White Gold

by Giles Milton

  After a few days of feasting, Basha Hamet suggested that they head to his Tetouan villa so that they could dine in his newly planted arbor. Both Stewart and Windus were keen to see a Moorish garden, and they were not disappointed. “There were fine oranges, lemons, and small apricocks of a very good flavour,” wrote Windus. The walkways were covered in delicate trellis, which was used to support climbing flowers and shrubs. “Great quantities of carnations coming in thro’ the canework and at the windows, make the arbour very delightful.” Although the weather was extremely hot, it remained cool and pleasant in the garden. “We dined under a locust tree,” wrote Windus, “that afforded a pretty good shade.”

  Commodore Stewart and his entourage of liveried servants and musicians spent many weeks enjoying the basha’s hospitality in Tetouan, and it was not until mid-June that they at long last set out for Meknes. The numerous delays had meant that they were now traveling in the heat of summer—the very worst time to be on the road. “[We] began to have very hot travelling …” wrote Windus, “which daily increased.” The wealth of Tetouan quickly gave way to impoverished villages and makeshift camps, where half-starved nomads scratched for food. “The inhabitants … seem to live very miserably … their houses consisting of nothing but sticks, with a rush or cloth covering.” To Windus, with the memories of Tetouan still fresh in his mind, these people seemed to live “very nastily.”

  The traveling party had soon left the sparkling Mediterranean far behind and found themselves crossing a plain “as even as a bowling green.” The heat became insufferable, and everyone found it hard to breathe as they rode through the dry dust. “This day was so exceeding hot and sultry,” wrote Windus, “that all manner of metal was heated to such a degree by the air … that we could hardly touch it.”

  Nonetheless, there was considerable excitement as the men reached the Roman ruins of Volubulis, just sixteen miles to the northeast of Meknes. Windus, who was particularly interested in this rambling site, jumped down from his horse in order to poke through the rubble, finding fragments of inscriptions and a large bust, but little else. Moulay Ismail had already ransacked the place in search of adornments for his palace and signs of his vandalism were all too evident.

  A messenger was sent to Meknes in order to inform the sultan of the imminent arrival of Commodore Stewart and his party. Basha Hamet seemed nervous about Moulay Ismail’s response and expressed his concern that he would be punished for some unknown misdemeanor. “No man goes before him,” explained Windus, “but with the utmost fear, and in doubt whether he shall return alive.” On this particular occasion, the news could not have been better. The messenger was warmly welcomed by Moulay Ismail, and his reception was held to presage good news for Commodore Stewart as well. There was a feeling of optimism among the British retinue when, on Sunday, 2 July, they slept under the stars for the last time. After nearly three exhausting weeks of traveling, they were about to enter the imperial capital of Meknes.

  Basha Hamet awoke at dawn and urged them to strike camp with all possible haste, so that they would arrive early in the city and “avoid the prodigious croud we should have met with had the day been farther advanced.” A hurried gallop across the Boufekrane valley brought the men to the outskirts of the city where, in the half-light of day, they were led by officials to temporary lodgings.

  The basha, who was instantaneously summoned to a meeting with the sultan, discovered that Moulay Ismail had woken in a foul mood. He accused Basha Hamet of being careless in his dealings with the Spanish garrison of Ceuta, and began “severely threatning him and telling him he was not fit to command.”

  He called for a list of all the senior officers in the basha’s entourage and then proceeded to punish them for real and imagined crimes. One of the men was “tossed” by four members of the black guard, who ensured that his neck was broken as he hit the ground. Another of the officers, Larbe Shott, was accused of sleeping with Christian women. His fate was to be “tyed between two boards and sawed in two, beginning at his head and going downwards till his body fell asunder.” Windus, who was told about the execution by horrified onlookers, added that the corpse would have been eaten by dogs “if the emperor had not pardoned him; an extravagant custom to pardon a man after he is dead, but unless he does so, nobody dares bury the body.”

  Windus also learned that Moulay Ismail was filled with remorse on the day after the execution. Shott had appeared to him in a dream and revealed that God would condemn him for his brutality. This caused the sultan so much concern “that he sent to the place of his execution for some of the dust his blood was spilt on, with which he rubbed himself all over as an atonement for his crime.”

  Commodore Stewart and his men spent two days in their lodgings, awaiting orders from the sultan. On 5 July, they were told that they were being moved to more luxurious accommodations. The following morning, they were informed that Moulay Ismail wished to see the British ambassador immediately and was sending a guard to conduct him to the palace.

  This guard pitched up almost at once—a colorful band of retainers and courtiers, supplemented by Stewart’s own guard of honor. “The ambassador [had] his livery men on each side,” wrote Windus, “and after him the gentlemen of his retinue.” They were preceded by “our musick”—probably a troupe of trumpeters—and several Moorish sergeants on horseback. As Stewart set off for the palace, he was surprised to notice a small band of ragged, exhausted-looking men, bringing up the rear. With a start, he realized that they were some of the British captives who had been specially released from the slave pens in order to take part in the procession. His instinct must surely have been to greet these broken men, but the sultan’s kaids would not countenance any delay in reaching the palace. Nor would they allow their progress to be hindered by the crowds of local townsfolk. When Stewart’s path was blocked by curious onlookers, they “laid on [them] unmercifully, sometimes knocking them down.”

  The ambassador and his retinue dismounted as they reached the outer gate of the palace. They passed through “three or four larger courtyards, [then] sat down under some piazzas for about half an hour.” The slaves were still at the rear of the group, but neither Stewart nor Windus was able to speak with them. Everyone expected the imminent arrival of the sultan, and the men were told not to leave their allotted positions.

  When another half hour had passed there were at last signs of commotion on the far side of the courtyard. Some courtiers could be seen entering through the gateway, followed by several guardsmen. Seconds later, Moulay Ismail himself appeared. Stewart and his men squinted into the sunlight as they tried to get a better view of him. “At a distance we saw him,” wrote Windus, “with an umbrellow over his head, his guards behind him drawn up in the shape of a half moon, holding the butt end of their pieces with their right hands, and keeping them close to their bodies.” These bukhari, or soldiers of the fabled black guard, were a most impressive sight as they formed a protective phalanx around the sultan.

  Commodore Stewart was not at all overawed; indeed, it confirmed in his own mind the need to stage his own display of pageantry. With a stentorian bark, he ordered his men to break into military step. “We marched towards the emperor,” wrote Windus, “our musick playing, till we came within about fourscore yards of him.” The British contingent had hoped to impress Moulay Ismail with their music and marching. Instead, they found themselves outperformed by the unpredictable sultan. As Stewart approached, Moulay Ismail leaped off his stallion and threw himself headlong into the dust. “It was surprising to see the old monarch alight from his horse and prostrate himself upon the earth to pray,” wrote Windus, “in which posture he continued some minutes without motion.” The sultan’s face was so close to the ground “that the dust remained upon his nose when we came up to him.”

  Commodore Stewart was about to offer his greetings when Moulay Ismail sprang up, jumped back on to his horse and snatched his lance from the bodyguard. Then, when he had recovered his breath, he ceremoniously beckone
d the ambassador forward. “We fell into one rank,” wrote Windus, “and, bowing as we approached the emperor, he nodded his head [and] said bono several times.”

  Windus studied Moulay Ismail with care, fascinated to be standing face-to-face with this extraordinary individual. He estimated him to be eighty-seven years of age—he was in fact seventy-five—and noted that the ravages of age were at long last starting to show. “He has lost all his teeth,” wrote Windus, “and breaths short, as if his lungs were bad; coughs and spits pretty often.” The sultan’s phlegm was never allowed to fall to the ground, “men being always ready with handkerchiefs to receive it.”

  His aquiline nose, which had once looked so noble, was now accentuated by hollow cheeks, while his lengthy beard was wispy and thin. “His eyes seem to have been sparkling,” wrote Windus, “but their vigour [is] decayed through age, and his cheeks are very much sunk in.” Yet the sultan still cut an impressive figure as he sat resplendent on a jet-black horse, surrounded by fawning retainers. “His negroes continually fann and beat the flies from his horse with cloths,” wrote Windus, “and the umbrellow is constantly kept twirling over his head.” The slave entrusted with holding this chintz parasol took great care to move in step with the sultan, so that no sunlight ever fell on his sacred skin. Such caution was born of experience; previous slaves had been summarily executed for failing in their duties.

  Windus’s only disappointment was that the sultan paid so little attention to his dress. He wore similar clothes to his courtiers, the only distinguishing features being his bejewelled scimitar and richly caparisoned horse’s saddle, decked with pompoms and streamers. “It was cover’d with gold, and handsomely set with large emeralds.”

  Commodore Stewart betrayed no nerves in the presence of Moulay Ismail. He played the ambassadorial role with aplomb, murmuring obsequies whenever suitable yet remaining politely firm in purpose. “[He] delivered His Majesty’s letter, tyed up in a silk handkerchief, into the emperor’s hand.” Then, in a clear voice, he informed the sultan that he had been dispatched by His Britannic Majesty, King George I, “to settle peace, friendship and a good understanding between the two crowns.” He added, with more than a hint of irony, that he “hoped he would accept” the costly gifts that he had brought to the court.

  It was Moulay Ismail’s custom, on first meeting foreign ambassadors, to open proceedings with a long lecture on Islam. But on this occasion, he merely grinned at Stewart and told him that “he should have every thing he came for, because he loved the English.” The commodore responded by challenging the sultan to release his British slaves, stressing that this alone would be “a convincing proof of the great regard he had for the English nation.”

  Stewart also tried to inform Moulay Ismail of the growing strength of the British navy, but the sultan was not in a listening mood. “It was very difficult to get the emperor to have patience to hear what the ambassador had to say,” wrote Windus, “being fond of speaking himself.” Stewart interjected on several occasions and requested that the sultan put his signature to the truce drawn up in Tetouan. Moulay Ismail answered that this was not necessary, since “his word was as effectual as his writing.” But when Stewart persisted, he agreed to the request and followed it up by giving the ambassador “a present of nine Christians.”

  Commodore Stewart’s audience with Moulay Ismail coincided with the arrival at court of Thomas Pellow, who may well have been summoned from Kasbah Temsna in order to act as interpreter. Pellow was by now about sixteen years of age and had not heard any news from his parents for more than six years. He knew that Stewart was the only person who could conceivably facilitate his freedom and was encouraged by the fact that the ambassador was a decent and trustworthy individual. “I cannot … help saying,” he wrote, “that he, in every point, behaved in so polite, most Christian-like and majestic a manner.” Yet Pellow was also aware that Stewart’s overriding task was to free the captives from the slave pens. Only once this had been achieved could the ambassador address the issue of the hundreds of British renegades at large in Morocco.

  Pellow lamented the fact that Stewart had not arrived “on the same errand about four years before,” which, he said, would have “prevented many aching hearts.” He added that if the British government had acted with rather more speed, “my poor uncle, with many other poor Christian slaves … had probably been still alive.”

  Commodore Stewart hoped to enter into immediate discussions about the release of the surviving slaves, but Moulay Ismail was anxious that the ambassador be shown the glories of his imperial palace. Affairs of state precluded him from leading the tour, as was his custom, so he ordered his Jewish treasurer, Moses ben Hattar, to conduct Stewart and Windus through the courtyards and chambers of the palace.

  The vastness of the place, and the exquisite beauty of its adornment, was to leave a lasting impression on both men. Windus was particularly excited by what he saw and left one of the finest descriptions of the great imperial palace at its apogee. He had never before seen such a monumental edifice, nor was he familiar with the intricate swirls of creamlike Moorish stucco, which had been hand-sculpted by slaves from Andalusia. Moses ben Hattar began by showing the men the adjuncts of the palace that stood close to the Dar Kbira. “The arches were wrought with plaister fret-work in flowers, after the Arabian manner,” wrote Windus, “and supported by neat stone pillars, the square exceeding large and spacious.” No less beautiful was the sparkling tessellated flooring of the great courtyards, “chequered with small tiles of divers colours, about two inches square.”Windus felt that these geometrical zellig tiles, with their radiating patterns of stars and hexagons, imbued the rambling buildings with an overall sense of harmony and proportion. “All the apartments, walks, magazines, passages and underneath the arches being chequered,” he wrote, “ … [make] the prospect of the buildings, which are all of a great length, extremely magnificent, beautiful and neat.”

  Moses ben Hattar led the men in a southeasterly direction, toward the monumental Dar el Makhzen. The entire place seemed strangely deserted; all that could be heard was the muffled echo of workers toiling away out of sight. The clash of a copper pan, the chink of a chisel—these were the only noises that betrayed the presence of people inside the palace.

  Every building seemed bigger than the one before, and even the palace storehouses were grander than anything Windus had seen in London. “We were led into a magazine near a quarter of a mile long, and not above thirty foot broad,” he wrote; “in it there hung up great quantities of arms in cases and three rows of rails, which were covered with saddles.” Moses ben Hattar gleefully pointed to the gates of Larache—captured from the Spanish during the siege—along with “a great deal of iron-work, some espadas [swords] and other Christian swords.”

  Once Stewart and Windus had admired the weaponry, they were led through empty piazzas toward one of the several harems, which was out of bounds. Here, too, all was quiet. The spicy scent of cedarwood betrayed a newly constructed ceiling and the smell of smoke hinted at nearby kitchens.

  “From thence, passing through some neat long walks, and passages of chequer-work, we came to another building, with a large garden in the middle, planted round with tall cypress trees.” This lush tangle of greenery had been designed to resemble the fabled hanging gardens of Babylon. It had been sunk sixty or seventy feet below ground level and had a terraced walkway, suspended over the trees and shrubs, which stretched for more than half a mile. “The top of it [is] all the way thick-shaded with vines and other greens,” wrote Windus, “supported with strong and well-made wooden work.” In the summer twilight hours, the languid fragrance of blossom hung heavy in the air.

  The great palace quarters on the far side of the gardens were still under construction, and Windus was horrified to see teams of Christian slaves sweltering under the torrid July sun. “[We saw] the Christians upon the top of high walls,” he wrote, “working and beating down the mortar with heavy pieces of wood, something like what o
ur pavers used to beat down the stones, which they raise all together and keep time in their stroke.” Windus wanted to get closer, in order to witness with his own eyes the conditions in which the captives were held. But Moses ben Hattar felt that the two men had seen enough. He led them back to Moulay Ismail, who was examining a storage depot that was “kept in order by twenty-eight English boys.”

  Moulay Ismail was delighted to see Commodore Stewart: “[He] cryed out as before, bono, bono, and asked him how he liked his palace.” Stewart had been truly astonished by the scale and luxury of what he had seen “and told him it was one of the noblest upon the face of the earth.” The sultan was gratified and thanked God for the ambassador’s reaction. “Then,” wrote Windus, “some of the English boys, falling prostrate … [gave] him the usual salutation, Allah ibarik phi amrik Sidi, (i.e.) God bless thy power.” Moulay Ismail asked the slave boys to which nation they belonged. When they replied that they were English, “he bid them go home with the ambassador and see him to bed.”

  Stewart and Windus spent the evening hours discussing their eventful day. As they supped on food from the sultan’s kitchens, which Windus found to be a little “high seasoned,” they compared notes. The sultan’s palace was far larger than any building in Europe. Even Versailles, the greatest and most opulent of its contemporaries, was quite tiny in comparison to what they had been shown. Yet their tour had covered only a small part of the entire palace complex, and it was not until the following morning that they would get an accurate idea of its scale.

  They were first taken to see the imperial workhouses, where European slaves cast and smelted the weaponry for Moulay Ismail’s mighty army. The workhouses were “full of men and boys at work,” observed Windus. “They were making saddles, stocks for guns, scabbards for cymiters and other things.” They seemed to have been given advance warning of Stewart’s visit, for they began to work with extraordinary energy when the men entered the building. The visitors’ ears were assaulted by a cacophony of noise, which rebounded from wall to wall. Blacksmiths were flattening hammered iron on huge anvils; others were pumping bellows and chopping firewood. The diligence of the men, and the quality of their work, impressed Windus. “Upon sight of the ambassador, they all fell a working together, which made an agreeable sound, and shewed that industry was in great perfection in this emperor’s palace.”