Leo Africanus (24 page)

We were already in the high mountains over which, even in autumn, an unpredictable icy wind blows from the north. In such high places, where the climate is so harsh, I did not expect to find people so well dressed and certainly not so well educated. In particular, in one of the coldest mountain ranges, there is a tribe called Mestasa whose principal occupation was to copy books, in the most beautiful handwriting, and sell them in the Maghrib and abroad. In one village alone, an old Genoese merchant living in Fez, Master Thomasso de Marino, who had come along with the caravan, and with whom I often conversed, bought a hundred of these volumes, each with marvellous calligraphy and bound in leather. He explained to me that the
ulama
and the notables in the land of the Blacks bought many such books, and that it was a very lucrative trade.

As we had stopped for the night in this area, I accompanied the Genoese to a dinner given by his supplier. The house was well built, with marble and majolica, with fine woollen hangings on the walls, the floor covered with carpets, also made of wool, but in pleasing
colours. All the guests seemed extremely prosperous, and I could not forbear to ask my host, choosing my words with extreme care, a question which was burning on my lips: how did it come to pass that the people of this cold and mountainous country were so well endowed with possessions and knowledge?

The master of the house burst out laughing:

‘In short you want to know why the people of these mountains are not all boors, beggars or tramps?'

I would not have put it like that, but that was really what interested me.

‘Know, my young visitor, that the greatest gift that the Most High can bestow upon a man is to cause him to be born in a high mountain across which the caravans pass. The highway brings knowledge and riches, the mountain provides protection and liberty. You, the people of the cities, have all the gold and all the books within reach, but you have princes, before whom you bow your heads . . .'

He suddenly became circumspect:

‘May I talk to you like an old uncle talking to his nephew, like an old shaikh to a disciple, without deviating in any way from the teachings of life? Will you promise me not to take offence?'

My broad smile encouraged him to continue.

‘If you live in a city, you agree to set aside all dignity, all self-respect in exchange for the protection of a sultan, who makes you pay dearly for it even when he is no longer capable of assuring it. When you live far from the cities, but in the plains or on the hills, you escape the sultan, his soldiers and his tax-collectors; however, you are at the mercy of marauding nomadic tribes, Arabs, sometimes even Berbers, who overrun the country, and you can never even build a wall without fearing that it will soon be pulled down. If you live in an inaccessible place far off the highway, you are of course safe from subjugation and attack, but, if you have no exchanges with other regions, you end up by living like an animal, ignorant, impoverished and frightened.'

He offered me a goblet of wine, which I refused politely. He poured one for himself, and swallowed a mouthful before continuing:

‘We alone are privileged: we see passing through our villages the people of Fez, of Numidia, of the land of the Blacks, merchants, notables, students or
ulama
; they each bring us a piece of gold, or a garment, a book, to read or copy, or perhaps only a story, an
anecdote, a word; thus, with the passing of the caravans we accumulate riches and knowledge, in the shelter of these inaccessible mountains which we share with the eagles, the crows and the lions, our companions in dignity.'

I recounted these words to my uncle, who sighed without saying anything and then raised his eyes to heaven. I do not know whether this was to put himself in the hands of the Creator or to observe the flight of a bird of prey.

Our next stage was through the mountains of Ziz, so called because a river of that name has its source within them. The inhabitants of that region belong to a formidable Berber tribe, the Zanaga. They are sturdy men, wearing woollen tunics next to the skin, and wrapping rags around their legs which serve as shoes. Summer and winter, they go about bare-headed. I can never describe these people without remembering something extraordinary about them, which seems almost miraculous: a vast number of snakes go round among the houses, as mild and friendly as cats or little dogs. When anyone begins to eat, the snakes gather around him to eat up the crumbs of bread and other food which is left for them.

During the third week of our journey we hurtled down the Ziz mountains, through countless palm-gardens full of delicious tender fruit, towards the plain which leads to Sijilmassa. Or rather, I should say, to where this town so admired by previous generations of travellers was located. It was said that it had been founded by Alexander the Great himself, that its main street used to run the length of half a day's march, that each of its houses was surrounded by a garden and an orchard, and that it used to contain prestigious mosques and
madrasas
of renown.

Of its walls, once so high, only a few sections remain, half-ruined, and covered with grass and moss. Of its population, there remain only various hostile clans, each living with its chief in a fortified village near to the ruins of the former Sijilmassa. Their main concern is to make life difficult for the clan living in the neighbouring village. They seem merciless towards each other, going so far as to destroy the water channels, cutting the palm trees down to the ground, encouraging the nomadic tribes to lay waste the lands and houses of their enemies, so that it seems to me that they deserve their fate.

We had planned to stay three days on the territory of Sijilmassa, to rest men and beasts, to buy some provisions and repair some of our tackle; but it was written that we should stay there several months,
since, the very day after our arrival, my uncle fell ill. He sometimes shivered during the day, although the heat was stifling, and sometimes sweated from all his pores during the night, when it was as cold as it had been in the high mountains. A Jewish merchant from the caravan, who was well versed in the science of medicine, diagnosed a quartan ague, which seemed a punishment for Khali's refusal to make obeisance to the custom of dancing at Umm Junaiba. God alone is master of reward and chastisement!

I was constantly at my uncle's bedside, attentive to his slightest movement, the smallest sign of pain on his face, watching over him sometimes for hours at a time, while he slept restlessly. I felt that he had suddenly aged, become weak and helpless, while two days earlier he had been able to hold an audience spellbound with his tales of the Rum, of lions or of serpents. Thanks to his gifts as a poet and orator, and also to his vast knowledge, he had impressed Muhammad the Portuguese, who had summoned him to his presence every week since his accession. There was talk that he would be appointed a counsellor, or secretary, or provincial governor.

I remember, one day when he came back from the palace, I asked Khali whether he had spoken of Mariam again. He replied in a rather embarrassed voice:

‘I am gradually gaining the sovereign's confidence, and I shall soon be able to obtain your sister's release without the slightest difficulty. For the time being I must act as delicately as possible; it would be a mistake to ask him anything at all.'

Then he added with a laugh by way of apology:

‘That is how you will have to behave when you go into politics!'

A little after Khali's appointment as ambassador I had returned to the attack. He had then spoken to the sovereign, who had promised him that when he returned from Timbuktu the young girl would be at home once more. My uncle had thanked him warmly and had given me the news. I had then decided to go to the quarter for the first time to tell Mariam about the monarch's promise and about my journey.

I had not seen her for a year, out of excess of affection, but also out of cowardice. She did not utter a single word of reproach. She smiled
as if she had just left my side, asked me about my studies, and seemed so serene that I felt intimidated, contrite, off balance. Perhaps I would have preferred to see her in tears and to have to comfort her, even though we were separated by a stream. I told her triumphantly about the sultan's promise; she reacted just enough not to upset me. I spoke about my departure, and she gave the appearance of enthusiasm, without me knowing whether she did so out of sudden playfulness or out of mockery. The water course, which a strong man could have crossed in two strides, seemed deeper than a ravine, wider than an arm of the sea. Mariam was so far away, so inaccessible, her voice came to me as if in a nightmare. Suddenly, an old leper woman whom I had not seen approaching put a hand with no fingers on my sister's shoulder. I shouted and gathered up some stones to throw at her, telling her to go away. Mariam stood between us, protecting the leper with her body.

‘Put those stones down, Hasan, you will hurt my friend!'

I complied, feeling myself about to faint. I made a gesture of farewell, and turned to leave, with death in my soul. My sister called my name again. I looked at her. She came up to the edge of the water. For the first time since my coming the tears ran down her face.

‘You will get me out of here, won't you?'

Her voice was imploring, but somehow reassuring. With a gesture which I was the first to be surprised at I put my hand out in front of me as if I was swearing on the Book, and delivered this oath in a slow loud voice:

‘I swear that I shall not marry before I have got you out of this accursed quarter.'

A smile lit up her whole face. I turned round and ran away as fast as my legs would carry me, because it was this image of her that I wanted to keep before me for the duration of my journey. The same day, I went to see my father and Warda to give them news of their daughter. Before knocking at the door I remained motionless for a moment. There in a crack in the wall, dry and faded, lay the knotted blade of grass which Mariam had tied together the day of her capture. I took it in my fingers and laid it stealthily on my lips. Then I put it back in its place.

I was thinking once more of this blade of grass when Khali opened his eyes. I asked if he felt better; he nodded, but went back to sleep immediately. He was to remain in this condition, hovering between life and death, unable to move, until the beginning of the hot season, when it was impossible to cross the Sahara. So we had to wait several months in the vicinity of Sijilmassa before continuing our journey.

911 A.H.
4 June 1505 – 23 May 1506

My uncle seemed fully recovered when we took to the road again that year at the beginning of the cool season, towards Tabalbala, which lies in the middle of the desert of Numidia, three hundred miles from the Atlas, two hundred miles south of Sijilmassa, in a country where water is scarce and meat too, save for that of the antelope and the ostrich, and where only the shade of a palm tree occasionally alleviates the tyranny of the sun.

We had reckoned that this stage would take nine days, and from the first evening Khali began to speak to me about Granada, somewhat in the way my father had done a few years earlier. Perhaps the illness of the one and the despondency of the other had had the same effect, of making them wish to pass on their witness and their wisdom to a younger and somehow less endangered memory, may the Most High preserve my pages from fire and from oblivion! From one night to another I awaited the continuation of his story, whose only interruptions were the howlings of nearby jackals.

On the third day, however, two soldiers came to meet us. They brought a message from a lord whose lands lay to the west of our route. He had heard that the ambassador of the King of Fez was passing this way, and he insisted on meeting him. Khali made enquiries of one of the guides, who told him that the detour would delay us by at least two weeks. He made his excuses to the soldiers, saying that an envoy of the sovereign on a mission could not make visits to noblemen whose lands lay out of his way, all the more since his illness had already delayed him considerably. However, to show
in what esteem he held this lord – of whom as he told me later, he had never heard spoken before – he would send his nephew to kiss his hand.