BRIGAND’S CAREER

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2011, 21 February 1907, Page 3

BRIGAND’S CAREER

STUDENT, CATTLE RAIDER, MURDERER, AND TYRANNICAL GOA’ERNOR.

Mr. Harris, tlio Tangier correspondent of the Times, furnishes his paper with an interesting account of Raisuli. No one is better qualified to draw the portrait of the famous brigand than Mr. Harris, who was his captive for three weeks. From his sketch we make the following extracts : Mulai Ahmed ben Mohammed erRaisuli is a man of about iorty years of ago. He is by birth sprung from one of the most aristocratic families in Morocco, and is a Shereef, or direct descendant- of tlio Prophet, through Mulai Idris, who founded tho Mohammedan Empire of Morocco and was the first Sovereign of the Idrisite dynast)'. After having received an excellent education in religion and religious laws at Tetuan he took to the adventurous, lucrative, and in Morocco by no means despised, profession of a cattle robber. But cattle robberies led to other crimes. Murders followed, and it must be confessed that Raisuli’s hands are noiie too clean in that respect, but murder in Morocco ‘cannot be classed with murder in England, Life is cheap, and the dead are soon forgotten. . By nature he was, and is, cruel, and the profession ho had adopted gave him unlimited scope to exhibit his cruelty. On one occasion a Shereef who had married his sister proposed, according to Moslem custom, to take a second wife. Raisuli’s sister enraged, fled to her brother and complained. Nothing occurred till the night of the new marriage, when at the height of the festivities Raisuli and his men entered his brother-in-law’s lions© and put to death the young bride and her mother. LOADED AVITH CHAINS. At length his acts became insupportable. The whole country round lived in terror of his raids. The late Sultan ordered his arrest. His greatest friend betrayed him; he was seized and sent to prison in the dreaded dungeons of Mogador. AVhen, three years ago, I was Raisuli’s prisoner at Zinat he narrated more than once to me the history of those four or five years spent in prison. He showed me the marks of the chains on his ankles, wrists, and neck; he told me of the filth and the cold; of the introduction of a file in a loaf of bread; of five months’ patient work at night; and of a long delayed flight. He escaped, but for a very few hours. He did not know his way about town, and he had forgotten that the chains would almost prevent his walking. He entered a street that had no outlet, and was recaptured. Fresh chains were heaped upon him, and it was not till two years later that lie was released on the petition of Haj Mohammed Torres, the Sultan’s representative at Tangier. ... He came back to Ins home meaning to live a quiet and peaceful life, but lie found that his friend who had betrayed him had become Governor of Tangier, and confiscated all his property. He applied for its return, but could not obtain it. He threatenecl_but they laughed at him—and then ho took to his old profession again. and became a brigand. It was at this period that I first met him. I was camping on a shooting expedition near Arzeila when he and his men paid me, a visit and spent tho night at my camp. I confess that his personality was almost fascinating, Tall, remarkably handsome, with the w'hitest of skins, a short, dark beard and moustache, and black eyes, with profile Greek rather than Semitic, and eyebrows that formed a straight line across his forehead, Mulai Ahmed er-Raisnli was a. typical and ideal bandit. His manner was quiet, his voice soft and low. and his expression particularly sad. He smiled sometimes, but seldom, and even though I knew him much hotter later on, I never heard him laugh. AA’ith his followers he was cold and haughty, and they treated him with all the respect due to his birth.