Carthaginians,” says he,
“spread from the Syrtes to the Columns of Hercules.” The words are
singular, and seem to mark a difficulty of expression, such as occurs
when describing habits so foreign: cities along a coast, forming
a nation and government apart--an empire, as it were, standing on
points.[232]
But so far from the πολίσματα [polismata][233] and the Emporia
subjugating the native population centuries afterwards, and when the
Roman sword had been thrown into the scale with the Tyrian trinkets,
it was not the city that overspread the plain with its shadow, but
the people of the wilderness that had assimilated to themselves the
urban system, defying alike the imperial power and the metropolitan
civilization.
Severus, on attaining the imperial purple, sent for his sister from
_Leptis_, and was much ashamed of her that she could scarcely speak
Latin.[234] Was it, then, Phœnician she spoke?--not at all. Sallust has
told us, in his time, that the language was changed by _intermarriages
with the Numidians_.[235]
Was it a disadvantage to Rome that there was no uniformity? Had Rome
been possessed with the mania of uniformity, she could at best have
remained only a small state on the Tiber.
The Carthaginians kept their cities distinct from the cities of the
Lybians: the Romans kept their laws distinct from the customs of
the country. Rome could even _unite_ provinces, strange as it may
seem with our experience, without convulsing them or throwing them
into rebellion, for the union was judicial, not administrative or
legislative. This reserve, which was the secret of the power of
Carthage, became the source of the prosperity and tranquillity of Roman
Mauritania, amidst the convulsions of the rest of the empire down
to the invasion of the barbarians, which--in Africa at least--were
uninvited by the provincials.
THE HESPERIDES.
A garden is not hot-houses to force fruits, or conservatories to
preserve flowers: it is forest and fountain, affording shade and water;
to these you may _add_ flowers and fruits. An Eastern goes to his
garden to enjoy nature, not to study art[236]--goes to it for shelter
in the sultry hours, or to regale himself in the even-tide. Thus says
Solomon:--“A garden enclosed is my sister, a spring shut up, a fountain
sealed. I am come into my garden, I have eaten my honeycomb, and have
drunk my wine and my milk.”
The world began with a garden. Of the first one, it is said, “the Lord
planted it.” The botanist, who considered that the greatest compliment
ever paid to his science was, when Christ said, “Consider the lilies
of the field,” must have forgotten the workmanship of the first of
orchards, for it was trees which constituted that garden. “Every tree
that is pleasant to the sight or good for food,” and immediately after
there are the rivers enumerated that spring in it. The garden was the
first special work of Providence: it was the habitation appointed
for our undefiled nature. Its culture was the first task allotted to
man,--and it is sometimes the last, when all that life can yield or
fortune bestow has been tried and exhausted. Tamerlane, when he had
conquered the world, turned gardener at Samarkand.
They can fit up any place into a garden. I have spent an evening
amongst a bed of leeks, which had suddenly assumed all the pretensions
of a parterre and kiosk; a few plants to lay the cushions and carpets
on, a couple of glass balls for the lights, a little tin wheel, on
which a jet of water was conducted, some jessamine plants detached from
a wall to form a canopy over our heads, the leeks pulled up in front to
open a way for the supper. This kind of garden is a sort of out-of-door
existence, and essentially belonging to a people with tents, and has
its conveniences and luxuries adapted for transport.
There is no botany, no horticulture; their taste is ignorant. Their
love of flowers is not as they are arranged in classes, multiplied
in leaves, or varied in colours--it is for themselves--their natural
forms, their pure colours, and their sweet odours. It is unobtrusive
and silent, or vocal only as in the verses of Solomon and the songs
of the Troubadours. “A man may be a good botanist,” said Rousseau,
“although he does not know the name of a single plant.”
The Easterns do not like to come empty-handed, and the commonest, as
the fairest, flowers suffice. But it is not a _nosegay_ or a _bouquet_,
but a _flower_ that they present. The leaf and stem are to them just
as beautiful as the blossom; and a bundle of heads of flowers would
appear to them much like a heap of human heads. In the numerous
Chinese figures and ornaments that encumber our tables and rooms, it
may be observed that, wherever there are flowers, they are single,
each by itself in a vase. A piece of pottery has recently been brought
to England from the Greek Islands: it is unique, and no description
has been discovered of its uses. It is a vase about four inches in
diameter, surrounded with two circles of very small vases, which stand
out from it: it is evidently for flowers, and so placed that each
should have its own stalk and vessel. The Moors also have a flower-dish
for the room: the top in pierced pottery, so that each stands by
itself. One of the things which in Europe have shamed me most in the
presence of an Eastern is the bouquet, or painted cauliflower head, in
the hand of a lady. Alas! that perversion of taste should always fasten
on her fairest subjects!
Their weeds, stunted in our hot-houses, are their chief embellishments;
the cactus, for instance, and the aloe. Here the one bears flowers like
a standard, and the other fruit like a flower. Without science, numbers
of plants, or skill in rearing and combining delicate and diverse
natures, a garden rises to something infinitely beyond our ideas,
whether of use or grandeur. So may it be traced on the Nile in the
palmy days of the Pharaohs, on the Xenil in those of the Abderachmans,
no less than at Jerusalem and Babylon.
The Hanging Gardens were the least like what a European would expect:
the authenticity of the concurrent testimony of Diodorus Siculus,
Quintus Curtius, and Josephus has consequently been questioned. There
was no assortment like Kew--no show like Chiswick. Flowers are no more
mentioned than cabbages or carrots.
The land was intersected with canals, carrying water field by field
over the Doab of the Tigris and Euphrates; beyond this region spread
dead levels, which, as Xenophon says, resembled the sea. From the
city’s lofty walls stretched on all sides, far as eye could reach,
flatness and luxuriance. What, then, could taste divine and power
accomplish--if not the rivalling of wild nature--to transport thither
a primeval forest, and to pile up coctile mountains to place it on.
Such was the design of the Hanging Gardens; and, when accomplished,
doubtless they were a wonder.
The forest-crowned battlements of Lucca, diminutive as they are, and
in the midst of wood and mountains, nevertheless please the eye. A
palm-tree on one of the towers of Arta often recurs to my memory as one
of the most attractive and picturesque features of that lovely region.
The sculptures of Nineveh present the same thing: on the towers of
cities are planted palm and other trees, confirming the accounts of the
Hanging Gardens. They afford, no doubt, protection; for, if not useful
in time of war, they would have been cut down.[237] The walls of these
ancient cities were broad enough to bear a forest band, and might have
had a stream or river running along for their nourishment.
In the gardens of Azarah[238] we have the same theme in a different
mode. Around were mountains; these were all planted with fruit-trees
and cultivated with flowers. The palace, as it were, walked forth
into the garden, and its glory consisted in Mosaic walks, fountains,
kiosks; and there, of course, in their excellence were to be seen those
peculiarities of gardening we can still trace in Morocco and in Spain
and Portugal, which I have already mentioned in describing Kitan and
Ceuta, and which those who visit the Peninsula get some idea of by the
fortress of Lisbon, and especially by the courts of the convent of
Bellem, and--though travestied--in the Alcazar at Seville.
We know more of the domestic manners of the Egyptians than of those of
any people who have preceded us; and I should imagine that the pictured
walls of the Memnons furnish the best delineation, however unsuccessful
the Egyptians were in painting flowers, of what those gardens were[239]
which the Saracens constructed in Spain, and how they arranged and
assorted together verdure and architecture, flowers, trees, land, and
water. In the Middle Ages, nothing more excited the wonder of Europe
than the gardens of Andalusia; and that that exquisite gardening is of
the highest antiquity is clear, from “heaven” in all languages being
called “paradise.”[240]
The Hesperides, the seats of the blessed, were orchards.[241] A
garden being the abode of the dead, a tree came to be the symbol of
death in that of life. On the sepulchral monuments, the tree of the
Hesperides and the strigil are the most constant emblems--the one
representing immortality, the other purity. At Nineveh, the tree of
life is associated with the living, not the dead. As the sun set in
the west, and as the west was considered to be the place to which the
spirits repaired, their abode, Hezperi, came to mean the evening,
or Hesperus. The site of the Hesperides can admit, therefore, of no
doubt or ambiguity; and the name given to another part of Africa in
the neighbourhood of Carthage can only be understood as figuratively
expressing its excellences and beauty.
Their gardens may still be described as copses of fruit-trees, as is
naturally to be expected in the country of the orange, lemon, and
citron, when flower, foliage, verdure, shade, and fruit were all
combined--not evanescent in an hour, or exchanging their merits, but
combined in one, and enduring nearly throughout the year. The orange,
in a hot country, is the very excellence of fruit; and, if we were not
familiarised with its form and flavour, the aspect of a Moorish garden
of that description would prompt all that the same sight prompted to
the Greeks of old.
A peculiarity of their gardening is, that they do not mix the different
kinds. The Jews were forbidden to mix the olive and the vine; and
Solomon speaks of a garden of nuts (it should be almonds). This is the
fashion here: the garden is a square--it is again laid out in squares,
in the way that we dispose a farm for rotation crops. Thus, the gardens
of the Sultan at Morocco are divided off into almonds, pomegranates,
figs, pears, cherries. The square divisions are separated by alleys of
the dimensions of streets, but some greater than others. Columns run
along; and above these, and partly down the sides, there is a fret-work
of bamboo; over these are trained vines, the clusters depending through
the trellis (as seen in the Egyptian tombs). Jessamine (the large white
and yellow flower) and other plants are trained up the columns, and
festooned around them. Through these alleys you ride on horseback; and
at the intersections there are vast halls, like that I have described
at Kitan, of bamboo fret-work: the portals and openings imitate
windows, and are twined and matted with various creepers.
On both sides of the alleys flow the rivulets for irrigation; and,
there being no weeds or under-verdure, you have the refreshing coolness
without the effects of rank vegetation. The style of the private
gardens is the same.
Oranges and lemons are, however, classed by themselves. They are
planted together, and in certain proportions, viz. the orange sweet and
bitter, the lemon sweet and bitter, the citron large and small--in all,
nearly a dozen varieties. A garden of this kind is called _quorce_.
The common orange has evidently been a graft from the East, for it is
called _chin_: in _lim_ and _rungh_ may be found the root of our lemon
and orange. To the eastward, the Arabs call the orange _Berdkou_.
_Portugal_ is so called by the Greeks, &c.; and probably that general
name which it has acquired in the Levant comes from the Portuguese
traffic when they were in possession of the ports of Barbary.
So recent is the introduction of these plants in the East, that I have
been shown the stumps of the two trees first planted in the island now
most celebrated for their growth, and where the gardens resemble those
of Barbary, having the three varieties mixed together. This island is
Naxos: the two trees are called Adam and Eve, and they say they were
brought by the Venetians. That, of course, is a mistake, but it shows
that they came from the West.
Throughout the country the trees are generally evergreens--the olive,
wild and cultivated, the cork, oak, the arar, the locust, the palm, the
palmetto, the orange and lemon, the lotus and myrtle, and, finally,
the Barbary fig and aloe, which give to the land its tropical and
ideal character. The whole country is covered with what are our garden
flowers; so that now, in the depth of winter, there is no sign of the
hoary monarch save in the gardens, where the fruit-trees are naked;
but these leafless copses did not suffice, under a glowing sun and
with a verdant landscape, to cool, even in thought, the summer breath
into a winter chill. They merely looked like withered trees, and the
gardens were the only spots that did not smile. I speak of those that
were scattered along our road, not of the septs of pale blue fantastic
vegetation enclosing the dark shining groves of _quorce_ (orange and
lemon) that grace the banks of the Lixus.
It is not without reason that the cactus is called the Barbary fig.
It grows so abundantly and luxuriantly, and is so well adapted to
the soil and climate; flourishing in the arid sand, covering it with
a grateful shade, fertilizing it with its thick succulent branches
as they fall, fostering other plants by its shelter, and furnishing
in abundance a healthy and refreshing crop of fruit, which fringes
or studs its gigantic leaves.[242] The fig has a thick rind, which
is pared off: this, in Spain, is treasured up for the pigs. Like the
Turkey, the prickly pear, though cherished, is repudiated, every people
calling it by the name of some other people: we call it Barbary fig,
the Moors call it Christian fig--_kermus ensare_. The Spaniards call it
_Tuna_, as having been imported from Tunis; the Shillohs of Sus call it
_Tacanarete_, as if it had come to them from the Canary Islands. There
is but one people who have boldly adopted it, and that is the Mexicans,
who have taken it as their national emblem, and have associated it upon
their coins with the shashea, or Barbary cap, intended to represent
Liberty. It is doubtless from the word “karmus” that we have taken
“kermes,”[243] the name of the insect growing upon it, and one variety
of which furnishes the cochineal. The people of the Canary Islands
call it “alcormas,”[244] which, in fact, is the kermus, the common term
of the Arabs for fig. This, I think, suffices to vindicate the claims
of Barbary to its prickly pear; for the people of the Canaries were
driven from Africa at a remote period, and were of the race of the
Shillohs, as their language, names, and customs, noted at the time of
their discovery and conquest, can leave no doubt.
The aloe bears no fruit: the stalk of the blossom serves for the
purposes of light timber. It blossoms about the seventh year, and then
dies: it rises from the seed that falls. They are not acquainted with
the liquor, like soured milk (yourt), which the Mexicans draw from
it (pulke) by tapping. The Moors do not convert its fibres into the
same beautiful work as the Mexicans, or the inhabitants of the Eastern
Archipelago, but they use them for sewing. An Arab woman, when she has
needlework, goes into the garden to gather her thread: the thread, like
the plant, is called “gorsean.” I have been told that some of the very
old lace made by the Jews is of this fibre.
The kitchen-gardens surround every town like a suburb, and in them we
have, no doubt, the “gardens of herbs” of the Jews. The distribution
of land for a town under the Jewish system required a space
sufficient for a garden for each household; and, beyond the ground so
appropriated, there was the common land or pasturages. The same rule
prevails here; and there is a common shepherd and cowherd who comes for
the cattle in the morning and brings them home at night. The gardens
are small squares, divided off internally with rows of tall reeds.
There is a plank door with lintels; all the rest of the enclosure is of
growing plants. The soil is generally sand: here in the gardens above
the town, and through which I passed last night, it is nothing but
sand, and its fertility depends on the shelter afforded it. The tall
reeds fence it round; there is then a path on the four sides, on the
inner side of the path fruit-trees; and the centre, between the trees
and the path adjoining the reeds, is covered with a trellis, over which
vines are trained. The smaller ones are without trees; so that, as you
peep into them, they look like large rooms or corridors.
They say that the smell of the cistus cools one: I fancied I
experienced the same effect in looking at the mirage-like colours
of the cactus and aloe. But what is to be said of their forms?--can
anything be more antithetical than the straight lines and the sharp
points and daggers of the aloe, and the distorted contorted lobes and
projections of the prickly pear? Mingled together, as they generally
are, they keep the mind occupied with their strangeness and their
contrasts. More than once I have heard Europeans express themselves
angrily about them, and revile their “monstrosities.” As seen in our
hot-houses, the form may be known, but that is all; no idea can be
formed of the cavern-like alley with which, when they rise fifteen or
twenty feet, they cover the ground. The aloe is the outer fence, or
_chevaux-de-frise_, the cactus rising higher within: through these are
mingled the tall slender reeds, as if to unite in one bond the three
most dissimilar things in nature. Together, they form a fence which
might delay an army, and present to the archer Phœbus a testudo which
defies his shafts.
On the coast, the heat is tempered by the sea-breezes at the hottest
times of the year and day; but the influence of these winds is lost as
they pass inwards, and in three or four miles they become themselves
heated. Along the Zahel their cooling breath is expended on the barren
sand. Here the sands cease and the rich soil commences. There is no
languid autumn and benumbing winter, no trying spring or scorching
summer, but unceasing verdure and ever-springing plants.
To the south fertility is wanting; to the north there are the heavy
vapours of the easterly wind. Sheltered from the blasts of the sea,
though inhaling its health and freshness, and from the damp wind that
sweeps through the Gut of Gibraltar and infects the shores of Spain and
Morocco,--this region enjoys the richest soil, the most fortunate site
in a clime where barren sand upon a mountain-top can bear the choicest
fruits and the fairest flowers; a clime which combines the charms of
every other, and preserves throughout the year the luxury of every
season.
This climate is adapted to pulmonary invalids. During the latter days
of November, the whole of December, and the half of January, we have
had but three bad days: there has been but one day not splendid during
our excursion. The want of trees along the coast--whatever the effect
in summer--leaves in winter no masses of decomposed leaves to affect
the air. The trees, where abundant, are evergreens; and the vines had
not lost their leaves, which were coloured a deep red. The new figs
were formed, and some of them as large as walnuts; the flowers were
all in blossom; and, though it was cold at night, it was hot during
the day. We have here the latitude of Madeira, without the exposure to
its storms or sudden changes; nor does the barometer fluctuate even
in storms. It has not fallen below “change.” I have seen pulmonary
diseases, but it has been in the Jewish quarter, where they live in
blocks of houses with the passage for the air below; sleeping on the
floor, or even below the level of the court, twenty sometimes in a
room, and with barrels of fermenting raisins in every house, from
which they distil their spirits. Except under such circumstances, I
have observed no trace of affection of the lungs; and, to all these
advantages for a pulmonary patient, there would be added the bath.
[224] The Spaniards occupied Larache under Philip
II., and lost it under Philip III. (1689).
[225] It has since occurred to me that they might
have been baths.
[226] The _Ruscus aculeatus_. It is the plant which
the Spaniards prefer for adorning their patios, or
courts; but in Spain the growth is not so luxuriant.
[227] At the moment that I discovered this trace of
Pharaotic sculpture, I was struck with the attitude of
the men around me. The Moors do not squat down like the
Easterns, tailor-fashion, but they sit with their knees
up, and on them rest their arms; and shrouded in their
Gilabras, they are exactly like the sitting figures of
Egypt.
[228] The Phœnician coins found in this
neighbourhood, or in Spain, present the originals of
the whole of the mythology and the arts of Greece. The
plates to Don Bathagin’s (infant of Spain) edition of
Sallust’s Jugurtha alone present the following list.
Laurel crowns. Ivy crown, with the bunch-like
grapes. Ceres crown of corn-heads. The Mural crown. The
star and crescent. The trident and dolphin. The sun
and the sun and moon. Winged Pegasus. The palm-tree.
The palm, lion, and the horse’s head. The Zampti,
represented by four columns surmounted by a pediment.
The winged Cupid and the winged Genius. The Genius and
torch. The diadem and circlet. The helm and galley beak.
The art of coining they borrowed from the Greeks,
and it seems to have been the only mention of that
people; but the emblems represented were the ancient
ones.
The mythological terms and names of Greece, in like
manner may be cited.
Æolus, עעול, _aol_, storm.
Elysium fields, עליז, _aliz_, happy.
Erebus, the west, as used by Homer, Odyss. μʹ 12.
Chaos, כהות ערב, _chaüth ereb_, evening darkness.
Myth, מות, _muth_, death.
Pan, פן, _pan_, “attonitus stupet.”
Thyrsus, תרזה, _thyrza_, pines.
Phallus, פלצות, _phallasuth_.
Orgy, רזא, _rza_, wrath.
Mystery, _mistur_, a thing hidden, Landseer.
Siren, שיר, _sir_, to sing.
Hero, חורים, _horim_, princes (Eccl. x. 17).
Hades, חדס, _hades_, or _hadasso_, myrtle, whence
Edessa, &c.
Satyr, _satur_, disguised.
Faun, פנים, _phanim_, a masque.
Tartarus, _tara_, warning (redoubled).
Cyclops, _chem slub_, lay of Selab (Chon. l. i. c.
80).
Hephæstos, _ab_ father, _af_ fire, whence also
Vesta, usta, &c.
Persephone, _peri_ fruit, _sophon_ lost.
Triptolemus, _tarop_ break, _tel_ earth, _telens_
furrow.
Golden apples, μήλα [mêla], golden fleece, μάλλον
[mallon], _malh_, riches.
Toison (French), _tson_ sheep.
[229] The most desperate sea-fight ever known. The
whole of the vanquished fleet was destroyed, and if I
recollect right, only three of the victors escaped.
[230] “Jam nunc Emporiæ duo oppida erant muro
divisa: unum Græci habebant a Phocæa unde et
Massilienses oriundi, alterum Hispani.”--LIVY.
[231] “Emporia vocant eam regionem ... una civitas
ejus Liptis.”--LIVY l. 34.
[232] Carthage when it fell, was the richest, the
most peopled, and strongest city in the world. It had
seventy thousand citizens, and three hundred cities in
Africa.
[233] Ὅσα γέγραπται πολίσματα καὶ ἐμπόρια ἐν τῇ
Λιβύῃ [Hosa gegraptai polismata kai emporia en tê
Libyê].
[234] “Viro latine loquens, ad illa multum
imperatore rubesceret.”--SPARTIANUS.
[235] “Ejus civitates lingua modo conversa connubio
Numidarum.”
[236] “Inelegant as they may appear to the
cultivated taste of an Englishman, they afford a
voluptuous noon-tide retreat to the languid traveller.
Even he, whose imagination can recall the enchanting
scenery of Richmond or of Stowe, may perhaps experience
new pleasure in viewing the glistening pomegranates in
full blossom. Revived by the freshening breeze, the
purling of the brooks, and the verdure of the groves,
his ear will catch the melody of the nightingale,
delightful beyond what is heard in England; with
conscious gratitude to heaven, he will recline on
the simple mat, bless the hospitable shelter, and
perhaps, while indulging the pensive mood, he will
hardly regret the absence of British refinement in
gardening.”--DR. RUSSELL.
[237] Layard’s Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 393.
[238] These gardens have been the occasion of
preserving a trait of Moorish character: an old woman
having had a portion of ground taken from her to
complete the enclosure, appealed to the caïd,--
“The magistrate mounted his ass, taking with him
a sack of enormous size, and presented himself before
Hisham, who happened to be then sitting in a pavilion
on the very ground belonging to the old woman. The
arrival of the caïd, still more the sack, which he
carried on his shoulders, surprised the caliph. Ibn
Bechir having prostrated himself, entreated the monarch
to allow him to fill his sack with some of the earth
on which they then were. The request was granted, and
when the sack was full, the caïd desired his master to
help him to lift it on his ass. This strange demand
astonished Alkakem still more, and he told the caïd
that the load was too heavy. 'O prince,’ replied Ibn
Bechir, 'this sack which you find too heavy, contains
but a very small portion of the earth which you have
unjustly taken from a poor woman; how then at the day
of judgment shall you bear the weight of the whole?’”
[239] The valley of Jordan was like the garden of
Eden and the land of Egypt.--Gen. xiii. 10.
[240] “The Assyrians were probably also the inventors
of the parks or paradises which were afterwards maintained
with so much sumptuousness by the Persian kings of the
Archimedian and Sassanian dynasties. In these spacious
preserves various kinds of wild animals were continually kept
for the diversion of the king, and for those who were
privileged to join with him in the chase. These paradises
were stocked, not only with some of every kind, but with
various trees, shrubs, and plants; and were watered by
numerous artificial streams. The Persian word has passed into
various languages, and is used for the first abode of man
before his fall, as well as for the state of eternal
happiness.”--LAYARD’S _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 432.
[241] Hebrew: עז פרי _hez peri_, fruit-tree.
[242] The leaf, besides, is one of their great
specifics in medicine; it is used for hæmorroids. It
is applied as a cataplasm for every kind of external
disorders, and even to the buboes of the plague. The
thick leaf is roasted in the oven, and then laid on hot.
[243] We have borrowed from them many other words.
Botany, from _batmore_, turpentine-tree.
Herb, _erbie_, which signifies not only plants, but
their season of appearance.
Wood, _wood_.
Lozenge, _loze_, almond, whence also Lusitania.
Bane, as in hen_bane_.
Wort, as in cole_wort_, from _wurde_, rose; whence
also “order,” the rose being the emblem of the order,
whence, “under the rose.”
Lupin, signifies bean.
Artichoke, _korshof_.
Flower, _flour_, cauliflower.
Dalia, this is their word for vine.
Cabbage; they call a bunch of vegetables as brought
to the market, _habba_, from it a portion may be
_snipped_.
Truffle, their name is _terfez_.
[244] Vide vocabulary in Glass’s History of the
Canary Islands.
CHAPTER III.
ARZELA.
It was evening before we returned to Larache. The city, which looked so
beautiful under the morning sun, was concealed from us as he set behind
it; but the gardens on the opposite hills received his declining rays.
The ancient cities, which I had visited at these outlets, are placed
on the western side, and therefore with the evening sun at their back.
At Constantinople it is considered in the rent of a house whether its
view of the Bosphorus is with or against the setting sun. A garden was
pointed out to me which, it was said, produced the finest oranges in
the world: its produce was reserved for the Sultan. I afterwards had
time to visit the Spanish fortifications from the land side, which
present the peculiar features of that age--sharp angles, lofty bastions
and curtains, massive walls, and deep moats. I saw some beautiful jars,
quite antique, the manufacture of Casar, ten miles from this.
When I was passing the gate, a Moorish gentleman accosted me in
good English, but with a strong Scotch accent; he volunteered
information about mines, and promised to visit me in the evening.
He came accordingly: he had been three years in Gibraltar, and had
been on board our fleet during the war. He began to expatiate on the
advantages of European civilization, and expressed his anxiety to have
it introduced into Barbary. I said to him, that would be all very well
if they could discriminate, but that men were like Adam in Paradise;
that they had to balance their present state with all its evils against
change with all its chances; that for them change involved one of two
consequences--slavery or pauperism.
He asked me, to my great surprise, for news about Nadir Bey. This is
an adventurer of Russian origin, who has been going about Europe and
Turkey representing himself as cousin of the Sultan, and claiming his
throne. He had come to Morocco, where he had succeeded better than
elsewhere, obtaining money and honours, and a firman recognising him
as legitimate sovereign of Turkey! I took occasion from this incident
to show him how perfectly unqualified they were for dealing in any
foreign matter, being so shamefully hoaxed in such a case as this; upon
which he abruptly jumped up and took his departure. I thought he had
been taken suddenly ill; but I afterwards learnt that he had been Nadir
Bey’s patron, and had introduced him to the Sultan.
The baggage having been sent across the river in the evening, next
morning at day-break we found the horses ready laden. The beach-road
is practicable only when the tide is out, and in any case only for
persons well mounted. The tide was not very favourable, and we were
very ill mounted, but I insisted on going by this road--the sea was so
grand, and I wished to look out for _architectural_ phenomena. But the
bank of sand is here interrupted, and the cavernous and stalactitic
effects were not to be observed. There were, however, the patterns of
the coloured sands. The river of Larache brings down the bluest-black
iron sand, which indeed is strewed all along the coast from Meden to
Cape Spartel. The distance to Arzela is only five hours; but, what with
the drag of the sand on the beach, and getting bogged when we struck
into the interior, and wandering backwards and forwards from the hills
to the beach, and from the beach to the hills, we made it a long and
fatiguing day’s journey.
The country was here as unlike as anything could be to that which
we had passed: it changes suddenly in appearance and character. At
one moment it would be completely bare, being either cultivated or
fallow, and a few miles on it would be covered, hill and valley,
with brushwood; at one time the palmetto and ordinary brushwood, and
presently a crop of broom occupying every inch of ground within sight,
covering it with a mantle of brilliant yellow, and perfuming the air
with its sweet odour; then it would be all as if under snow from the
white broom, that most airy and delicate of shrubs; then would succeed
the gum cistus, with its mingled flowers of white and red, and its cool
refreshing scent.
The odour from the cistus does not lose its savour: by being
exposed to it, it is a gentle refreshing breeze, of which the nose
is conscious, rather than an odour. The gum from it, the ladanum, is
much esteemed as incense, and is also mixed with mastic to flavour the
breath by chewing it. It is not collected in this district. The ancient
story of its being scraped from goats’ beards does not seem improbable;
for in breaking through the copses one’s head and clothes become quite
clammy.
The odour is not from the flower, but from the leaves of the plant:
the flowers are of the slightest texture, but make a lively show,
bespangling the bushes with stars of white or red. They look like
roses, and I was constantly reminded of York and Lancaster. These
flowers live but for a day; and, constantly tempting the eye and
inviting the hand, the prize is relinquished as soon as reached, and
never was a cistus blossom twined into chaplet or gathered for a
nosegay. Yet, when it clothes the rocky steep, or mantles the swelling
slope, there is no plant can rival it in the pleasure it gives and
the attention it awakens. It is shrub and flower; the frailty of its
blossoms, the down of its waxy leaves, the balm of its fragrance, are
so unlike the glancing foliage of other shrubs--the hot-house forms,
the dyer tints, and perfumer scent of other flowers,--that it makes
them look children of art and care: wild and tender, it is to other
flowers as a shepherdess among women, and to other shrubs as an Arab
among the races of men.
Shrubs with their sturdy life, flowers in their fleeting passage, serve
to embellish the scene, and to adorn the actors. This one rather shares
in our humanity: as our generations go to the grave and are renewed
again, so it knows vicissitude, and joy, and mourning. It spreads forth
its birth of blossoms with the early dawn, and strews with the fallen
leaves the earth of eve. Was it from this that the Greeks called it
“flower of the sun;” because, like the rainbow, it drew its being from
his rays? Like the peri, its life was in a charm, and it died when that
charm was gone.
The name “flower of the sun” (_helio-anthemum_) reminds me of the
grossest of Flora’s daughters--a garden Cleon, too gaudy for a
vegetable, too meagre for a shrub, too thick and hard for a flower.
And to this--the very contrast of the cistus--do we abandon the name
selected for it by the Greeks!
There is a variety of the broom which might be esteemed a garden
flower; it is a miniature plant, eighteen inches or two feet, and--so
to speak--one incrustation of yellow blossom. While underwood is
reduced to the size of a garden-flower, the common daisy is raised
to the pretensions of one, with its large head on a stalk of twenty
inches. All the plants were our garden tribes, or what would be wild
with us, and were well qualified for a garden--the broom as I have
said, the ivy, then the ranges of cactus and aloe, hyacinths, jonquils,
irises with the petals coloured green.
About five miles from Arzela, upon a rising ground close to a douar
(here they begin to be stationary), the palmetto occurred in a new
form. It is a bush two or three feet high, and showing no stem. Here
it rose to ten feet, with snake-like stems carrying the sharp spicular
masses of fans of glossy or glittering green. I several times made an
endeavour to stop, that I might pass the night in one of the villages,
as I should now call them; not only seduced by the amenities around,
but also partly out of consideration for our jaded cattle and scarcely
less exhausted self: but guides and guards were inexorable. It was a
settled thing that that night we should sleep at Arzela; so we pushed
or dragged along, as it seemed, in chace of it, for it never could be
in the map the distance we found it by the road. At last we descried
its lines, tinged by the last reflected light, against the leaden
mass of the Atlantic. We soon after entered “The Gardens,” and then
approached the castellated gate, where, to our infinite surprise, an
anxious people awaited us.
For several days we had been expected. Rumour had preceded us, and
dealt kindly by us; and we were gazed at with eager countenances
and smiling eyes, and some of them bright ones. By some process,
strange and capricious, we were no strangers, and the denizens vied
with each other in doing us any good turn which fell in their way,
in expressing their delight at our arrival, and in welcoming us to
their town. The crowd was hurrying us in a direction which they had
evidently settled in their minds we should take. I having some voice,
as I thought, in the matter, made bold to ask, “Whither away?” “To
Abraham’s! to Abraham’s!” was shouted. On this I reined in--I mean,
I ceased thrashing; for the memory of sleepless nights among those
conversational Jews, and some other discomforts which need not be
repeated, and a habit of looking somewhat higher than an Israelite’s
abode, with a disinclination to step down in the world, came all upon
me, and prompted the emphatic declaration, “We will pitch without the
walls.” No sooner had the words passed my lips than I could have bitten
my tongue off. My eye had fallen on a countenance of singular amenity,
and--although that of an aged man--of grace: a long white beard hung
down his breast, giving to the figure the patriarchal cast, which his
lineaments vindicated as legitimately their own by blood as well as
bearing. A cloud passed over his features;--the impress was so slight
that I cannot say I saw, but I felt it. So recovering, as it were, my
sentence, and inclining to him, I added to the interpreter in Spanish,
“unless we are to go to my father’s house.”
We entered a small court: the floor was red, the walls were pure white.
There was no window. Four Moorish arches opened to four separate
chambers: two sons with their wives occupied two, his brother and
uncle the third, and himself the fourth. Whether these were houses or
apartments it was not easy to determine: our words cannot explain.
Notwithstanding many attempts at description, no one who has not seen
these houses has any distinct idea of them. The same holds with respect
to the descriptions left us of ancient dwellings. The one explains the
other: perhaps, by making them serve mutually for this purpose, I may
be in some degree successful.
This court and hall, for which we have no word, is the _patio_ of the
Spaniards, the _woost_ of the Arabs, the _hyroob_ of the Hebrews, the
μέσον [meson] of the Greeks, and the _impluvium_ or _cavadium_ of the
Romans.
The patio is covered with an awning, which the Moors call _clas_; they
have also a covering for the floor, which they use on festivities, and
which they call _yellis_: the _clas_, the same as the _velum_, which
the Romans spread over their atrium--in Greek it was τέγη [tegê]. The
roof was τέγος [tegos], hence the confusion respecting the paralytic
man being let down “through the roof” τέγη [tegê], which was simply
the removal of the tent or awning to let him down, not into the house,
but into the court. They ascended to the roof among the tiles,[245]
and unroofed the roof,[246] and so let down the bed into the middle.
Here are all familiar words, and nothing can be plainer than the words,
however incomprehensible may be the thing conveyed; for how should a
roof be unroofed (ἀπεστεγάτην τὴν στεγὴν [apestegatên tên stegên]), and
how should the people below have remained quiet under the tiles and
rafters? But, translate the passage by the aid of the Moorish house,
and all difficulty is removed: “They ascended to the top of the house,
among the tiles (ἀναβάντες ἐπὶ τὸ δῶμα διὰ τῶν κεράμων [anabantes epi
to dôma dia tôn keramôn]); and then, removing the awning which was
spread over the place where he was, they let him down into the patio.”
The tiles were for flooring the terrace-top, and coping the parapet
walls. Thus the centre of the house remained, as it were, the tent,
and explains the passage, “the tabernacle of my house;” as also that
one, “Thou spreadest out the heavens as a curtain;” and again, “He
stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a
tent to dwell in.”
The French word _maison_ comes from the Greek μέσσον [messon],
_architecture_. The French house is a solid figure, the ancient house
a hollow one. The building of the house in Greek is οἶκος [oikos]: the
court in the middle is called μέσσον [messon]. The families of the
poor inhabit different apartments: the court becomes the common place
of resort, and its name will stand for that of the whole dwelling, as
“hall” in English is, in the country, used to designate a gentleman’s
seat. But here it is the abode of the lower orders, which would undergo
the change, and the word would become vernacular: οἶκος [oikos]
becoming μέσσον [messon], we have at once _maison_. In Spain, common
courts are called _meson coral_. _Coro_, _coral_, _corte_ came, in like
manner, to signify residence of the monarch: thus, the Court of Madrid.
(“_Solo Madrid es corte._”)[247]
Architecture spread in France from the Phocian colony of Marseilles,
and through Europe from the peninsula, and so the one word spread
in France, the other through Europe. It is curious that the French
word for a house should mean the same thing as the English word for
a chamber, both being in direct contradiction to the thing conveyed,
which is not “space,” but “enclosure.”
This form of Canaanitish building is preserved in our monasteries,
cloisters, and colleges. Spain and Sicily preserve some beautiful
specimens of the passage of Moorish into Gothic forms, where the luxury
and gaiety of the _woost_ is associated with the sombre severity of the
cloister,--the stone-framed and fretted Gothic arches and windows--the
Moorish tiles--the gloomy corridors around, and flowers smiling in the
centre amidst water and refreshed by fountains.
To the apartment of the chief of the establishment there was an
entrance-hall twelve feet square and sixteen to eighteen feet high; the
floor red like the court, and the walls white. A balcony at one side,
reached by a ladder, served for two or three persons to sleep, and
gave entrance to a small “chamber on the wall,” such as that of Elisha
in the house of the Shunamite. The “upper chamber,” such as David’s,
“over the gate,” judging from what we at present see, was a building
on the roof, being reached by a ladder or external staircase:--a
ladder is a common domestic instrument. The chambers built there are
strictly _beit_; but to the westward it receives the name from the
Arabs of _olea_, which is the word in the Old Testament translated
“upper chamber.” It was the _hyperoon_ of the Greeks, in which Homer
places Penelope to _avoid_ her suitors. The Lacedemonians called the
same apartment _oon_; and Athenæus explains by it the fable of Helen
born from an egg. The _gynaicum_ of the Greeks was the upper story;
and at present, amongst the Moors, who have no harem for the women,
the tops of the houses are appropriated to them, and no man can ascend
to make repairs, or for any other purpose, without proclaiming aloud
three times that he is going up to the roof. David, in the story of
Bathsheba, was clearly where he ought not to have been, and where no
man was expected to be, and had neglected to give the customary warning.
But this door, or archway, led to the inner apartment,--one of the
ordinary long Moorish rooms, about seven feet wide and thirty feet
long, and receiving light only from the door. The floor was covered
with their beautiful mats, and the walls all round, to the height of
four feet: the rest was white. The entrance to these rooms is by the
centre, and they thus form separate apartments to the right and left,
at the end there being generally a raised bed divided off by hangings.
When I first saw the bedsteads, I took them for an imitation of us, for
they are altogether repugnant to Eastern ideas. In the East a bed-room
is unknown: even in the harem there is no apartment so appropriated,
far less is there a bed-stead. Where “bed-rooms” are mentioned, what
is meant is a place for stowing beds. Large presses are filled at the
“lower” parts of rooms for this purpose. The bed, when made, is taken
out and raised three or four mattresses, one over the other. In the
centre of the _oda_ it looks like a long ottoman. The pillows are
composed as a “formation” of very thin, broad flaps or cushions of
cotton, so that you get exactly the required height, and they fit into
the neck, and do not require a head-board to keep them in. No standing
post is required; and all this is from the matrix of the tent. Here it
is exactly the reverse, and might well surprise at first. The matrix
here is the fortress, the walled cities of Canaan. Here every apartment
is a bedroom: not only are the beds composed of standing posts, but
they are the standing parts of the rooms, divided off by hangings, like
those of the Temple, for it is not curtains round them, but hangings
that are before them. The room is built of the width requisite for
them. There is sometimes a standing top, which serves as a balcony, and
also to sleep on. The bed is called _farash_, the hangings _numasia_,
and there are generally behind two square holes through the wall, for
light and air.
_Mittah_ is the word used in Scripture: it is spoken of as a standing
thing, and the expression _going up_, exactly corresponds with what we
see here. The standing bedstead of Og King of Bashan is referred to
in testimony of his gigantic dimensions. At a feast the Moors place
the honoured person in the bed. On marriage-feasts the bridegroom,
amidst his party, and the bride amidst hers, recline on the bed. When
a _fête_ is made in honour of any person, he is placed on the bed,
looking down on the parties assembled round the trays, the whole length
of the room. It might, in fact, be translated rather throne than bed.
So also at a Jewish wedding, you may see in one bed three tiers of
blooming virgins, sparkling in gold and jewels, with their shot green
and red silk handkerchiefs--and within the hangings of one curtain, one
bouquet, presenting more beauty than you could select from any European
court.
In the Highlands a strange piece of furniture is the bedstead, which
is of wood, with doors like a press, and standing enclosed and against
the wall: it is, doubtless, derived from the customs I describe. The
Highlanders used to make these bedsteads themselves, as Ulysses did his.
A peculiarity of the Moorish room is, that the beams are visible,
being ornamented with either carving or colour, or both: this we have
preserved in the grander Gothic architecture. So it was among the Jews:
“Ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion.” Vermilion is the ground
of their patterns, and predominates. The colour is neither laid on with
oil, nor in fresco, but with white of egg; it works well and lasts
long. The beams are of the arar, which in ancient and modern times has
been confounded with cedar.
In the Roman and Greek house, as in the Hebrew, the rooms were entered
from the centre court; but the former had their greatest extension in
the length, that is from the court; the latter, in the breadth, that is
parallel to the court. The same contrast holds between the Turkish and
the Moorish. The former has not the _Impluvium_, but the _Divan houé_,
or central hall of the house, corresponds to it; out of this you pass
to the rooms, which are squares, exactly as Vitruvius describes the
_Triclinium_, with a rectangle added, the top being opposite the door
and giving the light, being nearly an unbroken side of window.[248] The
Moorish is the most complete antithesis, having an extensive breadth;
having two “tops” opposite each other; having no window, and receiving
its light from an enormous door. An apartment may be thirty feet by
seven feet, or in length nearly five times its breadth. We have had
at Nimroud the perfect confirmation that this was the ancient form
in the East: the same proportions are there observed in far grander
dimensions.[249] Mr. Layard accounts for the form by the want of timber
to construct wider roofs; but that would not give the inordinate
length; and, besides, they were acquainted--as he shows--with the
arch. The form being adopted to suit the settled manner, and with
reference to the bed, then of course the heavy roof could be laid
on with short beams; and that the same masses of pounded earth for
the terraces were there employed as in Barbary, the condition of the
Assyrian ruins plainly shows. The Greeks had a mixed architecture.
They had the Phrygian tombs; and they must have had also roofs made in
this fashion--at least, at an early time--as is recorded in the story
of Melampus; who, being confined by Iphiklos, for attempting to carry
off his cattle, heard the worms in the roof discoursing on the unsafe
condition of the beams.
They have such gates as Samson carried from Gaza, or Lord Ellenborough
sent for to Cabul, and are traced on the sepulchre of the kings at
Jerusalem: they do not fit into the wall, but lie against it. They are
not shaped to the arch; they close, but rectangularly and folding; they
cover it as the hurdle did the orifice of the rush mosques I saw along
the lake. There is no hinge, but the joints of the door descend into a
socket in the stone, and in like manner the door is secured above in a
projecting bracket of wood. In the smallest buildings it is colossal.
To exclude the air or the cold they close the folding doors, and open
a small wicket as in the gate of a fortress; above it there are small
apertures through the wall to let in the light when it is closed, and
these are arranged in a figure or a pattern. Every corner of a Moorish
house is ornamented, although merely in the form that is given to the
whitewashed wall: there is no glaring oil paint upon the doors; they
are scrubbed with ochre, which is left upon them.
In the apartment of a single old man there was but one farash at one
end; a European sofa occupied the other. The floor was flush; and as I
was examining and admiring the building, he said to me, “It is of my
own construction. I don’t mean that I made the plan, but that I hewed
the stone, and carried the mortar with my own hands.”
I paid a visit to this patriarch’s uncle; he was, of course, very old,
and though bedridden, had lost none of his faculties. The whole family
and a good many of the neighbours were soon assembled around us, and
he unlocked the stores of his memory. He recollected the accession of
Soliman, the uncle of the present Sultan, who reigned half a century.
He then went back to Mahmoud, whom he claimed as his “friend.” I
launched out in praise of the dignity of his reign, and the justice of
that of Soliman. He related various anecdotes of both.
A governor brought presents of one hundred of everything that the
country contained: horses, oxen, mules, sheep, slaves, quintals of
silver, packets of gold-dust (about a pound weight each), measures of
corn, oil, butter, &c. The Sultan asked him whence came this wealth. He
said from the government which his bounty had conferred upon him. He
asked him if the people had not paid their tenths. The governor said
they had. The Sultan then said, “I sent you to govern, not to rob,”
and gratified him with the bastinado and prison.
The grandfather of Ben Abou, the present Governor of Riff, when Caïd of
Tangier, made a great feast at the marriage of his daughter. One of his
friends, Caïd Mohammed Widden, observed a poor man in mean attire in
the court, and ordered him out; and, he not obeying, pushed him so that
he fell. That same night the keeper of an oven (there are no sellers
of bread, every one makes his own bread at home and sends it to the
oven) had barred his door and retired to rest, when some one knocked
at the door. He asked, “Who is there?” and was answered, “The guest
of God,” which means a beggar. “You are welcome,” he said, and got up
and unfastened the door; and having nothing but some remnants of the
koscoussou from his supper, and the piece of mat upon which he lay, he
warmed the koscoussou in the oven, and after bringing water to wash his
guest’s hands, he set it before him: he then conducted him to the mat,
and himself lay down on the bare ground.
In the morning when he awoke, he found the door unbarred, and the poor
man gone; so he said to himself, “He had business and did not wish to
disturb me, or he went away modestly, being ashamed of his poverty.” On
taking up the mat he found under it two doubloons; so he was afraid,
and put the money by, and determined not to touch it, lest it had been
forgotten, or lest the poor man had stolen it, and put it there to ruin
him.
Some time afterwards an order came from Fez for Mohammed Widden and the
baker to repair thither. They were both conducted to the place before
the palace to await the Sultan’s coming forth. When he appeared they
were called before him, and, addressing the first, he asked him if he
recollected the feast at the marriage of the daughter of the Caïd of
Tangier, and a poor man whom he had pushed with his left hand, and
kicked with his right foot. Then Caïd Mohammed knew whom he had thus
treated, and trembled. The Sultan said, “The arm that struck me, and
the leg that kicked me, are mine: cut them off.” The baker now said to
himself, “If he has taken the leg and the arm off the caïd, he will
surely take my head,” so he fell down upon the earth, and implored the
Sultan to have mercy upon him. The Sultan said to him:--“My son, fear
not; you were poor, and took in the beggar when he was thrust forth
from the feast of the rich. He has eaten your bread, and slept on your
mat. Now ask whatever you please; it shall be yours.” The caïd returned
to Tangier maimed and a beggar, and his grandson was lately a soldier
at the gate of the Sicilian consul. The baker returned riding on a fine
mule richly clothed, and possessed of the wealth of the other; and the
people used to say as he passed by, “There goes the oven-keeper, the
Sultan’s host.”[250]
The old man, however, went further back than Mahmoud, and spoke a great
deal of Ismael, who, though doubtless a sanguinary monster, was one of
the most extraordinary men that has sat upon the throne of Morocco.
He constantly said of him, “Govenaba mucho,” he governed much; and
illustrated this disposition as follows: “If a man spoke to a woman in
the streets he was immediately put to death.”
The conversation falling on the Brebers, I asked if they were really
the people of Palestine driven out by the Jews; upon which there was a
general exclamation of surprise, and even of anger. “Must not we,” said
the old man, “who are Jews, and the Brebers, who are sons of Canaan,
know what we are and they are?” and then they all vociferated together:
“Have we not known them, and do we not know them--the Yebusee, the
Emoree, the Gieryesee, the Hevee, the Perezee, the Canaanee, the
Hytee, the Hurchee, the Sunee, the Aarvadee; and are they not known
amongst their tribes to the present day? and of the seven nations
driven out, are there not four still here? and did not Joshua drive
them out, and did not Joab the servant of David pursue them even to the
mountains above Fez?” And then one ran for the Old Testament, and they
commenced reading passages, and giving names as used by them and the
corresponding names as used to-day amongst the Moors, and explaining
how the nations that had been lost, had remained in the Holy Land and
been confounded there with the remnant of the other people.
I must not here omit the honourable mention made of the late British
consul at Tangier, Mr. Hay. They spoke of him with enthusiasm: his
integrity and affability were illustrated by anecdotes. Nor was less
said or felt towards Mrs. Hay,--her charity to the poor, her attention
to the sick. Repeatedly, when Moors have been expressing to me their
indignation at England for inciting them to resist the French, and then
betraying them, they have paused to say that it brought Mrs. Hay to her
grave.
We spent a great portion of the night in conversation on these
subjects; but my host was constantly turning to a matter that had
the mastery of his thoughts. He had two daughters-in-law: both were
barren. As I had been questioning him about the hashish, and various
other plants, nothing would satisfy him but that I was deeply versed
in such matters, which the people of Morocco believe Christians to be
thoroughly acquainted with, and to be able to control by charms.[251]
He brought down a volume on physics, by Tudela, a Jew of Adrianople,
and insisted on having my opinion on various fragments, which he
translated. Familiar as one is in this country with the longing for
children,[252] I never saw it so exemplified. Next morning he called
his two daughters-in-law, and presenting them, said, “Now, look at
them, and tell me if they will have children.” I turned away to relieve
them, saying, “I know nothing of such matters;” but they had no mind to
be so relieved, and came themselves right round before me.
[245] Luke v. 19.
[246] Mark ii. 4.
[247] Ford, in the “Hand-book of Spain,” quotes this
sentence as if it were a presumption of the Spaniards, that
there was no other court in the world save their own.
[248] See the chapter on “the Oda,” in the “Spirit of
the East.”
[249] “The great narrowness of all the rooms, when compared
with their length, appears to prove that the Assyrians had no
means of constructing a roof requiring other support than that
afforded by the side walls. The most elaborately ornamented
hall at Nimroud, although above one hundred and sixty feet in
length, was only thirty-five feet broad. The same disparity is
apparent in the edifice at Konyunjik. It can scarcely be
doubted that there was some reason for making the rooms so
narrow.”--_Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 255.
[250] An oven-keeper of Tangier, from whom I sought the
verification of this story, told me that it was not an
oven-keeper who had received the sultan, but a worker in iron
named Mallem Hamet. Mallem designates his calling, an
honourable one here, but so despicable among the wandering
Arabs, that a conquered foe has his life spared if he
stretches out his arm as if beating
with a hammer: degraded by the act, his enemy will not
condescend to shed his blood.
[251] The women will try to get a bit of a
Christian’s clothes, or a button, to wear as an amulet
to confer fruitfulness.
[252] “He which that hath no wif, I hold him lost,
Helpless, and all desolat. He that hath no child,
Like sun and winde.”--CHAUCER.
CHAPTER IV.
THE JEWS IN BARBARY.
The conversation reported two or three pages back respecting the
origin of the Brebers, was among the most interesting incidents of my
trip. What would it be to open a tomb, and find the sling of David or
the arrow of Jonathan, the bones of Joshua, or the sword of Gideon?
But what is it to find the very people, firing as they spoke of the
Jebusite and the Hittite--not the traditions of the Holy Land, but of
what were ancient days to Jeremiah and Ezekiel!
The Jews that inhabit the sea-ports are the remnants of those expelled
from Spain at successive periods during the last twelve hundred years,
and they are but a step by which to approach the Jews of the mountains,
who have undergone less change, but have become savage and illiterate.
Amongst them lie concealed treasures of ancient lore, and by them are
presented varieties of human existence worthy of inviting adventurous
research.
A lady at Tangier told me of a Jew who some years ago had come to
inquire his way at the door, and who was quite unintelligible to
either Jews or Arabs. He was from the mountains above Tâfilêlt, wore
a different dress--which she could not describe, but said it was
black--and had upon his feet sandals, tied in the antique fashion, the
cords passing between the toes. I found in the journal of Mr. Davidson,
sent here after his death, and who crossed the Atlas to the south of
Morocco, and spent six months in Sus, some slight but interesting
details.
“I went in the evening to dine with the Jews, here called the sons
of Yehúdi: they are a most extraordinary people. I never met with
such hospitality, or such freedom of manner in any Jews. They had
dancing and music, and the ladies mixed in society without the least
restraint.”--(p. 58.)
“I received a visit from some Jews, who stated, that they have here
the tombs of two rabbis who escaped from the _second_ destruction of
Jerusalem. Over the mountain opposite there is a valley equal to the
plain of Morocco, where dwell, say the Jews, those who escaped from
Nebuchadnezzar.”--(p. 61.)
“In both Riff and Sus the Jews go armed; they are, however, the
property of the Moors, who arm, and send them out as a sort of
substitute, and by whom they are supported, and allowed a greater
liberty than at Tangiers. In the mountains in the neighbourhood of
Tangiers, the Jews act as guards to conduct the Moors. They have a
master, whose shoe they carry, which serves as a protection. They pay
tribute, not in money, but in work, the Moors finding the former. The
principal trade is in grain and oil. The masters are Brebers, all of
whom ride mules. Every douar has its sheikh and caïd, who are Moors,
and possess each a jurisdiction, but not the power of punishing in all
cases. Their religious worship is the same as the other, but little
cared about. In the whole valley there may be about five hundred.
They have their sacred books, synagogue, and rabbis; and they make a
pilgrimage to the tombs, distant two and three days’ journey. All the
douars have large vineyards, and manufactories of haïks, carpets, &c.,
which are sent to Tangiers. They do not speak Arabic, but Breber or
Shelluh.”
“He (a rabbi) informed me, that in this place (Coubba) there are no
less than 3000 or 4000 Jews living in perfect freedom, and following
every variety of occupation; that they have mines and quarries, which
they work; possess large gardens and extensive vineyards, and cultivate
more corn than they can possibly consume. That they have a form of
government, and have possessed this soil from the time of Solomon; in
proof of which he stated, that they possess a record bearing the signet
and sign of Joab, who came to collect tribute from them in the time of
the son of David; that the tradition of their arrival here runs thus:--
“‘_Crossing the great sea to avoid the land of Egypt_, they came to a
head of land with a river; that here they landed, and following the
course of this, leading westward, but going towards the south, they
came to a spot where they found twelve wells and seventy palm-trees.
This, at first, led them to suppose that they had by some means got
to Elim; but finding the mountains on the west, they were satisfied
that they had reached a new country. Finding a passage over the
mountains, they crossed, and took up their dwelling in this valley,
first in caves, which exist in great numbers, then in others which they
excavated; and after this began to build towns. That, at a distant
period, they were driven across the mountains by a people that would
not acknowledge them, and that some remained at Diminet, Mesfywa, and
other places on the western side of the range.’
“Looking at the map, and following this man’s observations, it is
perfectly easy to trace them. They must have reached the Gulf of
Tremesen, and taking the river Muluwia, or Mahala, have reached
Tâfilêlt, where, to this day, are twelve wells, planted round with
seventy palm-trees, and which many of the Jews call Elim; and from this
they must have taken the pass, to which I attempted to get.
“I was most anxious to know the meaning of the names of some of the
towns. He told me, that what the Moors call Mesfywa is Oom Siwá, the
mother of Siwá, one of their families which crossed the mountains; that
Ouríka of the Moors, distant thirty miles, was Rebka (Rebecca), founded
by one of their daughters, and that most of these places had originally
Hebrew names. At Ouríka he left me. I continued for eight days to visit
the towns inhabited by the Jews, to the number of above one hundred,
and I should say, that on this side there are more Jews dwelling with
the Brebers in the mountains, than resident in Morocco. They have all
the same account of Coubba, and have a great belief in the Cabalists,
who, they say, still exist, and who receive direct communication from
heaven.”--(p. 193.)
Here the Jews are an agricultural, industrious, and warlike race. Here
is each township distinct, preserving its distinct traditions. Here are
the settlements at successive periods. There are the emigrants after
the second destruction, as distinguished from those of the first. Then
there are those who came by sea, and those who came through Egypt, who
“did not go to the Babylonish captivity.”
When Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, he was compelled by the
Egyptians to retire, and the Jews looking to Egypt for support, and
fearing the return of the Chaldeans, Jeremiah denounced the vengeance
of Heaven against them, and prophesied that those who went to Egypt
never should see their own land again.[253] Jeremiah himself was taken
to Egypt. He again announced the destruction of that country by the
Chaldeans, which he typified by burying the stones over which the
throne of Nebuchadnezzar was to be raised. On the invasion of Egypt by
the Chaldeans, the Jews would naturally have fled a second time. It was
from the “north country” that fear was coming. They must have fled
towards the west. The prophet had announced that they were not to see
the land of their fathers again; and the Jewish peasants inhabiting
Mount Atlas, at a distance of two thousand four hundred years, tell us,
that they left Jerusalem before the Babylonish captivity. While this is
a remarkable confirmation of the accuracy of the Jewish records, and of
the fulfilment of a prophecy the accomplishment of which had not been
recorded, it gives at the same time to the traditions of these people
the weight and force of historical record.
One of their traditions is, that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Spain, attacked
the Tyrians at Cadiz, and carried with him in his armies many Jews to
Spain, who were afterwards colonized in these countries. This account
has hitherto been disregarded because there is no historical evidence
for it. The tradition is, however, confirmed by the name of the ancient
capital, Toledo--Toledoth, or the generations with Ascalon, so often
repeated in the names of old Spanish cities, Jaffa, and the others
enumerated by Mariana. The translator of A1 Makhari mentioned to me the
discovery at Toledo of an old manuscript, in Jewish character, but not
Hebrew, and which he supposed to be a sign of the Jews, who had settled
in Spain previous to the Carthaginian conquest, having adopted the
original language of Spain, as their successors have the Spanish. Mr.
Davidson found great disinclination to speak on the dispersion of the
tribes. I have also remarked it in a Jew from Fez; and it suggested to
me a new explanation of the supposed loss of the ten tribes.
The Barbary Jews all profess themselves to be of the tribe of Benjamin.
When I asked the Jew, how a tribe almost extinguished, and the least
of the tribes of Israel, should, to the exclusion of all the rest,
have supplied the whole of the Jewish population now in the west, he
answered by referring to the promise to the seed of Benjamin, and, as
if inwardly recurring to the other promise to the tribe of Judah, he
added, “But we are also of the tribe of Judah, and the two are mixed
together.” It immediately occurred to me, that they made a point of
asserting the tribe of Judah still to exist, as preserving the future
application of the prophecy regarding the Messiah, and that they
brought in the kingdom of Judah, and the two tribes of which it was
composed, as the source from which they sprang, and that thence arose
the habit of speaking of the ten tribes as being lost. There can be no
doubt that the successive emigrations to Spain and to Barbary while the
two kingdoms still remained distinct, were composed of all the tribes,
but in the loss of their several inheritances and separate governments,
they had become confounded in their new settlements.
When this Jew was asserting his descent from Judah, it occurred to me
to ask him to say _shibboleth_. He was confounded, but attempted again
and again, and could not accomplish it. He was very angry.
The resemblance to ancient Canaan is thus described by the illiterate
master of a vessel, shipwrecked upon the coast and carried into the
interior:--
“After leaving the Great Desert, and coming to the country of Sus,
we entered on an extensive plain; and we were struck at the same
moment with the sight of several villages, surrounded with high stone
walls, with gates and towers; and I was told that each of these was
an independent state, and under the command or government of its
own chief, who generally gave himself the title of Prince. When I
learnt the destruction of Widnoon, and the other devastations of the
wandering Arabs, I could not help reflecting--and I made the remark
to my companions--that the province of Sus was what Canaan must have
been in the time of Joshua, in respect to its numerous walled towns,
the fertility of its soil, and several other respects; and that the
eruptions of the Arabs of the Desert resembled much the conduct of the
ancient Israelites when they came out of the Desert into the cultivated
country.”
[253] “When ye shall enter into Egypt, ye shall
be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse,
and a reproach, and ye shall see this place no more.”
Jeremiah xlii. 18.
CHAPTER V.
TANGIER.
From Arzela to Tangier there are two roads, one by the interior and
one by the beach. Not far from the former are the Druidical remains.
I, however, preferred the shore-road, not to lose the sight of that
splendid tumult of waters. We started a little before full-tide. Here
there were no cliffs or rocks along the beach, but flat, open, sand;
and in advance of the shore, at about a quarter of a mile, there was
generally a bank, along which I walked the greater part of the day
barefoot, having now and then to fly before the sudden sweep of a
larger wave. I learnt the difference between walking with the foot that
God had given us, and stumping in the cases constructed by man. Nothing
could be more beautiful than the bank of foam seaward. The waves began
breaking about a mile off, and there were generally three permanent
cataracts, stretching as far as I could see, this way and that, but at
times I could count seven or eight successive lines of surf, which,
constantly rolling, appeared nevertheless permanent waterfalls: beyond,
the sea was smooth, calm, and there was no wind. This was the coast in
its mildest mood, and under its most favourable aspect. In the middle
of the day the sea-breeze came in at about ten knots an hour, and swept
before it with each wave sheets of foam, radiating with prismatic
colours. The coast is strewed with fragments of ships and bones of
sharks. The Arabs will sometimes burn large masses of timber merely to
get the nails that may be in them. To the south it often happens that
whales are wrecked on the coast.
Within about five miles of Cape Spartel, I observed one of the most
beautiful effects of the pattern figures of the sand, and I mention it
as being within the reach of a ride from Tangier. There appeared to be
a stream rising along the ground: it was the fine sand carried inland
by the wind; and in this neighbourhood it has since been observed to
me by persons who had themselves marked the change, that the sand was
gaining upon the cultivated land. It is this, I imagine, that has led
to the belief prevalent amongst the Europeans in this country, that the
sand along the coast of Morocco has been thrown up by the sea; but the
sand thus carried inward is but dust in the balance compared with that
enormous stratum which constitutes the maritime border of the country,
and which is battened down by a skin of rock. The edges of this mass
of sand are worn by the waters, and a slight portion is blown inwards
by the wind; but the mass itself has been the load of an ocean, and
carried to where it now rests, from the interior of Africa itself.
I may here mention the caves of Cape Spartel, which I subsequently
visited. A couple of miles southward of the Cape there is a flat,
projecting rock, about sixty feet high: it is composed of a hard and
porous conglomerate, which forms excellent mill-stones; and it seems to
have been used from all antiquity for that purpose. The summit bears
towards the land the remains of Phœnician walls; the rock is in all
directions burrowed for the mill-stones; they are cut about two and a
half feet in diameter. They chisel them all round; then break off the
part with wedges; and this scooping out has a most singular effect. The
rock is so hard that parts are left standing only a few inches thick,
and, like open trellis-work, over which you may scramble. Forty feet
above the surf, and projecting over it, there are two large caves open
to the sea, into which the waves dash with fury. These, though greatly
extended by the scooping for the mill-stones, were natural caverns, and
no doubt one of them must have been the cave of Hercules. Even within
the last few years a considerable portion of the rock has fallen away.
There is in one a dome, with a circular aperture in the centre. The
rock is all pierced through like a large warren: it contains cavities
filled up with sand and bones, like the Kirkdale caves of Yorkshire.
It was dark when we reached Tangier: the gate of the city was already
closed, though I had sent one of the soldiers in advance. The gate of
the citadel was, however, opened for our admission. On issuing from the
gate of the fortress, we came in sight of the city below us, shining
like a congregation of glowworms. There was not a light to be seen--yet
all was light, shaded, mellowed, and phosphoric. There were here no
lamp-posts in the streets, and no windows in the houses, through which
their lights could be seen: the white walls of the interior courts were
illuminated with a blue reflected light, which produced an optical
delusion; from the want of a direct ray to measure the distance, the
lighted surfaces seemed remote, and the town swelled into magnificence
of proportion. It was, indeed, but for a moment, for the sun soon
corrected the error of the eye.
I reached the door of Miss Duncan, who renders Tangier habitable for
Europeans, in such a condition that, when it was opened and light
brought, it was about to be closed against me as a mad santon, my
scanty habiliments, a shirt and drawers, being torn with briars and
disfigured with mud, while the arms and legs fared no better. Great
was the surprise when from such a body proceeded an English appeal for
shelter, and within an hour I was seated on a chair at a table, before
a fire of sea-coal, with grate, fender, and fire-irons. On the table
stood cruet-stand, knife and fork, Staffordshire plates, and Scotch
broth. While marvelling at the sight, in rushed Hamed with a steaming
dish--“Me know you like Moors’ kuscoussoo.”
The journey from Rabat, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, had
taken me a week of toil and fatigue. The difficulties, from the season
of the year, were, however, the charm of the trip; the weather was mild
and beautiful, but the roads--if they can be so called--were heavy and
deep. This, comparatively speaking, would have mattered little, if
we had been well mounted; our animals were, I think, the worst I ever
journeyed with, and the charge the most exorbitant I ever paid. I could
have bought them outright for one-third more than the sum I gave for
the week’s hire. The charges for the soldiers were in proportion, and
I found that this journey had cost me in time and in money, the same
as posting from Calais to Naples. Each soldier received for his week’s
journey, the price of an ox.
Coming from the south, Tangier was a very different object than when I
crossed the Straits to visit it, as a specimen of Barbary. In fact, it
is a place equally foreign to both. The Moors designate it, “Infidel,”
like the Giaour of the Turks. It is the only place where Europeans
reside, and there is here a mixture of all classes, Brebers, Moors,
Jews, and Europeans, living promiscuously together.
On the cession of the place by the English, it became the property of
the Sultan, who offered it to the Brebers, thinking by that means to
fix them in the towns. Some hundred families accepted the offer, but
their example has not been followed by the rest. They seem originally
to have enjoyed a very free government, by their own municipal body,
which consisted of twelve, and who each in turn was governor of the
city for a month.
The fortifications present a strange jumble of the structure of all
ages, but the only chiselled remains that I saw were Roman, being
capitals, and shafts of Corinthian columns.
The town stands on a deep mass of the relics of former habitations. The
Danish consulate has recently been rebuilt, and in some places they
dug twenty feet below the present level. Twelve feet below the surface
there were found Roman tombs, and eight feet below these, round black
jars containing fragments of burnt bones similar to those which have
been found in mounds in Denmark. I could see none of them, as they had
been all sent to Denmark to the king. A portion of a fine Roman bridge
still stands, leading from Tangier across the river, in the direction
of the northern coast. It resembles the Flavian bridge at Rome, and
is fifteen feet broad between the parapets: an old engraving of the
city, when in possession of the English, represents the port crowded
with vessels. It was in form nearly triangular, the apex being at the
entrance three hundred and fifty fathoms from the base. Two moles were
run out, one protecting it from the north-east, the other from the
north-west: these were destroyed when we surrendered the place.
From here you command a perfect view through the Straits. It is
impossible not to be struck with its superiority over Gibraltar, while
the moles existed. Here you are to windward: with easterly winds you
may work through with the current’s aid, and with westerly winds
you are far enough out of its draught to be able to get away to the
westward. There is, however, a position close by, which is superior to
it. It is a cove two miles to the westward, and at the point of the
cape. It would require, indeed, some clearance out of the sand, and the
addition of a breakwater at each of the horns: there is good anchorage
before it, and nothing more to be feared than from the north. The
coast of Spain terminating at Trafalgar breaks the sea from the north,
and the northerly wind never blows home, as the various influences of
the Straits change it here either into an east or a west wind. The
Americans some years ago cast their eyes on this position, and wished
to obtain it as their Mediterranean emporium, and they offered a large
sum of money for it to the Government of Morocco.
Above this cove is situated a house that has been constructed by an
English gentleman. It had been several months untenanted, and though
there is a road passing close behind it, nothing had been touched.
There was on the steps of the door a child’s toy--a cart--just as it
had been left weeks before; some of the panes of glass were broken, but
this had been done by the pigeons. Garden implements were lying about.
During two years that the proprietor has resided there, he had locked
nothing up, and lost nothing. There are in the neighbourhood several
villages, and no stipendiary magistrate, or rural police.
There is here a restricted but agreeable society of the foreign agents,
and a most imposing assemblage of flag-staffs--or rather masts--which
are struck and housed in bad weather, and which exhibit fore and back
stays, cross-trees, rigging, rattlings, halyards, &c., giving to the
flat roofs of their habitations the appearance of decks, and making
them look like so many vessels, wanting only their yards to be crossed,
and their sails to be bent. In their nautical pretensions, they are,
however, beaten by the English consul at Cadiz, who hoists a pendant,
and whose porter pipes a guest up the stairs with a boatswain’s call.
Amidst the consular masts with their floating standards and streaming
pendants, which make the town look from without rather like a dockyard
than a city, there is not one that bears the blue cross of St. Andrew.
There was the agent of the young republic of the West at work trying to
involve France and Morocco with a view to the settlement of the Oregon
question against England, while the profound cabinet of the North is
so heedless of Morocco as not to have even a consul there. Nay, Russia
is positively so ignorant of the commonest facts connected with this
country, that, when appealed to recently in an affair concerning it,
she replied that she considered it as a _portion of Turkey_.
The circumstances attending the appointment of the present American
consul are curious. He had been consul here formerly, and on no good
terms with the authorities. The Moors are very particular in seeing to
whoever embarks from this place, and the foreign agents, of course,
always give previous notice of their intention. The American consul
on taking his departure, not only gave no such notice, but announced
his intention of not doing so. The Pacha, therefore, sent orders to
the Porte to prevent the embarkation of any one without permission. He
was, consequently, stopped at the gate, on which he drew his sword, and
a very violent scene occurred. An infraction of the law of nations in
his inviolable person, &c.--protest, commotion--the learned consular
body sign--all nations, all Christendom was attacked--and the farce
would have been enough for a war, had it occurred in Turkey or Mexico.
The United States had, however, as yet no mission of civilization in
Morocco, and took no notice of the affair; but, upon the accession of
Mr. Polk, the bearing of Morocco upon England and France was to have
been reconsidered, and the discarded consul sent back without any
previous settlement of the quarrel. When the news reached Morocco,
the government was greatly troubled, and after enlisting the good
services of the French agent, transmitted a statement of the case to
the government of the United States, waving the right of the Emperor to
refuse to admit their agent, and leaving it for the American government
to judge whether such a person was fit to be the channel of intercourse
between two friendly governments; and this representation was to be
backed by the French minister at Washington.
In the meantime, Mr. Carr arrived at Gibraltar. The Moorish government
resolved to say to him, that they would receive him as a private
person, but could not admit him as consul, as they had submitted the
case to his government. But the part had been rehearsed also on the
other side, and to better purpose. Mr. Carr came with two frigates.
On the Pacha’s making his concerted speech, he was answered by the
naval commander: “I don’t know anything about the matter. I have
orders to bring here the consul of the United States; will you receive
him or not, yes or no?” on which the caïd said, that he was ready to
receive him, if the naval officer would give him a paper, saying that
he constrained him to do so. This was the same functionary who had
negotiated with the French, under the threat of having a pistol ball
through his head, and signed the treaty of Tangier without ever having
read it; this is the person, in whose hands are placed the foreign
relations of Morocco; who has property transferred to France, and who
is openly charged with giving bribes to foreign agents, and receiving
bribes from foreign governments.
There is a beautiful walk from the upper part of Tangier, along the
crest of the hill to the cove, so coveted by the Americans. It retains
the name it had when the English were here, of Marchand; the boys
appropriate it for a game which is evidently the origin of billiards;
it is played with two balls of iron, and a ring, which just admits
them. The object is to pocket the ball through the ring; they play
several on a side. Instead of cues they use a piece of wood, of the
form of the old sacrificial knife, with which they impel the ball by a
sweeping motion, drawing its edge along the ground.
The ball is called _bola_, the ring _Arabi_. This game flourishes
particularly at Tangier, where the boy population has profited by
the liberal distribution of grape made by the French. The children
in Morocco are distinguished for their games;--I have seen leap-frog
performed in a manner which would not have disgraced an English clown
in a pantomime. They are dexterous in the use of the single stick,
and they have a mimic imitation of the powder game of the men, which
resembles the French game called _barre_. They have blindman’s buff,
and hunt the slipper, which must be Moorish; and hunt the slipper and
blindman’s buff are combined in one, for they must strike the ground
with a slipper, and having done so, must not leave the spot if the
blinded man approaches them. At the entrance of all the towns we found,
it being holiday time, whirligigs. No inconsiderable portion of Moorish
art is expended on toys: there are drums of pottery-ware, a tube
covered with parchment at one end, with the other open, such as were
used amongst the Jews, and may be detected among the Egyptians.
The habits of children are not to be neglected in the history of
nations, for they are a primitive and original community transmitting
their mariners to their successors, distinct from the nation of adults,
and flowing as a pure source into the turbid stream, and age after age
struggling against it.
I must enumerate the peculiarities of this land before quitting it,
although, indeed, every thing that exists in it is a peculiarity; for
when they do things like other people, they have no more taken it from
them than one man borrows from another the way to breathe.
They have a form of room, tesselated and open court, vermilioned
and cedar beams, lofty arch and thick-set column conjoined, carving
of wood, fretting of walls, colouring in patterns and assortment of
colours, doors, windows, brackets, stables, kitchens, store-houses,
water-closets, and tomb-stones,--all unlike what is to be seen east
or west, north or south. They have carpets like other people, but in
their own style; they have mats, but the figure is Moorish; they have
caps, the form is their own; they have shoes, again, as unlike Eastern
slippers as European boots; they have towels (our name comes from them)
but they are unlike ours; so they have pottery, embroidery, and even
the use of the needle. Using the same letters as the Persians and the
Turks, the Moors have an entirely distinct set of their own instruments
of penmanship. They have one national dish. Unlike any thing else
that is practised amongst men, so is their costume. It is a nation
living under tents, and yet excelling all others in the composition of
materials for fortresses and the structure of gigantic walls. It is a
people that has combined nomade habits with the settled distribution
of property. Jewelry is, again, their own; so are their toys and their
children’s games, the head-dresses of the women, the plaiting of the
hair, their cosmetics, the substances with which they wash; and if they
have, in common with Easterns, the bath, it here, again, assumes a
style that is Moorish.
What is chiefly remarkable, is the absence of all things that are not
in taste. There is no repetition of chintz patterns used for adornments
of wall or floor; there is no glazed or glaring oil paint; there are
no pictures or prints hung for ornament sake; no gilt and gaudy frames
round these unsuited to the apartments in which they are placed. Upon
their persons there are no repetitions of figures, no interminable
variety of tints, and no false ones. Some centuries ago, I might have
increased the list of the peculiarities of Morocco, such as the use of
candles for giving light; of bells to call servants; of knockers to
announce visitors; of straw hats to shade off the sun; of a different
sort of meal in the morning and in the evening; tambourine and crochet
work and lace, to occupy ladies’ fingers or adorn their persons; of
patches for their cheeks; of that beautiful leather of various colours
known by this country’s name, of inlaid leathern patterns; of vases of
ancient figure.
The Moors, with the art requisite to produce works admirable and
exquisite, are in the rudest stage of early craft, and have no less
avoided adopting from us any process or any improvement than they have
been careful to exclude our corruptions of style and manners. They have
not got our plough or our wheel, or our roads, or even the common
pump: they have not got a turning lathe or a shuttle; though they
have Morocco _leather_, they have no tanning vats; they make the most
exquisite silks without a throwing machine; and with the most admirable
woollens they know not the manufacture of cloth. They have never drawn
the metals from their rich mines; they still preserve the incantations
and divinations of the earliest times; they have perfumes and incense,
secrets and mysteries, yet in use in every house. Their maladies are
their own--elephantiasis and biblical leprosy; the travelling scourge
of plague visits them not, and yet they have a plague of their own.
And, finally, they have an intoxicating drug differing from all other
people; they have neither recourse to wine, spirits, nor opium; they
have a plant, the produce of their own country, presenting to them,
when so disposed, delusions and forgetfulness. Their permanency--as
their peculiarities--may be compared to, but exceed, those of China.
The Tartars are masters of Chinese, amounting in numbers to half
the human race, to whom they have not given their religion; the
same Tartars have not been able to subjugate fifteen millions of
Moors, of the same religion. In the midst of the world of conquest,
enterprise, commerce, and letters, they have repelled the invading
arms of Christians and Mussulmans united; they have been overawed by
no superiority of strength or display of science, and neither has
fallacy of speech or temptation of gain seduced them into courses which
their simple instinct told them might ultimately compromise their
independence. The stranger from Europe is welcomed in every tent,
and kindly treated by every Moor. The things of Europe are eschewed
by the community. They are a people of thirty centuries, before whom
we, with our institutions and our ideas, are as insects of yesterday.
This people has outlived the Phœnicians. It has seen in its rise and
passage, decline and fall, the star of Rome. It has shaken off, after
having bent before, the Gothic yoke and the Vandal scourge; conquering,
it converted Spain into a garden; beaten, it retired home. It arrested
on its shores the following tide of invasion; it has kept out modern
change--may it not yet be destined to survive and to see, too, to their
end, the things even of our proud day?
Elsewhere, the records of antiquity are to be sought in characters
traced on marble or on brass; but here they are to be found in the
living men;--not the traces of their early antiquity as that of the
Chinese, because _they_ have not changed, but of ours. Coming from
a common source, flowing from a common fountain, the streams of our
waters have been mingled and overcharged, and here we see what with us
was in the beginning--the key to the legends of Mythology, the original
of the pictures of Homer, the source of the metaphors of the prophets,
the people of the old covenant reserved to our day, and the source of
the religious practices accompanied by which Christianity appeared and
settled itself in Europe.
CHAPTER VI.
DRUIDICAL CIRCLES NEAR TANGIER.--CONNEXION OF THE CELTS WITH
THE ANCIENT POPULATION OF MAURITANIA AND SPAIN.
By taking the sea-road, I missed the Druidical circle, and although I
stayed some time at Tangier, I was too constantly engaged to make an
excursion so far. Mr. Davidson has mentioned them in his journal as
follows:--
“Coming round the side of a hill, you perceive several stones forming
a circle, of which one, called the Peg, is much higher than the rest:
there is likewise a second circle. The whole neighbourhood is full of
similar circles of stones, but smaller: many of the latter have been
worked artificially. The entrance to the circle, which is fifteen
feet wide, faces the west; on the north and south of the Peg are two
openings at equal distances. At about the distance of two hundred feet,
there is a stone placed at an angle of 45°, intending, it is said, to
mark the opening; it is six feet high, and by lying on the back, one
can see directly through the circle.”
Discoveries of a similar kind have been made in the regency of
Tunis,[254] and cinerary vases have been dug up at Tangier, in sinking
a well at the Danish consulate, at the depth of twenty feet, being
eight feet deeper than Roman tombs. These have been sent to Copenhagen,
and it is said, identified with pottery found in the North of Europe. A
cromlech has also been discovered on the banks of the Jordan,[255] and
in the vicinity of Tyre.[256]
I was not aware of the existence of this monument, when it first
occurred to me that the clans must have visited Barbary. It has
therefore, at present, all the greater weight as testimony; so much so,
indeed, as to induce me to advance a new theory as to the derivation
of the Scots, who, towards the period of the Roman conquest, reached
Ireland, and finally settled in Scotland. In tracing that people to
Barbary, a new field of peregrinations is opened, and in pursuing it
either up to that point, or subsequently from that point, we must be
satisfied of their presence and sojourn here. This monument would
give that assurance, were it not for two explanations that have been
offered, either of which would deprive it of value as an historic
record.
Rude stones, it is said, are the first beginnings of architecture:
those called Druidical, need not be referred to any particular people,
and cannot, when found, be adduced to prove the presence of the
Celts.[257]
The simple answer is, that Druidical remains have as decided a
character as Egyptian; and as to the argument[258] that they are found
in Asia and Africa, where the Celts never have been, history teems with
evidence of their presence in those very places. Had the cromlechs and
Druidical circles belonged to the original races of Africa, they would
surely be found in more than two parts of its surface.
The other explanation is not so easily disposed of, as it involves no
less intricate a question than the ancient peopling of the peninsula.
It is, that Spain and the West were inhabited by Celts.
Three theories have been advanced respecting the early races of
Spain. First, that it was colonized from Judæa. This was founded on
the names of men and places,--the Hebrew roots in the Spanish, and
tradition,--and is sustained by Mariana, Florez, Capmany, Alderete,
&c., also by Scaliger and Bochart, Selden and Gesenius. It has been
exploded by modern criticism; or it has been admitted, by _identifying
the Hebrew and Celtic_.[259]
The theory which now seems to prevail is, that the Iberi were
Celts.[260]
The third is a jumble rather than a theory, resulting from the
ethnographical generalization at present in vogue. It seems to point to
the Basques as being the same people as the ancient Iberians.[261]
Ethnography, that very hypothetical science and suspicious word, deals
chiefly, if not exclusively, with language--not its metaphysical, but
its mechanical part--and as the end and means of science are order, the
human race is methodized into genera, and distributed into species, as
if minerals or plants were dealt with, so that out of the very speech
of man proceeds this classification, which disposes of him as of the
dumb beasts of the field, and fishes of the sea. The feat of reducing
the populations of Europe, Celts, Slavs, Basques, and Goths, to one
denomination, has been accomplished just at the time that a hitherto
unheard-of hatred and repulsion has been engendered between races,
threatening society with convulsions as lamentable in their results as
in their causes. They are fantastic and absurd, and the age most versed
in the knowledge of the events of other times, exhibits itself as the
least capable of any that has ever existed, for managing the affairs of
its own.
In all other investigations of a similar description, the point of
departure is _a known language_; here it is an _assumed_ one, just as
if, at a future time, out of some remnants of English, preserved in
Yorkshire, and some Celtic names in Wales, a British language were to
be constructed.
The same fallacy has equally pervaded the three theories. The assertors
of the several origins have each commenced by assuming _one people_.
Each has indubitable proofs in hand, as to the existence of his people,
but each will extirpate the others, and so present vulnerable points to
his antagonist.
Larramendi sees nothing in Spain that is not Basque; Risco nothing that
is not Celtic; Mariana nothing that is not Hebrew; and each is justly
ridiculous in the eyes of his opponent.
In the opening of any field, whether of modern discovery or of ancient
research, we commence by assuming as many people as we find names,
and only on proof do we admit that two or more belong to one tribe or
race. Proceeding by this simple method, and applying to Spain the rule
undeviatingly adopted everywhere else, the ancient population will
present no difficulty. We hear of _Hispani_, of _Iberi_, of _Keltoi_;
unquestionably, then, there were three races distinct in their tongue,
time, and habitation. Each of the theories would annihilate two of
these to establish the third. As soon as we accept the _names handed
down_, the theories fall to the ground.
I commence, therefore, by denying the authority in this case of
“Philology,” “Sprachenkunde,” “Glottology,”[262] or whatever other name
the science may rejoice in; and notwithstanding the contempt to which I
may thereby be exposed,[263] I cannot put aside Herodotus and Strabo,
Cæsar and Pliny. Persisting in the old notions, I cannot see, in the
Iberi, Asiatic-Europeans, or Indo-Germans. I must hold the _Gauls_ to
be Gauls and the _Basques_ Basques, as I should if there never had been
a Babel of bricks or a Babel of philologists--if there were still but
one tongue for man, as but one bark and one bray for the dog and the
ass, and Iberian, Celt, and Basque, preserved in common the tongue of
Edom as they do the limbs of Adam.
The conclusions which I hope to be able to establish are, that the
original inhabitants of Spain were the Hispani, that the next in date
were the Iberi, who entering not as an irruption but peaceably, came
from the south, and by sea, and spread themselves through the western
and southern region; finally, that the Celts made their appearance
there, also, and that, like their predecessors, they were neither
invaders nor conquerors: that as the Iberi won their way by commerce
and cultivation, so did the Celts by arms and discipline--not used
against the Iberi and Hispani--but for their protection against the
dreaded encroachments of the Carthaginians, Romans, and Gauls, beyond
the Pyrenees: that these tribes were sojourners only, entering Spain by
the south and departing from the north: that the Hispani are preserved
in the existing Basques; that the Iberi belonged to the colonising
races of Canaan, and that the Celts were the forefathers of the clans
who at present dwell in the Highlands of Scotland.
Ancient as are the people which inhabit Brittany, Wales, Ireland,
and the Highlands, they are modern when compared with those settled
in the north of Spain. Whence the former came we know--the course
they followed we can trace. But the Basques are like a plant found
on some single hill--its solitariness gives to it its interest, and
we call it indigenous. Such are the pretensions of this people. They
are the only people in Europe who claim to be autochthonic. That a
people not settled on a remote island or in a far oasis, but in the
midst of us--in the country which has ever been the battle-field of
Europe--should preserve a tradition which belongs to times anterior
to history, is a fact calculated to instruct as well as to astonish.
The Basques have lived through the mythology of Greece, the wars of
Carthage, the dominion of Rome, the devastations of the Vandals, the
sway of the Goths, the arms of the Moors, the usurpations of Madrid,
and the opinions of Europe, keeping themselves all the while distinct,
and recollecting themselves alone. It is impossible to present stronger
titles to priority of occupancy.
Nor is this retentiveness of tradition exceptional in their character:
they have preserved their laws, nay, more, they have maintained their
rights.[264] While the other people of Europe clamour for change and
untried experiment, or, at best, seek to recover a lost or abandoned
privilege, they alone hold to what they possess; and who can say that
what they have got they did not already possess while the pyramids were
building, and before the laws of Tages were proclaimed or the Vedas
composed, and what they possess is what they have kept immutable from
the beginning? Why should not a Basque peasant tell us what happened in
the olden time, before Homer or Orpheus sang, when they exhibit to us
in their daily life how primeval communities lived?
Nor has their gratitude been less long-lived than their freedom, or
their memory shorter for favours than pretensions. They acknowledge
to-day as benefactors the descendants of strangers, whose fathers two
thousand years ago aided them in their struggle with Rome.
But traditions and rights do not stand alone. They have a language--one
which has defied every attempt to classify it, and which persists in
utterly denying all acquaintance with Indo-Celtic or Syro-Phœnician.
It has nothing in common with the languages which, migrating westward,
have passed to the north of the Caucasus, nor with the Semitic and
Japhetic tongues, that have spread through the maritime regions of
Europe and over the Western districts of Africa. It is no mosaic work,
made out of the wreck of former tongues; and, Titanic-like, it disdains
Greece and her gods, Phœnicia and her myths.
The Basque language bears intrinsic evidence of having passed through
the Greek and Roman period wholly uninfluenced by them either in
structure or in terms. And by its structure, its terms, its numeration
and calendar, it ascends as high as it is possible for any language
to ascend: it is as primitive as any of the tongues of the Indian
Archipelago; it expresses the same astronomical conclusions as Sabæism;
and while in richness of vocables it has not to fear a comparison
with any of those languages which have not borrowed from others in
constructiveness, in the causal power of the verb it excels in their
various excellences the Hebrew, Russian, and Turkish. The Basques
say that Adam spoke Basque in Paradise; from which it appears that
they imagine that the excellence of a language is a proof of its
antiquity.[265]
That there existed an aboriginal population prior to the emigrations
from Canaan, both in Spain and along the coasts of Africa, is to
be inferred from what we know of Italy, which the Etruscans found
well-peopled. The most remarkable feature of their first colonization
was the drainage of lands, and other works and arts, which would appear
to belong to old states and periods of redundant population.
The traditions which antiquity itself listened to and recorded, are
everywhere of an anterior and abundant population, occupying the
Peninsulas and Islands of the Mediterranean. Whether Umbri and Itali,
Spani and Siculi, Osca and Escara,[266] be from one source or not, it
was never doubted that Sicily, Italy, and Spain had received their
original population the one from the other,[267] before the arrival of
Pelasgi, Etruscans, or Phœnicians. This was believed two thousand years
ago, and was equally reported by the colonists and by the remnants of
the original people. Nor were these people rude and savage: witness
the Latian polity, the Samnite state, the two thousand towers of
Sardinia, the still existing Fueros of the Basque. The Noraghi, and the
“Sepulchres of the Giants,” in Sardinia, are no less distinct from any
known architecture than is the Biscayan from any known tongue.
That the Basques were a great people is proved by their names being
spread all over the Peninsula, even to the sea-board or limit, which in
the Basque furnishes the etymon of the word, _Spain_.[268] That they
inherited the southern shores and were a seafaring people, is proved
by the _asserted_ colonization of Sicily: that they retroceded--that
they abandoned the Southern country and the coasts; that they withdrew
in the direction of the strong and remote country, is indubitable--and
such is the case with every original population encroached upon. It
has happened to the Britons, the Welsh, and the Highlanders. This
second wave of population did not burst over the Alps; it was not a
horde or a conquest; it came from the sea and the south; it could only
be Phœnician or Aramean; its name was Iber--Hebrew. It gave to the
_south country_ the name of Iberia,[269] which name long afterwards
was made general for Spain by the Romans. Along the two great rivers
they strewed the arts of irrigation and canalization, originally
derived from the plains of Mesopotamia, and equally practised by the
Etruscans[270] in Italy. These rivers they named, the one _Iber_--in
Italy there was the _Tiber_[271]--to the other they gave the name of
the law-giver of the Etruscans, _Tages_, who might be the common and
Eastern ancestor of both people.[272]
We have in Spain the Volsci, the Cæretani, Cære, Suessa, Ausa, Urgel
(Virgil), Roma, Alba, &c. We have the proper names, Andubal, Tagus,
Hamilce, Isbal, Caras, Indebal, Lucius, Baal, Telongus, &c. These
identify not merely the tongue of the Iberians with that of the
maritime colonists of the Mediterranean, but the colonies themselves,
with those of Etruria, and separate them entirely from the Northern
people, whose language subsists, and affords us the opportunity of
comparison.
The Iberi had so identified themselves with the Romans, that the
Latin became the common tongue. Already in Cæsar’s time he addressed
them in Latin--that is, without interpreters--as he mentions when
speaking of Gaul. They called the Latin “Lingua Paterna.” A Spaniard,
Antony-Julian, first opened a school of rhetoric in Rome: he was
a rustic who had tilled the glebe; he never changed his costume
or manners, and disdained to discourse in a walled apartment. His
successor was Quinctilian, also a Spaniard. Possibly, “had it not been
for the invasion of the Goths and Moors, Latin would now be the speech
of the Spaniards (Iberians), as it was of the Romans in the time of
Tully.” In the Arab times the struggle was not between the Gothic, but
the Latin and the Arabic. “_Eheu!_” exclaims the Gothic Alvarus, or
Alaric of Cordova, “_Latini linguam propriam ignorant_.”
Sicilians, Africans, Greeks, and the whole people of the East,
preserved their own tongue; the Spaniards, who made resistance above
all others, alone adopted that of Rome. Does not this confirm the
inference, which is inevitable from the names of Etruscan colonies in
Spain, that the Iberi and the people of Latium were of the same race?
Thus also do we find the Latian rights conferred on cities in Spain,
while no such favour was accorded to Sicily or Greece, to Macedon or
Britain. It may be traced wherever the Etruscan colonies extended.
If, then, the Basque has survived, it is because there were two
languages in Spain, and spoken by people whose character was as
different as their tongues.
The Basques still retain a method of culture which is neither the
plough nor the spade. An instrument like a prong is used, each of the
labourers having two: they work in gangs, and turn over the soil with
one-half the labour that is requisite for spade culture. These prongs
are called _laias_;--they are as peculiar to the people as their tongue.
I have elsewhere pointed out the distinction between the two races in
respect to the use of butter, and the names connected with the dairy;
the use of tapia for building, and the ancient armour. In these
matters of the first importance--agriculture, food, building, and
warfare--there is a clear line drawn between the Hispani and Iberi.
The Greeks and the Romans were not philologists, neither were they
ethnographists. In no classical writer is the consanguinity of the
Iberians and Numidians asserted. We have to come down to the Fathers
of the Church to learn, _by statement_, that the Hebrew and Phœnician,
that these and the Arabic were sister-tongues. When the Romans became
acquainted with Spain, a period of time had elapsed from the first
settlement of the Iberians, equal to that from Alfred to our days,
and the Basques or Eskora had been cooped up in the north-east. It is
the least likely of all things that they should have been noticed by
the Romans as a distinct, or have been suspected to be an original
people. Nor can we wonder at such an oversight at that time, when the
same thing has occurred in modern Spain. Learned men have been writing
profound disquisitions on the origin of the Spanish language, and
compiling lexicons and etymologies without the slightest reference to
the existing people of Biscay.
The same thing may be said of St. Isidore, Antonio De Nabrissa, P.
Guadix, Diego de Urrea, &c. A stranger a century ago would have found
in the philologists of modern Spain no more notice of the existence of
the Basque, than of the Chinese language, although at the same time the
Basque writers were enumerating nearly two thousand Basque words in
the Spanish dictionary.
The strangeness of Iberian words to Roman ears confirms this view.
Volsci, Suessa, Cere, Roma could not be strange to them. It could only
be _some_ of the names that were so--that is, the names of places[273]
that had remained from the early occupation of the Basques.
To us, Hispani and Iberi, Hispania and Iberia, mean the same thing.
They belong to two people, and are terms of a different order: the
one is the name of a country applied to a people, the other the
patronymic of a tribe applied to a country. You have in Africa the
name Garb in general use for the country, and for the people Moslemin.
No other words are known there, and our terms for their country would
be as unintelligible to them as theirs are to us. Now suppose that
a conqueror occupied Morocco, ignorant and contemptuous of foreign
tongues: hearing “Garb,” and “Moslemin,” he would, adding his own
termination, take these words as the general names for the country,
and we should have Morocco called “Garbia” or “Mosleminia” (to make
the analogy complete we must suppose Moslemin to apply to a tribe,
not to a faith). If then, after fifteen centuries, and when the
people had undergone great vicissitudes, philosophers should arise to
investigate, they might be nonplused by these two fictitious terms,
and could not possibly see their way until they had discovered that
Garb was a geographical, and Moslemin a tribe name, and that the
ignorant conquerors had not only mistaken the value of these terms,
but had made each general, and had simultaneously employed both. One
nation may govern another as well under a wrong as a right name, and,
perhaps, much better; but it does not follow that a philologist will
indifferently well theorize under the like mistake. Now, what I have
supposed is exactly what has happened. A sentence of Strabo tells the
whole story:--
“The _Spaniards_ restrict the name of _Iberia_ to the part within the
Iber; the Romans call the whole country _Iberia_, dividing it into
hither and thither _Spain_,” which is equivalent to calling Great
Britain “Scotland,” and then dividing it into “England on this and on
that side the Tweed.”[274]
Having thus ascertained the existence of Hispani and Iberi, the Celts
present no difficulty,--they are neither the one nor the other; and if
it were requisite to establish still more distinctly the originality
of the Iberians, we might do so by citing the contrast between them
and the Gauls, which ancient writers have left us. Yet, in the present
times, the opinion prevails that the ancient Spaniards were Celts.
Of the two people, contemporaneous portraits have been sketched by
different hands at various periods. They represent two people wholly
different;--there is not one line of the picture of the one applicable
to the other.
The Iberi were a quiet inoffensive race; the Gauls a warlike and a
restless people. The Iberi began to feel their strength “only after
they were subjugated;” the Gauls were subjugated in consequence of
their overweening confidence in their own strength. The Iberi gave
weapons to the Romans; the Gauls learned from the Romans the art of
war. The Iberi had short, well-tempered swords which they used with
remarkable agility; the Gauls, long, unwieldy swords, which turned and
bent with their own blow.
The Gauls had their Druids. The Iberian temples--those of
Hercules--were venerable structures when the Carthaginians approached
the walls of Saguntum, the Romans those of Numantia. The Gauls and
Iberians acknowledged no kindred with each other. The Gauls claimed
no blood-relationship, like the Iberians, with Rome or Carthage. The
Gauls were never called Iberians, nor the Iberians Gauls; and the
Romans, familiar as they were with the Gauls in Italy, when they first
invaded Spain, would certainly have called its inhabitants by that name
had they belonged to that race. If the Iberians had been Celts, there
would be Druidical remains, and some record of the last stand of the
Druids, as in England and Gaul.
At the period of the foundation of Rome, the word Gaul might be
considered synonymous with European. The Gauls had flowed from the
eastward like an inundation; the middle regions of Europe, which
they filled, became insufficient for them; they passed into Britain;
they descended upon Greece; and they crossed the Bosphorus. Their
adventurous spirit was not arrested by the Alps, nor their courage
daunted by the martial bearing and concentrated power of the lordly
people who then flourished in the peninsula. They were not, however,
able to overrun Italy, though they colonized many parts, remaining a
distinct people. They never crossed the Pyrenees; the Vascones and
Aquitani spread even in advance of that barrier far into Gaul.[275] The
Gallic emigration was arrested there by those already in possession,
whether Hispani or Iberi, who were able, by the confession of the
Romans, to contend with them after the fall of Carthage for the mastery
of the world.
But the name of the Gauls is found in the Peninsula. Is not this
conclusive as to the community of the races? By no means; it only
proves that there were Celts in Spain. The word is Celt-Iberi--the
Celts and the Iberi.[276] The compound term marks _two people_, just as
Medo-Persian, Tyrreno-Pelasgi. Besides, the people mixed with the Iberi
were _Celts_ (Κελτοὶ [Keltoi]) not Galli,[277] as they would have been
called had they crossed the Pyrenees as they did the Alps. The Celts of
Spain must, then, have come across the sea.
The two southern peninsulas of Europe were anciently known by the same
name. They are the only regions of the south that resemble each other.
They both have the same form, stretch in the same direction, adjoin
the same continent, lie on the same internal sea, spread in the same
latitude. Both are shut to the north by a barrier of rocks, and lined
on the Mediterranean shore by a chain of harbours. They bear the same
fruits and grow the same grain. They have been within the range of the
same migrations and subject to the like vicissitudes. Their mythology
and traditions are interwoven; they had the same gods, the same
founders, the same heroes.
In Italy, we have three distinct waves of early population--the first
the Itali, the second the Tyrseni, the third the Galli. Shall we not
look for them in Spain? We have them there, Hispani, Iberi, and Celts,
and thus will be accounted for the threefold affinities which connect
Spain, not with Italy only, but with the whole of the coasts of the
Mediterranean, and even the shores of the Propontis and the Euxine--the
Hispani with Siculi, Itali, Osci, and, perhaps, with the people of
Thrace; the Iberi with Etruscans, Lydians, Phrygians, Brebers, and
Jews; the Celts with the Gauls of Gaul and Italy, and the roving
Galatai and Keltoi of Asia-Minor, Syria, and Africa. This difference,
however, must be borne in mind. The Gauls in Italy were invaders; in
Spain they were not, but on the contrary, allies of the natives against
the foreign invasion which always threatened them from the first
irruption of the Gauls to the final pacification under Augustus.
These affinities have, in modern works, been generalized and applied
to one people or another according to the theory of philologist or
ethnographist. The confusion arising out of the habit of observing
facts through the medium of systems has been then transferred back
to ancient writers, who, without being analytical, are correct, and,
without being systematic, intelligible.
Having now proved that Spain was not Celtic, the Druidical circle at
Tangier becomes an evidence of the presence there of a body of Celts of
considerable importance, and while indicating the point of entrance of
those Celts who had not crossed the Pyrenees, will serve, also, as a
landmark to trace the wandering of the Highland clans.
NOTE ON W. VON HUMBOLDT’S WORK ON THE BASQUES.
The preceding pages were written before I had an opportunity of
consulting W. Von Humboldt’s work. The title is, “Test of the Inquiries
respecting the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Spain, by means of the Basque
Tongue.” The points which, judging by the references to it in other
writers, are assumed or established by it, are, that the present
Basques are the ancient inhabitants of Spain, and that these ancient
inhabitants were the Iberi. I consequently opened it with extreme
curiosity, to find by what arrangement of data, or what sophistry of
argument, he could arrive at such a conclusion. Great was my surprise
to find no conclusion whatever arrived at, and extreme care taken
to avoid appearing to express an opinion. He has not perceived the
distinction between Hispani and Iberi; and had it been pointed out
to him, he would necessarily have hailed it as a light which cleared
all doubts away:--he has not seen it himself, because he has started
from the assumption that the Iberians were _the_ ancient people, and,
consequently, every reference to, or mention of, Hispani was taken
as applying to them; and the only question, as regards distinction
of race, arises with the Celts, viz., whether they were the same as
the Gauls, and in what they differed from or resembled the Iberi _or_
Hispani? All he says is interesting; there is nothing which controverts
the view opened out in the foregoing pages, and much that adds strength
to it.
Starting from the point above-mentioned, he proceeds to find, for every
name recorded in ancient writers, a word in Basque by which to explain
it. When the name is nearly Celtic, Roman, or Carthaginian, or quite
so, he drops it. By such a process the names of any and every country
may be made to belong to any and every other.
M. Von Humboldt having expressed his own inability to decide, earnestly
invites the investigation of the learned, and he suggests to them
a thread by which they may advance securely through the imagined
labyrinth;--this is no other than the study of coins. As well might he
have suggested the investigation of Assyrian antiquities by the books
printed at Babylon and Nineveh.[278]
[254] Possibly the term _Mogadore_ recalls another
Celtic monument. It has no Arabic or Breber etymon. In
O’Brien’s Irish Dictionary, the word _Magh-adhair_ is
given and explained as, “a circle of pillars or stones.”
[255] Irby and Mangles, vol. i. p. 99.
[256] Described by Maundrell.
[257] Mr. Dennis, after attempting to identify
the tombs of Saturnia with Celtic cromlechs, says,
“they (cromlechs) are also to be found in Sardinia,
(?) the Balearic Islands, (?) on the shores of the
Mediterranean, in Spain, in the Regency of Tunis,
on the banks of the Jordan, and other places, and
therefore it is impossible they should be restricted to
the Celtic race.”--_Etruria_, vol. ii. p. 321.
[258] King’s Munimenta Antiqua.
[259] “The original language of Spain was the old
Celtic; a language which bears so vast an affinity
to the ancient Hebrew, that to those who are masters
of both, they plainly appear to be dialects of the
_same_ tongue; or to speak perhaps more properly, the
Celtic is a dialect of the Hebrew, or language of
Noah.”--_Univ. Hist._, vol. xviii. p. 363.
[260] “Celtic Spain.”--MOORE’S _History of Ireland_,
vol. i. p. l.
“The Celts covered with their settlements, and
perhaps even simultaneously possessed a space of
country extending _from the Pillars of Hercules_ to
Asia Minor, and beyond the Caucasus, and from the banks
of the Tiber to the _Ultima Thule_ of Scotland and
Greenland.”--DR. MEYER, _Report of British Association_,
1847, p. 303.
“The Celts were known to the Greeks only by name,
and they included under it, all the people between the
Oder and the Tagus. Even the Romans * * included the
_Iberians_, &c.”--BROWN’S _History of the
Highland Clans_.
Prichard says, “Of the Asiatic European stock,
the _first_ great family is the Celts, once spread
over Asia Minor (_Galatia_), _Spain_, France, Belgium,
Helvetia, a great part of Germany, and throughout
the British Isles.” He includes under this one head,
Thracians, Armenians, Asiatic Iranians, Greeks, Romans,
Slavonians, Lithuanians, and Germans.
[261] “The Basque, or Iberian,” Bunsen.
[262] Suggested by Prichard.
[263] “These propositions no one will doubt, who
has a right to speak.”--BUNSEN.
[264] At the convention of Bergara, these were
recognised. They indeed passed _sub silentio_ the
claims of Don Carlos; but with these, they had nothing
to do, the _de facto_ sovereign of Spain being Lord of
Biscay.
[265] “There are two kinds of richness; the one
of form, the other of material. The former consists
in the variety of precepts, the certainty of rules,
the harmony of syntax; the other in attributes
which belong to the invention of a tongue. In these
attributes, there is not one foreign tongue which
may not be esteemed poor when compared with the
Basque.”--LARRAMENDI, _Intro_, ix.
[266] Humboldt, (pp. 55, 58), considers Osca the
same as Basque, and holds it to have been a generic
name of the whole people. Pliny speaks of sums brought
by the Roman Generals as _Argentum Oscense_ (xxxiv. 10,
46, xl. 43).
[267] Thucyd. l. viii.; Dion. Halic., l. i. Timæus,
as quoted by Diodorus Siculus, l. vi. ch. 2.; Strabo,
l. vi. Ausonius, Lucan, and Silvius Italicus, all
concur in deducing the population, or a population of
Sicily, from Spain.
Seneca (de Consolatione) calls these colonists
not _Iberi_ but _Hispani_, and says their descendants
were like the Cantabrians, who had a distinct costume
and language--distinct of course from the Iberi--and
inhabited in his time the north-eastern part of the
Peninsula.
“Transierunt et _Hispani_, quod ex similitudine
ritus apparet; eadem enim tegumenta capitum, idemque
genus calciamenti, quod _Cantabris_ est, et verba
quæedam.”
[268] “_España_ is the name by which the Spaniards
have known their country from the earliest times,
down to the present day. This word is Basque, without
dropping or adding a letter, and signifies border or
extremity. The analogy is beautiful, and gave rise to
the _ne plus ultra_ of the columns of Hercules. The
letter _n_ is moreover wanting in Celtic, Hebrew, and
Arabic.”--ASTORLOA, p. 194.
[269] The Iberia of Herodotus was only the coast,
l. i. c. 163. In the time of Polybius, the name Iberia
did _not_ extend to the part lying on the ocean.--L.
iii. c. 37, §. 10.
[270] “The Romans stand in close connexion with
the Basques, the intermediaries being the Etruscans.
The languages show a similarity in agriculture, and
in political institutions. Nevertheless I am far from
asserting that the Etruscans were the parent stem of
the Iberians, or the contrary.”--W. HUMBOLDT, _Prüfung_,
p. 117.
[271] _T_ is the article in the Breber.
[272] Aristides (Orat. in Bacch.), compares the
Etruscans in the west, to what the Indians were in the
east, which must be understood of space and limit, as
well as numbers. He therefore included the Iberians.
[273] Nos Celtis genitos et ex Iberis,
Gratos non pudeat referre versu,
Nostræ nomina duriora _terræ_.
_Mart._ l. i. Ep. 135.
Not knowing Celtic or Iberian, he made a mistake,
which the following lines explain:--
Rides nomina? Rideas licebit
Hæc tam rustica, delicate lector,
Hæc tam rustica malo, _quam Britannos_.
“Cantabrorum aliquot populi amnesque sunt, quorum
nomina nostro ore concipi nequeant.”
POMP. MELA, l. iii. c. 2.
[274] L. iii. c. 2.
[275] “The Aquitani differ not merely in their
tongue, but in their bodies, and resemble the Hispani
rather than the Galli.”--STRABO, lib. iv.
“Rousillon is _Spanish_, Gascony is _Basque_,
rather than Castilian. The Bretons are more Celtic than
the Gascons are Basque.”--_Ethnological Outlines of
France_, by M. de VERICOURT.
[276] “Profugisque a gente vetusta Gallorum, celte
miscente nomen Iberi.”--LUCAN, l. iii.
[277] Humboldt (“Prüfung,”&c., sections 41, 43,
44), admits a great contrast between the Celts and the
Gauls, and not that difference between them and the
tribes of the Peninsula, which might be expected from
people of different origin. The union he supposes must
have been of great antiquity, and could not have taken
place by violence. He is not clear that we can call the
Celts Gauls at all, and yet he imagines that there must
have been emigrations from Gaul; then he supposes them
mixed autochthonically with the Iberi, and afterwards
pressed together by foreigners occupying the coasts.
Astorloa (p. 199), denies this mixture of Celts
and Iberians, and explains away the word: if Celts
had crossed into the Peninsula, they would have been
settled, he imagines, close to the Pyrenees, and would
have left traces in the present people.
Neither of these writers suspects the possibility
of their having come from Africa, and having again
quitted the Peninsula.
[278] Coins, as other monuments, have supplied a
few names of cities, but are of far posterior date to
the migrations of even the Phœnicians, and are of no
service in the investigation of events anterior to
history.
From the coins of Spain several alphabets have been
made out; but of course they belong to the Iberian
times and races.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CLANS IN BARBARY.
“Scoti per diversa vagantes.”--AM. MARCELLINUS.
From things which only a Highlander could have observed, I learned that
my forefathers had visited Barbary. I perceived the intercourse of
the two people in their baking and cooking, dairy, dress, ornaments,
superstition and words. If this connexion were with the Celts in
general, it would be a matter of mere ethnography, but it is one of
history, for the coincidences are with the clans alone.
The kirtle, plaid, bonnet, eagle’s plume, family cognisances are
unknown in Brittany; nor do the Bretons call their farm-steads,
_gabhail_, or their greyhounds, _sloghie_. The dress of the clans is
not that of the ancient Gauls: those who advocate its antiquity are
much puzzled to find a source for it, and content themselves with
supposing it to be derived from the Roman. No supposition can be more
groundless: that branch of the Celts which never did submit to Roman
domination could not be the only one to adopt the Roman dress.[279]
The Scots, during the period of Roman power in Britain, never came in
contact with them, and under the empire, the Toga itself had been laid
aside; at least, corpses[280] and statues only wore it.
The costume of the Highlands, then, carries us back beyond Roman times,
and beyond all written record; it alone remains in Europe, a monument
of this order,--that of Barbary alone remains among a people derived
from the East. I have already shown that they are the same; which
carries both back to the plains of Mesopotamia, or the banks of Jordan.
Mr. Layard’s researches above, as well as under ground, have furnished
further evidence in many points of resemblance between their manners
and the scenes carved on the alabasters of the Assyrians, and the
customs preserved by the mountain-tribes in the neighbourhood.
The clans crowned their king on a stone, and threw down their plaids
before him. One full statue only has been found at Nimroud: it is that
of a king, and he is seated on a square stone:[281] doubtless the
Assyrians threw down their mantles before him.
The eagle’s plume is worn in the bonnet by the Tigari.[282] The King at
Nimroud wears a cap standing up in front like the Scotch bonnet; the
straps and ribbons flow behind.[283]
In several bas-reliefs, the kilt appears, and is pointed out by Mr.
Layard:[284] the mountaineers wear a long shirt dyed of one colour, as
was formerly used among the clans.
The chief and impregnable fortress of the Kurds is called the “Castle
of the Cymri,”[285] and, as if to return the compliment, the Celts
have given the name Carne _serai_,[286] to the place in Argyleshire,
where, on a sculpture of the thirteenth century, the long plaids
(philemore)[287] with the double-folds, may be seen, exactly as they
are worn by the Jewish women in Morocco.
In Nineveh there was no bath. The mountain-tribes indulge, in all
ways and in all places, in washing and dabbling in water, without the
slightest regard to the sense of delicacy which is so strong in all
other Eastern people. The clans were formerly remarkable in like manner
for the use of water;--new-born infants were plunged in cold water.[288]
The clan system hinges on the distinction of the different families by
“sets” of colours. In this they differ from all the people of the West,
who have colours in a flag, and not on their persons. The Yezidis,
called the worshippers of the devil, have in like manner their colours,
black and red,[289] which they wear, and with which they adorn their
habitations. The clans passing through these countries, and engaged in
the wars (as I shall presently show they were), of necessity must have
also so distinguished themselves; and being neither a horde migrating,
nor a nation in possession, but serving as mercenaries under distinct
leaders, each of these would adopt distinguishing badges, and thence
the “sets” and tartans of the different clans, and the common name
adopted by them.
The discoveries of Nineveh, and the modes of dyeing among the
population which still lives in the neighbourhood of those ruins,
confirm to the letter what I have said elsewhere respecting the
selection of a standard of colour, and the preservation of it in the
tartan.
The tartan existed only by the art of dyeing: without perfection in
it, the idea of distinction by colours could not be entertained. This
was not a mere difference between black and white, as the _ak_ and
_cara coïnjolou_, or white and black fleeces of the Turks, which was
obtained by natural wool; nor was it the colour of a cap or a slipper
which might be purchased ready dyed: proficiency in one colour did
not suffice, but in all. They had to be dyed in every cottage, or
under every tent. They were applied to the coarsest substances, for
the rudest wear, and to be recognizable so long as the material held
together. This was to be achieved by a migratory and erratic people,
in times when no lac or indigo, no chromates or phosphates were to
be found at every apothecary’s. The dyes were to be sought in the
fields or on the mountain sides;[290] and each emigration involved a
new series of experiments, to be rewarded by new triumphs of unaided
industry and untutored taste. How deeply planted in their natures must
have been the instinct of colours, thus to preserve those tints in
daily wear, which at Nineveh have been saved by being buried in the
bowels of the earth. It was not the colours most easily obtained that
they selected: they had a rule, to which circumstances were made to
bend.
Brown is the natural colour of a large proportion of the fleeces; it is
dyed with a moss (crottle) by simple boiling: the colour is beautiful
and indelible. They like brown as a common wear: shepherd’s coats,
plaids, and trowsers, are made of it, but never was brown seen in a
Tartan! The clans learnt this art where they had occasion to adopt the
badge.
“Dyes of the finest quality, particularly reds and greens, which even
European ingenuity has been unable to equal, are obtained by the
inhabitants of Kurdistan from flowers and herbs, growing abundantly
in their mountains. The art of extracting them is not a recent
discovery, but has been known for ages to people living in the same
country; as we learn from the frequent mention of Babylonian and
Parthian dyes by ancient authors. The carpets of, Kurdistan and Persia
are still unrivalled, not only for the beauty of their texture, but
for the brilliancy of their hues. From the ornaments on the dresses
of the figures in the Assyrian sculptures, we may conclude, that
similar colours were extensively used, either in dyeing the garments
themselves, or the threads with which the material was woven.”[291]
On asking a gentleman well acquainted with these countries,[292] if
he perceived any resemblance between their customs, and those of the
Highlanders, his answer was, “It strikes every one, especially in
respect to their chiefs and clan government: The different tribes may
also be known by the stripes of colour on the shalvar, as the Highland
clans by the stripes on their tartan; and they have the tradition,
that Europe is peopled by tribes that emigrated from their country.”
My informant connected this tradition with the recognised Eastern
origin of the people of Europe, but it cannot refer to these
emigrations. That the Celts came from the East all history attests, and
philology has confirmed its verdict;[293] but the waves of emigration
which flowed westward passed all to the northward of the Caspian Sea.
A physical necessity determined their course; and from the Himalaya
to the Carpathian Seas deserts or mountain barriers extend, which
prevented their overflowing the south, and set them on Europe. The
Turks are an exception, being enabled to cross the desert regions
between the Sea of Aral and the Hindoo Cush by means of their horses,
and their pastoral habits. To the southward, therefore, of this line
no tradition of this peopling of Europe could subsist; and I might
have set this one aside, as some uncertain reverberation of the great
Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic emigrations, had I not recollected the
name which the Jews of Morocco apply to Europe--“_Erse dom_.” They then
were acquainted with the “Erse,”[294] or Gaelic tribes, and must have
known them to have gone to Europe, and called it by their name. This
explained at once how the Koords should have a similar recollection of
the peopling of Europe by tribes who emigrated from their country.
Many coincidences might be added to these. For instance, among the
Irish Scots a higher class of Druids, unknown among the British, was
called _Ollama_, evidently the “Ulema”--the learned--of the East.
The name of fairies in Erse is _shechyan_, the Arab _sheik_. Moore
remarks, that these beings seem to record some lost class or people,
which he supposes to be the Druids. The blood-fine was, for a prince,
a thousand oxen; in Arabia it is a thousand camels. It was commuted
in the Highlands for a coin, which is designated by the Spanish word
_oros_. The soldier’s allowance in the East is called “tain,” whence
_timariot_, the feudal tenure of Turkey. A Celtic poem, attributed to
the sixth century, and “claiming respect as exceeding in antiquity any
production of any vernacular tongue of Europe,”[295] is entitled _Tain
Bho_, which is translated “Spoil of Cattle.”
The Irish Scots are the only people of Europe who have had their
language, not through the Greeks and Romans, but directly from the
first inventors. But I do not lay any stress on this coincidence, as
their letters probably were--or at least may have been--in use in
Ireland long before the arrival of the clans, having been taught by the
Phœnicians.
The peculiarities which distinguish the clans from the Celts in
general, may thus be traced to the countries lying upon the Euphrates
and the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. On the other
hand, in Judæa and the coast of Africa, are to be found cromlechs and
Druidical remains, which attest their passage through these countries.
With the inference thence to be drawn, their own traditions concur.
Great Britain and Ireland were inhabited from the beginning by Gauls.
The Scots, though Gauls, were a distinct and a military body, and they
entered at a subsequent time from a different direction. We trace them
from Scotland to Ireland, where for a time they were the dominant
race. They had reached Ireland from Spain: they had not reached Spain,
however, from Gaul but _from Barbary_,--such were their traditions when
first recorded.[296]
In Westminster Hall there is a stone on which the Kings of England are
crowned. It was carried thither from Scone, where the kings of Scotland
had been crowned upon it; and had been placed there by Kenneth, son of
Alpen, after his victory over the Picts in 843. To Scone it had been
transported from Dunstaffnage, where the successors of Fergus had been
crowned upon it. To Dunstaffnage it had been brought from Tarah,[297]
where the Scottish kings of Ireland had been crowned upon it; and
Ireland had been named from it Innisfail. To Tarah it had been brought
from Spain,[298] and to Spain, it was said, from the Holy Land.[299] It
emitted under the rightful prince a sound like that of the statue of
Memnon,[300] and remained dumb under a usurper. The importance attached
to it was such as to make its removal to England to be considered in
the time of Edward I. a necessary step towards the subjugation of the
Scottish kingdom. They called it the stone of fortune, and the stone of
destiny (Lia fail).[301]
Tradition, among the other people of Europe, is an inventor of fable,
rather than a recorder of facts; but its value is very different among
these races. Supposing that our books were swept away--not one ancient
name could be found in Europe: the Gaul of the North alone would be
able to restore them. He would tell you the names of the islands
of Britain and Ireland which Aristotle used twenty-three centuries
ago--they know no others,[302] therefore are their traditions valuable.
Although I think I have established my proposition without the aid
of history, I can boldly appeal to it. Historical works of authority
are dramas performed by some great people, who are ever on the stage
and in front; and events are assorted so as to wind in and conceal,
if not to disguise and suppress, whatever does not belong to them. In
Livy’s pages the earth is a chess-board, and the players sit in the
senates of Rome and Carthage; but if we go to the sources from which
he drew, and refer to authors who have dealt with special subjects, we
find other actors and other passions. We then see the honour of one
battle transferred from the devotion of a consul to the docility of
quadrupeds, and the glory of another from legionary valour to fameless
barbarians.[303] Roman history is a conspiracy to rob of their fame
the Elephants and the Gauls. What were the conditions imposed by
Rome--what the fate incurred by Carthage? the surrender of her ships,
her elephants, and her _Gauls_. Such was the importance of tribes which
Roman writers exhibit as warlike, yet undisciplined as brave; but
unmanageable, with long unwieldy swords, and rash and aimless impulses.
Here were they _in Africa_ the prop of _Carthage_. They had “learned
from long military service to speak Phœnician,”[304] and yet remained
so distinct a body as to require “interpreters to disclose to the
Carthaginians their decrees.”[305]
Further to the east, a century before, during the convulsions which
followed the death of Alexander, and preceded the great contest between
Carthage and Rome, the part they played is thus described by Justin:
“So powerful at this time was the race of the Gauls, that they filled
all Asia, as if with a swarm: neither did the kings of the East carry
on any war without a mercenary army of Gauls; nor when driven from
their throne did they seek refuge elsewhere than amongst the Gauls.
Such was the terror of the Gaelic name--such the unconquered fortune of
their arms, that dominion was not deemed securely possessed, nor lost
greatness capable of recovery, unless by Gaelic bravery.”
The Gauls are here measured against Greeks,[306] with the art of war
carried to the highest point, and strategy raised into a science,
amongst the general-kings, disputants for the relics of Alexander’s
army and dominion. Here were Gauls--but how different from those of
Gaul! here were Gauls as thoroughly conversant, and as essentially
imbued with the knowledge of all the systems of the East and South, as
those of the North were ignorant of all habits foreign to their own.
Here then is the people to furnish the emigration from the Holy Land to
Spain, and to the Highlands, which their own traditions report: here
are the circumstances to fashion them into that peculiar discipline
which up to this day they have preserved.
According to their own tradition they had crossed into Spain from
Barbary. They were not originally in Africa; they must then have
come all the way round the Mediterranean, and then must they have
derived their origin from those Celts who, six or seven centuries
before the Christian era, having been repulsed from Italy and Greece,
crossed the Bosphorus and settled a large kingdom in Asia Minor:
such is the account given of them by the writers of the period. They
wandered through Asia Minor--as the Arabs and Patans do in India, or
the Albanians in Turkey--before they settled in Galatia, and to this
settlement they were constrained. But probably they did not all so
settle when the Romans conquered that country, and in a manner waged
against them a war of extermination: their wanderings were resumed,
and it must have been to the South that they directed their steps.
Already were they familiarized with these regions, and probably
entertained a peculiar relationship with the most remarkable of its
people.
“Galilee,” and “Galilee _of the Gentiles_,” can only mean a Celtic
colony or settlement.[307] The Gauls are of as frequent occurrence in
Josephus as in Cæsar’s Commentaries. The “Gentiles” of Galilee were not
the ancient inhabitants, for it was the land of the Gergesenes, who
never could become Jews, as the Galileans were in the time of Christ.
The expression “of the Gentiles[308]” must apply to strangers admitted
within the Jewish pale. It was this country that Solomon had desired to
give away, and that Hiram would not take.
This would be the most likely place for a settlement of Gauls. The name
is given at a period which would coincide with the hypothesis; nor is
there anything extraordinary in the Galileans being Celts, seeing that
in the time of Jerome the language of _Treves_ was spoken in nearly its
primitive purity in the centre of Asia Minor.[309]
The idea which we have formed of the barrier between the Jews and
the Gentiles, arises from the extermination of, and the constant
denunciations against the nations of Canaan--the Gibeonites alone
excepted--an exception obtained by fraud. There was no obstacle
whatever to the admission of any stranger to full participation and
entire identification with the Jewish people. Whenever there was an
exception it was in consequence of transactions between that people
and the Jews. The Jew resembled a man whose life is prolonged some
thousand years with a memory unimpaired. He had been enslaved by the
Egyptian--he was ever after shy of him. (The Egyptian became a Jew
only in the third generation.) Amalek had smote him on the way of the
Desert, and he hated him.[310] The exceptions were the Canaanite among
the children of Esau, Amalek and the Egyptians: any other stranger had
only to be circumcised.[311] From the time of the Grecian Conquests,
the Jews themselves attempted to efface this distinction, that they
might appear in the Palestra like the Greeks.
This explains perhaps why Galilee was the chief field of the labours of
Christ, and how his disciples were principally from that people, who
were most untainted by the prevailing superstitions, not ranked amongst
Jewish schisms, and free from the servile imitation of the Greeks.
Thus may we claim for our race a share in the first fishing for men;
and it is not an extravagant stretch of the imagination to picture the
listeners to “the Sermon on the Mount,” decked with the eagle’s plumes
and girded with the sporran and dirk.[312]
The sagacious Ptolemies gathered from Syria all the scattered elements
of strength: they turned elephants to account: they collected Jews and
attracted them into Egypt--they could not have neglected the Gauls. In
common with the Jews, they must have suffered in the convulsions of
Egypt, and those who abandoned Egypt left it always for the West. Down
that slope of the Barbary shore--like so many other races--they must
have slid, and, arriving at the bourne of the wandering Arab, they too
raised their pillar opposite the stones which Hercules placed. This
stone no local tradition consecrates, no ancient belief confirms, no
contemporary monument explains, no people claims. It is their own. The
Arab, as he tents beside it, calls it a “_peg_,” and on it hangs the
history of the Highland clans. Arrested by the ocean--like the Saracens
a thousand years later--they turned to the North, and crossing the
Straits, got back again to Europe.
Thus, by the aid of history and monuments have we brought them down to
Spain, up to which their own traditions had carried them. They appeared
in Spain to continue that contest with Rome which the exterminations of
Galatia had commenced, and their breasts might have been animated by
the remembrance even of Brennus and the capitol. At last, after all
the world had been subjugated by the final conquest of the Asturians
and the Vascones, they took ship to seek new settlements. Gauls were in
great numbers in Asia, Syria, Africa, and Spain: no trace of them is
to be found in the present day, nor any record of them after the first
centuries of the Christian era downwards: they were not a people to
become confounded with the native populations: they passed, then, out
of these regions. Let us see if Spain preserves any record of the event.
To this day the Irish and Scotch are entitled, on setting foot in
Biscay, to every privilege and immunity of the natives;--they have the
rank of nobles, can be elected to any magistracy, and have the right
of holding land. From these privileges Spaniards are excluded. In the
whole range of history no more interesting record will be found of the
friendship of two races divided by 2000 years. This isopolitan league,
recorded in the institutions of Biscay, is a monument of the passage
through Spain, of our mountain clans, not less remarkable than the
Usted of Tangier; and we may be as certain of the event as if the day
of departure and the numbers of the vessels[313] had been chiselled on
granite or engraven on steel.
Driven from Spain by the advance of the Roman arms, where should they
have taken, or where could they have sought refuge? Gaul was occupied,
America not open, Africa and Britain were provinces of Rome; the
North of Europe, if not Roman, distant or difficult of access--there
remained only Ireland. The Romans were in possession of Britain for
400 years; why did they never set foot in Ireland? They had fleets
at their command; a few vessels collected on the coast had sufficed
to cross to Britain--that coast was difficult. Ireland invited their
approach; they had forces to dispose of, even for the conquest of
barren lands; they could send 50,000 men to the North, and support the
expedition by sea; they could circumnavigate the island, push commerce,
spread agriculture, pierce forests with roads, fix on stations, and
fortify camps. Ireland was then green as she is now; wooded as she
is no longer; rich in her produce, refined in her industry. Science
and learning were there; strangers had settled on her soil, and
adventurers from the Holy Land had, perhaps, for a thousand years
exported her produce and worked her mines. Ireland was then every way
attractive;--no British parliament had yet passed an Irish law;--why
then did not the Romans cross from the Severn and the Mersey? _The
Scots were there._
The Roman historians do not mention them; they were not in Caledonia
to meet Agricola or Severus; their first passage into Scotland coming
within the range of history, occurred only A. D. 258, and
it was centuries before they established their dominion in the
North.--The “Stone of Fate” accomplished its pilgrimage to Argyle. A
century after their first passage (368), an incursion into England
is the first recorded instance of collision with the Romans.[314]
And are they not even as we see them--or at least such as they made
themselves felt but a century ago--a people who must have had some such
history, whose adventurous spirit must have been disciplined by long
peregrinations--the Ulysses of nations, seeing the cities and observing
the manners of many people, and having an eye to mark what was
profitable, and a hand to hold what they had thought proper to select?
What other people brought a flag to every breast? in its vestment
conferred upon the humblest the blazon of heraldry, and the insignia of
kings; selecting emblems and signs from the fairest objects of nature,
or the most imaginative inventions of man: primitive colours, flowers
of the field, plume of the sky? Alone in Europe they retain a stamp, a
memory, and a name. After discomfiting the remnant of a line of false
princes, the British parliament feared to dwell in the same island with
the Kilt, nor deemed itself secure where the “battle colours” were dyed
with the heather, spun on the soil, and worn by the clans.[315]
All that remains is the last flickering of the light of a land
extinguished, not by the blast of battle, but by the breath of her
sons. Had Scotland’s chiefs been true to the noblest station in Europe,
she would have held her own and saved England.
[279] Some of them took service, but not before the
fourth century.
[280] “Nemo togam sumit nisi mortuus.”--JUVEN. _Sat._
iii. 171.
[281] Nineveh, v. ii. p. 52.
[282] _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 194.
[283] The resemblance appears most in the oldest
sculptures: it is not rendered in the plates to the
work. The same figure is also found in the Toshr--lower
part of the Egyptian head-dress--called _pshent_.
[284] Also in the Xanthian marble, E. ix. No. 45,
50, 157.
[285] Kalah Kumri.--LAYARD, v. i. p. 118.
[286] Carni is also a name in Galilee.
[287] It is figured in the large work of the
Stuarts, they were of course not aware of the meaning
of the double fold.
[288] “The children are bathed night and morning
in cold or warm water.”--HUNTER’S _Western
Islands_, vol. i. p. 194.
“The practice still with those who wear the kilt,
is to wash their limbs every morning as a preventative
against cold.”--BROWN, vol. i. p. 100.
“Strong from the cradle, and of sturdy brood,
We bear our new-born infants to the flood,
There bathed amidst the waves our babes we hold,
Inured to summer’s heat and winter’s cold.”
[289] Nineveh, vol. i. pp. 300, 522.
[290] Ordering some stuff from a Highland woman,
and having fixed the time for its being sent to me,
she ran after me to say, that I must not have the
yellow stripe, or I could not have it till next year.
Inquiring the reason, she said, “for the yellow I must
wait till June, when the heather is in bloom.”
[291] Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 311.
[292] Mr. Ross, the companion of Mr. Layard.
[293] I need only refer to Prichard’s work
entitled, “On the Indian origin of the Celts.”
[294] Erse is the name which the clans give
to their language: it includes Irish, Scotch, and
Manx, and excludes Armorican, Welsh, Cornish, and
Carniolan.--BROWN’S _Highland Clans_.
[295] Report of Highland Society on Ossian.
[296] “The Scots were a nation of Kelts, who
came from Asia along the African shore, into Spain,
and thence into Ireland, which they fill,” says
Nennius, sec. 13, 14, “even to this day.” Afterwards
he says, “other Scots came from Spain, and, by little
and little possessed themselves of many districts
in Ireland. A Scottish colony from Ireland planted
itself in Argyleshire, then called Dabriada, or
Dabreta, where,” says Nennius, “they dwell to this
day; another in the Isle of Man, and the parts
adjacent.”--ANSTEY’S _Laws and Constitution of
England_, p. 38.
[297] Teamhuyr, in the oblique cases Teamhra,
whence Tarah. This is evidently the Temorah celebrated
by Ossian as the Irish capital.
[298] Moore’s Ireland.
[299] “The names of the stone are both of them
derived from a persuasion the ancient Irish had, that
in what country soever the stone remained, there one of
their blood was to reign.”--TOLAND’S _History
of the Druids_, p. 152.
[300] Sir G. Wilkinson found a stone in a statue,
sonorous, and that in its top while concealed from
below, he could by striking it produce a sound.
Referring to this incident, while standing beside the
Assyrian statue, mentioned a few pages back, I struck
it in illustration of the method used. It instantly
answered in Memnon’s voice, with the clear sound of
bell-metal.
[301] Harris, Antiq. of Ireland, c. i. p. 10.
O’Brien gives this as two words “Lia fail,” the fatal
stone, otherwise _cloch na cinncamhuin_, an ominous
accident or destiny, genit. _cinncamhua_. Both concur
in the great veneration in which it was held by the
ancient Irish, on account of its “miraculous virtues.”
Antiquities _ut sup._ p. 10, 124. See also Ledwich’s
Antiq. of Ireland, p. 308.
[302] Grant’s Origin of the Gauls p. 262. Ptolemy’s
names of the tribes can still be nearly all identified,
and he only edited the old work of the Phœnician
mariners.
[303] Compare Livy and Polybius on the battle of
Zama, and these with Ælian on the last struggle of
Macedon for the part played by the Gauls and Elephants.
From the latter it appears, that by an “Elephant and
Castle,” Cæsar crossed the Thames, and won Britain.
[304] Πάλαι στρατευόμενος ἤδει διαλέγεσθαι
Φοίνικ εσι.[Palai strateuomenos êdei dialegesthai
Phoinikesi.]--L. i. p. 80. Ταύτῃ δὲ πῶς οἱ πλείστοι
συνεσαίνοντο τῇ διαλέκτῳ διὰ τὸ μῆκος τῆς προγεγενημένης
στρατείας. [Tautê de pôs hoi pleistoi synesainonto tê
dialektô dia to mêkos tês progegenêmenes strateias.]
[305] Δι’ ἑρμηνέως τὰ δέδογμένα παρ’ αὐτοὺς διέσαφε
τοῖς ὄχλοις. [Di’ hermêneôs ta dedogmena par’ autous
diesaphe tois ochlois.]--L. iii. p. 197.
[306] Sir W. Scott, in the “Legend of Montrose,”
says that the clans have an ancient order of battle,
which seems to be derived from the Macedonian phalanx.
[307] The names of _Golan_, _Galaza_, _Garne_, _Yara_,
have also been preserved.
[308] “Harosheth of the Gentiles,” see Judges, ch. iv.
[309] “Galatas excepto sermone Græco quo omnis Oriens
loquitur, propriam linguam eandem pene habere Treveros.”--
_Epist. ad Galat. Proem._ l. 2.
[310] “And thou shalt not forget it.”--Deut. xxv. 19.
[311] Exodus xii. 48.
[312] In the Nineveh marbles, the king wears two daggers
in one case, side by side. The Circassians wear a smaller
one on the case of the largest, as the dirk.
[313] The bards do enumerate the vessels of different
expeditions.
[314] They were, however, expelled by Theodosius.
In the fifth century from the _Notitia Imperii_, large
bodies of them appear to have taken service in the
empire: one corps was stationed in Illyricum, one at
Rome, one in Italy.
[315] “Their peaceful glens were visited with the
scourge of a licentious soldiery let loose upon the
helpless inhabitants, and every means taken to break
up the peculiar organization, and consequent power
of the Highland clans. The disarming act, which had
been passed after the insurrection of the year 1715,
was now carried into rigid execution, and with a
view to destroy as much as possible any distinctive
usages of this primeval race and thus to efface their
nationality, an act was passed, proscribing the use of
their ancient garb. The indignity inflicted by this
act was perhaps more keenly felt by the Highlanders,
attached in no ordinary degree to their ancient
customs, than any of the other measures resorted to by
the English Government: but at the same time it must be
admitted, that it effected the object contemplated in
its formation, and that more was accomplished by this
measure, in destroying the nationality, and breaking
up the spirit of the clan’s-men, than by any of the
other acts. The system of clanship was also assailed
by an act passed in the year 1748, by which heritable
jurisdictions were abolished throughout Scotland, and
thus the sanction of law was removed from any claim
which Highland chiefs, or barons, might in future be
disposed to make upon the obedience or service of their
followers.”--SKINNER’S _Sketch_, vol. i. p. 145.
BOOK V.
SEVILLE.
CHAPTER I.
THE ISLAND OF ANDALUZ.
The emporium of the new world and the port of the Western ocean, has
become an inland town; but the shade of orange groves, the white
marble of Moorish halls, the dance, the bull-fight, the garb of the
Andalusian, still attract the wanderer and detain the guest. No where
on the soil of Europe is there so much that is beautiful with so little
that is familiar. The Tower of our metropolis claims the honour of
having for its founder Julius Cæsar. The dictator appears only in the
list of the benefactors of Seville: pressing forward to the bounds of
human memory, she proudly asserts a founder among the gods. Existing
when Rome was founded, and Carthage built, she has witnessed their
catastrophe and survived their decay. From the earliest peopling of
the earth to the present hour, Seville has endured a mother, if not
a mistress, city, and has never known sack or desolation. Italica was
the first Roman colony beyond the Alps--Seville was the capital of the
Goths. Two kings were canonized; the one for its capture, the other for
its defence.
This single provincial city possesses the tradition of the Phœnicians;
traces of the Romans; tombs of the Goths; monuments of the Saracens;
a cathedral that has no equal. It has the highest tower, the purest
air, the longest plain, and the richest soil in Spain. It contains the
masterpiece of Spanish sculpture, and a whole school of unrivalled
painting. It may be true of Spain, if of any country, that
“Cada villa
Tien su maravilla.”
But, according to the old proverb on the lips of every peasant,
Seville herself is the marvel, and nevertheless, she is a truly
Spanish town--a village, not a city.
A noble bust stands in the orange grove of the “House of Pontius
Pilate.” It would appear to be an effort to conjoin the most opposite
qualities, and to represent under one head the distinguishing
attributes of the sexes, strength and daring, voluptuousness and grace.
The head is large, the brow ponderous, the eye full and grave, while
the cheek and lips are robbed from Hebe. It is hard to say whether the
martyr’s palm, the veil of Cythera, or the club of Hercules is the
emblem befitting it. On inquiring where it had been discovered, I was
surprised to learn that it was a head of Cleopatra, a present from a
Roman Pontiff. It must have been sent to the Queen of Guadalquivir, as
the prototype of herself; sensual and heroic, faithful and capricious,
wanton and warlike--handling with equal dexterity and equal grace,
the faggot and the fan; the castanet and navaja; the champion of the
Catholic church against Arianism, the bulwark of Spain against the
Northmen, the first pupil of the Saracens in art, the first rebel
against their power;[316] the competitor of Florence, Venice, Bologna,
and Rome, in design, painting, and architecture; the mother of the
Inquisition; claiming as her founder the representative of force,
and selecting as her patrons two spotless virgins. From her port was
embarked the gold that in former ages adorned the temples of idolatry,
and on her beach has been in modern times landed the gold of Mexico and
Peru, that has left Spain bankrupt and Europe rich in corn and poor in
worth.
A Spaniard, in describing her, commences in these terms: “In the
part of Spain towards the South, in the rich and fertile province of
Andalusia, on the oriental bank of the river Guadalquivir, stands the
beautiful Sevillia, capital and metropolis of four kingdoms, first
court of the Spanish monarchy, and primacy of the churches of Spain.”
Andalusia to the Moors was the Atlantic Island--the garden which they
found wild, and which they filled with new plants, flowers, and fruit.
“God in his justice,” said they, “having denied to the Christians a
heavenly paradise, has given them in exchange an earthly one. It is a
garden where the high places are battle-fields, but whose vales are
free from famine.”
“Seville is a young bride, her husband is Abbab,
Her diadem Asharaf, her necklace Guadalquivir.
Asharaf is a forest without wild beasts,
Guadalquivir, a river without crocodiles.”
So sang one of those Sevillian poets who were so numerous that “Africa
would not have held them, if it had been divided out in portions among
them,” and whose praises had such charms that “had they been bestowed
on the Night they would have made her fairer than the Day.”
The Easterns represent the world as a bird, the East being the head,
Europe the body, the North and the South the wings, and the West the
tail. Haroun-el-Raschid told an Andalusian that he was from the world’s
tail: the Andalusian replied, “the bird _is a peacock_.”
Al-bekir-Al-andalusi thus sums up the excellence of his native country:
“It is equal to Sham (Syria) for purity of air and sweetness of
waters; to Yemen, for mildness of temperature; to Hind (India), for
drugs and aromatic plants; to China, for mines and precious stones; to
Aden (Arabia), for the number and security of its coasts and harbours.”
To that stock of knowledge known to us under the general name
of Saracen, Morocco contributed probably that dexterity in the
distribution of water, and the perfection of agriculture and taste in
gardening, which so enriched and embellished Spain under its dominion.
These arts could not have been furnished by the Nomade tribes of Arabia
Petrea; and they were to be looked for in the descendants of that
people, who for four centuries had made their country the granary of
Rome and the world, who inherited the agricultural science, which had
aided Carthage to extend her dominion. The Tribe government of the
Douar, still subsisting, arose amidst patriarchal manners, and science
triumphs without obscuring the charms of nature, or the taste of man.
This country and its stories are the “Arabian Nights”--not read, but
seen.
Ibnir Ghalib entitles one of his chapters, “Contentment of the soul
in contemplating the ruins of Andalusia.” For us this contemplation
suggests any thing but contentment. The Moor needed no lessons from
the past[317]--the traces of Carthaginian wealth and Roman power were
useless to him. He required no maxims, for he cultured no fallacies.
The Arabs united the two systems of the ancient world--the tribe and
colony. The results in public riches and individual well-being, neither
predecessors nor successors have rivalled or conceived. Such are the
lessons which we may learn in the city of the fandango and guitar,
whither we may have strayed only to bestow a passing glance to Lydian
steps, or a listening hour to Teian measures.
In regard to Moorish ruins, Seville disappointed me. The great mosque
has been demolished: the cathedral, indeed, occupies its site, but
why should the other have been destroyed? The Alcazar is by the
Sevillians extolled above the Alhambra; but, excepting the entrance,
it can be admired only as a copy by those who have seen the works of
the master. Originally it was a Moorish edifice, but it was remodelled
under Spanish kings, and is now undergoing repairs and painting in the
deplorable style of the specimens of Moorish plaster hung up in the
Museum of Madrid.[318] The term Cazar, or Cazaria, is derived from the
palace of the Cæsars; it was then associated with the Moorish god,
and thus acquired an impress of grandeur. A petition from a township,
imploring the Queen to take the government out of the hands of the
Cortes, places in antithesis _Alcazar_ and “_club_!”
The house of Pontius Pilate pretends to be nothing more than an
imitation; as such it is a splendid work. Its chief value is, in
recording the thought of the chieftain, who, after his pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, endeavouring to transfer to his native city the type of
Palestine--took the model of a Moorish palace for the habitation of the
Roman governor of Judæa.
Seville has been well chosen by Corneille as the scene of his “Cid.”
This title, and the reasons he puts in Ferdinand’s mouth for conferring
it on the young hero, show that he looked on the Moors as models for a
soldier and a knight. The character of the contest is pourtrayed with
no less accuracy than is preserved the simplicity of the ballad. The
Spaniards are inflamed against the Mussulman with none of the fanatic
spirit of the Eastern struggles and crusading times; yet the feelings
which naturally suggest themselves in a war between Infidels and
Christians, seemed needful for the purpose and the colouring of his
picture.
A street named _Calle de la Moreria_, or street of the quarter of the
Moors, is the record of the different treatment of that people by
Ferdinand the Saint, and Ferdinand the Catholic.
“Ferdinand, after the capture of Seville, divided the quarters of the
city among the various nations, provinces, and tribes:--one called
_Aduaress_, was inhabited by the Moors, who remained in the city after
the Conquest, or who came from Granada as auxiliaries to St. Ferdinand.
After the Conquest of Granada, these Moors were obliged to send
every year a certain number, to take part in the honours paid to St.
Ferdinand on the 30th of May; and they had to assist _at the Vigils and
Mass_, in _capuzes_, with green _caperotes_, with their crescents also
green, and they stood round the tumulus with white torches burning in
their hands. The Moreria existed down to 1502, when, by an order of the
Catholic king, all the Moors, inhabitants of Seville, were expelled the
kingdom, which order and the mode of execution are sufficiently curious
to be published here, as they have not been given by any author.
“The King and the Queen.--D. Juan di Silva, Count of Cifuenti, our
Alferez Mayor, and of our Council, and our Assistant for the very noble
city of Seville: We have agreed to order all the Moors to quit our
kingdoms, and we order you, that you cause this paper (carta) to be
published, and that you place in sequestration the mosques and other
common property of the Moors, and to see that the said mosques are
cleaned and shut up, and therein use the diligence that we know in you.
From the city of Seville, the twelfth day of the month of February,
one thousand five hundred and two. I, the King. I, the Queen. By order
of the King and the Queen, Miguel Perez de Almazâ.
“The Conde de Cifuenti, with his lieutenant, the Licenciado Lorenzo
Somero, with the public writer, Francisco Sigura, repaired on the same
day with a competent number of aguacils to the quarters of the Moors,
and having here assembled and being present Maestre Mohammed Recocho,
Maestre Mohammed Daiena, and Maestre Mohammed Saganche, and Ali Faza,
and Maestre Alunlie Aguja, and Ali Nuyun--Moors--showed to them and
read the royal order, which they kissed, and placed upon their heads in
sign of obedience.” They then opened the mosque, and proceeded to the
sequestration, and made oath that these were the whole of the _bienes
communes_, by God the all-powerful Creator of the heaven and the earth.
Then they passed all out of the city, and took possession of the
Æsario, adjoining the field of Santa Justa. And this was accomplished
with such expedition, that the expulsion is protocoled as completed on
the same day, 15th February, 1502.[319]
One of the canons of the cathedral remarked, “Whenever you disturb the
ground you come upon turbans: everywhere do the signs appear of the
heads of the Moors, above as well as below the earth, and in Andalusia
are their hearts still buried.”[320] But it is not in the midst of
joyous Seville that the image of such a contest can be called up: you
require ruins in loneliness--these you have a few miles distant, at
Alcala. There is the stamp of that fierce border war of many centuries.
It is, besides, a perfect study of military architecture. There may be
seen double tiers of guns, as on the broadside of a ship, the lower
embrasure no wider than the muzzle, having a slit above, in the form
of a cross, to aim by. There is also outside the walls, and all round,
as at Gibraltar and Malaga, an advanced work, on which guns were
mounted, at once multiplying the means of annoyance and protecting the
base of the walls from the enemy’s shot. This place has three distinct
internal defences, with deep ditches traversing them. It seemed all
hollowed out; cisterns or mattamores for corn occupy the centre. Close
to one of the walls, and at a part where the ground is low, there is a
large square opening, which must even now be fifty feet deep, though
a great quantity of rubbish has fallen in. A solitary tower at the
opposite point from the village projects beyond the circuit of walls:
the stories of halls or vaults, with large embrasures or windows in
the three sides, combine the light and airy prospect of a kiosk, with
the gloomy grandeur of a fortress. There the traveller that would muse
should go, and go alone, and ponder long.
The first object that meets the eye in approaching Seville,
is the Giralda, and it stands first in the estimation of the
inhabitants. Notwithstanding--or because of--an incongruous Spanish
superstructure,[321] an enormous bronze figure, fourteen feet high,
with a shield on the extended left arm, and a lance in the right hand,
is placed on the top--at once a statue and a weathercock--its apparent
inclination, as it revolves, gives to the tower a certain manner, a
gait and gesture, as it were, unlike any other, and makes it look like
a great cypress bending to the breeze.
During the siege, the Moors proposed to pull it down, as too sacred
to be left; but were prevented by the threat of St. Ferdinand, that
if they touched one stone, or rather brick, of it, he would not leave
one man alive. The singular name that belongs to it, is brought forth
deep from the Sevillian’s breast, and its tones linger on his lips.
It rivals the Immaculate Conception as an emblem and an ornament;
it is seen in the painted windows of the churches and cathedrals;
it is embossed on the chairs, embroidered on the dresses; prints of
it are suspended on the walls; it is to be found in the pictures of
the altar-pieces and the slabs of the pavement; it is copied in the
steeples of the surrounding towns; and, finally, it has given to
Seville her two patron saints. Two potter girls of Triana, martyrs in
Roman times--Santa Justa and Santa Rufina--were seen in a vision only
three centuries and a half ago, supporting the Giralda during a storm
and earthquake, and were enshrined as the tutelary saints. This event
is the subject of one of the most incongruous, though not the least
beautiful, of the pictures of Murillo.
This tower claims for its architect the supposed inventor of Algebra,
and it was raised by one of the most powerful of monarchs, Jacob the
Second, of the Almohades. It has been spared alike by the Vandalism
and fanaticism of conquest, the ravages of war, the lightning that
hath struck, and the earthquakes that have shattered the humbler
edifices around. It is the embellishment of Seville; her pride, her
standard-bearer, her nightly watch-tower, the plume of her mural
coronet, first caught by the eye of the stranger, and last seen. The
Giralda is said to be superior to the towers of Rabat and Morocco;
but there is no comparison either in the materials, the ornaments, or
dimensions.
On reaching the gallery, the clangour of bells strikes one, as
replacing the Muezzin call, “God is great. To prayers.” “Prayer is
better than sleep.” There are a dozen great bells, which send forth
the most discordant and unceasing peals, and the ringing of them is a
strange exhibition. They are swung round and round; the rope is allowed
to coil itself round the stock, or is jerked on the lip of the bell,
and the ringer springs up by stanchions in the wall to get a purchase,
and then throws himself down; or he allows himself to be carried by the
rope as it swings round outside. As I entered the gallery, I saw one of
the ringers thrown out, as I imagined, and expected, of course, that
he was dashed on the pavement below; I saw him the next moment perched
on the bell, smiling at my terror.
The belfry does, however, discharge as a steeple, several of the
functions to which it was appropriated as a minaret: the day, as in
Mussulman countries, is divided by prayer. When you ask in Morocco,
at what hour you are to arrive at such a place;--if they mean at
sunset, they will answer, “at Assar.” So other hours are marked by
the first prayer, or the mid-day prayer, and this is made known to
all, not only by the muezzin’s call, but also by a flag hoisted on the
minaret,--called _alem_. The Spaniards, in like manner, divide the time
by the prayers, the oracion, the animas, &c., the period of which is
announced generally, in the south of Spain, from the towers that the
Musselmans built for the same purpose.
The view from the Giralda invited me to ascend it daily during my stay.
Whether it was calm or windy, whether in sunshine or shade, the charm
was the same in its diversities: the lightness of the atmosphere in
every change, justified the saying of the Sevillians, “Our climate is
fit to raise the dead.”
From this height it requires no great effort to replace, in
imagination, the dead level by an arm of the sea; the tide still
rises four feet in the river, though fifty miles from the sea.[322]
It is only thirty years since it has been deprived of the monopoly of
the commerce of the New World; the caravels and argosies of Santa Fé
deposited upon that bank their precious freights, as is still recorded
in the name of the round tower by the water,--_sorride oro_.
HOSPITAL DE LA SANGRE.
This is a noble edifice, composed of several grand courts and of two
stories, the lower one for summer, and the upper one for winter. I
think I may say that to each patient is allotted at least four times
as much space as in any similar European establishment, and the very
troughs in which the dirty linen is washed are marble: the patients
have two changes of clean linen in the week. The kitchens are all
resplendent with painted tiles and cleanliness, and there seemed
abundance of excellent food. In these institutions, in Spain, the
inmates are completely at home. Soft and blooming girls, with downcast
look and hurried step, were attending upon the poor, the maimed, and
the suffering. The Lady-Directress had told the servant who accompanied
me, to bring me, after my visit, to her apartment, which was a hall in
one of the corners of the building: she said she had heard that England
was celebrated for its charity, and asked if our poor and sick were
better off than in Spain. I was obliged to confess that the reverse was
the case. She was, however, better informed than I at first suspected.
She asked me if it was not true that we hired mercenaries to attend on
the sick and abstained from performing that duty ourselves; and if our
charity was not imposed as a tax? She told me that there were eight
hundred of her order in Spain; that it was the only one that had not
been destroyed; that none were admitted but those of noble birth or of
gentle blood; and that they took all the vows except that of seclusion,
and in lieu of it took that of service to the poor and sick. The St.
Isabelle, of Murillo, painted for them, was the model of their order.
The Hospital de la Sangre was founded by a woman.
THE CARTUJA.
This interesting convent is across the water. It is now a pottery, and
the property of an Englishman, who very obligingly accompanied me over
the works. I never saw the Spanish people to more advantage: they were
models, in both sexes, of classic and Andalusian beauty. Their costume
was peculiarly well-preserved; and the work--itself cleanly--was
carried on in the midst of noble structures, surrounded with the finest
chiseling, the grandeur of vaults and the gorgeousness of azuleos. I
inquired for the sepulchral stone of St. Hermangildo, and after some
search, and the removal of a heap of stones, we found it let into
the wall at the east end of the church. The proprietor, on my urgent
entreaty, promised he would have it conveyed to some place of safety.
I was anxious to get at the feelings of the people working in this
sacred edifice. Although familiarity had destroyed any strong
impressions, they all seemed to regret the splendour of their domicile,
and expressed gratitude to their master for fitting up one of the
chapels for public service. He himself told me that he had at first
preserved the church of worship, but finding that it excited the
congregation that the monastery should have been so disposed of, and
have become the property of a heretic, he deemed it prudent to exert
his rights and convert the church to the uses of the manufactory. As
they were drawing a distinction between the church and the monastery,
he thought the time might come when they would reassert their claim to
the possession of the monastery as well as to the church. If I had had
no other occasion to judge of the prospect of future tranquillity for
Spain, this would have sufficed to assure me that, while this intrusion
upon the monastic property endures, no settlement will be made. In
England and in France, church confiscation was accompanied with a
change of belief, and those possessed either of hereditary influence or
of political power were the acquirers.
No influential body has profited by the confiscation, or risen to
power by the possession, of this wealth. The wealth itself has
disappeared--it was the reaction from the sale of church property that
restored France to the community of Rome. The sale of the property of
a church not upset; the penury and suffering of its clergy (a clergy
which sits in the confessional and administers the viaticum, doubtless
exercises its power of quickening the religious sense of Spain,
especially as the manifestations of it are suppressed)--may in like
manner produce a reaction.
The Cortes receives no petition upon the subject of church property,
and the Crown listens to no prayers against the Cortes.
The tithes never were supposed to be appropriated to the church by the
State. The tithes in each spot had a special and chartered origin.[323]
The church was the continuation of the Mozarabic worship, and was
supported by obtubia and not by tithes. It was not the tenth but the
twentieth part. The tithe was in fact legally fixed at five per cent.
of the gross produce.
From this tithe the clergy paid a revenue to the State of their annual
cures and professions; it amounted some years ago to 180,000,000 reals.
The church now figures in the budget as a charge of 140,000,000; the
difference amounts to one half the entire revenue of Spain, and the
property itself has been wholly swallowed up. This country suffers at
present only from the central government. The clergy, as a corporation,
presents a check: the dues paid by the church would have been
sufficient for all the purposes of government.
These unfortunate proceedings are laid at England’s door, as being
the patron of the minister who introduced the change; she is also
charged with supporting antinational governments with loans; which,
while giving a temporary triumph to a hollow faction, impose permanent
obligations and disgrace. Nor is it one of the least evil consequences
that Spain, like other countries similarly situated, is considered in
England as under an obligation to her.
[316] She was among the first to rise against the
French.
“To an acute but indifferent observer, Seville,
as we found it on our return, would have been a
most interesting study. He could not but admire the
patriotic energy of the inhabitants, their unbounded
devotion to the cause of their country, and the
wonderful effort by which, in spite of their passive
habits of submission, they had ventured to dare both
the authority of their rulers, and the approaching
bayonets of the French.”--DOBLADO’S _Letters_,
p. 441.
[317] Burkhardt characterizes the traditional
institutions of the Desert as “so well adopted, so
natural, and so simple, that every nation not reduced
to slavery, if thrown at large on the wide desert,
might be expected to adopt the same.”--_Notes on the
Bedouins_, p. 214.
Burkhardt has here so forgotten the European, as to
identify freedom and sense. Knowledge is to God, what
science is to language, or mud to water. The fountain
in each is pure, each step in “advance,” brings
corruption: the last point, unless where there is a
return upon itself, is always the worst.
[318] The Duke and Duchess de Montpensier took
up their abode in the Alcazar, with the design of
restoring it. Furniture was ordered from Africa. One
generation more and the Alhambra will be scarcely
traceable, and the bastard fashions now springing up,
will be to subsequent times the type of the Moors!
[319] Historia de Sevilla Gonzales de Leon, p. 367.
It appears from the same work, that the Jews came and
lived with the Moors.
[320] See Gonzales de Leon, p. 519.
[321] “The rich filigree belfry added in 1568,
by Fernando Ruiz, is elegant beyond description.”--
_Handbook_, vol. i. p. 248.
[322] Heeren, in discussing the claims of Seville
to be the original Tarshish, or the earliest settlement
in the West, says, “as it was not likely that these
traders should have ventured _so far_ inland.”
[323] Origen de los Rentàs, p. 192, 217.
CHAPTER II.
THE CATHEDRAL.
This building has neither façade, spire, nor dome; it gives no
external signs of grandeur, is surrounded by no open space to
exhibit its dimensions; there is nothing to raise or satisfy
expectation,--following the plan of the Mosque, which it has replaced,
and which rose on the ruins of the Roman temple, its predecessor. The
cathedral externally is lost in the mass of buildings which forms a
parallelogram of 600 by 500 feet, across which it runs; the remainder
being made up of a parish church, a parterre of orange trees, the
Giralda tower, the sacristy, and offices. As seen from a distance with
its flat roof, it appears like a large house in a village; for in the
clearness of that sky distances are lost. When it is pointed out as the
cathedral, any anticipations you may have indulged in are sobered down.
The mind of the spectator is thus artfully managed, and the majesty of
the building is veiled.
Till you stand within its vaults--I entered not by its own portal,
but by the parish church which opens into it--I thought I was in
the cathedral, and looked around in surprise and disappointment. I
presently perceived an opening, and wandering in the direction, I
thought I was advancing up the nave--it was the width that was before
me! Now the tower-like pilasters opened all around; but the limit I
could not see, for the view is intercepted by the built-up choir.
There is no one point from which all is to be seen--you have the sense
of the vastness of the whole wherever you look, but which is nowhere
paraded for you to admire. You wander around to look for what is to be
seen,--to find what is to be admired--as you would through a forest of
trees.
Raised upon the lines of a mosque and a temple, this building differs
wholly from Gothic churches;--there is no lengthened nave--no
cross;--it is a parallelogram supported by rows of pilasters, like the
Temple of Phyle. The scantling of a church is only to be found in the
distribution of the roof, ascending higher in the nave and transept,
so as to make the cross. Six rows of pilasters traverse it in length,
which support seven rows of roofs or vaults. The nave and transept
are 120 feet in height; the two aisles adjoining it on each side are
100; and the two outer aisles are lower, and divided into chapels. The
centre vault above the high altar is 142 feet. At the eastern extremity
it opens into the Lady Chapel, itself a spacious church; while another,
the sacristy, adjoining it to the south, is reached by a passage. The
chapels conceal the altar and shroud the paintings, and their gratings
seem to close in dens; so that the edifice, excepting the choir, is as
a cavern. The stone is without carving or monument; there is no line
save what belongs to the construction:--the pillars ascend, the arches
join as if the rock had thus fashioned itself; the only exception
is the slight tracery of the balustrade of the triforium, and the
fret-work of the graining of the central and adjoining vaults. But,
contrasting with their grey dulness, the floor is in slabs of marble,
alternately black and white in squares and lozenges.
The chapels have their own windows. The body of the church has two
clerestory rows, one in the nave, one in the second side-aisle above
the chapels, besides a Catherine wheel in each corresponding gable.
They correspond: there is one to each vault--their lines are in perfect
symmetry with the vaults and columns; they are deeply coloured and
furnished with curtains, by which the light is regulated, and, when
requisite, the sun on the eastern and southern sides excluded. What
we all feel regarding the “management” of the light of a painting I
now saw in an edifice. How improved its merits--how magnified its
vastness--the effects of colossal magic lanterns played around!
Here presided the spirit of the Moors; the gloom in which they delight;
the deep colour of the admitted rays, repeating the figures and tints
of their gorgeous walls, and streaming with a sweet yet solemn beauty
on their graceful ornaments. These last, indeed, were wanting, and
their Sevillian pupils were determined to show what colour and the sun
alone could do. As he travels round, looking in from the different
sides and windows, a thousand beauties reveal themselves with all the
changes of breaking or departing day.
Within this living rock of Gothic grandeur, one feels the nearest
approach to the sublimity of the conception of the mosque, imitated
by the Arab from the Desert, and the heavens between which his lot
has been cast. The high altar has no gorgeous canopy, as in St.
Peter’s; there are no gems, as in the chapel of the Medici; neither
mosaic nor painting nor gilding meet the eye;--it is surrounded on
the sides and in front by a lofty iron gilded grating, through which
you can distinguish a screen filling up the width of the chancel, and
rising seventy or eighty feet above the altar. This space is divided
into compartments by four horizontal and five perpendicular lines,
each of which contains a group of figures, in alto and basso relievo,
diminishing as they ascend, the four figures coming fully out, and the
accessories being traced in slight relief behind. Of these groups there
are thirty-six, the principal figures two-thirds the size of life,
and over each a Gothic canopy: they are separated by Gothic spaces,
with niches and statues of various sizes. The cusps are enriched and
enlivened with fine branches and foliage. Over the whole projects a
cornice composed of the Twelve Apostles in niches, and the descent
from the cross in the centre. These figures are the size of life. This
cornice is a frame-work of Gothic niches for holding the statues,
while branches are interlaced through its dentated spires and cusps.
It fails only in the curve beneath the projection to a corridor which
sustains the Twelve Apostles, and which correspond with hexagons. Here
would have been peculiar scope for the adaptation either of the Gothic
pendants, or the Moorish stalactite.
On the top, in the centre, is Christ on the cross, and the two Marys
kneeling. These are a little larger than life. The groups contain
between 300 and 400 figures. There are 200 small statues on the Gothic
pinnacles dividing them: seventeen statues the size of life are on
the cornice and in the group above. The whole space, which is above
4000 square feet, is about equally divided between groups and statues,
and tracery and foliation. The ornaments display the beauties of the
pointed Gothic style, with the richness of the Moresque white, serving
as the frame-work to the exquisite Italian groupings. During three
generations it passed from master to pupil, and from father to son, and
the design was unbroken; and, with the one exception I have mentioned,
the whole is perfect as if it had been dreamt by a Cellini at night and
executed in the morning. When you look upon it, you forget even the
cathedral.
I was able to get the great doors opened at the period when the
cathedral is closed, and thus see the whole mass at once, and
unimpeded. The most distinct sight is from the organ-loft, between
twelve and one o’clock, when the side-light falls on the left wing,
and slightly illumines the heads over the screen, and you may trace
the wonderful minuteness of the ornaments. But all these glimpses are
nothing to be compared to the unearthly effect of the setting-sun, when
the light through the St. Catherine Wheel over the great door streams
full upon its different shades.
I was about to say that ten minutes on this spot, at this hour, is
worth a journey to Seville; but it is vain to rate the worth of what
stands alone, and which furnishes a new standard to rate the resources
of art, the genius of man, and the beauty of nature. All are here
combined within the majesty of a temple consecrated to the highest aims
of life, and the hopes of eternity. This effect of the evening sun I
thus described in a letter, at the moment of witnessing it:--
“I was passing the cathedral nearly at sunset. I went in intending
merely to pass through: it was very dark--the light from the western
windows streamed like a phantasmagoria. I got the sacristan to let
me into the choir, and I sat down on the archbishop’s throne at the
bottom of the chancel, opposite the high altar, with my back to the
light, which, passing over the choir, fell full on the upper part
of the screen. It was not white light, but deeply-coloured, and the
distance from the window blended the tints, so that it came like a
rainbow-cloud, and the groups passed through every variety of hue.
The light shifted as it changed; it moved, ascending always to other
groups, and in the gloom they shone like visions in the sky. The birth,
fall, and redemption of the human race, was the story of that wall.
The rays then ascended, and caused to shine forth the Apostles, and
finally the Calvary was brought to light. The kneeling Marys appeared,
not cased in tracery or canopied in Gothic fret-work,--the depths of
the temple were beyond them;--then the sacrifice of the cross, limb by
limb; came forth, and just as the light reached and showed the outlines
of the Saviour’s head and face, averted from its glow, a peal of a
distant organ echoed through the roofs, and a moment after voices,
as of angels in the clouds, supplied the tones of praises which the
overpowered lips of the beholder refused to utter. The light was for a
moment lost in the intervening space, and then struck on the groined
ribs of the arches above, changing them to rainbows. The orb of the sun
touched the horizon; the rays glowed fiery red and remotely yellow, and
then all was grey--the vision was gone--the natural light brought back
the earth. But I am not recovered, and write now, still tremulous under
the unearthly glow of that departing sun--the sudden burst of that
choral peal.”
It was days before I could deliberate. I was distracted between the
effects it presented and the thoughts it inspired. The vistas of aisles
upon aisles; the beauteous curves; the tall aspiring lines; the dark
embrowning shades! There was light, but it was enshrined in gloom,
and was ever undergoing change as the sun went round, or the clouds
flitted across,--I went there to expose my mind to its influence, as
we set plants in the sun that they may grow. It is sublime--there is
nothing for display; it is simple--there is nothing for effect; it
is harmonious, for it is all alike and true to itself. Its vastness
would not be grand without its symmetry, nor its beauty harmonious
without its size;--magnificent in its simplicity, manifold in its
unity, it is but man’s performance, yet it elevates our conception of
God’s chief work. Yet our “advanced age” can only gaze with stupid
bewilderment[324] on achievements such as these, whether of art or
polity.
This glorious cavern, during the Holy Week, is decked out in crimson
brocade. In the centre of the nave the monument itself, an imposing
structure, is reared; and the high altar, dark and solemn throughout
the remainder of the year, presents a blaze of light before a shrine
of silver: and then within these walls and from that temple, the bell
tolls and the horn echoes, and before the altar is heard the click
of the castanet, and seen the solemn dance of Jewish and classical
antiquity.
This cathedral is unrivalled in several other respects. It possesses
the finest organ, vestry, and sacristy in the world; the largest amount
of silver plate and jewels: the paintings are of greater value and
number than in any other church; the largest work, or rather monument,
in silver, in the world, is the _Gloria_, placed behind the high altar
in the Holy Week: it is twenty-five feet in height; it was made from
the first-fruits of the mines of America, and saved during the war from
French sacrilege.
I did not fully estimate this cathedral till I entered that of York.
The nave of the one is not equal to the aisles of the other. At York
there is but one aisle, and the flat wall stops the sight immediately
beyond it. The double side-aisles at Seville are equal in height to the
nave and transept at York. Three cathedrals of York might stand, as
to width, in that of Seville. In York there is more glass than wall,
and these are whitewashed: its windows are its glory--their absence
is the splendour of Seville. The vastness of the one is increased by
its gloom, the size of the other diminished by its glare: the one may
excite admiration, curiosity--the other inspires awe. The want of
uniformity in the building and arches at York, brings into evidence
the harmony of the Seville church; for the perfect Gothic[325] reigns
throughout, although four centuries elapsed between its foundation and
completion. In York, the windows and the arches are more acute, the
vault more obtuse. The difference indeed is slight, but is quite enough
to shock the eye when fresh from the unblemished symmetry of the other.
In the lower part of the screen separating the chancel of York from
the nave, the fifteen British kings, from William I. to Henry VI., are
placed in niches under Gothic canopies. Suppose this row of figures
with infinitely more luxurious embellishments, extended a third in
length, and expanded upwards by four or five additional stories, and
you would then have an idea of the _retablo_ high altar of Seville.
When we look on the tombs, the Nile, the heaps of Babylon, the symmetry
of the Erectheum, or the pillared precipices of Syracuse, we are
lifted into the times of those who have left these traces of skill
and greatness. Had the Sevillians disappeared from the earth, in what
rank should we have placed them? The ancient claims of Britain rest on
Westminster Hall; the revived aspirations of the fatherland of Germany
clusters around Cologne; the glory of the Church of the West is St.
Peter’s, as St. Sophia was of that of the East; yet are each outdone
and all surpassed by the work of a provincial corporation, who chanced
one day to resolve they should “build such a cathedral that future
ages would call them mad.” No monarch ordered the plan, no empire
furnished the means. This masterpiece was planned and reared by hands
unknown; the wealth was furnished by hard-earned gains and persevering
parsimony. Well may the Andalusian speak of his “kingdom,” not his
province. What means “_great nations_” when a province can accomplish
such works?[326] When the arts flourished in Italy, there were great
men and small states; so in Spain, the age of art reveals the
independence which belonged to her provinces. What was the universal
monarchy of Philip II., when the Cabildo (the Arab tribe) which raised
the cathedral without his aid, existed despite his power?
A modern English traveller[327] regrets that so much wealth should thus
lie unproductive, and suggests its employment _to put an end_ (he wrote
at the time) to the civil war--that is, to extinguish the liberty of
the Basques! Was an Englishman alone to be found to propose the robbery
of one of these provinces to aid in _the treacherous design against
another_?
[324] “Ici l’œuvre seule de l’homme suffit pour écraser
l’homme.”--A. DUMAS.
[325] The perfect Gothic is the arch composed of two
segments of a circle described from the spring of the opposite
arch, as a centre; and the proportion of the span to the
height--a point not noted in any work upon architecture--is
at Seville in the diameter of the circle from the impact of
the arch to the floor.
[326] “Aujourd’hui, parce que nostre France n’obéit qu’à
un seul roy nous sommes contraints, si nous voulons parvenir
à quelque honneur, de parler son langage; autrement nostre
labeur, tant fut-il honorable et parfait, serait estimé peu
de chose on peut estre totalement mesprisé.”--ROUSARD,
_Abr. de l’Art Poet._ p. 1628.
[327] The author of “A Summer in Andalusia.”
CHAPTER III.
SPANISH PAINTING.
One is accustomed to think of Spanish artists as pupils only, even
when rivals of the great masters with whom we are familiar. Such, at
least, was my impression, and accordingly, no less was my surprise and
suspense than delight, at the first glance at the “Murillo Chamber,” at
Seville. The picture which faced me, as I entered, was Christ bending
from the cross to embrace St. Felix, of Cantalicio--I might have
taken it for Vandyke: next came a St. Joseph, equally admirable, yet
different; then a San Leandro--the one might have been from the pencil
of Dominichino, the other of Titian; and so I turned, from picture to
picture, finding new rivals to every standard and style of excellence.
The question then arose of comparison between the Spanish, the Italian,
and Flemish schools. Afterwards, at Madrid, I visited repeatedly the
Spanish collections, to possess myself thoroughly with them before
visiting the Italian and Flemish galleries. A severer test I could
not apply, for the gallery of the foreign schools, at Madrid, is the
richest in the world. Here are the grander compositions of Vandyke.
One of Raphael, the _Spasimo_, might, if in the Vatican, displace from
its throne the Transfiguration. Three or four masterpieces, besides
ten others, are from Raphael’s pencil, and form a collection of his
works equal to that of the Vatican. Of Titian, there is a gallery in
itself--no less than forty paintings all on a large scale. Amongst
these is the celebrated one of “Fruitfulness;” a flock of cherubs,
just as you may see chickens collected under an inverted basket in the
streets of any Spanish town, and which, if anything, would eclipse
or rival Murillo in the gracefulness and variety of his infantine
conceptions. The result of the comparison was to relieve me from the
restraint of habit, and I could, with conviction and boldness now
assert, that in painting, Spain has no rival.
The Spanish school is most various; but in all its varieties it
is natural. It has no particular manner:--manner is no more than
systematic or constitutional failing.[328] It is the error to which a
man is liable, and which, when he founds a system and instructs others,
is more readily caught by his pupils than his merits,--a colourless
and unblemished glass is invisible. We become sensible of its presence
by its changing the hue or distorting the ray. And so manner in
painting either perverts or obscures nature.
Nature, in her varieties, has a counterpart in the Spanish school. She
is represented darkly in Ribera and Roelas, mildly in Cano, richly in
Morales, boldly in Zurbaran, brightly in Velasquez, divinely in Murillo.
The school of Spain is solemn. The subjects which were alone worthy to
be immortalized, were those which pertained to immortality, and art
was dignified no less in its application than its powers. Painting
was a religious exercise. The enthusiasm of art was linked to fervour
of faith. The studio was an oratory, and “each work was commenced and
prosecuted with fasting and prayer.”[329] The lords were the convents;
the inmates were sons at once of the founder and of the peasant. For
these Spanish art exercised her calling, not to please the caprice of
a virtuoso, or to tapestry the walls of a Sybarite. Seville or Cordova
presented no Flemish pot-houses. In the productions of their masters,
there was none of the extravagant mythology of a Rubens, or the more
finished lasciviousness of a Titian; no dissecting-room of a Michael
Angelo; none of the finery of a Paolo Veronese. There were neither
allegories, portraits, nor giants wrestling with the rocks.
The stranger who visits only Madrid will be surprised at such a
description, for he has there seen what is called the “Spanish Rooms,”
filled with portraits, allegories, extravagances, dwarfs, heathen gods,
and historical compositions, and these constitute in his eyes the
masterpieces of Spanish art. The reason is this; that at Madrid are
collected the paintings of Velasquez, who is so far Spanish only as the
want of manner makes him so. Born in Seville, he became a Madrileño,
and a parasite. His pictures are all at the capital, and in the style
suited to the taste of foreigners. The Spaniards of the capital esteem
their painter, and are reacted upon by the estimation in which he is
held by foreigners.
The thought in all things comes before the execution. What would the
work of him who chiselled the Apollo Belvidere have been, if applied to
the person of a Souter Johnny? So the art of Velasquez was expended on
Philips and abortions. His paintings are common-place domestic scenes,
or they are classical, and there he parodies the poets of Greece and
travesties their gods. His chief works are beautiful caricatures in
oil, without satire and without fun. Before returning to Murillo and
Seville, I must say a few words of his chief works.
_Vulcan’s Forge_ is an exquisitely finished group of naked Spaniards,
with arms, breasts, shoulders, and loins developed. They are heavy
below, as if trampers, not blacksmiths; nor have they been hardened
and bronzed by exposure to the air, the furnace, or the sun: they have
had their clothes taken off within the hour: the shirts must have
been filthy; the bodies are unwashed. The picture is an exposure
of nakedness. The walls of the place, and the manners, and the
countenances, would appear rather an effort to unidealize the Greek,
than to raise the modern to a conception of ancient poetry. In it there
is the genius of painting, not the painting of a man of genius.
_The Belidores._ Drunkards; or, Bacchus among his Companions.--These
are Castilian peasants engaged in a most un-Spanish debauch. One naked,
and bearing a classic wreath, personates Bacchus, with a maudlin
solemnity on a sensual countenance. Another presents a full face of
coarse and stupid laughter, and wears on his head something between
a Spaniard’s sombrero and an Irish hat. This is the picture Wilkie
selected from out the treasures of Madrid, to admire, to study, to
imitate; copying and recopying it, and so fixing in his own mind the
physiognomy of the laughing drunkard with the Irish hat, as thence to
bring forth a numerous progeny, sometimes with a hat more, sometimes
less, the worse for wear.
_The Spinners._ A Flemish picture, as seen through a magnifying glass:
the scene such as Teniers or Ostade might have selected. Two women,
a young and an old one, are sitting spinning at the wheel. Between
them the back shop is seen with customers and tapestry exposed for
sale--and, therefore, this is a painting highly admired by the English.
The back-ground is remarkable for its light, or rather for the shades;
for painting, like the magic lantern, produces brightness by shutting
out the light. Wilkie said of Velasquez, “he paints the very air we
breathe;” just so a clear and perfect mirror might be described as
glass. One of the pictures of the same master has been called “The
Theology of Painting,” and another, “The Philosophy of Light.” His
perspectives and distances are not rendered by lines, or by any
peculiarity of construction or drawing. He put on the canvas what he
saw.
If it is wonderful to see a limb or a figure, even when all the picture
is consecrated to that effort, break forth, as it were, from the dead
surface and rise towards you, how much more to behold that canvas fly
open and spread back, so that by the aid of a tremulous ray, breaking
across it here and there, you may see around and distinguish things,
places, and persons! This is the triumph of the art of painting, and
here Velasquez stands alone.
_The Studio._--Here, like one of those vaudevilles, in which the wings
of a stage are represented, and you hear the plaudits of another
audience “within”--the artist is seen at the corner of his picture,
the back of it being towards you. There are a dog, dwarfs, and a
lady-in-waiting in attendance on an infantine Infanta, who is standing
for her portrait. The presence of the royal parents is signified
by another stage-claptrap--their reflection in a mirror. All the
figures are splendid as separate parts, but there is no dignity in any
expression, or any purpose in the whole. When Philip saw this picture,
he said, “One thing is wanting,” and taking the palette and the brush,
he traced the cross of St. Jago on the artist’s breast.
_The Surrender of Breda_--or the Picture, as it, is called, of the
Lances,--from the number and the thickness of the forest of these that
appear to the right. This is indeed a grand composition. It owes its
power to its being a portrait and a history of the chief figure. The
noble and chivalrous Spinola, with an expression of courteous grief, is
bending down, and laying his hand upon the shoulder of his commonplace
and stern, though vanquished, opponent. The exaltation of triumph
is subdued. The victor’s thoughts are with the unfortunate. What a
representation of victory! Here, for once, the correctness of the eye
has supplied the place of the sight of the mind, and his pencil, like
Allan’s in the Polish Exiles, was above himself.
The last I shall notice is his Christ upon the Cross,--the only picture
of this description, with one exception, which I have found among
seventy. It is an immortal work.
I cannot quit the Gallery of Madrid without some notice of an incident
which fixed two pictures especially on my memory in the description
of the Gallery. The two subjoined pictures will be found in Murray’s
Hand-book, “No. 121,--_Prometheus_, a finely painted picture of GORE
and BOWELS; _such alone as could be conceived by a bull-fighter_, and
_please a people whose sports are blood and torture_. How different
from the same subject by the poetical Titian, See No. 787.” “No. 787,
_Prometheus_,”--compare the _poetical treatment by our Italian_, with
121, the BUTCHER PRODUCTION of the practical Spaniard, Ribera: it is
“Æschylus to Torquemada.” I fancied, having examined the two pictures,
that the writer had mistaken the one for the other; I therefore
returned to the Museum, Guidebook in hand, and remained satisfied that
it was the deliberate purpose of the writer to represent the pictures
as he has done.
The _Prometheus_ of Titian (121), lies on his back on the earth, with
the heels in the air: the top of the head is the lowest part of the
figure, and towards _the spectator_;--_the face is consequently not
seen_. The hero of Æschylus first endures reproach in silent scorn,
and then bursts forth in indignation, claiming unbounded merit for his
works.[330] He stands, his face to his accusers and to heaven. Here is
a man lying on his back! was thought or suffering to be expressed in a
head of shaggy hair? How treat with paint a subject poetically without
action and without feature? This, Prometheus! the _fore-thinker_--this,
the stealer of fire from heaven! It is a corpse revived and cast upon
the rocks; and the picture, if that of a poet, must have been designed
to represent the deluge. The only animated portion of the composition
is the eagle--he is] the predominating figure perched upon the body;
for by the manner of the fastenings, the man, if not quite dead, could
easily have driven him away. The Prometheus of Æschylus is bound so
that the winged dog of Jupiter may come undisturbed to his uninvited
daily feast. This is no eagle; it is a vulture feeding on carrion: the
colouring is from the dissecting-room--but not the anatomy. The bird
has laid bare an enormous surface of the putrid flesh, somewhere about
the breast, where there could be no such exposure of muscle, and to
which, moreover, the eagle’s commission did not extend. Such is “the
poetical treatment by our Italian.”
In No. 787, the Spanish master has painted a man full of life, not
lying where he has been tossed, but held where he is bound. His body
writhes; one hand supports him off the ground, the other is raised
either in agony or supplication. The drawn lineaments of the face and
the expanded mouth, make you listen for the cry it is about to utter,
or which has died away. The tormentor is without his reach, and is
_unseen_--you may distinguish where he is, but you have to strain the
sight to penetrate the gloom in which he broods;--there is no doubt of
the presence of the one, or of the cause of the agony of the other; for
from the slightly gashed _side_,[331] a filament is being drawn away.
This is the “blood-battered subject,” the “butcher production of gore
and bowels” of our Spaniard.
Ribera’s Prometheus would not stand were a Daniel brought to judgment,
for the eagle takes a Shylock’s share, having no more right to the
entrail, which he is suffered to pilfer by the Spaniard, than to the
carrion on which he is gorged by the Italian.
Who ever painted such children as Murillo?--the cherubs of Raphael
are statuettes; those of Rubens, fœtuses; Murillo’s are children and
cherubs. The brood is as prolific as the type is beautiful--golden,
rosy, dimpled, sporting in troops, or flying in flocks, and then
gathered into his canvas--light as the air; bright as the rainbow, yet
of flesh and blood; full of life and grace, of vigour and ease, of
health and gladness.
Who ever painted such virgins? The Madonnas of Italy are matrons
and mothers. Mary holds her Child, or she gazes on Him as she shows
Him,--it is maternal love. The Marys of Murillo are scarcely past
the verge of childhood; the cheeks are full and ruddy; the form is
plump. There is the ethereal, but it is in the expression: the face
is upturned, the large eye raised, and the mouth half open, the hands
pressed across the breast. The figure is erect--the size natural. They
are never the same to look upon, and yet each can only be described
in the same words as the rest. These bright Virgins in the sky, these
laughing cherubs in the clouds, fill the canvas of Murillo with joy and
innocence.
The gallery of Seville consists of a convent and its church. The rooms,
cloisters, and corridors are all lined with paintings; the church
is, in like manner, filled with them, high and low and all around.
One chamber is set apart for Murillo: in it eighteen or nineteen
of his chief works, nearly all the size of life, are collected. In
reviewing them at an interval of nineteen months, it is impossible
for me to say to which I would give the preference. One he used to
call “_my_ picture.” It is the St. Thomas of Villanueva, Archbishop of
Valencia, distributing alms. It draws neither on the tender nor the
ideal, and the selection indicates not the judgment of the artist,
but the disposition of the man. “The Adoration of the Shepherds,”
is, in colouring and conception, not unlike the “Repose in Egypt” of
Correggio, at Parma.
Santa Justa and Rufina sustaining the Giralda, is beautifully executed,
but incongruous and out of nature, and has neither the pure tints nor
the deep dyes of the painter. The celebrated Señora de la Servilleta
is a gipsy woman of Triana. I have mentioned these two as the pictures
which pleased me the least; although in the St. Felix receiving the
Child from the Virgin, how charmingly are infancy, young womanly
beauty, and ripe old age grouped and pourtrayed! It is three pictures,
not one. That of St. Antonio is fervour without fanaticism. Leandro
is majestic and triumphant prelacy, in Venetian brocade, under an
oriental sun. Like to it are the two ideal portraits, or rather real
portraits, under the names of Leandro and Isidore in the sacristy of
the cathedral. There are three Conceptions--_una de diversâ_--blooming
maidens in the same attitude, arrayed in white and blue, with angels
in the clouds; and yet there is no monotony. They have the serenity
of beauty of the Sevillian maidens, by whom Murillo’s pencil was
inspired; but the fulness of the lower part of the face reminded me
of the women of modern Rome--the grave, dark-eyed, thoughtful Romans.
The Saint Joseph with the Infant Jesus is a high-minded Jew, and the
child, a prodigy. This picture recalls one in the cathedral which I
may here notice, as in speaking of that building I could think of
nothing but itself. The picture I mean is, the “Guardian Angel.” An
angel leads a child and points to heaven: the figures are less than
life. The picture is dark, the tints are not clear, the outline not
distinct: there is no grace in the form of either, no beauty in the
face; yet in this consists the triumph of the master--the inward mind
shines through the veil, and you are sent at once to the inspiration
that has descended, and to the innocence that looks up. This picture
is an admirable exponent of the imaginative temperament of Murillo. He
could revere, and hope, and wonder, to bring forth by pencil-strokes,
the compassionate calm, with the benevolent anxiety of the angel’s face
and the trustingness of that of the child--mingled with the searching
expression that follows the angel’s finger, as to find the heavenly
realms which those alone like it, can seek or see!
The church at the Museum contains the St. Thomas of Zurbaran--held
by some to be the finest picture in the world; the St. Dominic, a
remarkable carving in wood, by Montañes; and masterpieces by almost
all the Sevillian school. I had visited it several times, scarcely
noticing two or three pictures by Murillo, placed there as not worthy
of admission to the “Murillo Chamber.” One of these, however, haunted
me after leaving the Museum. Next morning, and at the earliest hour
admittance could be gained, I went to examine it. It was a Virgin, but
of a different order from his other Virgins--colossal, looking, not up
to heaven, but down on earth; the hands joined and raised, not crossed
upon the bosom; the eye cast down, the ball covered. It is not the full
front figure upstretched; the left knee rests upon a cloud, yet the
right foot is planted with the firmness of a statue. The dishevelled
hair flows not on the shoulders, but streams wildly; and the dark blue
mantle is whirled about and carried away. The picture is divided into
two zones,--the upper one of gold--the sun; the lower one frigid and
pale. She floats between heaven and earth. The picture is placed high
in the apse. As you approach and recede, she seems now to ascend and
now to descend. You cannot tell whether it is an angel coming down to
men, or a saint rising to the sky.
His other Virgins are beautiful;--this one is heroic: his other figures
are flesh and blood, this one is of marble. His other Marys are timid,
hopeful, innocent; this is one of consciousness. The others are
absorbed and ecstatic; this is a youthful Juno--the Spanish form. The
Andalusian features give way to the ideal lines of the Greeks. His
other Virgins wear the outward expression of some mental character
associating the weakness of humanity with the beauty of nature. Here
there is no part you can singly grasp; no feature you can separate,
explain, or admire;--fleeting like the cloud, it dazzles like the sun.
The vision enters as the tones of music, and returns on the memory like
a vessel’s track in the night.
Such was the vision which Petrarch beheld when he exclaimed, “Beautiful
Virgin! clothed with the sun, crowned by the stars, and so pleasing
to the sun that his light he has hidden in thee!” No wonder that the
Andalusian peasants’ salutation should be, “Santa Maria purissima,” or
the reply, “Sin peccado concebida.”[332]
The “Virgin of the Franciscans” is amongst pictures what the Apollo
Belvidere is among statues--a constellation of heavenly graces. I felt
that it must have a history. I turned over such books as were within
reach, but found no mention of it, except in one recent publication,
where it is noticed as an extravagant production that had corrupted the
taste of Seville; but, on inquiring among the Sevillians, I found that
my anticipations were not vain.
Imagine Murillo in the fulness of his years, and still in the height
of his power, called upon by the corporation of the Cathedral to paint
a Virgin for that edifice, to crown at once that unrivalled work, and
his own unequalled fame. Imagine him pacing that hall, raising his
eyes to its vault, and his mind to the effort. This was not to be a
picture to be placed on a wall, enclosed in a chapel, or screened on an
altar-frame: it was to be an emblem of descending charity and ascending
prayer, radiating through its vastness, and filling its space. Go
then to the Museum and contemplate the “Virgin of the Franciscans,”
and you will understand why she looks down--why her joined hands are
raised--why she is colossal--how she is sublime.
When the picture was finished, the Cabildo _proceeded_ to judge of it,
and exclaimed: _Ayach che mamarachio_, “Oh! what a daub.” Murillo made
a present of it to the Franciscans, the advocates of the _essential_
purity of the Virgin. It was suspended under the dome of their church:
all Seville poured forth to behold it, the Cabildo among the rest.
The Cabildo was personified in a Sevillian connoisseur, who was
offended at my admiration. “If you saw it close,” said he, “as I have,
you would think nothing of it.” It was useless to tell him that it
was designed for the other side of a gulf--that it was painted to
represent the heavens; to be seen from--not to touch--the earth.
The critic pointed to the contradictions of the cloak flying on the
right side, and the hair on the left;--in vain I answered that it was
not a ship, and that in that distraction of the elements, in which
she stands motionless, consisted the poetry of the work. Murillo has
filled the Caridad; and hence his pictures have been less scattered.
There are, however, five vacant spaces. Of two the robber still
retains possession; two he has sold to an English duke, who has
hitherto mistaken the pleasure of possessing a good picture for that
of performing a good deed; the fifth, on its way back from Paris, was
detained at the Academy of Madrid. _Taste_ being as good a _plea for
plunder_ as philanthropy: sense or anger suggested to the Sevillians to
leave the place of these pictures vacant--they have hung curtains on
the empty spaces: seven still remain. Two of these are the largest he
has painted, and represent multitudes--the Distribution of loaves and
fishes, and Moses striking the rock;--two are Annunciations, in very
different styles, the one bright and beautiful, the other large, dark,
and solemn; in this one the Virgin is the _beau idéal_ of a Sevillian
in her mantilla;--two are gems in size as well as worth,--a John the
Baptist and an infant Christ: the former is especially beautiful:--the
seventh is a St. Juan di Dios, the founder of hospitals--a dark
picture. The saint is carrying a sick man to the hospital, and an
angel, a tall youth with outspread wings, is supporting him. Opposite
to it hangs a curtain--let me raise it.
In the vesture of a nun, with the halo of a saint and the crown of
a queen, Isabella stands over a boy whose head she is laving. The
boy bends over a large silver vessel, from which the reflected light
illumines his flushed face and winking eye, leaning on the stool which
supports the basin: he is suffering, but patient, under the hands that
perform the office. How the soft fingers hold--yet scarcely touch--the
head!--how gently they apply the napkin! Beside her stands a maiden
with a golden jewelled ewer; she watches till the cloth is dry;--an
elderly lady looks from behind to counsel and aid her mistress. A
second attendant carries a tray with ointment, and over her shoulder,
in eastern fashion, hangs a lace embroidered napkin. The service is
regal, not dramatic. There are other patients ready to be served.
An old man in front is unbinding his leg; another is limping in on
crutches from behind: there is no crowd, but there is work prepared
for these lovely hands. The queen’s eyes are averted from the sores
beneath her touch, and rest on an old woman below, whose upturned face
reveals awe and gratitude. The sores on the boy’s head show the blush
of granulation; but the care of the queen is still required. Who said
the painting made him smell the sore?[333]--it is clean and washed and
healthy.
There are here no forms of unnatural beings--no forced images--no
angels’ wings: it is Isabella in her palace, amidst her ladies, at her
ordinary work--nothing that is not simple; nothing that is not true;
nothing pictured except that which has been; and pictured that it may
prompt others to do the same--nothing that is not common, save that
such deeds are as rare as the hands by which they are here performed.
Amongst living beings I have seen one whose life is told in this
picture--and it is her portrait. Murillo must have known some such one;
from her life derived the thought, and from her face the model. She
bears no resemblance to his Virgins. There are here no ideal lines--no
blushing tints; no childlike innocence is here--that face is mild and
solemn, and full of care and tenderness. He must have seen it in a
sister.[334]
This picture is now in the Academy at Madrid, with two of his
masterpieces,--the Dream of the Roman Patrician. The Virgin appeared
to him, directing him to build the Church of St. Maria Maggiore. The
second represents him narrating his dream to the Pope. This head is the
original, which Wilkie has copied for his great picture of Columbus.
He was painting it when I first saw that artist, and I was struck by
it as singularly inappropriate. I now saw how he had selected it--here
it was masterly because suited to the character represented. It is
without power, elevation, or resolution; but is noble, soft, pious,
and munificent. Wilkie admired it as the founder of a Basilicon, and
placed it on the shoulders of the discoverer of America.
The Isabella pourtrays charity; the “sleeping Patrician”--rest. The
one abstracts the soul from surrounding things; the other subjects you
to them:--you lighten your step and fear to tread. The Roman is seated
in a chair by the table, on which lies his closed book; he has gently
dropped asleep, his head resting on his hand. Nothing is recumbent,
but all is still: it is the rest of the spirit rather than the slumber
of the frame: the spirit is elsewhere; the sleep so light, yet the
abstraction so deep, that you watch for a breathing. The light falls
on his reclining head from the vision of Mary and her child above.
On the floor near his feet, seated by her work--the work laid down
and her head reclining on a cushion--his daughter lies in profound
slumber: her dog, curled at her feet, is asleep too. The picture--no,
the chamber--is otherwise in darkness. By what door did he enter? Hush!
lest they awake!
To see this picture, close the windows.
I took leave of Murillo. This was the last of his great works that I
looked upon; its tone the last to dwell on mine eyes, mingling with
those of the St. Isabella and the Mary of the Franciscans, which
constitute it in my mind the ideal of painting.
I cannot suppress my indignation at such masterpieces being kept and
shown in gilt gaudy frames, and huddled together like the wares of
an old curiosity shop. The eye is tortured by the glare, and the mind
oppressed by the numbers. They were painted for altar-pieces; they
were designed to dwell in the glare of the Temple; to be gazed upon by
the kneeling penitent on the floor. How is it that, with our virtuoso
faith, our religion of sentiment, no one dreams of replacing them on
their thrones or pedestals, where, with nothing to distract the thought
or oppress the eye, they may, if no longer fitted to inspire devotion,
at least fill and raise the heart.
Our age has produced a descriptive epic, of which Italy is the scene
and heroine. Her fortune, ruins, arts, monuments, are the incidents;
the works of her genius are transmuted into verse; and if the marble
perished, the Venus and the Gladiator in Childe Harold, would live.
But where are the St. John, the Holy Family, the Transfiguration,
the Last Supper, the Flight into Egypt, the Descent from the Cross,
the Last Judgment? How is it that sculpture’s rainbow-sister has
claimed no tribute, and inspired no strain--that all things in Italy
are there but Raphael, Titian, Guido, and the Caracci? After seeing
Murillo I understood this blank. Byron in his portraits of statues,
enters upon no artistic disquisitions--they were to him the subject
they represented, as if seen in life, or conceived in fancy; and he
brings back from the marble to flesh and blood, and discovers as such
the struggle of the Trojan father and the disdainful majesty of the
archer-god. The failing head of the Dacian awakens the scene and
circumstances of his end, and the great and beautiful grief of the
Phrygian mother recalls the desolation of the mother-mistress of cities
and of the world. Where was the painting in Italy possessed of such a
spell?
I may now confess that in Italy I never saw a picture that satisfied my
judgment, however much it may have excited my admiration. In admiring
one or more, there was an internal struggle to impose upon myself a
standard of excellence, in what was the most excellent of known works.
The canvases of Murillo reconciled me to myself, by presenting a
higher level, or at least a more perfect adaptation. Other masters may
have been in artistic powers superior to Murillo, but he excels in a
perfect knowledge and judgment of himself in reference to the ends of
art. What mortal power or genius could present a Transfiguration so
that it should be natural? What truth could there be in the struggle
of the Giants and Jupiter? Could you be transported in spirit to
the foreground of Purgatory, of the Last Judgment, of a beleaguered
Fortress, or a contested Field? What art could render simple an
assembly of the gods? The painting might be exquisite, but the attempt
would overpower the master, or the subject would be beneath his power.
It has been remarked, that when a person becomes an admirer of Murillo,
he is wholly fascinated and incapable of all discrimination, admires
his master’s defects and despises all others’ merit. I feel that
fascination--if fascination it be--where you clearly see the cause.
No other painter ever awakened in me curiosity. In him there is the
metaphysician no less than the artist. In other painters you may admire
the painting--in other pictures the painter. In Murillo it is the
poet. Colour is his verse, light and shadow his metre; and his were
dreams rather than poetry; or he dreamed as a poet and painted when
he awoke. There is no drama in his scenes--it is ecstacy or thought.
From the metaphysics of the mind he passed to the psychology of the
face: he painted no portraits, and yet every head is one. He selected
the head as pourtraying the character, and the character to suit the
picture. It is not the beauty of form, but the innate connexion between
mind and form which nature herself has traced in making the face the
mirror of the mind which he stretched forth his hand to grasp. His
own portrait I therefore inquired after, to see if I could recognise
the man: it is painted by one of his best pupils. I have already said
that I have recognised his “Isabella.” When I meet his “Patrician,” I
shall recognise him in like manner. When I saw his own picture I was
startled most; for it is the portrait of one who of all living men
has exhibited, in the same qualities--that of judging of himself in
reference to his work--Lord Metcalfe. Ordinary men resemble not their
parents but their age. Extraordinary men of every age are those who
can preserve their own likeness, and having a likeness of their own to
preserve, resemble each other.
[328] “The Spanish artists usually endeavoured to produce
an exact imitation of material nature; _while the Italians
aimed at, and attained higher results_. The object of the
Spaniards being less difficult of attainment, the perfection
with which they imitated nature, passes conception. To that
they devoted all the energies of their genius; while you may
search in vain in the best productions of Italy,--not excepting
the school of Venice, one that most resembles the Spanish,--for
anything approaching their success in that respect.”--WELLS’S
_Art. Antiquities of Spain_, p. 361.
[329] These words apply specially to Vicente de Juanes,
founder of the School of Valencia.
[330] “βραχεῖ δὲ μύθῳ, πάντα συλλήβδην μάθε·
Πᾶσαι τέχναι βροτοῖσιν ἐκ Προμηθέως.
[brachei de mythô, panta syllêbdên mathe;
Pasai technai brotoisin ek Promêtheôs.]”
[331] In fact Ribera might have taken greater license.
“Διὸς δέ τοι
κτηνὸς κύων, δαφοινὸς ἀετὸς, λάβρως
διαρταμήσει σώματος μέγα ῥάκος,
ἄκλητος ἕρπων δαιταλεὺς πανήμερος,
κελαινόβρωτον δ’ ἧπαρ ἐκθοινήσεται.”
“[Dios de toi
ktênos kyôn, daphoinos aetos, labrôs
diartamêsei sômatos mega rhakos,
aklêtos herpôn diataleus panêmeros,
kelainobrôton d’ hêpar ekthoinêsetai.]”
[332] That the Virgin was born without sin, is a dogma
of the Catholic church. The disputes with reference to this
subject bear on the mode, viz., whether by retractive grace,
or by an original miracle. I mention this, in consequence
of the extravagances on this head, which are introduced
into Murray’s “Handbook.”
[333] Murillo said of the picture of the Dead Prelate,
by Valdez, and which stood next to this picture at the
_caridad_, that he “could not look at it without holding
his nose.” It represents putrefaction.
[334] I find in Mr. Stirling’s work on “Spanish Artists,”
that Murillo had a sister. I find there nothing to contradict,
but everything to confirm, the history of Murillo which his
brush had taught me.
CHAPTER IV.
PELEA DE NAVAJA.--THE OLD SPANISH SWORD.
A Sevillian whom I was questioning about the frequent assassinations,
astonished me by denying that there were any. “What you hear of,” said
he, “as murders are duels.” I objected the _knife_;--he said, “Well,
the knife; that is our weapon; we fence, we do not stab; the duel has
its laws, the weapon its science.” I thought this must be a figurative
manner of describing some rude point of honour, and asked him to show
me in what consisted the science. “I am not expert,” he said; “but
if you are curious I will take you to a friend of mine, whom you can
engage, as he is the best player in Seville; and, since the death of
Montez, in all Andalusia.”
I begged immediately to be conducted to the _yueçador_, and was
introduced to the inner apartment; which--as he united the calling
of contrabandist to that of fencing-master--was filled with bales of
tobacco. The subject was broached as a matter of business. He was
willing to give me lessons, but would not undertake to _teach_ me. If
I had natural dispositions I might learn “to play” in three months,
taking Time by the forelock. I proposed commencing at once; and next
morning he came to me by day-light, at the inn--for it required a large
room. A wooden dagger is used for a foil: it is about eight inches
long, and in form like the old sacrificial knife: it is held by the
closed fingers, the thumb stretching along the blade, and the edge
turned inward. Round the left arm is wound the jacket as a shield.
My teacher, putting himself in attitude, at once reminded me of the
fighting Gladiator. He thus commenced: “You must hold your right hand
down upon your thigh; you must never _raise it till sure of your
blow_. Your feints must be with the eye--the eye, hand and leg must
move together. When you look here, you must strike there, and spring
when you have cut, _corta y huya_. The left arm must be kept high, the
right hand low, the knees bent, the legs wide, the toes forward, ready
to spring back or forward. There are three cuts and three parries;
one point,--the point is low and at the belly--St. George’s _au bas
ventre_: the cut must be across the muscle on the shoulder or the
breast, or down well into the groin, so as to let out the bowels.
Unless you know _how to cut_, it is of no use knowing how to fence.”
He knew nothing of our fencing, and was much surprised when I made
application of it, and attributed the advantages it gave to a natural
instinct for the art. The result was, that in a week he had gone
through the whole course, and the last day of my stay at Seville,
he brought two of the proficients, and we had a regular _assault
d’armes_, the guests at the hotels being spectators. He honoured me at
the introduction by saying, that he feared me more than either of his
two compeers, because I sprang better than the one, and cut better than
the other.
The attitudes are a study for an artist. There are not the stiff
figures and sharp angles of our fencing; but the rounded limb, the
gathered-up muscle, the balanced body:--instead of the glance of the
steel there is that of the eye. The weapon is concealed under the hand,
and pointing down, so that not a ray betokens it. There is no boxer’s
fist or cestus, no crusader’s helm or hauberk, no Roman’s sword or
shield. It seemed as if the hands and the eye of the man were equal
to the claw of the tiger, or the tusk of the boar. It was a combat of
beasts rather than a contest of men. There was the ambling pace, the
slouching gait of the panther or the lion, or, rather, it was a mixture
of the snake and the frog; gliding like the one and springing like the
other. This is the war _of_ the knife, the _Pelea de Navaja_, falsely
interpreted war _to_ the knife.
After missing a blow with the right hand, the knife, by a dexterous
player, may be jerked into the left; but this, if unsuccessful, is
inevitable death. To jerk[335] it at your antagonist is not permitted
by the rules of the game. By a sudden spring an adversary’s foot may be
pinned after he has failed in a blow. The most deadly of these feints
is to strike the foot of your adversary sideways and so bring him down.
A celebrated Juccador named Montes (not the _Torero_), killed in this
manner eleven men, and was at last so killed himself.
The mantle or jacket round the left arm is used, not for the purpose
of catching the blow, but of striking off the adversary’s arm so that
he may not reach. The guarding arm is always within reach, but always
avoided; for to strike at it would leave your side open, and the safety
consists in keeping _under_ your adversary. The arms of the players
were all scarred; but that was in “love fights.” The edge of the knife
is then blunted, or a shoulder is put to it, as in the case of the
lances which they use with the bulls.
The Sevillian was right. This is not simple assassination: it is
not the stab given in the dark, though of course we could only so
understand a man being killed by a knife. A popular song at Seville
is, the lamentation of a man imprisoned for “stabbing” another:--he
exclaims against the wrong; justifies his legitimate defence of his
_maja_; calls upon the gaoler to testify to his treatment; and, failing
to obtain sympathy, rushes to the grates and appeals to the people:--
“Si venga gente pora aca!”
There is no song sung with more fervour by the ladies.
This is the most deadly weapon I know; the dirk, the cama, the dagger,
are grasped in the hand, and impelled by the leverage of the arm. The
navaja may be so used, or plunged right on end like the Hindoo dagger,
and also by the motion of the wrist alone: it more resembles mowing
with the scythe than thrusting with a poniard: it is accompanied by the
action of the sword, in which, as in fencing, the limbs come into play,
and thus serves the purpose of a defensive weapon. It is the origin of
our fencing; and against adversaries not acquainted with that art, or
not armed for it, it still retains all its ancient superiority:--in all
cases it would be a valuable accessory to other weapons, without being
an incumbrance, and serving for all the ordinary purposes of a knife.
[Illustration: clasp knife]
The navaja (pronounced _navakha_) is a clasp knife,--those worn by
professed players are a foot long when closed. There is a spring to
catch it behind, to prevent it closing on the hand. When opened there
is the click as in cocking a pistol, and the sound is said to delight
Andalusian equally with Irish ears. The art of fencing with it is
called _pelea de navaja_. Pelea has been derived from πελέα [pelea],
or πάλλος [pallos], of the Greeks; but I give it a higher origin. The
Pelethites and the Cerethites served in the armies of Judæa; and
though these were the names of two people, Hebrews seem to have borne
subsequently that name. One of these passed into Greece as Cretan, and
Creticus became synonymous with bowman. The Pelethites, doubtless, used
some other weapon, and what it was the πελέα [pelea] of the Greeks
and the Pelea of the Spaniards plainly show. Not that the navaja came
from Judæa: the word is Basque, an original term signifying to make
smooth, as with a knife. Had it belonged to the Iberi it would have
been Etruscan in all probability, and the Romans would not have called
it Spanish. Manlius Torquatus, indeed, used it when the Romans had no
connexion with Spain: so that it was in Italy, and of course amongst
the remnants of the Siculi and Itali--if these, as I have supposed,
were the same as the Hispani. It must have been preserved in the same
manner as the Spanish cap and shoes of which Seneca speaks.
The single combat between Manlius Torquatus and the Gaul, occurred
nearly two hundred years before the Romans set foot in Spain. The
appearance of this barbarian in his armour appalled the Romans; and the
champion, when found prepared for the combat, by laying aside his Roman
armour, was armed by his companions with other weapons. The historian
describes the combat as if--without understanding its peculiar feature,
_the mode of grasping the weapon_--he were describing a _Palea de
navaja_. “The Roman,” says Livy, “held his sword close to the thigh,
_with the point raised_, getting under the Gaul’s shield, and too
close for the stroke of his long sword; he then with a cut forwards
and back, slit his belly and let out his bowels.”[336] This would have
been impracticable with a sword held in the common manner, or with the
“mucrone surrecto:” thus held it would merely have been plunged in;
whereas it is the slicing of the navaja that he describes in the wound
it made.
Livy, writing four hundred years after, explains in the ordinary
language, the use of an instrument with which he was unacquainted. It
may be objected that a Roman must have been conversant with the sword
of a country with which the Romans had been so long at war, but with
our armies in Spain, with so many military and scientific men, artists,
and philosophers studying its customs, the “Pelea di navaja” has not
been so much as noticed, even as a curiosity. Elsewhere Livy says, that
the Spanish sword was more fitted to wound by its point than its edge:
from its shortness sprang their agility. This is incompatible with the
ancient sword, or modern fencing.
In the description of battles with the Spaniards, the sword is never
mentioned as a weapon used by them, when attacking a heavy-armed body,
or resisting its attack. On more than one occasion their defeat is
attributed to their spears being broken, when they would be expected
to draw their swords: no mention is made of their drawing swords, and
having only the “navaja” and spear. They could not after the loss of
the latter, stand against the united mass of the legion with their
short swords, nor defend themselves against a charge of cavalry; but
they appear to have been superior, man to man, to the Romans,[337] as
these were to the Greek phalangite.
It was not an exchange of one sword for another, but adopting the
Spanish knife as a supplementary weapon. Machiavelli remarks, that by
the distribution of the Roman legion into three ranks, it had three
times to be beaten before a battle could be won; and thus it would seem
that it possessed three kinds of weapons, and three manners of using
them to be employed before any one of the ranks could be ultimately
broken.
This explanation meets all the difficulties of the case. The Spanish
sword was adopted, yet the Roman is not laid aside, nor are these two
swords spoken of conjointly. It accounts for the distinction between
sword and knife, and explains the Greek term, as used by Polybius, and
supports Dr. Arnold’s persuasion that in latter times the Pelites had
a sword. A sword in the ordinary sense, they could not have had, for
a sword requires a long shield, and then constituted the difference
between the heavy and the light-armed. The nature of their tactics made
swords superfluous. The Pelites advanced to skirmish and retreated
through the intervals of the maniples, and formed again behind the
legion. It was quite another thing to carry, as a protection for their
persons, the Spanish navaja.
I do not imagine that this “Spanish sword,” as adopted by the Romans,
was the clasp-knife. It is likely that the model of it is preserved
in the lath foil still used in teaching, and which is the sacrificial
knife.[338] No instrument can be better conceived for ripping up the
bowels of a man, or for cutting the throat of an animal.
On my return to England, I was one day in the room of the British
Museum, when Mr. Warshaw, of Copenhagen, brought some bronze
instruments from a Celtic cairn; one of these I at once recognized
as the “Spanish sword,” although the form was new to me. Symptoms
of incredulity, as was natural, manifesting themselves, I asked the
gentlemen present to handle the weapon. It was tried all round, and no
one could grasp it so as to use it, in consequence of a sharp-turned
hook from the hilt which prevented it from being held, either as a
sword or a dagger; but which left space for the points of the fingers,
as the Spaniards hold the navaja. I showed it to be what I said it
was, by taking hold of it in the manner in which it had to be used.
There are now four at the British Museum: they are of the Roman period,
in bronze--in case 46, of the Bronze-room. One of them is fitted to
go into a wooden socket, or handle, and is but one step from the
clasp-knife.
[Illustration: Spanish sword]
Now at last, knowing what the Spanish sword was, I looked to the coins,
and found one of the Carisia family, which, in the plates of Florey and
Morel, have, together with other armour, an instrument resembling it.
Fortunately, this coin is in the British Museum: it is in beautiful
preservation, and there is the very weapon with the strange handle,
which had been discovered by Mr. Warshaw. Here it is given as a Spanish
weapon; and on the same coin are the other two distinguishing arms of
Spain, the _Lance_ and _Cetra_. The name of the former was taken by the
testimony of the Romans, from the Spaniard: the second is mentioned as
a Spanish weapon, and Cæsar uses it as a distinguishing sign. The name
also is Spanish.[339] On this one coin we have the complete ancient
armour of the Hispani.
[Illustration: coin]
In the centre of the cetra is a star with _seven_ points. The Basque
names for the days of the week show also the division by seven.
[335] “Taking the poniard, called Puntilla, by the blade,
he poised it for a few moments, and jerked it with such
unerring aim, on the bull’s neck, as he lay on his bent legs,
that he killed the animal with the quickness of lightning.”--
DOBLADO’S _Letters_, p. 156.
[336] “Pedestre scutum capit, Hispano cingitur gladio ad
propiorem habili pugnam.”
“Ubi constitere inter duas acies, Gallus velut moles
superne imminens projecto lævâ scuto, in advenientis arma
hostis vanum, cæsim, cum ingente sonitu ensem dejecit.
Romanus mucrone surrecto, cum scuto scutum imum perculisset,
totoque corpore interior periculo vulneris factus, insinuasset
se inter corpus armaque, uno alteroque subinde ictu ventrem
atque inguina hausit, et in spatium ingens ruentem porrexit
hostem.”--LIVY, vii.
Τῶν δ’ Ἰβήρων καὶ Κέλτων ὁ μὲν θύρεος ἦν παραπλήσιος, τὰ
δὲ ξίφη τὴν ἐνάντιον εἶχε διάθεσιν, τῆς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔλαττον
τὸ κέντημα τῆς διαφόρας ἴσχυε πρὸς τὸ βλάπτειν, ἡ δὲ Γαλατικὴ
μαχαῖρα μίαν εἶχε χρείαν, τὴν ἐκ καταφόρας, καὶ αὐτὴν τὴν ἐξ
ἀποστασέως.
[Tôn d’ Ibêrôn kai Keltôn ho men thyreos ên paraplêsios,
ta de xiphê tên enantion eiche diathesin, tês men gar ouk
elatton to kentêma tês diaphoras ischye pros to blaptein, hê
de Galatikê machaira mian eiche chreian,tên ek kataphoras,
kai autên tên ex apostaseôs.]--POLYB. iii. 15.
[337] The author of Murray’s “Handbook” makes the Spaniards
such dastardly foes, as to fly from the Romans, _before they
come in sight_, and he quotes authorities too. “The very aspect,”
says Seneca, himself a Spaniard, “of a Roman Legion, was enough,
'_Hispani_ antequam legio visetur cedunt.’”--_Handbook_, p. 312.
What Seneca says is, that the Spaniards slaughtered the
Germans before the Roman Legion came even in sight.
“Germanis quid est animosius, quid ad incursum acrius?
_Hos_ tamen _Hispani_ Gallique et Asiæ Syriæque molles bello
viri, antequam legio visatur cœdunt, ob nullam rem aliam
opportunos quàm ob iracundiam.”--_De Ira_, lib. i. c. 11.
[338] In playing at lawn billiards, the Moorish children
use the same for driving the ball, and hold it as the
Spaniards do the navaja.
[339] The Spanish (Castilian dictionaries) do not give
the word. In the Basque, it is claimed as their own.
“_Cetra_, voz antigua Española y por esso Bascongada,
aunque oy se ignore sa raiz. Cetra significaba broquel de
cuero.”--LARRAMENDI, _Dic. Triling._
CHAPTER V.
THE DANCE.
Edere lascivos ad Bætica crusmata gestus,
Ex Gaditanis ludere docta modis.--MARTIAL.
Fourteen days at Seville sparkled through their course, but I neither
counted hours nor felt fatigue. Time seemed to stand still, though
the greater and lesser lights rose and set. In constant haste, yet
in unbroken abstraction, the diversity of objects seemed to create
fresh senses, and to feed exhausted strength. I knew no sleep, but was
in a dream that never broke while I sojourned in this city--no, not
city--this sea-shore--this forest of cedars--Alhambra--Island of the
Cyclades--Vale of Tempe,--for such sort of habitation is fitted for
such golden memories.
Its marvels were many; its mysteries were one, and that the dance. It
was not the bolero of the streets, or the ballet of the boards, but a
dance of reserve and tradition. I had not heard of it, and went not in
search of it;--it broke upon me, and in a series of surprises.
“Would you like to see the Sevillian dances?” was asked me in a
whisper, and, assenting, I found that it was no public performance to
which I was recommended or invited, but a representation, in private,
of dancers who did not appear on the stage. My natural question was,
“Are these dances indecent?” The reply was,“No.” “Why, then, are they
not performed in public?” and the answer, “The people would go mad.”
I was told that they might be seen but could not be described, and a
dancing-master would get the dancers and invite some friends.
At the time appointed, I was conducted up a crazy flight of stairs to
a low-roofed room, some fifteen feet by thirty, paved with square,
coarse, and ill-laid tiles; lighted with three or four common lamps,
stuck in the plastered walls. There was a narrow bench all round, on
which were seated men, women, and children of homely appearance. Though
called a ball, none were to take part but the attired dancers--four
girls, one of them a child--all bespangled and bedizened in white and
pink, in satins and flowers. In Spain no preparation has to be made
for music: the Greeks dance μετὰ στόμα [meta stoma], “with the mouth;”
the Spaniards dance with mouth and palm, or castanet, which, if not in
the dancer’s hand, vibrates in those of the spectators: they beat time
with their hands and sing the choruses. Our music consisted of a single
guitar. I was not without suspicions and misgivings respecting the
nature of the performance; but although there was in the decked girls
that conscious slouching gait of a wild animal that has a nature of
its own, the gloom of the place, the meanness of the apartment, and the
ungainly aspect of the morose assembly, discouraged the expectations
that had been raised, and I would gladly have retreated.
The twang of the guitar was heard, the space cleared, and two of the
dancers were balancing their bodies and wreathing their arms, and
retreat was impossible. But it only was the fandango--no dexterity to
astonish, no excesses to shock, no blandishments to seduce.
The fandango done, a _mesclo_ succeeded--a sort of olla podrida or
ballet, composed of gallegada, back to back, the Hola Aragonese, the
seguadilla marchega with its strathspey time and step; the couples
setting to each other, and the Highland snap and shout. This, too, was
decorous, and I began to wonder what all the mystery had been about,
and when would arise the madness we were to witness, and perchance to
share.
The assembly had gradually fired--that fluid power which matter will,
by motion, engender: the dancers gathered and discharged, and shock by
shock the spectators vibrated to their motion, and trembled with their
pulse. As speech is not teeth or tongue, but all the features; so is
the dance not legs, but all the figure. We indeed look out on it by the
eyes alone, and are pleased to be surprised with an effort, charmed
with an attitude, enchanted by a form. There is here nothing of the
sort, nor is it an “epic.” There is no “poem:” there may be a story;
there is poetry; but it is neither our pantomime nor our ballet, any
more than it is our zephyr groups or _poses_. These constitute our
dancing, and if I were conveying my impressions by word of mouth, I
would pause here, nor proceed until we had got at all the sources of
gratification, which we either experience from dancing, or conceive to
belong to it. Then I could show that the dance in Spain calls into play
another set of nerves. Its fascination may be exerted without beauty,
agility, or grace. Now I knew that ours was only prose, for I had
learned metre.
With us the limbs move hither or thither, lifting the body about;
the triumph of art is to veil the mechanism. The limbs are indeed
exposed in their outline, but our ideal would be achieved if the body
were to appear to rise and descend without their aid. The Spanish
dance is an inward action; the limbs only manifest it. It is deep
as a fountain--now sealed, and still now bubbling up with tremulous
motion; now overflowing in devious courses, now bursting forth in wild
contortions, then arrested, and returning to its source. Gesture is its
voice, movement its sound: it fills the air, settles on the beholder:
it is felt not seen, and might be perceived with the eyes shut, if you
could but close them. The ecstacies it produces, and which astound the
stranger by their vehemence and delicacy--by a frenzy that has rules,
and a passion that glows but does not burn, arises from this, that the
performance is not witnessed but shared. Compared to our dancing, it is
as expression to grimace--the living countenance to a pasteboard mask.
The Spanish--no, the Iberian--the Phrygian--dancer before me sought not
to float in air: she belonged to earth, and envied neither the bird
his wing, nor the cloud its texture. She could pause, stand, stamp,
plant herself--then defy. This is no part pantomime, but all dance: the
earth, not the air, was her element: it was to her what it is to the
wrestler, to the statue, to the antelope, to the tree.
But I anticipate.--What I have said was suggested by two dances which
were reserved--the _ole_ and the _beto_, and which are no more to be
conceived by the fandango, than that is by a _pas de fascination_ in
a ballet. Borrowing a hat--the Spanish broad-brimmed, high-peaked,
festooned hat--the dancer places it on her head, tosses and shifts
it; beats with her foot, toe, heel; squares her arms: as a snake’s,
her body undulates: she looks round, watches, tosses her head again,
snorts, sniffs the air. Is it instinct--is it passion--is it a foe--is
it a rival? will she fly--will she charge--are they weapons she
prepares, or charms?
That figure, which at the distance of the remote seats of a theatre,
would have appeared motionless and, by its grotesque attire, might have
awakened merriment--has now riveted every glance. The guitar’s tones
partake of the disorder, and give forth--so to speak--a sympathetic
provocation. She starts, wavers, selects, and springs upon her foe.
It is the bull in the arena! One by one, she runs at Picador and
Chulo, falters, swerves, and runs upon another. Peals of merriment
follow each feint. When her choice is fixed, the contortions, as
she approaches, subside, the limbs are subdued, defiance changes to
fascination, and the bull becomes the woman. A handkerchief is spread
on the ground as she advances: she places her foot on it; stooping,
the knee is bent; she pauses, then slightly raising the heel, moves it
to and fro, while pinching, with forefinger and thumb, the bosquina at
the knee, and lifting it twice or thrice. Heads and shoulders press
forward to witness this ceremony, and as she bounds away, hats and
jackets are cast upon the ground, amidst a burst of intoxication, and a
chorus of “Salero! Salero!” whilst the happy swain, the object of these
attentions, gathers up the handkerchief, on which her foot has been
placed, and treasures its dust in his bosom.
Here is a history--here are rites and rules, mysteries to me and to
themselves. It was the bull, but it was something more too. Is it the
horned Isis or the Minotaur? But the _ludus_ did not end here. After
skipping around and between, and avoiding or sparing the _sombreros_
(hats),[340] she suddenly rushed at one of them, and,--what shall I
say?--_gored it_;--she sprang upon, and pounded it with her feet--left
it--returned to it again, to toss the prostrate foe: approaching its
owner, her victim, as the bull,--as the woman, taking from her head the
hat which she had worn, and crowning him with it--“King of the lists.”
This was the _dénouement_ of the dance--or game, or ceremony, or orgy,
or myth, or combat--call it which you will.
“Salero” thrilled through me. The interpretation was unknown. It is
inexplicable, and like the “hugmeneh” of the Highlands--the Phrygian
cry of which I had found in Barbary the interpretation--of what could
“salero”[341] remind one, if not the _Salii_?
That the motions of animals should have suggested primitive dances is
but natural; and what animal could more entrance the Spanish spirit
than the bull? It is not a passion of yesterday: we have the bullring
on early Etruscan vases. I have since found a confirmation of this idea
in the dances of New Holland so striking, that I subjoin a description
from an eye-witness.[342]
In contrasting Spanish and European dancing, I have put gesture aside,
as no part of the former; but, in fact, we have no gesture. There is
more in the turn of a gipsy’s head, and the wave of her arm, than in
all the practising of the ballerinas.
The Andalusians have a peculiar manner of rendering “the body’s gait.”
They say, “_Aire e meneo_;” the nearest approach to which is, “air
and mien:” but the nearer the words the farther the sense;--meneo
(from _meneh_, the Sabæan festival,) is not our processional gait, but
the cadenced flow of the long and graceful line as it undulated over
strewed flowers, between lifted palms and burning censers.
The Reformation is attributed to the study of the classics. The
classics themselves must have been still more rational. How, then,
did the old worship stand so long, shamed by the life of the
Christian, and stained by the blood of the martyr? The world then was
neither devout nor ignorant: the sceptic taught in the schools, the
scoffer entered the sanctuary. The phenomenon was now explained, or
rather--comprehending somewhat of the spell which bound the senses
of Greek and Roman--I perceived the problem by the solution. Seeing
what dancing could be, even as divested of all pomp, circumstance, and
honour, I could imagine what in all its branches must have been that
religion of art, that “worship of the beautiful,” which we hold at once
to be the glory and the shame of Greece.
We only understand vice as the antagonist of Christianity: assailed by
vice, it was itself the assailant of “art;”--thus did Mars and Jupiter
reign long as statues, if not as gods.
But an esthetic life of sentiment was not alone engendered. These
excellences were part of the institutions of the land. The songs of
Tyrtæus had their chorus; from the games of Elis the Greeks repaired
to Marathon, nor had they lost the Pyrrhic phalanx, had they saved
the Pyrrhic dance. The interval is not great with the patriarchs and
worthies of Israel. What would sound more Pagan, if we listened for the
sense, than David dancing before the ark? We read it with an awkward
feeling--half ridicule, half reproach.[343] It is we who have reduced
the dance to an amusement, or an exhibition; we have chased away every
thought not trivial or mercenary; we have left to it no occasion to be
grave, and suffer it in no ceremony that is solemn. Nowhere, but here,
is there a rent in that heavy veil, which has for nearly two thousand
years shrouded the memory of that wonderful union of the harmonies of
sound and gesture, which was the charm of the ancient world.
The descriptions of mythological ceremonies, the investigation of
ancient history, the turning over the pages of poets for seductive
images, the pacing of galleries for noble forms, the indulging in the
reveries of the sea-shore, or the mountain-side--all these could not
furnish what that Sevillian room, floored with brick, supplied.
Seville preserves the Hebrew ceremony as well as the Pagan orgy. On the
Saturday evening before Easter, and during the following se’nnight,
a dance is performed in front of the high altar, by youths in the
old Spanish dress, sky-blue satin and white muslin, high-crowned hat
of blue, with a white and flowing plume. The music of the cathedral
is replaced by an orchestra, by the rails of the altar. The dancers
are seated facing each other, on each side the altar. The music of
the cathedral ceases. After a pause, the band of worldly instruments
strikes up a valtz or a cachouca; presently the voices of the boys
join; then they start to their legs. The song is a lyric composition:
they sing and dance together, moving solemnly through a variety of
figures. The music is in two or three metres, like the Greek chorusses.
The first act completed, they return to their seats. The second is more
animated, for by word of command they place their hats on their heads,
and then the rattling of the castanets, which hitherto have been silent
and concealed in their hands, is heard through the aisles, and this
terminates a performance solemn and impressive to the Andalusian, which
to our ideas would be nothing short of sacrilege or insanity.
In the midst of another scene--a bull-fight--the dance is thus
described by M. Quinet:--“Scarcely had the mules dragged out the
carcasses, when the sound of castanets was heard; the barrier was
opened again, and a long train of dancers entered, divided into groups
according to the provinces of Spain: each wore the costume of their
own province: the Basque with long flowing hair upon their shoulders;
the Valencians (half Arabs) with a plaid; the Catalonians with their
large embroidered belt; the Aragonese with their dark mantles; but
the most brilliant and gorgeous are the Andalous, with their large
hats and light jackets, embroidered in a thousand colours, and with
intermingled points of steel. The troop pass along with pomp; the
people gaze on them with pride; and on the still warm and bloody earth
the dance commences. The fandango and bolero balance each other with a
characteristic monotony, recalling the noble simplicity of the ancient
vases. From carelessness to gravity; from gravity to languor; from
languor to intoxication and the exhaustion of passion. There is the
moment at which the whole assembly is struck. Each Andalous dancer
stoops to the earth, as if to gather flowers for the head of his
partner, and immediately after he leans his head upon his hand, his
elbow on the shoulder of the Andalusian--and he remains immoveable. I
know not if this is one of the ordinary features of the dance, or if it
was a sudden thought; but this single movement seized instantaneously
the ten thousand spectators: they rose at once, and a burst of
enthusiasm came forth such as I have never before heard. There was
not one man of the people who did not feel to the bottom of his soul
this poetry without words; and all the provinces of Old Spain were
again confounded together in that instant. The crowd disappeared and I
remained alone in the vast amphitheatre, fixed to my seat. This mixture
of murder and of grace--of enchantment, of carnage, and of dance, have
left me overwhelmed with stupor: I still see this blood, these smiles,
these horrible gashes and odious agonies, the thrill of the fandango,
and that Andalusian that stops to dream.”
Of what other country of Europe could such things be written? To admire
or to comprehend is quite enough at one time; and it is seldom that we
can at once enjoy both these gratifications. Let those who can admire
Spain be content, nor spoil that pleasure by the hopeless attempt to
comprehend her.
[340] A Matadore is in like manner complimented, by hats
being thrown into the arena.
[341] When I asked the meaning of it, all they could say,
was, that it meant “salt.” Mr. A. Dumas, who has given, if not
an accurate description of the dance, at least a vivid
delineation of his own sensations, has, from thinking salero
to be nonsense, written _salado_, and makes the performers be
gratified by being called “_très salées_.” He is the only
writer who has published this mystery.
[342] “After rest and refreshment, they began another
dance, in which a portion of them, taking tufts of grass in
their mouths, imitated the actions of the kangaroo. After
quietly feeding and hopping about for a while like the
kangaroos, they were followed by the rest of the party, who
in their real characters began to creep after the kangaroos
to surprise them. The ludicrous bounds and manœuvres of
pursuit and escape were quite astonishing, and the act ended
by the pretence of putting one of the representatives of the
captured kangaroos on the fire to be roasted. This they
called the kangaroo dance: they then gave us the emu dance,
in which--with one arm raised to form the neck of the bird,
the hand twisted to represent the head--with the body
stooped, they went through all the actions of this bird, and
with the most amazing effect.”
“I asked the king what this dance meant, and he pointed
to the moon then full above our head, and said, ‘good to
black fellow.’ No doubt he would have proceeded to acknowledge
that the ceremony was in honour of the moon, had not one of
the others who had stood his grog better than king Caboa,
stepped up and said, ‘New Zealandman’s dance.’ He meant the
name to mislead, for they are very secret in all their
religious ceremonies.”
[343] In the synagogues of Morocco, the congregation,
when the name of God occurs, spring up and down on their toes
in token of rejoicing. The first time I saw this I was
utterly confounded.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF CANAAN AND MOROCCO.
What we consider in architecture is form or order. The masonry of Rome
and her teachers, the Etruscans, of the Pelasgi, the Cyclopes, the
Druids, and the Egyptians, present us with colossal and imperishable
monuments. These depend entirely on mathematical principles and
mechanical adjustments, because stone alone was used, nor have we any
idea of another manner of building. There was, however, still another
race than these, which delighted in lofty towers and massive walls,
who, without stones, built Babel and Babylon.
The first point in architecture is, therefore, the material, and by
that originally used must its subsequent forms and order have been
established. We have, indeed, kept this primary condition in view,
and carried our application of it to the most extravagant excess.
The cave of the Trogloditæ, the timber origin of the Hindoo, Ancient
Persian, and the Greek, the essentially rock origin of the Cyclopic,
have been fully illustrated; and applying our rule in every case
whence we had not a natural original, we created it. We have caused
the Gothic to spring out of the interlacing branches of the forests of
the North. Warburton[344] was, I think, the first who put forward this
extravagance, supporting it by historical suggestions which consisted
in anachronisms; but the same proposition recurs over and over again,
as it furnishes a theme for that sort of stilted composition which has
become the staple of the recent trade of book-making on art.[345]
Architecture moulds itself into the shapes of things in use _for
building_; it does not copy the independent works of nature. The column
and entablature, the volute, abacus and plinth, are imitations in stone
of the woodwork of primitive huts; they are not copies of the growing
tree. The origin of the Gothic is still to find; an earlier material
than stones is to be looked for; and if we would go back to the origin,
we must figure to ourselves the art of building as devised for defence,
before descending to embellishments, or to the lowly habitations out
of which those temples arose, which have been distributed into and
constitute the five orders of architecture.
The Arameans, the elder branch of the human family and the inheritors
of early light, first occupied and permanently retained that fertile
and well-watered region, which lies between the great limbs of the
earth and the subdivisions of the ocean. There, neither strong
positions were to be found, nor stones to be procured for the
construction of defences. Their very existence depended upon the
invention of a process by which the earth itself could be converted
into walls. The soil containing a large proportion of alumine, durable
walls might be made from it without the aid of any art, save that of
beating and ramming down. Factitious stones might be obtained, or the
mass formed at once by cases into a wall. Against injury from rain they
had ready to their hand a preservative, in the bitumen with which the
country abounded, and with which they cemented the bricks and besmeared
the walls.[346]
These walls, whether made in pieces (brick) or in blocks, were however
soft and perishable without the aid of fire, which gives brick (burnt)
and lime two compositions, of which, like air and water, we do not
know the value, by enjoying constantly their use. These discoveries I
imagine to have been connected with the sacrifice as practised by the
early Arameans. The Jews were forbidden to make an altar of stone,
and when they set up stones, they were forbidden to raise on them a
tool of _iron_.[347] They were, moreover, ordered to make the altar of
_earth_,[348] and traces of this practice are to be found elsewhere, as
among the Phrygians[349] and the Greeks.
The varieties of soil would thus expose to the fire, in various
combinations, alumine, silex, carbonate and sulphate of lime
(selenite). The blood flowed on it, and--as in the case of Jupiter
Olympius--it was plastered over with the ashes. In the alluvial plains
of Mesopotamia, these altars must have been of brick in the mountainous
districts, where alabaster as well as limestone abounded--gypsum and
lime. At once would the substance of plaster be known, and the manner
of using it, and, probably, lime was similarly treated, and thence
the strength of ancient mortar. Vitruvius directs it to be mixed
with ashes,[350] as it must have been in the plastering of these
earth-altars.
Having thus obtained lime, it was used as the discovery suggested that
it should be; that is, to harden the earth-walls themselves--not to
cement stones. They would soon discover that gypsum had to be set up
in moulds, hardening at once of its own accord; but that lime, mixing
with the earth, or with gravel, acquired consistency by being rammed
down. The varieties so presented are infinite, from the rudest, the
cheapest, and the most perishable walls, to the most costly and durable
ramparts; and these could so be raised without machinery or science,
yet affording a strength to resist the besieging operators of those
times, of a height to surpass all means of assault, and of a durability
that has defied Time itself. The Devonshire cobwalls and the Normandy
pisé afford examples of the first;--common earth bound together, in
default of lime, with chopped straw; while in the old Moorish tower
of Gibraltar is a specimen of the last, a concrete possessing greater
power of resistance to shot than any discovery which has been made
since the introduction of artillery.
When I first saw the ruins of the Phœnician city of old Tangier, which
is a rough-looking wall (the _opus incertum_ of the Romans), such as
might be built by a very rude people in our times, I could not believe
it to be Phœnician; but upon further examination of such ruins, and
when I came to consider the nature of the soil where these structures
were raised, and the merit attached to the first application of this
most important material--_lime_--I found in that very coarseness an
evidence of the high antiquity of these walls, and of the ingenuity of
this people; and felt that we were indebted to them for a substance
become of primary necessity.
A captive, employed as the Jews in Egypt were, has thus described the
task of the Christian slaves in Morocco:
“Our work and daily labour was continually building of houses and
walls: the material and method is so very foreign, and will appear
strange to my countrymen. Here there are boxes of wood, of dimensions
according to pleasure: these we fill with earth powdered, and lime and
gravel well beat together and _tempered with water_; and when full, we
remove the box according to order, and withdraw the box planks, and
leave this matter to dry, which will then acquire an incredible degree
of hardness and is very lasting, for we have seen walls of some hundred
years’ standing, as we are informed, and all that time has not been
able to do them any prejudice. The king himself (what reason for his
humour may be we never had the curiosity to ask him) will sometimes
vouchsafe to work in the lime and dirt for an hour together, and will
bolt out an encouraging word to the slaves there, viz., as I remember,
'God send you to your own countries;’ but I judge he either does not
speak from his heart, or else he hopes God will not answer the prayer
of such a wretch as himself.”[351]
Livy mentions the Wall of Saguntum as similarly constructed; and Pliny
speaks of the “forms” which they used for ramming down the materials in
constructing them. He confines the practice to Mauritania and Spain.
In these two countries it has still one and the same name, _Tapia_. In
Hebrew and in Egyptian _teb_ is the word which we translate “brick;”
it also signifies “box.” The name has been derived from the mould. The
hieroglyphic for _teb_ is a foot and a hand.
No doubt from this word the name of the great city of Egypt, Thebes,
is derived. I am aware that Sir Gardnor Wilkinson derives it from
_ap_, or _ape_, meaning the head or capital of the country; but _tab_
is much nearer to Thebes than _ap_ or _ape_; and I am not aware that
any city ever received its name from the head; whereas the most common
of etymons for cities--at least among Arameans, is the defences which
distinguish them from the inhabitants of the Tents.[352]
The derivatives from this word are extraordinary from their number, and
the languages through which they spread, and vouch for the importance
of the object to which it was applied, and the antiquity of the
language in which it was used. The Turkish has taken from it its word
for _fortress_--“_tabia_,”--and for _mound_,--“_tepe_.” The Arabic
preserves it in its pure sense--the Spanish derives from it _tapar_
to close, and _tapeti_ a covering;--whence in the French we have
_taper_ and _tapis_;--in English we have _tapestry_, _tap_, which has
been probably derived from the original _teb_; we have[353] _tub_ and
_tube_. The Greeks have taken from it τύπος [typos], and thence τύπτω
[typtô]; whence the string of European derivatives, _type_, _typify_,
&c., ταπεινὸς [tapeinos], humble, _i.e._ beaten down; also, ταφὸς
[taphos], tomb, from the association of this mode of building with that
of tombs.[354]
About the time that the Hebrews were taking Jericho, the Phœnicians
were carrying on their commercial enterprises to the west. By this
irruption into Canaan, an immense mass of colonists was placed
at their disposal; and to this event in all probability is to be
attributed the number and importance of their settlements. They are
supposed to have reached the Northern Ocean, and especially to have
had their settlements in Britain, as is indeed proved by the names
still preserved in Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two counties the
_tapia_ of Morocco is still used in building, though the species is
of that inferior order in which lime is not used; or if used at all,
merely for the coating--the tempering with lime of Ezekiel. In deriving
it from the Phœnicians, difficulty presents itself in the name: it
is called _cob_:--this word is neither Teutonic, nor Celtic, Greek,
nor Latin, Hebrew nor Arabic. It was after long research that the
origin of it occurred to me in a word that I was in the daily habit of
using, and which is the common name given in Morocco to a tomb--which
is Cubbe. Many English derivatives show that _cob_ meant both “wall”
and “beating.” _Cobweb_, the web and the wall; _cobden_, hole in the
wall; _cobler_, one making frequent use of the hammer; _cobbing_, a
school-boy term for thrashing with a knotted handkerchief, besides many
others--_Cobbett_--_Cobham_,--_cob_ as applied to a breakwater--Lyme
_cob_.
Cubbe designates indeed a tomb; but it might equally be rendered,
building, or wall: for the cubbe are the only buildings which appear
throughout the Western regions of Africa. Although the word will be
found in no Arabic dictionary, it is not likely that _cob_, the
Devonshire name for the material from which the Moorish cubbe is built,
should have been given by mere chance. As the dictionary affords no
clue, we must endeavour to trace them back constructively.
Bochart accounts for the story of a tomb of Hecuba, in Sicily, by
supposing that the Greeks, seeing some Phœnician tomb, and inquiring
what the building was, were answered, “BETH HACUB, _suprema domus_.”
The meaning of Beth they could not mistake, and Hacub could only be
the unhappy consort of Priam. Sir W. Hamilton does justice to this
explanation in a rigid criticism of the author. If Beth Hacub were so
employed, the contraction to the last syllable is quite natural; and as
the tombs in Britain would be built of Tapia, the natives would call
that substance by the same name--Cub--cob; as the Phœnicians themselves
may have contracted it. The contraction has remained in Britain
applicable to walls when built of this material--in Africa to the tombs
which are their buildings.
As each promontory in Sicily had its fable connected with a tomb, the
interpretation of which forms one of the most interesting chapters of
“_Pheleg_,” the tomb must have been, as here now, the feature of the
landscape. The figure, at once the most simple and complex--the cube,
the dome, the arch, and spandril, all combined, doubtless has remained
unchanged. Such, then, were those tombs scattered through Greece, and
which we hear of as “Phrygian,” a people which I think I shall be able
to prove to be identical with the ancient inhabitants of Morocco; and
to them Solon must have referred when he forbade tombs to be built with
“_arched roofs_.”
The dominant form is the cube; but this is the very word! It has been
attempted to derive cube from Caaba. Here is a distinction without a
difference.[355] From the Greek κύβος [kybos] we have the term all
the way downwards in every western language. Thus, the building has
supplied the general name to Europe for its figure, to Devonshire for
its substance, and in Morocco has remained with its primitive meaning,
substance and figure.
The mistranslation of the Greeks respecting Hecuba, receives a curious
confirmation from a grotesque mistake of the French: they call these
buildings _marabouts_, and speak and write about _marabouts_ as if it
really were either an Arabic or a French name for Cubbe.[356] Marabouts
are men, and they are sometimes honoured with such a tomb.[357] The
Greeks, hearing the name of the building, applied it to a supposed
inmate; the French, being told the name of the inmate, applied it to
the edifice.
Pisé evidently comes from πιέζω [piezô],[358] to squeeze or break; and
the Phoceans, the allies of the Phœnicians, monopolised the commerce of
Gaul. It is to be inferred that Cob is Phœnician; but the word is at
present unknown, nor are there traces of it in the ancient language.
Moors, like the Jews, as shown in Ezekiel’s parable, “temper” the earth
with lime. The durability depends upon the amount of beating, and the
quantity of lime; and the expense is, of course, in proportion. No
ancient buildings of mere earth remain; but still in Africa, though
rarely, earth alone is used: in one very important portion of their
architecture the three methods are all employed together, namely,
earth--earth and lime mixed, and pure lime. This is for the flat
roofings of their houses, and is a matter of the greatest difficulty;
in fact, the very word architecture is derived from the process of
roofing; and they celebrate the covering-in of the houses with
ceremonies analogous to those which we employ in laying the foundation
stone. Over the wood-work earth is first beaten down, then a layer
of earth and lime, and then the pure lime: each layer is separately
beaten. They use a small paviour’s mallet: they work by gangs, and
strike in cadence with short stroke, singing in concert, and producing
a strange melody, that resounds through the neighbourhood of their
silent cities, startling the echoes with a melancholy, but not
unpleasing note, which recalls the tones of “Adria’s gondolier;” but
the words convey simpler thoughts, and a more devotional spirit. One
strain runs thus:
“Yalla wo yalla amili dinu yarbi;
Yalla wo yalla an azziz yarbi.”
O God! O God! Eternal art thou, O my Lord!
O God! O God! Dear to me art thou, O my Lord!
They also apply their incantation to the case, as it may be. The
traveller in Spain is often greeted by a change in the metre and
words of the song, and the salutation is conveyed in their simple and
pleasing extempore verse. The owner of a house visiting the work may in
like manner be welcomed with such a strain as this:
“Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!
The Lord of the dwelling will recompense us!
Behold, Builder, the mortar is set!
The Master of his workmen will cause them to rejoice!”
The distinction between the Aramean and the other primitive races
seems to have been maintained for a couple of thousand years; but at
the mixture of nations by the great conquests of the Macedonians and
the Romans, we find the use of lime extending to the others, and the
chiseled stones adopted by the Arameans. It is in the works of the
western or Moorish branch that has been preserved the type to our day;
and they have excelled all other people in the grandeur and durability
of their military architecture; and, with the exception of the
polygonal and cyclopic, they have embodied with their own every species
of ancient building.[359]
We thus identify with the Arameans, block walls, plaster of Paris,
bricks and lime; and while it is to be expected that these various
processes should be carried by them whither they emigrated, or taught
by them to the people among whom they established colonies, or whom
they instructed in the arts and sciences, still are we not to look for
these as combined in one general system, but as severally or partially
adopted according to the character of the surface of the country, or
the nature of its soil, or as associated with the kinds of masonry
already in use. In one country, however, the whole of the processes
which I have noticed are still to be found. Not one is wanting; and
they still possess that excellence of early structure which we have
lost in Europe. In the villages round Tangier the walls are built of
sunburnt brick exactly of the shape and dimensions of those of Babylon.
We have united in the origin as one whole, thick tapia walls, lofty
towers, and tesselated pavements. Pliny mentions the introduction of
the tesselated pavement after the third Punic war. The Greeks had
before them employed pavements; and this word which we associate
with stone[360] comes from _pavire_, to ram down, and could have no
reference to stone, but must have been the tapia of Canaan.
When these artificers removed to countries where the soil was no longer
aluminous, they would doubtless, although there were stones to build
with, cling to their own fashion, as their buildings and the apertures
would of necessity depend, not on the adjustment of the blocks, but on
the adhesion of the walls. They clung also to their lofty towers even
when they could build on strong and naturally defensible positions.
Thus we find the Jews gratified by being permitted to build lofty
towers, and these have been the work of predilection of the sovereigns
of Morocco and of Spain.
This ramming into cases explains also the rectangular forms of all
their buildings: round towers are very ancient and very Eastern: those
of the Hindoo were round. The primeval architecture, still preserved
in Sardinia, delighted in round towers, so also those of Ireland
were round. The vitrified forts[361] were round, so that this form
distinguishes the Arameans from the Hindoos on the East, the Celts on
the North, and the Aboriginal population of Europe on the West. The
early Mussulmans borrowed in the minaret the Minar of the Persians,
but in the _Sma_[362] of Barbary the original form was maintained. The
two are seen struggling and combined in the mosques of Cairo, as in
the early cathedrals of Europe. In Morocco bricks are used of all the
shapes, and in all the varieties in which we find them in the East. At
Carteia I found the grooved bricks of Ancient Arabia. Plaster of Paris
is in like manner used for building; and in Suez large portions of the
houses are set up at once, cast in moulds; and, lastly, there is the
block wall in all its varieties, from the earth rammed to the concrete
of mortar and earth, and of mortar and stones, exactly like that which,
constructed two or three thousand years ago, still stands as fresh as
upon the day of erection. In fact, these block walls are to-day as
perfectly Moorish as the horse-shoe arch, the arabesque ornament, or
the haïk.
The reason assigned by Herodotus for the selection of brick by Asychis,
the successor of Mycerinus, for building his pyramid--namely, that
it was more honourable than granite, as showing the power of earth,
has occasioned in our times no small astonishment, and has received
no explanation. After what I have said the explanation will be
self-evident; and it is not absolutely decided whether these structures
were raised by princes of Egyptian or Semetic blood. I think that the
inscription[363] and the story go further than any positive statements
of the Greek historian could have gone to give a shepherd origin to
them.
When the Hebrews returned to Canaan, the first obstacle they met with
was the walls of Jericho, an obstacle such as to baffle their natural
means and acquired skill; nor is it to be supposed that they were
destitute of the means of attacking such defences; but the walls of
Jericho were remarkable in a country of walled towns,[364] and the
name of “moon,” which Jericho signified, might have reference to their
height,[365] which a special interposition was required to overthrow.
The Jews built with stones, and with enormous ones, as the siege of
Jerusalem and ruins still extant attest; and they had also, as well
as the Canaanites, burnt bricks. David burnt the Ammonites in their
own kilns[366] at Rabbah. Ezekiel says,[367] “And one built up a wall,
and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar. Say unto them which
daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall. There shall be an
overflowing shower.” These words have to us no meaning, but they prove
that building in tapia or cob was the common practice of Judæa.
The great event in the early history of the Jews is the Egyptian
captivity. The representatives of the Arameans were here in contact
with the most remarkable builders of the other races. The task of
the Jews was building: it was not masonry--it was not hewing in
quarries or adjusting blocks, but building with earth: the expression
used in Scripture may be interpreted as applying either to small or
larger case-bricks, or entire walls. In the Egyptian paintings we see
Jews[368] or Arameans occupied in the performance of their task, and
the red men, the Egyptians, the task-masters over them. Here, however,
it is burnt bricks we see: the clay is weighed, beaten into moulds,
carried to the furnace blue, and brought back red. The Jews, therefore,
had introduced this method. The soil of Egypt was not adapted for the
block wall or sun-burnt brick, whilst the silex fitted it for burning.
Thus having got the materials, let us see how they were used in the
construction of their ordinary dwellings. The Greek Triclinium-room
was copied by the Romans. The Moors have also a form of room, but the
method is different. The Greek house, as the Turkish, was a variable
aggregate of integers, which were invariable. No light came from the
door or from the side in which it was, and by which the room adjoined
to the body of the house. From the side opposite to the door--that
is the top--came the light from contiguous windows, as in the oriel
windows of the Middle Ages. The rooms were, therefore, struck out to
catch the light, and the house was like a bunch of crystals, united
at the base, no account being taken, in building it, of the exterior
form, which depended on the accidental arrangement and size of the
rooms, the proportions of which were invariable.
With the Moors it is exactly the reverse. Their building was a square
of dead walls: the rooms were made to fit that form, and their light
came by the door and the door alone: the door is in the length of the
room, and divides it into two equal parts. Under the tent they were
encamped always ready to march--in their houses they were fortified,
ever in a state of defence. Their breccia they struck out into
archways, or pierced with open works; but windows were as little known
to them as stirrups to the Greeks or Romans. From this court, in the
centre, come the lights. I need not repeat what I have already said
respecting it, which the reader will find in the account of a Jewish
house at Arzela.
A Moorish house was made in the style of a cavern or grotto, and its
pendulous interior fret-work strikes every one as something resembling
the stalactites of a cave (πετρήρεφες, αὐτοκτίτ’ ἄντρα [petrêrephes,
autoktit’ antra]). The weight, therefore, of the roof, and the
deficiency of timber, conjoined to maintain that original structure of
long narrow rooms adjoining the court-yard, which originated in the
materials of their building and the necessities of their defence, and
which were admirably adapted to their climate, and suited to the habit
which it engendered of living in community.
As the room of the Turks presents to us the Triclinium of the Greeks,
so do the houses of Morocco the dwellings of the Hebrews, and furnish
the explanation of obscure passages in the Scriptures: to the Moorish
houses as exactly applies every term having reference to houses or
buildings, as those having reference to clothing do to the Moorish
dress.
The Hebrews originally dwelt in tents. When they returned from Egypt
they found the Holy Land filled with fenced cities. They came from the
wilderness as the Arabs now do into Suez from the Sahara. They adopted
the settled manners of the people, but tribes identified with them,
such as the Kenites and Rechabites, continued to live under tents. The
domestic architecture of the Jews was thus properly Canaanitish, and is
in Morocco what it was in the Holy Land when the Jews entered.
The Arab under his tent, and the Breber in his solid house of tapia,
with its square towers, picture to the life the period of Caleb
and Joshua. This architecture, transferred to Morocco nearly three
thousand years ago, has here continued to subsist, while it has been
extinguished--utterly blotted out in Judæa. It required the protecting
mounds of ruins to preserve the fashions of the chambers of the
Assyrian kings, which have lived through all this course of ages
unharmed by the breath of heaven or the hand of man, in Tetuan and
Tangier.
Spain had not her tapia from the Saracens, as already shown; she
received it, and with it her architecture, from the same sources as
Morocco. We are informed by St. Isidore that, in the fifth century,
the Goths had adopted the same mode of building--of course from the
Iberians, who are the source of most things which we are so fond of
calling Saracenic in Spain, whether architecture, blood, manners, or
words. Like Judæa, Spain--though not to the same extent--had lost
her original type, and Morocco remained, at the time of the Saracen
conquest, the treasure-house of the ancient world, and the museum of
human history.
That Morocco did continue in the usufruct of this inheritance, may be
seen in the buildings they immediately commenced in Spain, and in the
accounts handed down of the splendour of the buildings of Morocco, in
the first days of Islamism.
If this architecture of Judæa can be understood and explained by the
existing buildings in Morocco, does the converse hold? Would the
description of Moorish architecture apply to the buildings of Judæa?
Do we, in fact, in looking upon the Alcazars and Alhambras, behold the
image of the Palace of Hiram or the Temple of Solomon? That question
I cannot answer in the affirmative. There is nothing described of the
buildings of Judæa that is not to be found in those of Morocco; but
there is that in those of Morocco which, had it existed in Judæa,
could not have failed to have been described. The descriptions of the
buildings in Spain, if they disappeared, would not correspond with
those of Judæa. The architecture of Canaan has undergone a change in
the West.
That which attracts attention to the Moresque and awakens enthusiasm,
is the tracery upon the walls, the pensile figures of the arches,
and the domes with their colours. To these no reference is made in
ancient writers, and of them no trace has been preserved; yet are they
embellishments too striking not to be observed, and too beautiful to
have been lost in such an age. Had there been an Alhambra at Jerusalem
or at Tyre, we should have found something like it on the banks of
the Nile, where the Jews raised their rival temple; in the Baths of
Lucullus or in the Palaces of Antioch. Greek Virtuosi then were spread
over all these regions, and there were the Ptolemies collecting all the
stores of art and literature, who garrisoned fortresses with the Jews,
and who were spurred on by envy of Tyre and rivalry with Carthage.
We have, then, two points most distinctly made out--first, that the
substance of the walls, and the structure of the edifices, the roofing,
the wood-painting, of Judæa, corresponded with those of Morocco.
Secondly, that the embellishments of vivid and varied colours, and the
delicate lace-work, known as Arabesque, did not exist in Judæa.
The latter constitutes, to our eyes, the Moorish architecture, but,
from what I have said, it will appear that it is but a garment over
it. When, then, was it added thereto? by whom was it invented? where
was it first applied? It is one of the greatest efforts that has been
ever made; it is enough to make an epoch. We must look for it in
some period of greatness, of some seat of empire, under some prince
pre-eminent in all the attributes which can command the admiration
of men. We turn to Damascus--to the Caliphat: we have no traces of
it there, and no relic. The earliest monuments eastward are found at
Alexandria, and then only in fragments; and there is neither the thing
nor the type. Did it, then, spring up on the soil of Spain, in that
favoured region? No. We find it in the very earliest monuments of the
Moors. When they entered Spain, it was already formed and complete.
It was, therefore, in Morocco, that the architecture of Judæa underwent
those changes, expanded into those graceful forms, and robed itself in
those rainbow colours.
There are natural features and primitive habits which suggest or
account for each of these modifications--features so striking that
they could not fail to be observed, and so beautiful that they must
have been copied: these I have described as they presented themselves
to me. The types which I found in nature or in practice are of the
stalactitic, dome, and arch,--the horseshoe arch, the tracery on the
wall, the diversified colouring of that tracery, the half-globe dome
upon the cube; and these, in fact, are the modifications that the
architecture of Judæa received, and by which it has been converted into
the Moorish.
On the material the system of architecture depended, and it is wholly
different from the classic. The great styles of antiquity depended,
not on the adhesion of the stones, but their form and weight, and by
science alone they obtained arches. Thus the perpendicular key-stone
of the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans, the horizontal and narrowing
circle of the Pelasgi, the massive rocks carved and transported by
the Egyptians, the inclining jamb of the Cyclops (Tyrius and Lamos),
the column and entablature of the Greek, all depended on mechanical
science, and, therefore, the form of the passage through a wall,
became a distinctive feature of a race. The tapia, by its adhesion,
constituted as it were a rock in the form of a dwelling; they required
no mechanical adjustments to obtain the openings,--they could make
them at pleasure; square, or with a semicircular or pointed arch or
a horse-shoe. They dug through the walls; so, in like manner, could
they carry them to any height, and build them for any number of ages.
Hence, the square, massive solidity of the Moorish structure; hence,
the absence of all exterior lines of architecture for embellishments;
hence, the ornaments of the material itself; hence, the bold facility
and the endless variety which they gave to their arches; hence, the
rich decorations and lightness of the interior contrasted with the
exterior rudeness and gravity; hence, the adornment of that interior by
tesselated pavements and variegated walls.
Here was architecture in its essence: the covering-in of the top, the
erecting of the wall, was the work of barrow-men. The carpenter, the
craftsman was required for laying on the beams, and making the terrace
water-tight. Within, the roof is as important as without; for as it is
upon the roof that depends the durability, and I may say, solidity of
the structure, so in the roof consists the chief embellishment of the
apartment.
Nothing is weak--nothing frittered away. Simple, but never rude;
unadorned, but never base; severe, and yet in the highest degree
attractive; the Æschylean Majesty of the Doric order is the very
highest conception that even Grecian art could realize. The
contemplation, even in the meanest engraving, of one of its matchless
porticos, in all the stern grace of the column, capital, and cornice,
is absolutely overwhelming. And this climax of pure dignity, this
expression of heathendom in its noblest form, this embodied καλὸν
[kalon], such as the Hellenic mind only could compass, we are gravely
told was borrowed from the hideous and unmeaning monstrosities of the
race who paid divine honours to the lowest vermin, and whom their
gardens supplied with appropriate objects of veneration![369]
Coleridge, by transferring into our language something of the verbal
chemistry of Kant, prompted combinations of terms as if they had been
compounds of simple elements; he did not give new substances, but
conferred the facility of travelling out of reality. Wordsworth, using
the objects of art and nature as suggesting devotional thoughts,
diverted the mythology of the Greeks to the service of the faith, and
thought it a conquest. Thus by peopling the forest, the cave, the
vault, and the spire with mystic beings, and supplying them with hidden
meanings, he contributed his part to theirs.
[344] “The Goths who conquered Spain in 470, becoming
Christians, endeavoured to build their churches in
imitation of the spreading and interlacing boughs of the
groves in which they had been accustomed to perform their
_pagan rites_ in their native country of Scandinavia,
and they employed for this purpose Saracen Architects,
whose _exotic_ style suited their purpose.”--WARBURTON.
[345] “The soaring nave of a Gothic minster, in the
clustered and banded stalks of its lofty pillars, the
curling leaves of its capitals and cornices, the
interlacing arches of its fretted vault, the interminable
entwinings of its tracery, the countless hues that sparkle
from roof, and chapiter, and wall, and window, recall no
work of man, indeed--no tent, or hut, or cavern, but the
sublimest temple of natural religion, the awful gloom of
the deep forests of the north; the aspiring height of the
slender pine, the spreading arms of the giant oak, rich
with the varied tints of leaf and blossom, with the wild
birds’ song for its anthem, or the rustle of the breeze
in its waving branches, for the voices of the mighty
multitude, or the deep notes of the solemn organ.”--
FREEMAN’S _History of Architecture_, p. 15.
[346] The walls of Megalopolis in Greece were so
defended.
[347] “Thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster
them with plaster, and thou shalt write upon them all the
words of this law.... Thou shalt not lift up any iron tool
upon them.”--Deut. xxvii. 2-5. The stones were to be
covered, and were not to be touched with iron tool; and
yet all the law was to be written on them: it must, then,
have been on the plaster.
[348] “An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me.”--
Exodus xx. 24.
[349] The Teucrian Girghis was, as I have shown elsewhere,
a colony of Gergashites. See also Selden, Diis Syriis: Syntag. l.
ii. c. 2.
[350] “Ex sabulone et calce et _favilla_.”--VITR. l. vii.
c. 4. In the Highlands of Scotland it is a tradition, that the old
lime, which stands so well, was used unslaked: the very same thing
has been told me in Andalusia. Recently in England they have
fallen on this process for building under water.
[351] Captivity of T. Phelps. London, 1685.
[352] “The name Thebes is corrupted from the 'Tápé’ of the
ancient Egyptians and Copts, which, in the Memphitic dialect, is
pronounced Thaba, easily converted into Θῆβαι [Thêbai], or Thebes.
Some writers have confined themselves to a closer imitation of the
Egyptian word; and Pliny and Juvenal have both adopted 'Thebe’ in
the singular number as the name of this city. In hieroglyphics it
is written Ap, Ape, or with the feminine article, Tápé, the
meaning of which appears to be '_the head_,’ Thebes being the
capital of the country.”--WILKINSON, _Thebes_, vol. ii. p. 136.
[353] Barrel is also derived from the Arabic--_bar_, earth;
_barril_, made of earth; which the Spaniards still apply to an
earthen vessel.
[354] The lexicographers derive ταφὸς [taphos]from θάπτω
[thaptô], and then they derive θάπτω [thaptô] from ταφός [taphos].
[355] Cybele is derived from κυβήβειν [kybêbein], _i.e._ κύπτειν
[kyptein], for she made her servants bow. Kύβη [Kybê], the head,
is derived from κύπτω [kyptô].
The word cupola is directly from the Arabic, _Cobbal_, which
from the form was likewise applied to the whole building, and also
to an umbrella: thus, the Mosque of Cordova was known as Cobbal al
Malik, or the King’s Cupola; and an office under the Mameluk
government in Egypt was entitled Cobbal u Thaïr, this functionary
carrying an umbrella, and bearing on his fist a hawk.
[356] I find in Richardson’s Sahara the word _marabit_. This
may, indeed, be a local term for tomb. In Richardson’s Dictionary
“marabet” is set down as _place of rest_. It has, however, no
connexion with “marabout,” or, properly, _amarabout_, from _amr_,
to command; whence _emir_ and _admiral_.
[357] Tomb, in Arabic, is _mukburea, medfanè gáber turbè_.
In Breber it is _agekka_.
[358] It was natural that the Phoceans should have adopted the
art, and given a name to it, as was their wont, from their own
language. The resemblance is too close to be accidental with
“Piazza.” _Piso_, in Spanish, is to stamp: it is also the floor of
a house, formerly made by ramming down, just as the walls
were--_Pistor_ in Latin. Their bread was better kneaded than ours;
so _piston_, _pestle_, &c.
[359] At Shemish, the most remarkable Phœnician ruin that
I visited, the Phœnician lime and mortar are conjoined with the
Hellenic blocks.
[360] The Carthaginians first used stones for paving their
streets and roads, so that from them was derived one of the
monuments that has mainly perpetuated the idea of Roman grandeur
and magnificence.
The same practice is of course used for floors in passages,
and leads naturally to the ornamenting of these in colour, and to
paving them in brick and pottery, as these arts took the place of
the rammed-down clay, or the sun-burnt brick.
[361] Vitruvius condemns square towers, as affording protection
to the besiegers rather than the besieged. The Moors first
invented flanking walls.
[362] An old Etruscan tower at Tosconella, is exactly of the
same make as the Moorish Sma.
[363] “_Do not despise me_, for when compared to the stone
pyramids, I am as superior as Jupiter to the other gods. For men,
plunging poles into a lake, and collecting the mud thus extracted,
formed it into bricks, of which they made me.”
There is here a contempt apprehended, and the highest estimation
expressed. The shepherd-king deprecates Egyptian censure, in
following his country’s fashion. Sir G. Wilkinson says:--
“Dr. Richardson justly asks, in what could this superiority
over stone pyramids exist? and suggests, that it points to the
_invention of the arch_ that roofed its chambers, which, provided
Asychis lived prior to the sixteenth and eighteenth dynasties, may
possibly be true.”
“The primeval builders of Egyptian stone pyramids must have
previously been earth-mound builders elsewhere, probably in
Asia.”--GLIDDON, _Otia Egyptiaca_, p. 36.
[364] “The cities are great and walled up to heaven.”--Deut.
vii. 28. “Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in and
possess thirty cities fenced up to heaven.”--Deut. ix. 1.
[365] So “moon sails,” “mountains of the moon.”
[366] 2 Samuel, xii. 31.
[367] Ezekiel, xiii. 10-11.
[368] Not indeed those in captivity in Goshen, and delivered
by Moses. The period is that of Thothmes III. of the
fifteenth dynasty.
[369] Freeman on Architecture, p. 106.
CHAPTER VII.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE FROM SPAIN.
That the grandest of styles should be known by the name of the rudest
of people--that architecture should be called after dwellers in tents
and tenants of huts--that the Goths should have ceased to exist before
the Gothic was invented is, indeed, a phenomenon. The word,
nevertheless, has served during many centuries all the purposes of a
name, and does not appear until these latter days to have been the
object of criticism or cavil. At last the word “Gothic” became a field
of literary debate, and immediately of religious discussion. Some
articles in a magazine, on the architecture of the Middle Ages,
connecting incidentally therewith contemporary practices and dogmas,
was the first symptom of the hallucination, out of which arose two
schools of mystagogues, theologians materializing dogmas, and
mathematicians idealizing forms. In these transmutations the gross did
not become ethereal, nor the airy, grave; but the solid melted into
air, and the spirit was turned to mud. Under this double perversion of
piety and science we had the progressive developements for the
structure of conscience, and an arch.[370] Gothic art and Christian
faith were deduced from Paganism by a “series of conversations”--
suppositions regarding the centre of a vault, were called
“tenets,”--the change of an ornament was a “manifestation”--finally a
cathedral was a “petrifaction of religion”--_Art_ was called
“_Christian_,” and then, of course, the Reformation could be re-argued
upon the plan of an architect.
It was truly a Pagan thought to call art-religions the appropriation
of art; it was the very life of Paganism, and justly did Quintilian
say, that the Minerva and Jupiter of Phidias “added something to
religion.”
But these things were for those without the veil. The initiated were
untaught art and its symbolism, and to them was revealed the
immaterial existence of the Godhead, his solitary being, and
omnipotent power. “That which was at first a gross symbol,” says De
Quincy, “became a sublime metaphor, because invested with the poetry
of art.” With us the external expressions of the feelings of a devout
age have been changed by the pedantry of a learned one into objects of
idolatry; and Christians direct Christians back to the mysteries of
Pagans unteaching the truth which Pagans knew, and pretend to reform
their own worship by transferring to the sanctuary the external images
in which the Pagans presented natural religion only to the
uninstructed crowd.
In the religions of the ancient world, Fetichism lay at the bottom:
the gods of the country were raised into deities, or these were
brought down as patrons of the spot. It was an honour and a security
to address them; there was no idea of proselyting the arts; the wealth
of the votary or the stranger was expended on their service.
Christianity presented a new character, the reverse of all that
preceded it; men were to be saved from craft and its devices, from art
and its enchantments, from vice and its seductions, from the world and
its wisdom. It was a religion of proselytism, repentance, and
abnegation. It was preached by fishermen and addressed to babes. It
thus stood the very antithesis of Polytheism, and the association of
art and religion was as essentially an un-Christian, as it was
essentially a Pagan thought.
Architecture has given rise to these aberrations only because its
history is unknown. The architecture of Europe, as revived
subsequently to the eighth century, was from the Saracens: they
communicated to Europe the impulse which retrieved her from that
lethargy, or, as M. Guizot calls it, that death by the extinction of
every function which came upon her after she had made experience of
Rome and her greatness--Christianity and her light--the Barbarians and
their vigour. They furnished also the models and the first workmen.
Had it been known that ecclesiastical architecture came from a
Mussulman source, surely we should not have heard of “the Gothic
springing from the Bible,” and like foolish speeches.
Of kinds of excellence, or periods of greatness, architecture has
furnished the fewest. How many are the admirable languages, systems of
government, and epochs of splendour! The whole human race, during
thousands of years, have brought forth scarcely more than two or three
distinct styles of architecture. Language is learnt unconsciously; it
survives under every vicissitude. A political system a founder may
plan. In science, by the discovery of one, all benefit,--painting or
sculpture arises when a few excel. Architecture belongs to the
circumstances, no less than the genius of a people, the climate under
which they live, the soil on which they dwell, their customs, and
their belief. The knowledge or taste from which it springs must be
universal, so also the habits it engenders.
Buildings are raised for man’s necessities, by his labour: they are
the creatures of his hand; they are the most permanent, the most
essential of the types of his race; they have embraced and protected
the lowliness and weakness of his origin; they have expanded with his
growth, hardened themselves in his danger, swelled into magnificence
in his pride, or arisen to sublimity in his adoration. Architecture
has laboured itself into life by long trial and patient progress. Like
no other art, it is within the grasp of no individual genius: the
materials are of the rudest kind, the labour is conducted in the
people’s eye, the poor man is the workman, and the embellishments are
of the commonest nature. Architecture is as identified with the
people, as the nest with the bird, or the honeycomb with the bee.
How, then, should architecture have come into being in the midst of an
unlettered race, without a previous traceable conception and
gestation; and how should it at once be applied on the grandest scale
to the noblest monuments, without previous practice and adaptation in
private uses to common life? Yet this must have been the case, had an
original architecture arisen among the inhabitants of the North,
whether Saxons or Normans. Nor is it a science standing by itself; it
is the application of many other sciences previously pursued and
thoroughly understood. Mathematics and dynamics must prepare the way,
by calculation of the pressure of weights and the power of supports;
and above all is such preparation requisite in that style which
combines height, solidity, lightness, and symmetry, depending upon the
proportioning of shafts, the inclination of buttresses, the curve of
arches, and the groining of vaults. How should perfection in all these
have been attained, by tribes emerging from their forests, or landing
from their hide-covered boats? To-day, amidst the wonderful progress
of all other sciences--with models before us--with the greatest zeal
and opportunities--seeing the enormities which result from every
architectural plan--shall we suppose that it should have sprung at
once to perfection among a people inexpert in other arts and ignorant
of every science?
There were, indeed, before the tribes that overthrew the Roman empire,
the models of classical antiquity; but they, when they began to build,
built in another style. It is very easy in the varieties of times and
places, to trace here and there coincidences and adaptations, which
theorists, by the aid of analogies and similes, may connect. It is
easy to draw scales of lines and forms, which shall show an insensible
progression from the Erechtheum to Westminster Hall; but the style
that then arose was as distinct from the Greek and Roman, as these
from the Egyptian, the Chinese, or the Hindoo. But had they restored
the classical, would the mere existence of the models explain the
fact? They had Cicero and Homer, without being orators or poets, and,
though England was filled with Roman masonry, the making of bricks was
a new discovery a thousand years after their departure. The sight of
masterpieces does not suffice, even for copying them--that is a new
invention. Man requires living teachers, and these were no more to be
found in the organic remains of classical architecture than in their
own unfashioned thoughts and uncultivated faculties.
Independently of these _à priori_ reasons, we find this architecture
not springing up at any definite moment, or at any particular spot,
but arising simultaneously amidst a variety of tribes, such as would
occur if derived from a foreign and a common source. Where, then, are
we to look for that source, if not amidst the almost fabulous people,
which at that very time appeared in the South?
It is no novel idea that Northern architecture was derived from the
Saracens; but our supposed intercourse with that people is confined to
the Crusades, which, coinciding, indeed, with, or shortly preceding,
the Gothic style, followed by centuries the Saxon and the Norman; and
as the three are so intimately associated that they do in reality
constitute but one style of architecture, the admitted obligation is
reduced, so to say, to nothing, by the great effort of the first
invention being attributed to ourselves: or rather we lose sight of
the greatness of the effort by supposing it to have been made where
faculties equal to it had no existence, and we fall into this
necessity by not seeing how, if not of our own invention, we could
have borrowed the first steps.[371]
But the intercourse of Northern Europe with the Saracens preceded the
Crusades by four or five centuries, and the intercourse of England
with Africa preceded Islamism. The first architectural movement in
England, in the age of St. Winifred, followed by half a century the
erection of the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, one of the noblest
monuments in the world. The Lombard style arose in the south of Italy
after these people had come in contact with the Saracens, and learnt
their arts, and employed their artists. The second architectural age
in England was that of the Normans: it was preceded by their conquests
in Calabria and Sicily, inhabited by the Saracens, who excelled--as
the ruins left behind them attest--in the very highest branches of
this art. The Gothic arose in Europe, when the Goths of Spain were
regaining power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and they
could emulate the arts and command the services of their Moorish
competitors; and the Spanish peculiarities of the style passed into
Europe with their name, precisely in the same manner as that of the
Norman or the Lombard before them.
The most common and primitive style of Moorish arching is the flat
wall cut into the semicircle, supported without entablature on wall or
column. That is exactly the Saxon: it was only known to them after
they had crossed the seas: they did not find it in England--they must
have acquired it in the course of their maritime enterprises; and they
were familiar with Western Africa, then inhabited by Christians.
Hadrian, the counsellor of Alfred, who first brought Greek letters to
England, was from Africa. African Christians, as recorded in old
Spanish charters, built churches in the north of Spain, where the
Mussulmans never penetrated. By Domesday Book we find Africans settled
in England at the time of the Conquest. Constantinus Afer was founder
of the school of Salerno; and the old British bards mention African
princes as the allies of their Saxon invaders.[372] The Saxon race
came in contact with the Saracens in the earliest times of Islam by
pilgrimages to the Holy Land--they served in the armies of the Greek
emperors. From the time of Constantine, an uninterrupted connexion of
the Arabs and Northmen, during four centuries, is attested by twenty
thousand Saracenic coins in the Cabinet of Stockholm, found in
Gothland and along the eastern coast of Sweden.
Having thus established the improbability of an original architecture
among our Northern forefathers; having shown in the previous chapter
the existence in western Barbary of the style which had descended from
the earliest antiquity, and having now indicated the channels through
which it might have passed thence to Europe, and the links between
Africa and each of the races who were distinguished for any of its
varieties, I shall now proceed to the internal evidence the buildings
themselves afford.
The present buildings of Africa are doubtless exactly what they were
in the time of Mahomet, and before the conquests of the Saracens. They
contain the rudiments of the Gothic, Saxon, and Roman styles. The tomb
is a cube, surmounted by a half-globe vault. The door-way is an arch,
horseshoe form, semicircular or pointed; it is shouldered by a
spandrel. Exactly the same are the tombs of India--the great monuments
of Jehangir and Akbar, which by some, from a mistake in the date, have
been considered as the type and the model of the Gothic.
The building next in importance is the tower, which is composed of
these cubes placed one above the other: the inner tower rises at the
top higher than the outer one. In their domestic architecture they use
flat roofs; but in the mosques they employ rows of gable roofs,
supported below by columns and arches. There are sometimes double rows
of arches, and intersecting arches. Their dwelling-houses are enriched
with a great variety of details, which may be compared to miniature
representations of the embellishments of our religious edifices, such
as niches, small pointed windows, pierced spandrels, mouldings, and
cornices. The same style pervades every kind of building, ornament,
and utensil,--their tombstones, their cushions, the wood-work of their
apartments, their trays, their stools, the latter of which might be
taken for small models of Gothic buildings.
It was impossible to behold daily these objects, and not perceive that
Morocco, whence issued the people who raised the great monuments in
Spain,[373] had been the native country of the Gothic. The long vault
and taper spire, indeed, were wanting; nor were there any buildings to
which, as a whole, the title of Saxon, Norman, or Gothic could be
applied. But then it occurred to me, that these modifications might be
traceable through the Saracens, and in their various settlements in
Europe, down to the historical period of the art in its European
sites. To pursue such an investigation appropriately would require a
lifetime. However, I have examined buildings in sufficient numbers to
trace, and I think establish, the connection.
The Saracens were established, not in Spain only, but also in the
important island of Sicily, and the southern extremity of Italy. These
were conquered at an early period by the Normans, and the Saracens
continued for half a century under them, working for them, building
chapels, churches, palaces, and cathedrals.[374] These Normans were in
continual intercourse with their native country on the British
channel. Passing constantly through France, they soon afterwards
conquered England. It was this people who gave the great impulse to
architecture in the eleventh century in England and France; and thus
arose the style known by their name; not merely raising those
buildings by the wealth they possessed in Normandy, or acquired in
England, but even by contributions made from the booty of Calabria,
and the spoils of Sicily. It is a remarkable fact, that a connexion so
well authenticated between the Normans and the Saracens, should be
passed by unnoticed by the writers upon architecture. For my own part,
when I stood within the north transept of the Cathedral of Winchester,
where the Norman portion has remained undisturbed, I should have been
sure of that connexion, had no records of it been preserved.
Theophilus cites the Arabs (of course of Sicily) as excelling in a
branch wherein we have least acknowledged their merit--the working of
metals: he particularizes its various branches, casting, hammering,
and chiseling.
“The Arabs,” says Vasari, “have given their name to a species of
ornament, which they have invented in obedience to the precepts of
their Prophet, and which is composed only of fruits and flower
foliage, and embranchments.” May not this description, so unlike the
Arabesque as we know it in the Peninsula, be derived from the chased
works of the Arabs in Sicily, where, out of their alliance with the
Greeks, a character sprang very distinct from that to which their
union with the Moors gave birth in the West?
The oldest of the specimens we have in Sicily, is the Capella
Palatine, built, soon after the conquest of the island, by Roger. It
approaches to that square form adopted by the Eastern churches, to
which Sicily then belonged, after there had ceased to be catechumens,
and so consisted of the solea and meroi, to the exclusion of the
elongated _naos_ or nave.[375] The chapel is small, but it is one of
the most perfect--if not the most perfect--pieces of workmanship in
the world. The floor, roof, and walls, are completely inlaid, or
incrusted, with marble or mosaic. There is a wide band running round
the apse in Arabic characters. This led to its being supposed to be a
mosque. The inscription, however, is a long string of honorary
epithets applied to Roger.[376]
From the succeeding reign we have the Cathedral of Cefala, the Church
Dell, Amigralio, that of Jerusalem, the Royal Chapel of St. Peter’s,
and the splendid Hall of William I., all in like manner the work of
the Saracens. There is no single instance among them of a horse-shoe
arch. There is no vaulting of the roof; but in the Cathedral of Cefala
there is a perfect Norman arch, bevelled or chamfered, and exactly the
same as we see them in the north of Europe. This edifice bears a Latin
inscription attributing to a Saracen the honour of the construction,
“_Hoc opus musei factum est_;” but these buildings were greatly
surpassed by the Cathedral of Montreale, erected by William II. It is
adorned with arches, traced upon the walls without, and they are all
Gothic; the floor of the Solea is laid down in marble in Arabesque
figures; the walls are encrusted with marbles or mosaics, or covered
with paintings; the gates are in bronze chased; the doors and
windows--many of them, at least--are in the old classic style of
Greece; the outline of the building is also classical and rectangular,
but ornamented with intersecting Gothic arches, which spring from the
jamb unbroken by cornice, capital, or entablature. On the whole it
presents in dimensions, height, richness of material, elegance of
design, variety and adaptation of styles, an object of art unique. It
is singular that this greatest work of the Normans in the South should
have in it no trace either of that style which we call Norman,[377] or
of that which is the peculiar feature of the Moor, the horse-shoe; and
the two styles that are there united, and which nowhere else are so
found, are the Greek and the Gothic. At the time of its erection this
cathedral was esteemed the masterpiece of architecture, and as
surpassing at once St. Sophia, and the St. Peter’s, of that day. Pope
Lucius says of it: “_Simile opus per aliquem regem factum non fuerit
ab antiquis temporibus._” The Duke di Sara de Falco, who published at
Palermo, in 1838, elaborate and beautiful engravings of it, has
collated with some of its ornaments, fragments from Owen Jones’s
“Alhambra;” but it is as Moorish as the Alhambra itself. The towers
are divided into stories, and each is somewhat smaller than the one
beneath, so that they have the appearance of buttresses without being
really so. The Sicilian author and artist says:--
“While this temple was building there arose in Palermo the magnificent
Duomo, and the Church of the Holy Ghost in Messina, the Cathedral and
the Church of St. Mary, at Raudazzo, and so many others that it is
needless to cite. We have ascertained that the artists employed at
Montreale were neither Italian nor Greek, but Sicilians; and that is
rendered more manifest by the Mosaic work, and the details of ornament
and construction so largely drawn from the Arabs, which certainly did
not come from the Greeks of the East, but from those who, long
familiarized with the Saracens, had imitated their manner; and that a
school of these workers in mosaics existed in Sicily is demonstrated
by the variety of composition, the fertility of genius, and the power
of design in those days, and they all agree with the workmanship of
Montreale.”
He then proceeds to claim for his country the honour of introducing
chasings and carvings into Italy, and Gothic architecture into Europe:
the former he deduces from the ancient Greek arts of Sicily, the
second from the Saracens.
In Spain the Goths were as entirely the pupils and followers of the
Saracens as were the Normans in Sicily. The variation of style from
the Moresque to the Spanish, or Gothic, was connected with the
difference of the social habits of the people. The Moors in Spain
remained constituted by tribe,--as much so as in the Desert, although
without its space. The feuds of the different tribes of Yemen were
transferred to Cordova and Seville; and a fray between two uleds
bordering on the Great Desert might suddenly produce bloodshed in the
narrow lanes and thick villages of Andalusia. There were also the
frequent ruptures and the permanent animosity between Brebers and
Arabs, and thus their buildings of necessity retained externally the
ponderous and castellated form, while their perfection in the various
arts of decoration embellished them internally with stuccoes,
carvings, gildings, paintings, enamel and mosaics. The Spaniards, as
they recovered the country, were on the one hand, relieved from these
sources of continual alarm; and, on the other, were destitute of those
arts of interior decoration: hence a more aspiring exterior, and a
more gloomy interior; and upon the stones was concentrated the care
which the Arabs had to give to so many other materials.
There has been a great destruction in Spain of Moorish buildings. We
do possess, indeed, but two remarkable ones; the one the fragment of a
palace raised within latter days, the other a mosque, the first in
fame, but also the first in date, being now 1300 years old. It does
not, therefore, afford us the opportunity of judging of the progress
of the art. There subsist, however, some smaller specimens of a later
date, which might almost be taken for Gothic buildings.[378]
The characteristics of the Gothic are--the pointed arch; the arch
resting on the column without entablature; vaulting; arched gateways;
splayed windows; buttresses; the spire tower, or belfry. These may
severally be traced to the Saracens.
THE POINTED ARCH.
This is to be found from the first moment of the appearance of the
Arabs, in countries the most remote from each other, and in structures
destined to the most diverse purposes. I may instance:--
The Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, the first building of the Saracens,
commenced A.D. 637.[379]
The Mosque of Amrou, at Cairo, the first Mussulman building in Africa,
commenced towards A.D. 650. That of E’Naser Mohammed, A.D. 698.[380]
The Nilometer (lancet-niches), A.D. 700. Shella, in Morocco, date
uncertain, probably anterior to the Mussulman era.[381] The Tower of
Alcamo, in Sicily, the earliest Mussulman building in Eastern
Europe.[382] The Tower of Gibraltar, A.D. 745, which contains a
regular Gothic church window, though now built up. The Cathedral of
Montreale, A.D. 1174, where the arch springs unbroken from the jamb.
In fact, whenever the Saracens appeared, they brought the arch we call
Gothic. It is found in universal use by them, and was so used by no
people before them. When used by any people, the connexion with them
may be traced. In Morocco or Spain may be found all known arches--the
elliptical, the four-centred, the horizontal, the surbased, the
lancet, the angular--if I may so describe one unknown to us, and
formed like a truncated triangle. They had the stilt arch, the ogee,
and, at Seville, is to be found a specimen of our recent invention,
the skew arch; they had the trefoil, the pentifoil, as ornaments, with
a multitude of unclassed and unnamed forms, which may, in our terms,
be characterized as pensile, stalagmitic, serrated, cusped, fanned,
dentiled. These may be studied in Jones’s Alhambra.
CHAMFERING OF THE ARCH.
I am not aware that this modification exists on the soil of Africa
to-day, unless in a fragment described in the Pentapolis, by Dr. Shaw:
this is the modification of the Norman upon the Saxon, and is to be
found in the Cathedral of Cefala, and the tower of Gibraltar.
VAULTING.
This portion of modern architecture is Roman; but it in no way
suffices to say that the Roman had vaults to account for our having
them: the models of a dead people do not introduce a new art; the
Saracens did not copy the classical models. The Moors had, indeed, the
half-sphere, as the Romans; but they had not the elongated vault. The
pointed and elongated vault, with its intersections, was, therefore,
original in the Gothic, and may have been constructed by the Saracens,
in Spain. To it there was the closest approximation in their pointed
arches, doorways, and windows. The gable form of their mosque roofs
would suggest the pointed and not the semicircular vault. Whenever
they covered these in stone, here was the point--where their original
material, the tapia, failed, it could rise from four sides into a
dome; but elongated vaulting, and its intersections and groinings,
depended upon the mechanical adjustment of the separate stones. When
they came to build in this fashion in Spain (as in Egypt, Syria,
Sicily, &c.), their mathematical skill would be called into play, and
they must, of necessity, have thrown stone roofs over the large
churches and cathedrals which they were employed by the Christians to
build.[383]
ARCHED GATEWAYS.
This is one of the most remarkable features of the Gothic, so unlike
the doors of any other style, giving such grandeur to the edifices,
and suggesting, even at once, its whole designs. And here the
identification is complete--the entrance to every Moorish room is like
the porch of a cathedral, and the massive portals that close them with
the wicket, presents in every Moorish court the gateway of a monastery
or a _college_.
WINDOWS AND STAINED GLASS.
From the want of windows in Moorish houses and mosques, and from the
great dimensions, elaborate structure, and important office of windows
in our churches and cathedrals, it might be supposed that here we
should be at fault in tracing the connexion; but the Moors afford us
the most interesting rudiments of the stone-framed figures of our
window, and the painted glass with which they are embellished.
Above and beside the door in Moorish rooms, there are small apertures
for air rather than light, generally narrow, with a trefoil head.
Two, four, or more of these may be placed side by side, and over them
a circular figure pierced in like manner. In some of the Spanish
cathedrals--and I again quote Toledo--there are windows which represent
these openings in the wall, and _are glazed_. In the Alhambra, the
Alcazar of Seville, and every other Moorish structure in Spain, there
are to be seen the pierced work in stucco, in the form of Gothic
windows;--the patterns of these correspond with the tracery on the
walls, which being in colour, it was natural to continue the patterns
in colour to the open spaces; and to effect this, where the exposure
required it, bits of painted glass are stuck into the plaster while
fresh. A colder climate would suggest the extension of the glass, the
reduction of the stucco, and the substitution of stone for stucco.
Glass for windows was peculiarly a Spanish art; it was already known in
England and France in the seventh century:[384] the staining of glass
commenced in Spain, though it was carried to the highest perfection
in France. Two of the colours and substances were designated Spanish
at a time when few original colouring matters were employed.[385] The
Saracens were, besides, proficients in the making of glass, whether
transparent or coloured. The first I accidentally fell upon in the
Mosque at Cordova--they used coloured glass for the mosaics; but it
was opaque;--they also understood enamelling, and in encaustic tiles
they were unrivalled. Stained glass is, to this day, of universal use
among the Easterns, who have spread more to the northward, and have
adopted external windows. A Turkish room is a miniature cathedral,
with its ascending floor; its entrance opposite to its lights, and its
clerestory windows,--for there are two rows of them--the lower one
rectangular like ours, and furnished with curtains, the upper one of
every variety of shape, and in stained glass, and made to correspond
with the ornaments of the corresponding panels of the apartment.
The apertures in the Moorish tapia thus became Gothic windows, and
the pierced patterns of the stucco mullions and transoms, with cusped
trefoils and foliage in stone, with the intervals glazed in stained
glass: the adjoining portion of the wall must then have been pared
away and bevelled out. The Moors were the first people to adopt this
process, as applying it to military architecture: they adopted it for
their loopholes and embrasures, while bows and arrows were yet in use.
Their first external windows were embrasures--churches were built for
defence as well as devotion. The bevelling in their walls is on both
sides less without than within, exactly as it is practised in Gothic
windows.
BUTTRESSES.
Next to the arch itself the buttress has been considered essential to
the Gothic.[386] This member is supposed to have its origin in the
North, and to have been requisite for the passage from the Norman to
the Gothic, and from the tower to the spire. The buttress is to be
found among the Arabs, as early as the pointed arch, and as
universally known, though not so commonly used.
The square building at Gibraltar, used as a magazine, and with a sort
of pyramidal roof, is strengthened by powerful and expanding
buttresses, irregularly placed on the angles, A.D. 749. Specimens are
abundant at Jerusalem, in Cairo, and in Sicily.
I have met with no instance of flying buttresses: these, however, may
be seen in Spain, carried to a width unknown elsewhere;--as for
instance, in the Cathedral of Seville.
THE TOWER AND SPIRE.
The early English towers are copies of those of Morocco. The Moorish
tower stands apart from the Mosque: so do our early belfries and the
Campanile of Italy. The spire has been naturally suggested by the
minaret, which may be connected with the obelisk, being the only
instance of the kind in the ancient world; and the minaret having been
first adapted to Saracenic buildings in Egypt, where it was engrafted
on the _Sma_ or square tower of the Moors--together they constitute our
spire, as seen in the half tower, half minaret of Egypt.
If any one will turn over successively the pages of Roberts’s Holy
Land, Costes’ Egypt, Hope’s German Churches, Sara de Fulco’s Sicily,
and Gally Knight’s Italy, he will recognise the features of the one
in the other, and trace the resemblances just as if turning over the
grammars of various languages derived from a common source.
CLOISTERS.
The quadrangle with the columns sustaining the advanced building of
the first story, over an open corridor below, is as Moorish as if the
models had been sent from Morocco.[387] The court of the Monastery
of Bellem at Lisbon, is the most beautiful specimen I know. It is at
once purely Gothic and purely Moorish; each style seeming to have
taken something from the other to heighten its effect. In the centre
is a fountain, and on each side lines of tanks for water, intersected
with stages for plants, which are lined with coloured tiles around:
there are Gothic arches, filled with the screen or stonework of
windows--without the glass, as in the Campo Sancto of Pisa. In the
angles of the quadrangle, the limbs of a projecting and wider arch
seem to embrace and protect a sharper arch within. This may be seen in
Moorish works, and also in the porch of the Cathedral of Rouen. The
church belonging to this monastery presents an interesting field for
studying the influence of the Moors upon European architecture, and it
is in every way a building not less original than beautiful.
A connexion between Africa and England is traceable in a point where
we might least expect it, and at a very early period--and that is
fire-places. “Chimneys,” says Mr. Hallam, “which had been missed
by the sagacity of Greece and Rome--a discovery of which Vitruvius
never dreamed--was made perhaps in this country by some forgotten
barbarian.”[388] He refers to Coningsby Castle, supposed to be of a
date prior to the Conquest, to prove the existence of chimneys, before
the alleged date of the discovery in the fourteenth century. Had he
inspected the chimney in question, he must have perceived a peculiar
and unique method of joining the key-stones of the flat arch that
supports the front in lieu of a mantelpiece. This process, unique in
Europe, is common amongst the Moors.
Whoever has visited the East must have been struck with the
original character of the fireplaces and chimney-pieces; they are
an embellishment to the room, in what we should term the Decorated
Gothic style. Whoever has looked down upon the city of Lisbon from its
garden-fortress, cannot fail to observe the contrast between the small
neat rows of apertures that serve for chimney tops, and our unsightly
and grotesque expedients for the same purpose. Whether in the mode
of placing the fire, in the embellishment of the portion of the room
appropriated to it, or in the elegance of chimney tops (so as to
change them from a blemish to an ornament), we have yet to learn and
borrow from the Moors. These chimney tops and appliances are not to be
seen indeed in Morocco; but the traces subsist further north, where
they adapted themselves to the necessities of the climate. The general
resemblance of feature is also to be traced in the names, many of which
I have already mentioned, such as, house-door, barbican, dairy; but and
ben, and cabail of the Highlanders; roof, stable, gypsum-house, garret,
and even burgh, which we have been content to take from the Greek πύρος
[pyros], is after all an Arabic word, in common use for pigeon-house,
when built in the form of a tower.[389] In conjunction with these we
must take so many terms and usages, exhibiting an intimate connexion
between Africa and England, dating from the decline of Roman power.
In these observations I neither propound a new theory nor agitate a
settled question. I present the good and valid reasons upon which
our ancestors adopted a title, which we use with disgust and are
endeavouring to discard. I trace our architecture back to the people
to whom it properly pertains, and through them to an antiquity
venerable in itself and deeply interesting from its association with
the inspired writings. But it is more particularly the means of its
introduction into Europe that it is useful to establish; for this, if
anything, might diminish the _odium theologicum_ which has sprung from
this source. A more perfect antidote there cannot be than that this
“Christian” art, this weapon of proselytism, by which no religious
community achieves conquests, but by which all faith is smitten, should
be itself Mussulman, and that we should owe the architecture (if there
were any ratio between the supposed cause and the effect) which we
attribute to the Bible, to the Koran.
What would have been the reply of the early Christians, had such a
mania then prevailed, to those who argued the truth of polytheism,
from the temples that had been raised in its honour, or the statues
with which they were adorned?[390] What, again, would those have said,
whose works are now taken as models, had they been told that in a
future age of light and freedom their walls and arches should become
steps in the ladder of conviction, shibboleths in polemics and lists
of orthodoxy![390] In the long and vehement contests between the
Christians and the Mussulmans in Spain, both reciprocally used the
temples of the other, which were sometimes even divided between them.
“Men have before now been led to adopt Romanism by its fancied
connexion with poetry, or painting, or Gothic architecture; and if such
men had lived while the mythologies of Greece or of Rome were living
systems, they would with equal reason have forsaken Christianity for
heathen religions, in which art had arrived at its highest conceivable
excellence. The adoption of religious views, merely because they are
in some way connected with what is gratifying to our senses or our
feelings, and without primary reference to the evidence for their
truth, is a proceeding which seems indicative of a practical disbelief
in the evidence of any revealed truth, or of any religious truth
whatever.”[391]
The inhabitants of England, who first introduced it in the North,
did not call themselves Goths, but Saxons: nor were the followers of
William, Goths, but Normans. The Gothic name had disappeared from
Europe as the designation of any country, and the later modification
of the style appeared, and the epithet was applied. But there was one
country in which the name of the Goth was still preserved, and that
was Spain. That name would have disappeared in Spain as elsewhere, had
it not been for the Saracen conquest. The Goths had not originally
appeared in Spain as ravagers or conquerors; they _came_ in the name
and with the authority of the Roman empire to drive out the Vandals,
to put an end to anarchy, to protect property, and to sustain the
laws. The people of Spain had evidently been disinclined to espouse
the quarrel of the Goths against the Saracens; but, in subsequent
attempts to throw off the Saracen yoke, the Goths must have been their
leaders; and in fact to be a Goth was to be a freeman, and no longer
tributary to the Mussulmans. As the Christians reacquired strength,
they could neither take the title of Andalusians, nor of Murcians,
nor of Castilians, far less of Spaniards, for these names belonged as
much to the Mussulmans as to themselves. They took, therefore, that of
Goths, an ancient and a noble name, and associated at once with their
national independence, the traditions of Rome, and the authority of
the Christian Church; and to this day the peasant of Spain, when he
points out a great monument, will say, “_Obra de los Godos_.” Gothic
is to them synonymous with heroic--the Gothic times, the Gothic kings,
Gothic courts, Gothic laws, Gothic glory. It marks in Spanish history
the period of struggling and triumphant freedom. It is the period which
contrasts in all things with that known as “Catholic.”
[370] IDEAL STRUCTURE OF AN ARCH.
“The _introduction_ of the arch _undermined_ the Grecian
_system_ of entablature, _and introduced_ a double plane of
decoration: the _ruin_ of taste and art _supervening_ upon
this, _broke up_ still further the Roman _traditional
arrangement_; caprice, and the love of novelty, introduced
new _forms_ of _members_ and ornaments into this incoherent
_mass_; arches of various shapes were invented or borrowed;
the Byzantine dome was _added_ (!) to the previous forms of
Roman vaulting. _So far all is a proof of disorganization._
But then comes in a new _principle_ of _connexion_ first,
and of _unity_ afterwards: the _lines of pressure_ are made
the prominent _features_; the compound arches are
distributed to their props; the vaults are supported by
ribs; the ribs by vaulting shafts, the _upright meeting_ of
the end and side is _allowed to guide_ the neighbouring
members. Finally, the _general authority of vertical lines
is allowed_; the structure is distributed into compartments
according to such _lines_, each of these being
_symmetrical_ in itself. The _continuity_ of _upright
lines_ being _established_, the different _planes_ of
decoration _glide_ into tracery and feathering, and THE
GOTHIC SYSTEM IS COMPLETE.”--WHEWELL.
STRUCTURE OF AN IDEAL CONSCIENCE.
“We are now, then, able to see with some distinctness the
_fundamental maxims_ of the _philosophy of faith_.
Conscience, viewed _in abstract_, has no power of
discovering _more than the immutable principles of
morality_. _But_ in proportion _as it is pure_ and _well
disciplined_, it discriminates and appropriates _moral and
religious truth_, of whatever kind, and disposes the mind
to listen to _this external message rather than that_;
while each new truth thus brought before it _from without_,
in proportion as it is deeply received, and made the
subject of religious action and contemplation, elicits a
deep and hitherto unknown harmony _from within_, which is
_the full warrant and sufficient evidence of that truth.
Viewed then in the concrete_, as found in the devout
believer, we may regard _conscience_ and _faith_ to be the
one and the same _faculty_. Considered as submissively
bending before external authority, and ever deriving more
of doctrinal truth, we call it FAITH; considered as
carefully obeying the precepts of which it has knowledge,
and as laboriously realizing and assimilating the truths of
which it has possession, we call it CONSCIENCE.”--WARD.
[371] “The Anglo-Norman cathedrals were perhaps as much
distinguished above other works of man in their own age, as
the more splendid edifices of a later period. _The science
manifested in them is not however very great_, and their
style, though by no means destitute of lesser beauties, _is
upon the whole an awkward imitation_ of Roman architecture,
or _perhaps_ more immediately of the Saracenic buildings in
Spain.”--HALLAM, _Middle Ages_, vol. iii. p. 431.
As we become philosophical--that is, as the habit grows of
accounting for everything--we must of course deny what we
cannot account for.
[372] Gormound, who fell at the battle of Derham, on the borders
of Gloucestershire, about 570; Gulfred, Ranulph, and others.
[373] “Has the attention of architects, or of writers on
architecture, been directed sufficiently to Spain? A
comparison of the genuine Saracenic remains in the
Peninsula, with the earliest specimens of Spanish
architecture, in their details might do more to illustrate
the connexion of the two schools, and the history of the
pointed style, than has been effected, or is likely to be
effected by elaborate theories on the subject.”--FOSTER’S
_Mahometanism Unveiled_, vol. ii. p. 252.
[374] For instance, the Cathedral of Coutances, finished twelve
years before the battle of Hastings.
[375] I cannot help referring to that new absurd term Naology, so
perfectly pagan that it was even excluded by the Greeks, in
adapting their own terms to the Christian worship (see
Simeon of Thessalonica), (Leon, Allazzi, De Solea Goar,
Rituale Græc.). Whewell is at the same time endeavouring to
exclude the term “nave,” where we have got the thing,
substituting for it, “_centre_ aisle.”
[376] Ugon Falcandus, in Carusi Bib. Sicul., b. i. p. 487. This
inscription corresponds with that upon the Dalmatic, which
was supposed to have been the imperial robe of Charlemagne.
Tyschen has, however, made it out to be the work of the
Arabs of Palermo, A.D. 1132. A baptismal font at
Caltabellota bears an Arabic inscription, which is
interpreted by M. Lanci--“Office (workshop) of Ben Messid,
son of Nain.”
[377] In the Norman buildings the pointed arch occurs. Mr.
Whewell, observing the fact, instead of concluding that the
various styles were contemporaneous, gets rid of the fact,
as usual, by a theoretical explanation.
[378] “At the place where we breakfasted to-day (Naval
Carnero) there is a really beautiful church of the
Arabesque order. It has two Moorish towers, with the sphere
and globe: the interior is most devotional. I thought the
Moorish arches of the nave quite equal for devotional
effect to the Gothic, which it much resembles. Nothing
could be more chaste. The interior besides was very neatly
kept, which, in these days of revolution and robbery, is no
slight matter. If it had not been in Spain, I should have
thought that I was in a Gothic church.”--_Extract from a
MS. Journal._
[379] “A large square plinth of marble extends from the
top of one column to the other, and above it there are
constructed a number of arches all round, which support the
inner end of the roof or ceiling, the outer end resting on
the walls of the building. This is composed of wood or
plaster, highly ornamented with a species of carving, and
richly gilt.”--RUSSEL’S _Palestine_, p. 500.
Dr. Richardson speaks of it as the most beautiful building
he had ever beheld; but gives no description.
Ali Bey observes, that “the great centre nave of the mosque
Al Aksa is supported on each side by seven arches lightly
pointed, resting upon cylindrical pillars, in the form of
columns, with foliaged capitals, which do not belong to any
order: the fourth pillar to the right of the entrance is
octangular and enormously thick, called the Pillar of Sidi
Omar.”--P. 501.
On the conclusion of this work, there was a letter from the
architects to the calif, as given by Jellal Addin, which
may be read in our days with perhaps some profit, or at
least surprise:--
“_God hath brought to an end_ that which the Commander of
believers hath commanded us respecting the erection of the
chapel of the sakhra, the sakhra of the Holy City, and the
mosque Al Aksa. _And there remains not a word to be spoken
about it._ Moreover there remains _some surplus above the
money granted_ us by the Commander of believers to that
end, after 100,000 dinars have been expended thereon. Let
the Commander of believers convert it to the object he
likes best.”--_Temple of Jerusalem_, p. 186.
[380] “It is remarkable for an elegant doorway, with clustered
pillars in the European or Gothic style, such as might be
found in one of our churches, and therefore differing in
character from Saracenic architecture. Over this door is an
inscription, purporting that the building was erected by
the Sultan Mohammed, son of the Sultan El Melek El Munsoor
E’deen Kalaoón E’Salehee. The date on the lintel is 698
A.H. (or A.D. 1299), and on the body of the building, 695.
The minaret which stands above this Gothic entrance is
remarkable for its lace-like fretwork, which calls to mind
the style of the Alhambra and of the Al Cazar at Seville.”
“The pointed arch was evidently employed in Egypt previous
to the accession of the Fatimite dynasty, and consequently
long before it was known in any part of
Europe.”--WILKINSON’S _Thebes_, vol. ii. pp. 241, 288.
[381] It is supposed to have been the capital of the
Carthaginian colonies. It is held a place of peculiar
sanctity, and no Christian or Jew was allowed to enter it.
It has been in ruins since the twelfth century.
[382] The pointed arch is here merely in the substance of
the wall, placed to strengthen it above the windows, with a
low or four-centred arch. The same is to be found in the
gates of Jerusalem.
[383] “An entire side of a chapel of the cathedral of
Toledo, opening out of the southernmost nave, is ornamented
in the Arab style, having been executed by a Moorish artist
at the same period as the rest; and not (as might be
conjectured) having belonged to the mosque, which occupied
the same site previously to the erection of the present
cathedral.”--WELLS’S _Antiquities_, p. 128.
[384] Du Cange, v. Vitrea.
[385] The fine colour then given to stained glass in Europe
was derived from the old mosaics, which were pounded and
laid upon the glass, and thus passed into the furnace. See
Theophilus _Divers, Artium Cedula_. Immense must have been
the destruction of ancient relics through this practice, to
which the Moorish mosaics were subject, as well as those of
Rome and the glass of the Phœnicians.
[386] “In Gothic works the arch is an indispensable and
governing feature; it has pillars to support its vertical,
and buttresses to resist its lateral pressure: its summit
may be carried upwards indefinitely by the jamb thrust of
its two sides.”--WHEWELL _on German Churches_, p. 20; 3rd
edit.
[387] In one of the faces of the old font in Winchester
Cathedral, belonging to Saxon times, there is a
representation of a building which might be taken for a
Moorish house.
[388] Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 425.
[389] Wilkinson’s Thebes, vol. ii. p. 18.
[390] The Wickham brotherhood, an association of Catholic
Mystagogues, headed by Pugin, voted those uncatholic, in
an architectural sense, who did not believe in the Gothic
of the thirteenth century.
[391] Palmer on the Doctrine of Developement and _Conscience_,
p. 86.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY and HENRY FLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
MEMOIRS OF PRINCE RUPERT AND THE CAVALIERS. BY ELIOT WARBURTON.
Numerous Fine Portraits. 3 vols., 8vo., 42s.
THE CONQUEST OF CANADA. By the Author of “Hochelaga.” 2 vols.,
8vo., 28s.
CORRESPONDENCE OF SCHILLER WITH KÖRNER. From the German. BY
LEONARD SIMPSON. 3 vols., 31s. 6d.
THE FAIRFAX CORRESPONDENCE: MEMOIRS OF CHARLES THE FIRST. Part
II.--THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. By ROBERT BELL. 4 vols., 8vo., 60s.
⁂ Either Part may be had separately.
A HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY. By Sir HARRIS NICOLAS, G.C.M.G. 2
vols., 8vo., 28s.
A HISTORY OF THE JESUITS, FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THEIR SOCIETY. By
ANDREW STEINMETZ. 3 vols., 8vo., 45s.
LOUIS XIV., AND THE COURT OF FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. By
Miss JULIA PARDOE. Third Edition. 3 vols., 8vo., 42s.
THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, THE CATHOLICS
OF SPAIN. By W. H. PRESCOTT. Second Edition. 3 vols., 8vo., 42s.
HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO, WITH THE LIFE OF THE CONQUEROR,
HERNANDEZ CORTES. By W. H. PRESCOTT. Fourth Edition. 2 vols.,
8vo., 32s.
THE CONQUEST OF PERU. By W. H. PRESCOTT. 2 vols., 8vo., 32s.
BIOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY ESSAYS. By W. H. PRESCOTT. 8vo., 14s.
MEMOIRS OF THE REIGNS OF EDWARD VI. AND MARY. By PATRICK FRASER
TYTLER. 2 vols., 8vo., 24s.
NAVAL HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN, WITH A CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY
TO THE PRESENT TIME. By W. JAMES. Numerous Portraits, &c. 6
vols., 8vo., 54s.
MEMOIRS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. By HORATIO LORD ORFORD.
Edited, with Notes, by Sir DENIS LE MARCHANT, Bart. 4 vols.,
8vo., 56s.
BENTLEY’S COLLECTIVE EDITION OF THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE. 6
vols., 63s.
LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. By HORACE WALPOLE. (Second Series). 4
vols., 8vo., 56s.
CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES OF ENGLISH SOCIETY, POLITICS, AND
LITERATURE, COMPRISED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS
OF OSSORY. By HORACE WALPOLE. Edited by the Right Hon. R.
VERNON SMITH, M.P. 2 vols., 8vo., 30s.
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF THE STUARTS.
By J. HENEAGE JESSE. 4 vols., 8vo., 56s.
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENGLAND UNDER THE HOUSES OF NASSAU AND
HANOVER. By J. HENEAGE JESSE. 3 vols., 8vo., 42s.
MEMOIRS OF THE CHEVALIER AND PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD, OR THE
PRETENDERS AND THEIR ADHERENTS. By J. HENEAGE JESSE. 2 vols.
8vo., 28s.
GEORGE SELWYN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES; WITH MEMOIRS AND NOTES. By
J. HENEAGE JESSE. 4 vols., 8vo., 56s.
MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS. BY CHARLES MACKAY,
LL.D. 3 vols., 8vo., 42s.
MEMOIRS OF KING HENRY V. By J. ENDELL TYLER, B.D. 2 vols., 8vo., 21s.
A HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIME; COMPRISING MEMOIRS OF THE COURTS OF
ELIZABETH AND JAMES I. By DR. GOODMAN, BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.
Edited by J. S. BREWER, M.A. 2 vols., 8vo., 18s.
MARSH’S ROMANTIC HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOTS; OR, THE PROTESTANT
REFORMATION IN FRANCE. 2 vols., 8vo., 30s.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ENGLISH HISTORY, IN A NEW SERIES OF ORIGINAL
LETTERS; NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS. IN THE
BRITISH MUSEUM, STATE PAPER OFFICE, &c. by SIR HENRY ELLIS. 4
vols., post 8vo., 24s.
MEMOIRS OF THE TWO REBELLIONS IN SCOTLAND IN 1715 AND 1745; OR,
THE ADHERENTS OF THE STUARTS. By MRS. THOMSON. 3 vols., 8vo.,
42s.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE KINGDOM OF CAUBUL AND ITS DEPENDENCIES IN
PERSIA, TARTARY, AND INDIA. By THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE. 2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
A CENTURY OF CARICATURES; OR, ENGLAND UNDER THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.
BY THOMAS WRIGHT. 2 vols., 8vo., 30s.
SOCIAL LIFE IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. By MISS BERRY. 2 vols., small
8vo., 21s.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MAGIC, PRODIGIES, AND APPARENT MIRACLES. FROM
THE FRENCH. Edited and Illustrated with Notes by A. T.
THOMSON, M.D. 2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
AN ANTIQUARIAN RAMBLE IN THE STREETS OF LONDON, WITH ANECDOTES OF
THEIR MOST CELEBRATED RESIDENTS. By JOHN THOMAS SMITH. Second
Edition. 2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
DIARIES AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JAMES HARRIS, FIRST EARL OF
MALMESBURY. EDITED BY HIS GRANDSON, THE THIRD EARL. 4 vols.,
8vo., 60s.
MEMOIRS OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON; TO WHICH ARE NOW FIRST ADDED A
HISTORY OF THE HUNDRED DAYS, OF THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO, AND OF
NAPOLEON’S EXILE AND DEATH AT ST. HELENA. By M. BOURRIENNE.
Numerous Portraits. 4 vols., 8vo., 30s.
MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON, K.G., By
SIR HARRIS NICOLAS, G.C.M.G. 8vo., 15s.
HOWITT’S HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE BRITISH POETS. Numerous Fine
Engravings. 2 vols., 8vo., 21s.
THE PROSE WRITERS OF AMERICA, WITH A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY,
CONDITION, AND PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. BY R. W.
GRISWOLD. 1 vol., 8vo., 18s.
THE LIFE AND REMAINS OF THEODORE HOOK. By THE REV. R. D. BARHAM.
Second Edition. 2 vols., post 8vo., 21s.
ROLLO AND HIS RACE; OR, FOOTSTEPS OF THE NORMANS. By ACTON
WARBURTON. Second Edition. 2 vols., 21s.
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.
FIVE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC. By LIEUT. THE HON. FREDERICK WALPOLE,
R.N. 2 vols. 8vo., 28s.
NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE DEAD SEA AND SOURCE OF THE
JORDAN. By COMMANDER W. F. LYNCH, U.S.N. Royal 8vo., 21s.
THE WESTERN WORLD; OR, TRAVELS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES IN
1847. By ALEXANDER MACKAY. 3 vols., post 8vo, 31s. 6d.
NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO EXPLORE THE WHITE NILE. From the
German. By CHARLES O’REILLY. 2 vols., post 8vo., 21s.
THE ISLAND OF SARDINIA; INCLUDING PICTURES OF THE MANNERS AND
CUSTOMS OF THE SARDINIANS. By J. W. WARRE TYNDALE. 3 vols.,
post 8vo., 31s. 6d.
ITALY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By JAMES WHITESIDE, Q.C. Second
Edition. 3 vols., 31s. 6d.
FRANK FORESTER AND HIS FRIENDS, OR SCENES AND SKETCHES OF SPORTING
LIFE IN THE MIDDLE STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. By W. H. HERBERT.
3 vols., post 8vo., 31s. 6d.
FIELD SPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND BRITISH PROVINCES OF
AMERICA. By FRANK FORESTER. 2 vols., post, 21s.
REMINISCENCES OF PARIS, TOURS, AND ROUEN IN 1847. A new edition of
“The Parson, Pen, and Pencil.” By THE REV. G. M. MUSGRAVE. 1
vol., 21s.
NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE NIGER IN 1841. By CAPT. W.
ALLEN, R.N. 2 vols., 8vo., 32s.
VIENNA IN OCTOBER, 1848. By the HON. HENRY JOHN COKE. Post 8vo.,
7s. 6d.
NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE INTERIOR OF NEW HOLLAND. Post
8vo., 2s. 6d.
SIX MONTHS’ SERVICE IN THE AFRICAN BLOCKADE, IN 1848, IN COMMAND
OF H.M.S. “BONETTA.” By COMMANDER FORBES, R.N. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d.
VICISSITUDES OF THE ETERNAL CITY. By JAMES WHITESIDE, Q.C. Post
8vo., 12s. (Companion to “Italy in the Nineteenth Century.”)
TWELVE YEARS’ WANDERINGS IN THE BRITISH COLONIES. By J. C. BYRNE.
2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
A THREE YEARS’ CRUISE IN THE MOZAMBIQUE CHANNEL, FOR THE
SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. By LIEUTENANT BARNARD, R.N.
Post 8vo., 10s. 6d.
RAMBLES IN THE ROMANTIC REGIONS OF THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS. By HANS
CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Post 8vo., 10s 6d.
FIVE YEARS IN CHINA; INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF THE OCCUPATION OF
BORNEO AND LABUAN. By LIEUT. F. E. FORBES, R.N. 1 vol., 8vo.,
15s.
SARAWAK: ITS INHABITANTS AND PRODUCTIONS. By HUGH LOW. 8vo., 14s.
A WALK ROUND MOUNT BLANC. By the REV. FRANCIS TRENCH. Post 8vo.,
10s. 6d.
TRAVELS IN THE GREAT DESERT OF SAHARA. By JAMES RICHARDSON. 2
vols., 8vo., 30s.
LETTERS FROM THE DANUBE. By the Author of “Gisella,” &c. 2 vols.,
post 8vo., 21s.
THE BUSHMAN; OR, LIFE IN A NEW COLONY. By E. W. LANDOR. 8vo., 14s.
RAMBLES IN SWEDEN AND GOTTLAND. By SYLVANUS. 8vo., 14s.
NOTES OF A RESIDENCE AT ROME IN 1847. By the REV. M. VICARY. post
8vo., 5s.
SWITZERLAND IN 1847. By T. MÜGGE. Translated by Mrs. PERCY
SINNETT. 2 vols., post 8vo., 21s.
TRAVELS IN WESTERN AFRICA. By JOHN DUNCAN. 2 vols., post, 8vo., 21s.
ADVENTURES OF AN ANGLER IN CANADA. By CHARLES LANMAN. Post 8vo.,
10s. 6d.
PADDIANA; OR, SKETCHES OF IRISH LIFE, PAST AND PRESENT. By the
Author of “The Hot-Water Cure,” 2 vols., post 8vo., 21s.
A CANOE VOYAGE TO THE SOURCES OF THE GREAT NORTH-WESTERN TRIBUTARY
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. By G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH, F.R.S., F.G.S.
2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE TEMPLES AND TOMBS OF EGYPT, NUBIA, AND
PALESTINE, IN 1845-1846. By Mrs. ROMER. 2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
A SUMMER RAMBLE TO THE RHONE, THE DARRO, AND THE GUADALQUIVER, IN
1842. By Mrs. ROMER. 2 vols., post 8vo., 28s.
LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AFRICA. By HENRY
H. METHUEN, B. A. Post 8vo., 10s. 6d.
A VISIT TO ALGERIA. By the COUNT ST. MARIE. Post 8vo., 10s. 6d.
SCENES AND ADVENTURES IN SPAIN. By POCO MAS. 2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
SCOTLAND: ITS FAITH AND ITS FEATURES. By the REV. FRANCIS TRENCH.
2 vols., post 8vo., 21s.
TRAVELS OF THOMAS SIMPSON THE ARCTIC DISCOVERER. By his Brother,
ALEXANDER SIMPSON. 8vo., 14s.
A PILGRIMAGE TO AUVERGNE, FROM PICARDY TO LE VELAY. By MISS
COSTELLO. 2 vols., 8vo., 28s.
A SUMMER IN IRELAND IN 1846. By Mrs. FREDERICK WEST. 8vo., 10s. 6d.
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITIES OF BURGOS, VALLADOLID, TOLEDO, AND
SEVILLE. By NATHANIEL A. WELLS. Numerous Fine Engravings. 12s.
FACTS AND FIGURES FROM ITALY; ADDRESSED DURING THE LAST TWO
WINTERS TO CHARLES DICKENS. Being an Appendix to his
“Pictures.” By FATHER PROUT. Post 8vo., 10s. 6d.
THE ADVENTURES OF A GUARDSMAN. By CHARLES COZENS. Small 8vo. 5s.
EXCURSIONS IN THE ABRUZZI. By the HON. KEPPEL CRAVEN. 2 vols.,
8vo. 21s.
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
Transcriber’s Note
This book was written in a period when many words had not become
standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
left unchanged. Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by
underscores, _like this_.
Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
the chapter. Footnote [390] has two anchors. Footnote [370] was
reformatted from two columns to one, so that text of right column
follows that of the left column. The word “Hebrew” was added at
the beginning of Footnotes [6], [176], and [241] so that the entire
note would align left.
Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, missing or
partially printed letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the
end of sentences and abbreviations were added. Duplicate words were
removed.
Two pages of advertisements were moved from the front to the end
of the book. Transliterations are provided within [brackets]
following words or phrases in Greek.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Pillars of Hercules, Volume II (of 2) : A Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.