Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands/Chapter 1
SIXTEEN YEARS OF AN ARTIST'S LIFE
IN
MOROCCO, SPAIN, AND THE CANARY ISLANDS.
CHAPTER I.
A vagabond from a baby, I left England at eighteen. I was perfectly independent, having neither master nor money. My pencil was both to me, being at the same time my strength, my comfort, and my intense delight. The month of November had come round, with its fogs, its colds, its white roads, its tarnished bricks, and its blue noses; and as nothing was to be done anywhere in the light of day, the imagination found pleasure in dwelling on the sunny places for which the Royal Tar was bound. I had seen its advertisement. Spain and Gibraltar were two of the temptations held out to those who were anxious to exchange the gloom of England, in the early winter months, for the light and sunshine of the lands washed by the Mediterranean. With such inducements to stir him up, with such prospects before him, who would not be a vagabond in November?
My resolution was quickly taken, and I lost no time in engaging a berth on board the Royal Tar. When I went on board, the decks were all washed; at any rate, they were still wet. The cabin was full of fog, and appeared cheerless and deserted, the servants and officers of the ship being all ashore, engaged doubtless in their own concerns, and making the most of their last night in England with their several friends and acquaintances. I was as yet the only solitary passenger in the ship, having come on board before the usual time. How shall I describe the oppression of that evening? Even now, after the lapse of a considerable period, I can still realize the melancholy loneliness of my position at the time. As I have already said, the dense fog had penetrated into the cabin, and hung gloomily round a flagging lamp, which had been lighted a week before, and now only served to make darkness visible. Everything was out of place, and stowed away for some necessary scrubbing, previous to the departure of the vessel. I was not able to resist the melancholy influence of the scene of disorder and gloom on which my eyes rested; ― so different from the bright visions which fancy had been painting in such vivid colours during the past few days. The reaction after the feverish excitement consequent on the resolution I had taken, and on the preparation necessary to carry it into effect, came upon me like a sudden chill, and the spirit that had buoyed me up fell at once to zero. Perplexed and disappointed, I threw myself upon a bed, and, like a petted child, fairly wept myself to sleep.
"Isn't you going to get up to breakfast, miss?" said a cockney voice.
"I'm soaking wet," I replied; "can't I go somewhere else?"
"No, miss, you can't," said the voice; "and you'd better to make yourself easy as you is; there is many that would be glad of sich a place, and even to give a few pounds extra, and make friends of the stewardess for hern."
The sun and the sea were now fairly in my berth, and we were tossing about in the British Channel. The cabin, so deserted before, now presented all the usual indications of that bustle and confusion which are unavoidable at the commencement of a long journey by sea. There was scarcely room either to sit or stand, for every inch of space that could be turned to account was occupied, and trunks, bundles, dogs, bird-cages, and children were huddled together in one mass of apparently inextricable confusion. But, with care and patience, it was not long before everything found its proper place. The trunks were stowed away; the bundles were hidden out of sight; the birdcages were hung up, or otherwise disposed of; the dogs soon, made themselves at home, and went roaming about the ship; the children rushed on deck, screaming with delight, and were not long before they had formed many new acquaintances. In a word, the celerity with which chaos was reduced to order was one of those marvels that often perplex landsmen on board a ship, the secret of which still remains to be discovered.
Being now fairly launched on our voyage, things went on, I daresay, much after the fashion of most trips of the kind. Everything, however, was so fresh and novel to me, and my imagination so disposed to paint every object in its fairest hues, that posed to paint every object in its fairest hues, that I should doubtless have been indignant with the person who had said so at the time. But so it ever is. There is perhaps no period in which Fancy is more busy, adorning the visions of hope in its richest and most varied colours, than when proceeding to visit those lands―particularly those southern lands―which are associated with so much that is grand in history and romantic in story. I was fully conscious of its influence. Everything was an incident, and the most trifling events were invested with more that their ordinary degree of interest. The porpoises appeared to leap higher, the stars to shine brighter, the phosphorescent light to be more brilliant, the passengers to be more agreeable, and even those sea odours (for everything must have its foil) not to be quite so abominable and repulsive. Ah! at that moment the future was bright as the dawn of day,
For life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew.
Among the passengers on board, my attention was particularly attracted to one individual who, in the narrow world of the ship, was, more or less, the "observed of all observers." His fine figure, Moorish features, and flowing dress singled him out his fellow-travellers, in a scene where everything was essentially and unmistakably English. As an artist, my first impulse was to add his imposing figure to the number of my sketches from life; and as soon as he was informed of my desire, he politely consented to grant me a sitting. It was indeed a bright idea for all parties, for we were just entering the Bay of Biscay, and as it happened at the time to be as calm as Lake Como, it did not promise much to interest or amuse those who were anxious to witness it in some of its grander and more restless moments. Every passenger who could leave his bed felt some interest in the proposed sketch; and all were eager in the offer of their services to rig up an atelier.
When the captain shortly after came on deck, with his hands in his pockets, his pipe in his mouth, and hist face shining like a winter apple, he was rather astonished at the unexpected evidence of our suddenly awakened zeal and activity on which his eyes rested, and he was at a loss to conceive what use we intended to make of the ropes, pieces of wood, and other odds and ends we had borrowed from one or other on board. When he was informed of our design, he testified his approval of it by at once giving me access to, and free use of, an infinitely better provided atelier than any that the most skilful even of us could have hoped to construct with such materials as we had been able to collect. To the intense disgust of the stewardess, he at once unlocked and ushered us into the State cabin, a spacious and richly furnished apartment, with luxurious ottomans, dazzling mirrors, the softest velvet, and finery of every description, the whole, in its solitary grandeur, contrasting so strongly with the comparative plainness of other parts of the ship, which was crowded to suffocation.
Our model, with his flowing robes, on being show in, seemed as highly pleased as any of the party, and the State cabin immediately became the centre of attraction to all in the ship. The general curiosity extended even to the steersman at his important post, and the attention of that functionary was not so entirely absorbed by the care requisite in the direction of the vessel, but that he ventured occasionally to look down upon us and to watch our proceedings. Our Moorish friend, however, no way abashed by the attention and curiosity of which he was the object, sat down with the composure and self-possession peculiar to his race, and with a due sense of the dignity that pertained to his office, for he had been to England on a special mission, entrusted with a present of Barb horses, rich stuffs, &c., from His Shereefian Highness the Sultan of Morocco, Protector of the Faithful, to the Sultana of England.He was a very animated sitter, and as the sketch progressed, he related many wonderful narratives of his race and country. My own curiosity was so strongly excited by all he told us, that before the sketch was finished, I had determined to extend my trip, and to make Cadiz and Gibraltar stepping-stones only to the romantic shores of Western Barbary.
Having at length arrived at Gibraltar, a locality now so well known that any description would be superfluous, we started for the opposite coast by the little courrier boat which plies between the two shores, with despatches for Her Majesty's Government in England, and with supplies for Her Majesty's troops at Gibraltar. The time from leaving Gibraltar, with its Highland regiments and bristling cannon, its British ships and English sailors, with its chandler's stores kept by Brown and Johnson, and its magazins of French millinery, and, in addition to these, its English prejudices, gossip, scandal, bustle, and life―the time, we say, from leaving all these and arriving at Tangier, the Silent City, Protected of the Lord, is so short that one is hardly prepared for a scene so entirely new in all its aspects. A new world is literally disclosed to the traveller, and as the strange pictures of a life which is as yet so foreign to all his sympathies pass before him, new and vivid sensations are awakened, and the circle of his experience is greatly enlarged.
Tangier, from the sea, looks like a City of the Dead, a vast cemetery, a Kensal Green laid bare on the slope of a hill. The houses are square white blocks, without windows or chimneys, or anything to break the monotony of the four sides. Here and there, the eye rests upon a mosque, or upon some fragments of fortification, vestiges of what, in the time of our Charles II., counted among the foreign possessions of the English crown. We had soon an opportunity of witnessing some of the more striking scenes which greet the visitor on his approach to this strange land. As we drew near to the shore, a squabble and fight took place between two vagabond Jews, who in the rivalry of the profession, had plunged into the water to carry me ashore. In their zeal to secure the prize of which they were emulous, each one for himself, the two sons of Abraham quarrelled, and lost no time in proceeding to a liberal interchange of blows and scratches. But this was not all. The hands were not their only weapons of offence. Another unruly member was called in to add its zest to the bitterness of the fray, and the achievements of the tongue afforded by far the greatest amusement to the stranger who was the object of this pretty quarrel, which seemed to have been got up for the express purpose of giving her an insight into one of the varieties of low life in Morocco. Oh! the eloquence of their mutual abuse, as the two poured out, from the abundance of the heart, curses on their respective great-grandfathers. Nor was I allowed to escape without my share of what they were so liberally bestowing upon each other. As I could not be divided between the two rivals, as one must win me and for the time wear me, the rejected suitor for the honour of carrying me ashore, gave vent to his disappointment in a volley of curses against me and my progenitors, while I was carried to the beach in the arms of his triumphant rival. But, alas, for the reputation of Jewish gallantry, how did the fellow treat me as soon as he had discharged the duty for which he considered himself engaged? Before I was aware of what he was about to do, or could anticipate the fate reserved for me, he plumped me down on my hands and face in the sand; and after thus pleasantly introducing me to the Moorish territory, he held out his hand and patiently waited for his "gratification."
The primitive aspect of everything around took me quite by surprise, and I recalled successively scenes from the Arabian Nights and from the Bible. Indeed, it seemed to me that I had gone back two thousand years, that I was in a country where civilization had stagnated for ages past, where commercial intercourse had left no stamp on the features of society, and where no innovations from Europe had yet crossed the Straits of Gibraltar to supersede those old manners and customs by which life in eastern countries is so strongly contrasted with that of more western lands. Indeed, we must go back to the times of Saxon heathendom before we can find a parallel in our annals to the state of things existing at the present day on the shores of Barbary. Although enjoying constant communication with foreigners, and only eight leagues from Europe, the people of Tangier retain the same prejudices, the same aversion to mental advancement, as have ever characterised them for ages past, and they still continue to act upon their old creed, "What was good for our fathers is good for us."