White Gold

by Giles Milton

Although he left Meknes under the cover of darkness, he had no intention of traveling by night. Nor did he have any fear of being unmasked as a renegade. He spoke fluent Arabic, and his tanned skin and long beard enabled him to pass himself off as a wandering Arab merchant. He felt he was less likely to arouse suspicion if he traveled across Morocco in broad daylight.

  He made rapid progress to the Atlantic coast, but the depredations of the corsairs had caused all European merchant ships to flee in panic. With weary reluctance, Pellow decided to push south toward the little port of Santa Cruz. He joined the entourage of a holy man who was roaming across Morocco, hoping that he would be safer traveling with a large group. But the unarmed and defenseless pilgrims were easy prey for the brigands that infested the roads. They were attacked on the very morning that Pellow met them—“plundered and stripped” of their goods—and left virtually naked by the wayside. Pellow himself was robbed of the few possessions he was carrying, as well as most of his clothes. “I was with Christian patience obliged to bear,” he wrote, “and to travel on in this condition full three days in very cold weather.”

  As he climbed the cragged slopes of the Anti-Atlas—the first stage of his route toward Santa Cruz—he met two Spanish renegades. They earned a living of sorts as itinerant quack doctors and took pity on his miserable condition. “[They] were to me very kind,” wrote Pellow, “and true friends in necessity, giving me a piece of an old blanket, filling my belly with such as they had, [and] giving me friendly advice.” They told Pellow that it was relatively easy to earn a living in the remote mountain areas by posing as a physician. Many simple folk believed that Christians had healing powers, probably because Christ himself had healed the sick, and a number of renegades were doing good business among the superstitious Berbers of the High Atlas. The Spaniards provided Pellow with “several of their medicines, and an old lancet and burning iron, to set up for myself.”

  Pellow realized that crossing the Atlas Mountains in the guise of a traveling physician would enable him to conceal the true purpose of his voyage. It would also give him the opportunity to earn money and buy supplies. Beginning to feel more optimistic about his chances of success, he headed into more rugged terrain where he hoped to start practicing his new profession.

  He soon found the opportunity. As he passed through one nomadic settlement, he was approached by a woman who begged for help. She told him that her husband was in a poor condition and feared that he was approaching death. When Pellow examined the man, he saw that he was indeed in a desperate plight, “[for] his distemper was then gone very far and his condition very dangerous.” He said he would attempt to save the man’s life by bleeding him, a common practice. If that had no effect, he would brand his skin with a burning iron.

  Pellow had been given brief instructions on how to handle his tools, but this was the first time he had actually used them. He bound the man’s arm tightly with hemp cord, as the Spaniards had suggested, then reached for his instruments. He was aghast when he saw the state of the scalpel, which was “very blunt and extremely rusty,” and was “at a very great loss how to perform [the operation].”

  Pellow’s patient was already in pain, for the hemp cord had cut off the circulation in his arm, and urged him to perform the operation without further ado. “In or near the vein,” wrote Pellow, “[I] gave him a very hearty prick.” But his hand slipped as he pushed in the knife and he was obliged to try a second time. “I twice repeated it,” he wrote, “and though I pricked him much deeper than at first, yet could I not for my life make him bleed.” The patient was squealing in agony and no longer able to keep still. Pellow therefore decided to burn the man and heated the branding iron until it was red hot. There was a terrible hiss of singeing as he applied it to the man’s head, and the grisly stench of burning flesh. “I made him to twist and cry out in a most piteous manner,” wrote Pellow, who proceeded to chastize the man for being “a very faint hearted soldier.”

  The patient was unconvinced by Pellow’s treatment, but his wife was most grateful and begged him to dine with the family. Famished, Pellow graciously accepted. “After I had filled my belly with couscous, and for my doctorship received six blankeels … I left them to their prophet Mohammed and their country doctors.” Alarmed at how badly he had wounded his patient, he had no intention of remaining in the neighborhood.

  As Pellow pushed on over the High Atlas, he proved increasingly successful at earning a living. He was usually given food by his patients, although their offerings were not always appetizing. On one occasion he was handed a bowl of buttermilk and “jerrodes” —locusts—which plagued the mountain villages every six or seven years. Pellow balked at eating such revolting-looking creatures. They were large—“at least two inches long”—and as plump as a man’s thumb. But hunger overcame his scruples and he popped a couple into his mouth. To his surprise, they tasted delicious. “They are really good eating,” he wrote, “and in taste most like shrimps.” He noted that the best way to cook them was to soften them first in salted water, boil them and then store them in vats of salt.

  After more than six months on the road, Pellow glimpsed the Atlantic Ocean for a second time. With renewed optimism about escaping from Morocco, he decided to travel northward along the coast until he sighted a European merchant vessel. He was pleased to discover several ships at anchor in the harbor of Santa Cruz, “yet could I not meet with any so Christian-like commander as on any terms to carry me with him.”

  Pellow was even more frustrated when he reached the port of Safi. There were two merchant vessels at anchor, one of which belonged to Joshua Bawden, a distant cousin through marriage. But Safi was in civil turmoil when he arrived and Pellow had to remain in hiding. “Though I met him twice,” he wrote, “and my blood boiled in my veins at the sight of him, yet did we not speak on either side.” Frantic at having come so close to escape, Pellow fell into a deep depression. “I was more down in the mouth now than I had been from my first setting out from Meknes,” he wrote, “reflecting on the many hardships and dangers I had thitherto undergone, and still no manner of appearance of an alteration.” With a heavy heart, he accepted that his only option was to press northward to the port of Willadia.

  He grew increasingly alarmed as he made his way along the coastal path. The countryside was awash with bandits and he was threatened and assaulted on several occasions. The situation deteriorated still further as he made his way over Mount el-Hedid. The locals were suspicious and hostile, and Pellow—who had neither musket nor pistol to defend himself—felt more and more vulnerable.

  After a hard day’s climb, he came to a mountainside house that appeared to be abandoned. “Being excessive weary and very drowsy,” he wrote, “I laid me down in the sun and soon fell into a sound sleep.” He had not been sleeping for long when the owner of the house returned from the mountain. The man was friendly, but cautioned Pellow of the extreme dangers of traveling unarmed. Pellow admitted his fear and said that on the previous day he had met with “a vast number of armed men, and … very narrowly escaped with my life.” The man urged him to proceed with care, warning that the path ahead was infested with cut-throats. “They are a pack of the vilest villains in Barbary,” he said, “and generally murder all they meet with.”

  Pellow rested at the man’s house overnight, and was given buttermilk and couscous for breakfast. Thanking his host heartily, he set off early before the sun grew too hot. With hopes of rejoining the coast within the next two days, he prayed that he would have a trouble-free hike over the remote and uninhabited mountain.

  It was about ten o’clock in the morning when Pellow first knew that he was being tracked. Five “footpads” were shadowing him and trying to determine whether or not he was carrying any weapons. Pellow suddenly felt afraid. It was a lonely and desolate place and there was no one to whom he could turn for help. He pressed on upward with a growing sense of panic, increasing his pace and hoping to outflank his assailants. But when he looked around, he was alarmed to disco
ver that they were almost upon him.

  Seeing a small stone building higher up, he made this his goal. He walked faster and faster, then broke into a run, but the bandits were rapidly closing in on him. When Pellow glanced up the slope, he was horrified to discover that one of the men had outstripped him and now stood some distance in front. “I was soon overtaken by a very speedy messenger,” recorded Pellow. With a real feeling of terror, he realized that he was trapped.

  The attack was not long in coming. The man up ahead raised his musket and primed it for action. Carefully, deliberately, he pointed the muzzle directly at Pellow. His quarry was an easy target. Silhouetted against the sky and lacking any cover on the bleak mountainside, Pellow had nowhere to hide.

  The musket flashed; the shot rang out. “[It passed] between my legs,” wrote Pellow, “and grazing about half an inch within the flesh.” The wound bled profusely, drenching Pellow’s clothing in thick blood. He limped on, desperate to escape his attackers, but the shot-wound “slackened my pace to that degree that they were soon up with me.”

  Pellow could go no farther. His leg wound was far more serious than he had first thought and was soon weltering in blood. As he slumped to the ground, dizzied by his injury, the pack of assailants launched themselves at him. They punched and kicked him until he no longer moved. Then, they stripped him of his possessions and left him in a coagulating pool of blood.

  It is impossible to know what thoughts went through Pellow’s mind as his pulse slackened. For years he had dreamed of returning to England, where his family and friends were fast becoming a distant memory. Now, as he lay close to death, he perhaps remembered his childhood in Cornwall and wondered sadly whether he would ever again see the little ports of Falmouth and Penryn.

  IN THE SPRING of 1738, at the time of Pellow’s brutal attack, an Irish sea-dog was sailing along the Moroccan coastline. Captain Toobin had a rich cargo of goods, which he was hoping to sell in one of the prosperous Atlantic ports. But he was finding his task both difficult and dangerous. He had to keep a sharp eye on the Salé corsairs, who were a constant threat, and had “met with a great deal of trouble by way of the Moorish merchants.” Reluctant nevertheless to abandon his mission, he steered his vessel toward the little port of Willadia. It was while he lay at anchor, next to a Genoese brig, that he learned that help was at hand from a most unexpected quarter. A young Englishman—bruised, wounded and limping—had just arrived in town. He spoke fluent Arabic and was keen to help Captain Toobin.

  The fact that Pellow had survived his attack was quite remarkable. He had come within a whisker of death on the slopes of Mount el-Hedid and was extremely fortunate to have escaped with his life. His assailants were still beating him when they were surprised by a larger group of bandits. Both groups scattered, abandoning Pellow on the mountainside. As evening fell and the temperature plummeted, his blood coagulated, staunching the flow from his wounds.

  He was roused from his semiconscious state by the realization that he was no longer under attack. Although badly injured and terribly weak, he noticed that the building he had been trying to reach was in fact extremely close. “Making a bad shift … [I] got with much pain to the house,” he wrote, “where I got me some herbs and staunched the blood, of which I had really lost a great deal.” The owner soon returned and was so horrified by Pellow’s injuries that he took pity on him. “Here I got a lodging for that night,” wrote Pellow, “and some couscous for my supper” and “notwithstanding my wound, slept very well.”

  Pellow woke early to find that he had recovered some of his strength. Having no wish to spend another night on the mountain, he decided to continue on his way. “[I] went limping on,” he wrote, hoping to be off the mountain by the end of the afternoon. He managed to reach the River Tensift, where he found a community of Jews “from whom I had some remedies for my wound, and a good supper, and a very civil entertainment for the night.” One of the men re-dressed his wound on the following morning and gave him breakfast before he set off en route to Willadia.

  He made good progress during the day and had a most pleasant dream that night. “Methought I happened to meet with a commander of a vessel, and who, though I had never seen him before, yet did he in a most Christianlike and courteous manner, offer

  … to carry me off with him at all hazards.“Pellow awoke early, more determined than ever to reach his goal.

  Reaching Willadia at noon, he was overjoyed to discover two European merchant vessels in the harbor. The ship closest to the shore had sailed from Genoa and was laden with corn. Unlike the crews of most European vessels trading with Morocco, the men aboard were only too happy to make contact with an Arabic-speaking renegade. “I went directly on board and was courteously received by them,” wrote Pellow. The men told him that “they had been at a very great loss … for a linguist, asking me if I had dined and if I would eat any mullets.”

  While the fish was frying in the skillet, Pellow quizzed the men about the second vessel in the bay. He was told that it belonged to Captain Toobin of Dublin, “a very jolly, well-discoursed man,” who was also in need of a translator. Pellow soon had a chance to meet the Irish captain, which gave him the surprise of his life. “Before we had finished [dinner],” recalled Pellow, “Captain Toobin came on board, and the moment I saw him I was thoroughly persuaded with myself that he was actually the same that I had so lately seen in my dream.” The two men had an instant rapport, and Captain Toobin invited Pellow aboard his ship. “After drinking a cheering cup of wine,” wrote Pellow, “he asked me how long I had been in Barbary.” Pellow explained the woeful story of his twenty-three years of captivity and his troubles in the service of the sultan.

  When Toobin asked why he had not been successful in his previous attempts to escape, Pellow explained the extreme dangers of making a bid for freedom. “I told him I had often endeavoured it, even to the very great hazard of my life.” He added that he had met English captains on several occasions, but that they had been too timorous to take him aboard. Toobin was appalled that Pellow’s own countrymen could be so callous and vowed to take Pellow away with him. “I tell you for your comfort,” he said, “that you have met with a Christian at last, and here’s my hand.” Pellow, scarcely able to believe his ears, asked Toobin if he really meant what he said. The Irish captain looked him straight in the eye and told him not to despair, “for I am fully determined to carry you with me, even to the hazard of my life.”

  Pellow was overcome with emotion and fought to hide his tears. Captain Toobin, too, was touched by the moment. “He spoke with so much sincerity of heart,” wrote Pellow, “and tender feeling of my sad case, that he could not forbear weeping.” He added that this “raised my joy to that degree at his so tender behaviour that I could not forbear to keep him company.”

  On 10 July 1738, Captain Toobin weighed anchor and put to sea. As Pellow was in danger of being unmasked right to the last, Toobin ordered him to remain below decks. “For God’s sake, Tom, take care you don’t let any of the Moors see your face.” There was further panic when the ship drifted toward the dangerous port of Mamora, and the crew spent the night on deck in readiness for any attack. “We got our arms upon deck,” wrote Pellow, “ … putting into every one of them a new flint and charging it with three musket shot.” But the wind shifted during the night, enabling them to head back out to sea. “Before sunrising, [we] were carried to seaward about five leagues,” wrote Pellow, “and then we did not much fear any of their boats coming after us.” Captain Toobin was heading for Gibraltar, where he hoped to acquire fresh supplies from the British garrison.

  Eleven days passed before the men at long last caught sight of Cap Spartel, which marked the mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar. Pellow, in ebullient form, spent “most of that night in merry talk.” As the sun rose on 21 July, he caught sight of the Rock of Gibraltar itself. Just a few hours later, the vessel anchored in the bay and Pellow prepared to set foot on land controlled by his own countrymen for the first time in t
wenty-three years. It was another deeply emotional moment—and one that Pellow had awaited for two-thirds of his life. He feared that he was dreaming, “and I had really a debate with myself if I was well awake.” But the sight of the garrison fort and the British soldiers marching and drilling reminded him that he had left Morocco far behind.

  Captain Toobin went ashore before Pellow, in order to clear his arrival with Gibraltar’s governor, Joseph Sabine: “He told him that he had a poor Christian slave aboard his vessel that was taken by the infidels and carried into Barbary in the twelfth year of his age.” Toobin added that Pellow had “undergone a great deal of hardship” and was in desperate need of assistance. The governor expressed his sympathies and granted Pellow immediate permission to land.

  “It is impossible for me to describe the excessive joy I felt during all the time of our rowing to the shore,” wrote Pellow, “though all may suppose it, after my so long and grievous servitude amongst the barbarians to be more than ordinary.” He had one final obstacle to overcome before he actually stepped ashore. The governor’s permission had not been conveyed to the sentinels who guarded the harbor, and they refused to allow Pellow to land, telling him that their orders were to stop any Moor from setting foot in Gibraltar. “‘Moor,’ said I, ‘you are very much mistaken in that, for I am as good a Christian, though I am dressed in Moorish garb, as any of you all.’” They refused to believe Pellow, and it was not until the governor had contacted the harbor guard that Pellow was finally permitted to land. Only now did Pellow realize that his years of hell were finally at an end. “I fell on my knees,” he wrote, “and after the best and sincerest manner I could, offered up my most humble and hearty thanks to God for my deliverance.”

  Pellow became an object of great curiosity within minutes of stepping ashore. Word spread like wildfire through the garrison, and soldiers and sentries began emerging from the barracks in order to meet him. The sergeant of the guard was the first to quiz him, “[then] returned his hearty congratulations for my deliverance.” Next to appear was Mr. Cunningham, the minister, “and with him several of the head officers of the garrison.” One of these, John Beaver, was initially suspicious of Pellow and decided to test whether or not he was telling the truth. He asked if he had met Tom Osborne of Fowey during his captivity, a mariner with whom Beaver was personally acquainted. Pellow said that he had indeed met Osborne in Meknes and explained how the Cornish lad had been seized from Captain Richard Sampson’s ship, the Desire, in 1715. “To which Mr. Beaver answered that all I had said was undoubtedly true, for that he knew Tom Osborne very well, and that he had heard him several times after his releasement and return to talk about me.”