It was on a later visit to Tangier that I made the acquaintance of the
famous Sharifa, Madame Wazzan, the English wife of the late Sharif, the
native ruler of this part of the country. She was an interesting
personage and for many years played an important part in Moroccan
affairs. She was a strong, masterful-looking woman rather Oriental in
type, but thoroughly British in her tastes. Her drawing-room was the
most characteristically English room I ever saw out of Great Britain. On
the walls hung signed photographs of royalties and distinguished
personages from all over the world, for this vigorous woman with
iron-gray hair and aquiline features was a power in the land of her
adoption. She spoke of her late husband with affection. His portrait
held the central place on the walls. I met the wife of her son, a pretty
Oriental with the regulation henna-tinted nails and palms. Tea was
served English fashion and it was not till I was introduced to the
Oriental part of the establishment that I realized what the Sharifa
meant when she said:
“I lead a double life. With Arabs I am an Arab; with Europeans I am
a European.”
The Sharifa has done much to help civilize her adopted country. She
told me that she had introduced vaccination to Tangier, where she
vaccinates hundreds of children every year. I met Muli Hassan, her
grandson and heir to the title, a pretty, well-mannered child.
“In certain respects,” the Sharifa told me, “my grandchildren are
brought up English fashion, as my children were. But I never forget
that they are not only noble, but in the eyes of the people here,
almost sacred persons. The crowd of cripples and beggars you saw
outside my gate were waiting for the chance of touching Muli
Hassan’s garments when he goes out to ride.”
The influence of such English women as the Sharifa of Wazzan and
Lady Hester Stanhope upon the Mohammedan world into which they
married, is beyond calculation. It must have been a very potent
one, and perhaps worth to the British Empire the awful price they
must have paid!
[To Laura Richards.]
On board the steamer, bound
for Naples, January 19, 1894.
When we saw Granada we did not wonder that the Moors still mourned
for their lost paradise.
At Seville we found a good English pension, honest and cheap, and
best of all Don Antonio Sucillio, a friend of J.’s and one of the
leading Spanish sculptors. He took us to his heart and we had two
days of pure unmixed delight at Seville in the shadow of the
Giralda, one of the perfect towers in the world, as lovely in its
way as the Giglio at Florence. We saw some fine Murillos, the
unique cathedral, the Alcazar, and the House of Pilate, only less
beautiful than the Alhambra and the fitting prelude to this
brightest jewel in the crown of Spain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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