Nothing green save the fruits, especially the grapes, huge
clusters of which were depending from the "parras"; for the
Locust
touches not the fruit whilst a single leaf remains to be devoured.
As we passed along the walks these horrible insects flew against us
in every direction, and perished by hundreds beneath our feet.
"See the ayanas," said the old Mahasni, "and hear them eating.
Powerful is the ayana, more powerful than the sultan or the consul.
Should the sultan send all his Mahasniah against the ayana, should
he send me with them, the ayana would say, 'Ha! ha!' Powerful is
the ayana! He fears not the consul. A few weeks ago the consul
said, 'I am stronger than the ayana, and I will extirpate him from
the land.' So he shouted through the city, 'O Tangerines! speed
forth to fight the ayana, - destroy him in the egg; for know that
whosoever shall bring me one pound weight of the eggs of the ayana,
unto him will I give five reals of Spain; there shall be no ayanas
this year.' So all Tangier rushed forth to fight the ayana, and to
collect the eggs which the ayana had laid to hatch beneath the sand
on the sides of the hills, and in the roads, and in the plains.
And my own child, who is seven years old, went forth to fight the
ayana, and he alone collected eggs to the weight of five pounds,
eggs which the ayana had placed beneath the sand, and he carried
them to the consul, and the consul paid the price. And hundreds
carried eggs to the consul, more or less, and the consul paid them
the price, and in less than three days the treasure chest of the
consul was exhausted. And then he cried, 'Desist, O Tangerines!
perhaps we have destroyed the ayana, perhaps we have destroyed them
all.' Ha! ha! Look around you, and beneath you, and above you,
and tell me whether the consul has destroyed the ayana. Oh,
powerful is the ayana! More powerful than the consul, more
powerful than the sultan and all his armies."
It will be as well to observe here, that within a week from this
time all the locusts had disappeared, no one knew how, only a few
stragglers remained. But for this providential deliverance, the
fields and gardens in the vicinity of Tangier would have been
totally devastated. These insects were of an immense size, and of
a loathly aspect.
We now passed over the see to the opposite side, where stand the
huts of the guardians. Here a species of lane presents itself,
which descends to the sea-shore; it is deep and precipitous, and
resembles a gully or ravine. The banks on either side are covered
with the tree which bears the prickly fig, called in Moorish,
Kermous del Inde. There is something wild and grotesque in the
appearance of this tree or plant, for I know not which to call it.
Its stem, though frequently of the thickness of a man's body, has
no head, but divides itself, at a short distance from the ground,
into many crooked branches, which shoot in all directions, and bear
green and uncouth leaves, about half an inch in thickness, and
which, if they resemble anything, present the appearance of the
fore fins of a seal, and consist of multitudinous fibres. The
fruit, which somewhat resembles a pear, has a rough tegument
covered with minute prickles, which instantly enter the hand which
touches them, however slightly, and are very difficult to extract.
I never remember to have seen vegetation in ranker luxuriance than
that which these fig-trees exhibited, nor upon the whole a more
singular spot. "Follow me," said the Mahasni, "and I will show you
something which you will like to see." So he turned to the left,
leading the way by a narrow path up the steep bank, till we reached
the summit of a hillock, separated by a deep ditch from the wall of
Tangier. The ground was thickly covered with the trees already
described, which spread their strange arms along the surface, and
whose thick leaves crushed beneath our feet as we walked along.
Amongst them I observed a large number of stone slabs lying
horizontally; they were rudely scrawled over with odd characters,
which I stooped down to inspect. "Are you Talib enough to read
those signs?" exclaimed the old Moor. "They are letters of the
accursed Jews; this is their mearrah, as they call it, and here
they inter their dead. Fools, they trust in Muza, when they might
believe in Mohammed, and therefore their dead shall burn
everlastingly in Jehinnim. See, my sultan, how fat is the soil of
this mearrah of the Jews; see what kermous grow here. When I was a
boy I often came to the mearrah of the Jews to eat kermous in the
season of their ripeness. The Moslem boys of Tangier love the
kermous of the mearrah of the Jews; but the Jews will not gather
them. They say that the waters of the springs which nourish the
roots of these trees, pass among the bodies of their dead, and for
that reason it is an abomination to taste of these fruits. Be this
true, or be it not, one thing is certain, in whatever manner
nourished, good are the kermous which grow in the mearrah of the
Jews."
We returned to the lane by the same path by which we had come: as
we were descending it he said, "Know, my sultan, that the name of
the place where we now are, and which you say you like much, is Dar
Sinah (the house of the trades). You will ask me why it bears that
name, as you see neither house nor man, neither Moslem, Nazarene,
nor Jew, only our two selves; I will tell you, my sultan, for who
can tell you better than myself?
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