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Morocco that was

Harris, Walter, 1866-1933

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HAT WA

GIFT OF

Morocco that Was

MULAI ABDUL AZIZ.

Morocco that Was

WALTER B. HARRIS

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

William Blackwood and Sons

Edinburgh and London

1921

CONTENTS.

THE MOORISH COURT —

I. THE ACCESSION OF MULAI ABDUL AZIZ . . 1

n. LIFE AT THE MOORISH COURT ... 32

HI. THE ROAD TO RUIN „ .... 65

IV. THE BEGINNING OF THE END ... 91

V. THE LIQUIDATION OF THE SULTANATE . . 119

VI. THE SULTAN AT HOME 140

VH. THE SULTAN IN FRANCE V . . . 160

RAISULI .... . . . . 179

SAINTS, SHEREEFS, AND SINNERS .... 265

CHANGES AND CHANCES , . . 291

495010

ILLUSTRATIONS.

MULAI ABDUL AZIZ Frontispiece

MOUNTAIN-TOPS, ATLAS .... Facing p. 10

From photo by Author.

COURTYARD OF PACHA 'S PALACE, MARRAKESH „ 38

From photo by Felix, Marrakeeh (Maroc).

MARRAKESH ,,60

From photo by Felix, Marrakeeh, (Maruc).

THE WALLS OF FEZ ,,64

From photo by Service des Beaux- Arts, Morocco.

TROOPS GUARDING THE AUTHOR'S VILLA AT

TANGIER ,,76

From photo by Author.

GATE OF MANSOUR EL-ALJ, MEKNE*S . . „ 101

From photo by Author.

MEDERSA OF ATTARINE, FEZ . . . „ 110

From photo by Service des Beaux-Arts, Morocco.

MULAI HAFID „ 120

FEZ FROM THE SOUTH . . . . „ 136

From photo by Service des Beaux-Arts, Morocco.

Vlll

ILLUSTRATIONS

RABAT

From photo by Service des Beaux- Arts, Morocco.

BERBER TRIBESMEN OF THE MIDDLE ATLAS

From photo by Service des Beaux-Arts, Morocco.

THE AUTHOR, EL AOUFI, AND RAISULl'S BRIGANDS

From photo by Madame de Beaumarchait.

THE AUTHOR MEASURING THE WALLS OF THE RUINS OF RAISULl'S HOUSE .

From photo by Madame de Beaumarchais.

MY CARAVAN CROSSING THE ATLAS

From photo by Author.

COURT OF KAmOUIN MOSQUE, FEZ

From photo by Service des Beaux-Arts, Morocco.

A FRENCH " POSTE " IN THE ATLAS .

From photo by Service des Beaux-Arts, Morocco.

AN ATLAS CASTLE

From photo by Lord Loch.

ROOM IN THE PACHA 'S PALACE, MARRAKESH

From photo by Felix, Marrakech (Maroc).

. Facing p. 160 194

220

232 272 290 304 322

MOROCCO THAT WAS.

THE MOORISH COURT.

THE ACCESSION OF MULAI ABDUL AZIZ.

MY first introduction to the Moorish Court was in 1887, only a very few months after my arrival in Morocco, when I was invited by the British Minister, the late Sir William Kirby-Green, to accompany his special Mission to the Sultan.

Mulai Hassen was then at the zenith of his power. He was a " strong " Sultan, probably cruel, and certainly capable. His energy was never-failing, and he maintained order amongst his lawless tribes and stamped out the constantly occurring revolts by an almost unceasing "pro- gress " through the country, accompanied by his rabble of an army. He seldom spent six months together in any of his several capitals, and the Moors had a saying, " The Imperial tents are never stored."

The great labour, the enormous transport that these journeyings necessitated, is difficult to appre-

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ciate. Not only was the Sultan accompanied by his numerous ladies and all his viziers and their families and suites, but he had with him as well some ten thousand soldiers and a rabble of camp- followers. A large number of native merchants also joined the throng, for trade flowed to the region in which the Court was residing.

Some idea of the results upon the country passed through can be imagined from the fact that the very name of these expeditions in Arabic is " Harka," " the burning." No matter whether the tribes were in incipient rebellion, in open revolt, or in peace, they had to provide the food and fodder of this great horde, whose ravages more nearly resembled those of a flight of locusts than the passing by of human beings. Not only such " legal " taxation as could be extorted was collected, but the viziers and the Sultan's entour- age had to be bribed and paid as well, while every soldier and every camp-follower pillaged on his own account. On receiving the news of the coming of one of these Imperial expeditions, as many of the population as could, or as dared, fled to other regions ; and the Sultan often passed through a deserted country, except that the Governor and tribal representatives had to be there to pour the little wealth of the countryside into the royal coffers.

Morocco was still an almost unknown country in those days. Europe paid little attention to what was passing within its boundaries, and so long as the Sultan's actions didn't threaten to

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complicate international questions, he was allowed to go his own way. The rivalry of Great Britain and France was its outstanding feature, together with the constantly recurring quarrels and petty local wars of Spain with the tribes that surround her " Presidios " on the northern coast. Morocco lived its life apart. True, it was at the very gates of the Mediterranean, but it might have been in the Pacific for all the attention that it attracted. From time to time the European Governments despatched special Missions to the Sultan — gigantic picnics to one or other of the capitals, during which the pending claims would, or would not, be settled ; a commercial treaty was possibly discussed ; eternal friendship was sworn where only hatred on one side and indifference on the other really existed, for in those days the general feelings of the Moors toward the Europeans and Christians amounted to hate.

Sir William Kirby-Green's special Mission pro- ceeded by sea to Mazagan, conveyed by a British warship, and thence overland to Marrakesh, the Sultan having, as the custom was, sent an escort, transport, and tents to the coast for this purpose.

However rotten the state of Morocco may have been at that time, Mulai Hassen's strong hand held its fabric together, and presented to the outside world a front of great dignity. The British Mission travelled amongst the tribes in perfect security, and was received with all honour and with pretended rejoicings. Compliments

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flowed as fast as mountain streams — happy in their wording, sonorous in their utterance, and absolutely insincere.

And then, in mingled dust and sunshine, the entry into the southern capital ; the threading of its narrow streets ; the throng of onlookers ; the almost hopeless crush of horses and mules and men ; and our arrival in the great garden of olives and oranges which surrounded the kiosks of the Maimounieh Palace, in which the Mission was housed during its stay at Marrakesh.

The reception of foreign envoys by the Sultan formed a pageant of much magnificence. Only a very few years later the whole formality was changed, and the representatives of the Govern- ments of Europe were no longer received as vassals bringing tribute. But as long as the old etiquette lasted, there could be no question about the splendour of the ceremony. It may have been derogatory, and no doubt was, for the represen- tatives of the Great Powers of Europe to stand bareheaded in the sun while the Sultan, under a crimson parasol, remained on horseback ; but no one could dispute the picturesqueness of the scene or its oriental dignity.

The great square of the palace, covering many acres, in which the reception took place, was surrounded by yellow walls, here and there pierced by gateways. At one end, above these walls, appeared the flat terraces and green-tiled roofs of the palace, at the other extremity the cypress- and olive-trees of the great park of the Agdal ;

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while away to the south, towering high into the morning sunlight, rose the snow-covered peaks of the Atlas Mountains. A fitter mise en scene for a great pageant could scarcely be imagined.

The great square was lined with troops, ragged and parti-coloured, some in uniform and some out of it, and some in uniform so ragged that they were as much out of it as in it. Others, again, in brilliant costumes of every colour, evi- dently made and served out for the occasion. In detail much was wanting, perhaps ; in general effect it was a rainbow. Into the centre of this square the British Minister and his suite were ushered by high white-robed functionaries of the Court, while close behind the little group of uniformed Europeans were piled the cases of presents sent by the British Government to His Shereefian Majesty. In fact, the whole traditional ceremony was based upon the reception of vassals and the offering of tribute.

A blast of trumpets, and the great green gates of the palace are hurled open, and a hurried throng of Court attendants, in white robes and crimson-peaked fezes, emerges. A band of shrill music — pipes and drums — bursts into noise. Ban- ners and wand-bearers and spear-bearers follow, and black grooms leading horses, saddled and caparisoned in gay silks and gold embroideries, which prance and neigh at the dust and noise. Then the Sultan, a stately figure in white, on a white horse trapped in green and gold. Over his head is borne the great flat parasol of State, of

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crimson velvet and gold, while at his side attend- ants wave long white scarves to keep the flies off his sacred person. After him follow his viziers, portly gentlemen swathed in soft white hanging garments, and then more Court attendants and slaves.

As the sacred presence of the Sultan passes into the public square a great shout rends the air, and the bowing crowd cries, " May God protect the life of our Lord."

As the procession approaches the group of the British Mission it divides to right and left, and the Sultan advances, accompanied only by his Chamberlain and one or two attendants, and followed by his viziers. The members of the Mission bow and salute, and the Chamberlain presents the Minister to His Majesty, who bids him welcome. Sir William Kirby-Green then read his speech, and handed his credentials to His Majesty, wrapped up in silk. The Sultan took them, holding the folds of his cloak between his sacred fingers and the infidel documents ! The suite is presented, and after another word or two of welcome on the part of the Sultan, His Majesty turns his horse and retires again to the precincts of his palace, amid the cries of his people, the booming of cannon, and the shrill blast of native music.

It may not be out of place to give here a brief account of how this ceremony came to be abolished. I was attached, in 1902, to Sir Arthur Nicolson's special Mission to the Sultan Mulai Abdul Aziz at

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Rabat. There had for some time been a strong feeling on the part of the European Governments that some new ceremonial should replace the traditional form of the reception of the represen- tatives of the Powers, and I was sent to Rabat, a week in advance of the Mission, to urge upon the Sultan the expediency of this change. I was at that time upon very intimate and friendly terms with His Majesty, and had ample oppor- tunity to put these views before him. Mulai Abdul Aziz always had, and has, the true instincts of a great gentleman, and he agreed readily that the form of reception in vogue at his Court was derogatory to the position and dignity of a special envoy from the Sovereign and Government of Great Britain. At the same time, he main- tained that it was extremely difficult to introduce radical changes in Court etiquette without creat- ing a hostile feeling amongst the people, or at least running the risk of much criticism. For a few days he hesitated ; but the evening before the arrival of the Mission he authorised me to inform Sir Arthur Nicolson that the old cere- monial would no longer be carried out, and that his reception would take place in a room in the palace. In order to explain the change of pro- cedure, it was allowed to be whispered in the town that His Majesty was a little unwell, and unable to stand the fatigue of the great function in the open air.

The reception accordingly took place in an upper room of the palace. The young Sultan was seated

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cross-legged on a pale blue Louis XV. sofa, the greater part of which was covered by his out- spread robes. At his side stood his Minister of Foreign Affairs and his viziers. The Chamberlain introduced the British Minister, who read his speech in English, the interpretation being made by an official of the Legation. The Sultan whis- pered his reply to the Foreign Minister, who spoke it out aloud.

The scene was attractive, and of course much more " intimate " than the great ceremonial of the past, but was never lacking in dignity. The " audience," confined strictly to the reception, lasted only a very few minutes, when the Minister and his suite retired. As we were proceeding down the staircase, I was hurriedly called back into the Sultan's presence. He had thrown ofT the great white cloak in which he had been almost enveloped, and discarded his heavy turban of State for one of much less weighty dimensions. His viziers and courtiers had departed. Calling to me to come quickly, he cried, " Climb up here with me, on to the back of the sofa ; we shall be able to see the Mission ride out of the palace square" ; and he clambered up and stood on the gilt carving of his throne, whence, by pulling him- self up by his hands, he could just see out of a little window high up in the richly-decorated wall of the room. Following his example, I mounted beside him, and together we watched the Minister and the Mission mount their horses and depart from the palace, to the booming of guns.

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At the time of my first visit to the Court, Si Ahmed ben Moussa, better known as Bou Ahmed, was the predominant figure amongst the native officials. He held at this time the post of Cham- berlain, one of great importance and influence, as its holder was in constant contact with the Sultan, and could gain his private ear. He was undoubtedly devoted to the Sultan's interests, and served him faithfully and well. His father had been a palace slave, and he himself was very dark in colour, and of most unattractive appear- ance. He was a man of no particular intelligence, but of indomitable will, and cruel. He made no pretensions to understand the foreign relations of Morocco; and except in so far as he was anti- European, more from political than religious motives, he seems to have had no fixed policy. Even later, when he became, under Mulai Abdul Aziz, Grand Vizier, he was content to leave the discussion of all affairs of foreign policy to the other viziers, though no doubt he took part in the decisions arrived at. Mulai Hassen's Foreign Minister was Sid Fadhoul Gharnit, a wily and intelligent gentleman, who is still living. When the Government of which he was a member fell — and the falls of Government in those days often meant the falling of heads too — Sid Fadhoul Gharnit was seized by a stroke, and disappeared into the recesses of his house. For years he was supposed to be paralysed, and was no doubt in bad health ; but another change of Ministry came about years afterwards, and he emerged again,

10 MOROCCO THAT WAS

miraculously cured and looking younger and more xspry than ever, to become Grand Vizier for a time. He has now retired from public life, and resides in Fez. No doubt his paralysis, real or feigned, saved his family from ruin, his fortune from con- fiscation, and probably himself from prison or even death. Difficult as was the work, great as were the responsibilities of Cabinet Ministers in Morocco, they were not pestered by an Opposi- tion, for if — rarely — any members of the outgoing Government survived, they were always in prison.

In 1893 Mulai Hassen determined to visit the desert regions of Morocco, including far-off Tafilet, the great oasis from which his dynasty had origi- nally sprung, and where, before becoming the ruling branch of the royal family, they had resided ever since their founder, the great-grandson of the Prophet, had settled there, an exile from the East.

Leaving Fez in the summer, the Sultan pro- ceeded south, crossing the Atlas above Kasba-el- Maghzen, and descended to the upper waters of the Wad Ziz. An expedition such as this would have required a system of organisation far in excess of the capabilities of the Moors, great though their resources were. Food was lacking ; the desert regions could provide little. The water was bad, the heat very great. Every kind of delay, including rebellion and the consequent punish- ment of the tribes, hampered the Sultan's move- ments ; and it was only toward winter that he arrived in Tafilet with a fever-stricken army and greatly diminished transport.

{Photo by Author,

MOUNTAIN TOPS, ATLAS.

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Mulai Hassen returned from Tafilet a dying man. The internal complaint from which he was suffering had become acute from the hardships he had undergone, and he was unable to obtain the rest that his state of health required, nor would he place himself under a regime. For a few months he remained in the southern capital, and in the late spring 1894 set out to suppress a rebellion that had broken out in the Tadla region.

While camping in the enemy country he died. Now, the death of the Sultan under such circum- stances was fraught with danger to the State. He was an absolute monarch, and with his disappear- ance all authority and government lapsed until his successor should have taken up the reins. Again, the expedition was in hostile country, and any inkling of the Sultan's death would have brought the tribes down to pillage and loot the Imperial camp. As long as the Sultan lived, and\ was present with his expedition, his prestige was sufficient to prevent an attack of the tribes — though even this was not unknown on one or two occasions — and to hold his forces together as a sort of concrete body. But his death, if known, would have meant speedy disorganisation, nor could the troops themselves be trusted not to seize this opportunity to murder and loot.

It was therefore necessary that the Sultan's demise should be kept an absolute secret. He had died in the recesses of his tents, themselves enclosed in a great canvas wall, inside which, except on very special occasions, no one was

12 MOROCCO THAT WAS

permitted to penetrate. The knowledge of his death was therefore limited to the personal slaves and to his Chamberlain, Bou Ahmed.

Orders were given that the Sultan would start on his journey at dawn, and before daylight the State palanquin was carried into the Imperial enclosure, the corpse laid within it, and its doors closed and the curtains drawn. At the first pale break of dawn the palanquin was brought out, supported by sturdy mules. Bugles were blown, the band played, and the bowing courtiers and officials poured forth their stentorian cry, " May God protect the life of our Lord." The procession formed up, and, led by flying banners, the dead Sultan set out on his march.

A great distance was covered that day. Only once did the procession stop, when the palanquin was carried into a tent by the roadside, that the Sultan might breakfast. Food was borne in and out ; tea, with all the paraphernalia of its brew- ing, was served : but none but the slaves who knew the secret were permitted to enter. The Chamber- lain remained with the corpse, and when a certain time had passed, he emerged to state that His Majesty was rested and had breakfasted, and would proceed on his journey — and once more the procession moved on. Another long march was made to where the great camp was pitched for the night.

The Sultan was tired, the Chamberlain said. He would not come out of his enclosure to trans- act business as usual in the " Diwan " tent, where

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he granted audiences. Documents were taken in to the royal quarters by the Chamberlain himself, and, when necessary, they emerged bearing the seal of State, and verbal replies were given to a host of questions.

Then another day of forced marches, for the expedition was still in dangerous country ; but Mulai Hassen's death could no longer be con- cealed. It was summer, and the state of the Sultan's body told its own secret.

Bou Ahmed announced that His Majesty had died two days before, and that by this time his young son, Mulai Abdul Aziz, chosen and nomi- nated by his father, had been proclaimed at Rabat, whither the fleetest of runners had been sent with the news immediately after the death had occurred.

It was a fait accompli. The army was now free of the danger of being attacked by the tribes ; and the knowledge that the new Sultan was already reigning, and that tranquillity existed elsewhere, deterred the troops from any excesses. Many took the occasion of a certain disorganisation to desert, but so customary was this practice that it attracted little or no attention.

Two days later the body of the dead Sultan, - now in a terrible state of decomposition, arrived at Rabat. It must have been a gruesome pro- cession from the description his son Mulai Abdul Aziz gave me : the hurried arrival of the swaying palanquin bearing its terrible burden, five days dead in the great heat of summer ; the escort, who had bound scarves over their faces — but even

16 MOROCCO THAT WAS

dishes of cooked meats, or what was left of them, had been removed, there remained great plates of fresh butter, the very first of the season, hard and rolled into large balls. The learned tutor of the Sultan's sons stated that it was much to be regretted that such splendid butter should be wasted by being eaten by the palace slaves and attendants, and forthwith he tore off a length of his fine white turban, rolled up one of the large balls of butter, and replaced the package in the crown of his high-peaked fez, which formed the foundation of his headgear.

One of the slaves told Mulai Hassen what had occurred, and he determined to amuse himself at the expense of his sons' tutor. He entered the great chamber where the guests were assembled and bade them welcome, paying a few compli- ments to each. When it came to the turn of the learned man, the Sultan congratulated him on his great attainments, adding, " He shall be speci- ally honoured. Bring rose-water and incense."

Now, it is the custom at Moorish feasts to sprinkle the guests with rose and orange-blossom water, and to perfume their robes with incense. So the long-necked silver bottles and the brass incense-burner were produced. From the latter, laid upon red-hot charcoal, the burning sandal- wood diffused its smoke in delicious clouds. Having received the regulation sprinkling, the incense-burner was placed before him. Lifting his wide sleeves, the slaves held the censer below them, allowing the smoke to permeate his volum-

THE MOORISH COURT 17

inous garments. Then drawing the hood of his " bernous " over his head and face, the customary perfuming of the turban was begun. But the slaves held tight, and instead of the performance lasting half a minute, it was unduly prolonged. At first it was only the richly-perfumed smoke of the sandalwood that entered his nose and eyes ; but presently the delicious odour changed, for the butter concealed in his fez, melting under the applied heat of the red-hot charcoal, was begin- ning to drop into the incense-burner, giving forth a penetrating and unpleasant odour of cooking. From drops to a trickling stream took a very little while, and soon the whole room was full of the smoke of burning butter, while the aged scholar presented the most pitiful sight — half -blinded, choking, and dripping all over. When he had been washed and cleaned up the Sultan had gone.

Mulai Abdul Aziz was, at the time of his suc- cession (1894), about twelve or thirteen years of age. He was a younger son of the late Sultan, for Islamic thrones do not necessarily descend by primogeniture. It is not unseldom a brother who succeeds, and at times even more distant relations. The throne is almost elective inside the royal family, though, as a matter of fact, a Sultan generally nominates his successor. The descent from the common ancestor — who in this case of Shereefian families is the Prophet Mohammed — is of far greater importance than the relationship of the deceased and succeeding Sultan. After the

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abdication of Mulai Hafid in 1912, his half-brother, Mulai Youssef, was "chosen" to fill the throne, and accepted without hesitation. His choice has been amply justified by the dignified manner and the constant tact that he has always shown in his very difficult position.

The mother of Mulai Abdul Aziz was a Turkish lady, brought from Constantinople to Morocco. Report states that she was a woman of great intelligence and considerable force of character. She was certainly a most devoted mother. It is even said that she played a part in the politics of the country, and that she was consulted on affairs of State by her husband. That she must have possessed a remarkable personality is clear from the fact that she maintained her influence over the Sultan till the day of his death — no easy task amidst a host of rivals — and so assured the succession of her son. Her great friend and com- panion in the harem was another Turkish lady,, the mother of the reigning Sultan Mulai Youssef. It is curious that these two " strangers in a foreign land " should both have been destined to become the mothers of Sultans.

It was only natural that the succession of a minor gave rise to every form of intrigue at Court. There were two great factions in the palace — the party of Bou Ahmed, the powerful Chamberlain, on the one hand, and that of the Grand Vizier and Minister of War on the other. These two high officials belonged to the aristocratic and powerful family of the Ulad Jamai, and were respectively

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Haj Amaati and Si Mohammed Soreir. Now Bou Ahmed was the son of a negro slave, and there- fore could count on no tribal or family influence. His rivals, on the contrary, were Fez aristocrats, highly born, and supported by the influential population of the towns. They came of what is known as a " Maghzen " family — that is to say, a family who in the past had held Government posts, and had a sort of traditional claim to high employment. It was evident that jealousy must exist between these two factions.

Bou Ahmed's position of Chamberlain gave him constant access to his sovereign, whose extreme youth brought him little into contact with his viziers. No doubt, too, Bou Ahmed could count upon the influence of the Sultan's mother. He had been the constant and trustworthy confidant of her husband, and instrumental in putting her son on the throne. His own fate, too, depended upon his keeping him there, and there can be little doubt that Mulai Abdul Aziz's mother and Bou Ahmed worked in connivance.

As soon as the new Government was organised sufficiently for Mulai Abdul Aziz to travel, the Court left Rabat for Fez — the real capital of the country. No Sultan can count upon his throne as being safe until he has been accepted by the religious and aristocratic Fezzis, and taken up his residence in the city; for Fez is the centre of religion and learning — and also of intrigue — and the influence of its population upon the tribes is very great. It was therefore very important that

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It was only natural that the succession of a minor gave rise to every form of intrigue at Court. There were two great factions in the palace — the party of Bou Ahmed, the powerful Chamberlain, on the one hand, and that of the Grand Vizier and Minister of- War on the other. These two high officials belonged to the aristocratic and powerful family of the Ulad Jamai, and were respectively

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the young Sultan should reach Fez at as early a date as possible. His journey through the tribes to Meknes was very successful. He was well received on every side, and on his arrival at the old capital which Mulai Ismail, a contemporary of Louis Quatorze, had built, the population of the city accorded him a popular welcome.

Meknes is some thirty-three miles from Fez, and there remained only this last stage of the journey to be accomplished.

Bou Ahmed fully appreciated his position. He knew that once in Fez his influence must decrease. His rivals could count upon the support not only of the townspeople, but also of the Sultan's rela- tions in the capital. To the Fezzis he was an upstart, and there would be no peace from their intrigues to bring about his fall, and no pity when he fell. It was a case of now or never for Bou Ahmed.

There were no signs of the coming storm. The Ulad Jamai brothers were no doubt waiting till their arrival amongst their own people in Fez to begin a more active intrigue, and Bou Ahmed himself was courteous and a little obsequious to the influential viziers. A few mornings after the Sultan's arrival at Meknes, the usual morning Court was being held. Haj Amaati, the Grand Vizier, surrounded by his white-robed followers, rode into the palace square, amidst the bowing officials and the salutes of troops. He was imme- diately summoned into the Sultan's presence.

Mulai Abdul Aziz was alone with Bou Ahmed

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when Haj Amaati entered. He prostrated him- self, and waited for the Sultan to speak. In a rather frightened voice Mulai Abdul Aziz asked him a question. Haj Amaati' s answer was not found satisfactory, and Bou Ahmed burst forth in a string of reproaches against the Vizier, and accused him of disloyalty, avarice, extortion, and political crimes. Suddenly appealing to the Sul- tan, he asked for permission to arrest him. Mulai Abdul Aziz inclined his head.

A few minutes later a dishevelled, cringing, crying creature, amid jeers and laughter, was dragged through the palace square amongst the crowd that only so short a time before had been bowing to the ground. His clothes were torn, for the soldiers were rough, and his turban was all askew. As he passed through the gate, dragged by the soldiery, the sentry at the door seized the Vizier's clean white turban and set it on his own head, replacing it by his own duty fez cap. A shout of laughter greeted this act.

The Vizier's brother, Si Mohammed Soreir, the Minister of War, had not yet left his house for the palace. He was arrested at his own doorway, and did not attempt to resist, but allowed himself to be led to prison.

The subsequent history of these two men forms perhaps the blackest page of Mulai Abdul Aziz's reign. They were sent in fetters to Tetuan, and confined, chained and fettered, in a dungeon. In the course of time — and how long those ten years must have been — Haj Amaati died. The Governor

22 MOROCCO THAT WAS

of Tetuan was afraid to bury the body, lest he should be accused of having allowed his prisoner to escape. He wrote to Court for instructions. It was summer, and even the dungeon was hot. The answer did not come for eleven days, and all that time Si Mohammed Soreir remained chained to his brother's corpse ! The brother survived. In 1908 he was released after fourteen years' incarceration, a hopeless, broken, ruined man. Everything he had possessed had been confis- cated ; his wives and children had died, the result of want and persecution. He emerged from his dark dungeon nearly blind, and lame from the cruel fetters he had worn. In his days of power he had been cruel, it is said — but what a price he paid !

He settled in Tangier, where I saw him almost daily. He was in absolute poverty ; but all his friends assisted him — and he wanted so little. An old slave woman of the family, who had survived in some out-of-the-way corner, came to look after him, and used to massage his tortured wrists and ankles. At length he died.

Two days before his death I saw him for the last time. It was clear that a very little span of life remained for him. I sat with him a long time, and as I rose to leave him, he said : " Listen. When they have washed my body for burial, I want you to see that my chains and fetters are put back upon my limbs. I desire to appear before my God as I spent those fourteen years of my life, that I may appeal to Him for the

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justice my Sultan refused me, that He in His great mercy and forgiveness may open to me the gates of Paradise."

It was impossible to replace the chains and fetters, but I believe a link was sewn up in his winding-sheet. With the cruellest cynicism he was given an official military funeral, attended by all the native authorities and functionaries — f or after all he had been Minister of War !

Sir Ernest Satow represented Great Britain in Morocco at the time of Mulai Abdul Aziz's succes- sion. On learning of Mulai Hassen's death, the news of which Kaid Maclean — who was with the Moorish army — had managed to send to Tangier with almost incredible rapidity, Sir Ernest sent for me and told me that he proposed to send some confidential agent to Fez upon a mission, which would certainly be difficult and very likely dangerous, for, as the news of the Sultan's death spread, there would no doubt be disturbances on every side. I naturally volunteered to go, and my offer was accepted. The same night at twelve o'clock I left, accompanied by one of my men, both of us well mounted and armed. I am averse to carrying arms in such countries as Morocco, and have very seldom done so ; but the occasion was unusual, and bands of marauders might be looked for. I was dressed as a native mountaineer, my head shaved except for one long lock of hair, which I, native fashion, wore at this period of my life ; my legs bare, and my feet thrust into yellow slippers. A rough brown-hooded cloak

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covered my scanty clothing. I, no doubt, looked a brigand — my companion was one. Luckily I had good horses in my stable, and we chose the two most likely to stand the fatigue. It was most important to start at once and travel fast, in order, if possible, to keep ahead of the news of the Sultan's death, which was now publicly known in Tangier. I could not take the direct route for Fez, for part of my mission was to visit certain influential Shereefs en route to whom I was per- sonally known, and to exhort them to use all their influence in the interests of peace, law, and order.

It was midsummer, and dawn was early ; but before the sun had risen we reached Arzeila, twenty-six miles from Tangier. Here I break- fasted with the Shereef of Abrish, a brother-in- law of the famous Raisuli, and himself a man of considerable renown. He promised to exert all his influence to keep the tribes quiet. After a short halt I left the town, and at night arrived at Alcazar, having covered, by the route we had travelled, well over sixty miles. From Alcazar to Wazzan was a matter of some eight hours' ride, and I reached the holy city of that name early the next afternoon. I was most cordially received by the very influential Shereefs who inhabit that little mountain city, so rarely visited by Euro- peans, as it is holy ground. It was a feast-day ; but in spite of that the Shereefs at once got to work, sending numerous letters to the tribes to remain quiet. This work kept me at Wazzan till

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the middle of the following day, when I started once more, reaching the Maizerieh, a village on the hills above the Sebou Valley, that night. Here we slept, to start again before daylight.

It was clear that the tribes here had learned the news of the Sultan's death, for all night long there was desultory firing, and in the early dawn we could distinguish groups of horsemen in the valley below. A general wiping out of old scores had begun, combined with organised pillage.

Avoiding as far as possible the districts where firing was taking place, my man and I rode on. The situation was uncomfortable, and I forgot for a moment what brigands we ourselves must have looked ; but on suddenly coming upon a long line of laden camels, the half-dozen caravan men in charge took to their heels and ran for their lives. We soon, however, reassured them, and rode on. The fourth day's travelling after leaving Tangier I arrived in Fez, having by our detours covered from 190 to 200 miles. My horses were tired, but not done up. At midday I pre- sented the British Minister's despatch, and my verbal message, to a council of the native authori- ties sitting in the house of Amin Haj Abdesalam El-Mokri, the father of the well-known Grand Vizier, Haj Mohammed El-Mokri, perhaps the most intelligent and capable of all the Moorish authorities of to-day.

I remained in Fez for several weeks. Mean- while, Mulai Abdul Aziz had reached Meknes, where, at the moment of the arrest of the Grand

26 MOROCCO THAT WAS

Vizier and the Minister of War, I arrived, return- ing to Fez with the young Sultan.

I have always looked back upon that period with great pleasure. I was engaged upon a mission of some delicacy, and I was thrust into the very midst of native affairs. With that hospitality for which the Mokri family is so well known, I was a guest in their great house, one of the sights of Fez, with its terraced gardens and its many foun- tains. It required no little courage in those days to harbour a " Christian," and I think this was the first time on which a European had ever been made welcome to stay in one of the great Fez houses. I wore the native dress — I had, of course, arrived without even a change of shirt — and lived in the company of the sons of the family, and was treated as one of them. My wants were amply supplied from the voluminous wardrobes of my hosts.

My mission was a success. On 14th July Sir Ernest Satow wrote me agreeing to my request to be allowed to return to Tangier. His letter is before me now : —

" The Foreign Office has much approved of my having sent you to Fez, and will not be unmindful of the services you have rendered on the present occasion. I sent copies of the greater part of your long report (which I copied out myself) to Sanderson, and Lord Kimberley read it with great interest. I will only add now that I feel myself under a great obligation to you for having under- taken an important and, to all appearances, peril-

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ous mission. But I felt you were the man to accomplish it. ... Many thanks for all you have done. It has been most successful."

My mission had lasted many weeks, and necessi- tated riding several hundreds of miles in the great heat of midsummer in discomfort, and often in danger. The British Government remunerated my services by presenting me with a cheque of £100. I did not complain, nor do I now, for it has been so unusual to be paid at all when employed upon these unofficial missions, that it seemed almost extravagant. Only on one other occasion during my whole Morocco career have I ever been paid even my out-of-pocket expenses for tasks under- taken at the request of the British authorities. I never realised myself the extent of the work I have done in this connection until I began to write this book, when I unearthed the voluminous correspondence that a succession of British Minis- ters had addressed to me, and which seem to treat of every mortal question pertaining to Morocco.

I have quoted Sir Ernest Satow's letter, not from any desire to boast of the utility of my work, but because it represented one of the very few marks of appreciation and encouragement that I ever received from official sources, or, rather, I should perhaps say, in which the credit of my work was allowed to me. It was only years later that I learned that from the day of Sir Ernest Satow's departure from Morocco, over a period of many years, all my work went home anony-

28 MOROCCO THAT WAS

mously — that is to say, contained in official de- spatch as " I understand," or " I am informed." In my own particular case it didn't matter much ; but I confess that it hurt a little to be told long afterwards that the mass of information that I obtained — often by undertaking journeys at the direct instigation of the British authorities, often by my own personal relations with the tribes, and always at my own expense — went home without its origin being disclosed, and without identity. I have quoted Sir Ernest Satow's letter ; I will give one or two quotations from those of his successors.

" I want you particularly to find out and let me know the following things . . ." "It would be interesting, as you are in that part of the country, if you would go a little farther and visit ..." "I want you to impress upon the Sultan the importance of . . ." " I would like you to return here as soon as possible, to consult you about the . . . question." " You are the only authority on the . . . tribes and what is passing there. Could you therefore return . . ." " I hope you will arrange not to be long away, as I want to consult you about ..." " Please give the Sultan clearly to understand that we will not . . ." " You are the one and only authority on these questions." "When you have time would you make me a full report on ..." "As a private individual it will be easier for you to get the Maghzen [Government] to agree to . . ." " I bow to your superior knowledge on all these

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questions, and now agree with you that ..." " Do come back. I am lost without having you to consult." These are a few extracts of what was written ; the verbal instructions and requests were naturally far greater.

I am glad of having been able to be of use, and would not hesitate to act again as I acted in the past ; but the policy of depriving the unofficial and unpaid workman of the little crumbs of credit is wrong. It ought rather to be the rule to tempt young men of adventurous disposition to live the life I led, and, if necessary, to assist them — not to use them perpetually and keep them outside the pale. It is contrary to human nature to be absolutely disinterested in the personal suc- cess of one's work, and the suppression of its origin — more particularly when its origin is a life- time of travel and of study, as well as a proficiency for making friends amongst such people as the Moors — can only tend toward discouragement. In any branch of life but that of diplomacy such action would be considered incorrect.

Since 1912, when the French Protectorate was declared, and even before that date, from the time when England had abandoned all political aims in Morocco except to assist French policy, my information became of more value to the authorities of our friend and ally than to our- selves. I was invited to accompany more than one French special Mission, and have on many occasions been consulted on questions of great confidence, not only by French Ministers in Tan-

30 MOROCCO THAT WAS

gier, but also by the highest authorities of the French Protectorate. My little dossier of French official correspondence compares very favourably with that of our own people. Sir Ernest Satow's letter, which was quoted, is the one and only expression of appreciation I ever received from the British Government, while I have a dozen letters of thanks, simple and full of appreciation and encouragement, from Paris. My duties as ' Times ' correspondent often brought me into more or less acute discussions with the Spanish Govern- ment, but this has not deterred their high authori- ties from expressing to me on several occasions, in letters which I much appreciate, their thanks for information given, and their satisfaction at the large and fair way I have treated certain diplo- matic questions, not only in the ' Times ' but also elsewhere.

In such a life as I have led there have been necessarily moments when one has been disheart- ened and depressed, perhaps owing to fever, per- haps to events. In my case, happily, they have been few and far between, and I look back over those past years in Morocco as a period of great pleasure ; but there have been moments when a little word of encouragement, a few lines to say that one's work had been appreciated at home — another letter, for instance, like Sir Ernest Satow's — would have been so welcome and have done so much. I can honestly say the occasions have not been wanting.

I have enjoyed throughout the confidence of

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our representatives, and a very intimate and much appreciated friendship with them all. I have had every opportunity of seeing the inner workings of their diplomacy, and I can state that Great Britain has been fortunate in her Ministers in this country. Some left Tangier to fill more important posts elsewhere — Sir Ernest Satow, Sir Arthur Nicolson, and the late Sir Gerard Lowther, the best and kindest of men. One, perhaps the most brilliant of all, rests here for ever, the last British Minister to Morocco, Sir Reginald Lister, whose loss to his country was so great, and to his friends irreparable.

II.

LIFE AT THE MOORISH COURT.

MULAI ABDUL Aziz's stay in Fez, the northern capital, in 1894, was not of long duration, for it was important that the Court should move to the south to consolidate his throne in those regions. While Northern Morocco has always been the un- restful and most seditious part of the country, it has never presented such a serious danger as the south is capable of becoming, for the northern tribes are poor, numerically in no great force, and always at war with each other. But in the Marra- kesh region it is different. The rich agricultural land, and the great harvest reaped from it, render the tribes affluent ; they are well horsed and well armed, and very prolific. Again, beyond the plains, the great range of the Atlas Mountains is inhabited by spirited and warlike Berber tribes, to all intents and purposes unconquered. Fortun- ately for the welfare of a long succession of Moorish Sultans, these great tribes, governed by hereditary chiefs, were nearly always on bad .terms with one another ; and one of the most important results accomplished by the French Protectorate Govern-

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ment in the last few years has been to form a league of the southern tribesmen. Any one who knew the old Morocco could scarcely believe that the great chiefs — the Glaoui, the Mtougi, the Gin- dafi, and the Rahamna Kaid — would ever join hands, even in the interests of the country. But to-day it is so. ,

Mulai Abdul Aziz was able to leave the north in a state of peace and security. New Governors had been appointed, and Bou Ahmed's firm hand had made itself felt, and it was indispensable that the Court should move south : there were already signs of unrest that could not be ignored.

The arrival of the Sultan in the southern capital had a tranquillising effect, and Bou Ahmed set to work to restore order amongst the restive tribes and to build himself a palace — at the public expense. For six years he continued building, and every available workman and artist was employed. The result was grandiose, and the building now forms the " Residency " of the French Protectorate Government. The " Bahya " — that is to say, " The Effulgence," as the palace is called — consists of a succession of handsome courtyards, one planted with cypress, orange, lemon, and other fruit trees and flowers, lead- ing one out of the other. These courts are surrounded by arcades, on to which the great rooms open. Everywhere are fountains and tanks of water. This palace must cover many acres of land, and though quite modern, is a building of singular interest. There is one courtyard which

34 MOROCCO THAT WAS

is particularly beautiful, where the Moorish archi- tect based his art on the traditions of the past. The walls are higher ; the woodwork is not painted, as is usual, in polychrome; while the court itself is not nearly as large as some of the others. The rooms themselves are perhaps less interesting than the courtyards into which they open, though in many cases the elaborately carved and painted ceilings are very good.

On a very recent visit to Marrakesh I was able to wander at leisure over this great palace, accom- panied by a native who was in charge, and who knew its every corner and turret, for he had been employed on its construction. I had seen it years before — or, rather, a portion of it — for I had twice been entertained at dinner by its owner, the fam- ous Bou Ahmed. I recall now one of those even- ings : the hot, jasmine-scented air of the courts, for it was late in spring, and the great dinner served in one of the saloons, while a native band discoursed anything but soft music just outside ; and Bou Ahmed himself — short, dark, and of unprepossessing appearance, but none the less an excellent host. He has been dead now for twenty years, and his property, confiscated by the Sultan on his death, has passed into other hands. His name is only a memory of the past. In Morocco it was not, " How are the mighty fallen ! " but " How are the mighty falling ! " for almost month by month some great Kaid, some Vizier, or some Prince fell — and fell far indeed.

Bou Ahmed had other things to think of besides

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his house. There was grave dissatisfaction amongst some of the tribes, particularly amongst the Rahamna, whose extensive territory lies imme- diately to the north of the city of Marrakesh. A leader, Taher ben Suleiman, had arisen, and under his influence the tribes revolted. The local authorities were murdered or driven out, and the rebellion became general. Its suppression took long, and cost much in lives and money. On one occasion the rebels arrived at the walls of Marra- kesh and took possession of the northern suburbs of the town, but were driven back. Bou Ahmed showed considerable ability in the suppression of this revolt : not only was his energy unceasing, but he knew also how to utilise the jealousy and mistrust that always exists among the rebels. He worked tribe against tribe, and division against division. The Maghzen, by its superiority of organisation, and by the means at its disposal to obtain men, arms, and ammunition, prevailed. The Rahamna rebellion was repressed, and hun- dreds of square miles of country were given up to fire, the sword, and pillage. The tribe was almost wiped out ; hundreds died in prison ; the women and children became the prey of the soldiery, and were sold or driven away to starve, and devastation reigned supreme. A few years later I travelled through the Rahamna country. It was still deserted, and the fields were grown over with thick weeds and thorn-bushes. Only a few most miserable black tents, with half -starved inhabitants, remained where once the rich and

36 MOROCCO THAT WAS

flourishing Rahamna tribe had dwelt. Taher ben Suleiman was captured. He was imprisoned in a cage made of the barrels of his partisans' rifles — a cage so small that he could scarcely move in it, — and was exhibited to the public of Marrakesh, to be spat upon and reviled. He died in prison.

As long as Bou Ahmed lived the young Sultan remained in the palace. True, he appeared at ceremonies and celebrated the religious feasts in public, but he was a nonentity. Bou Ahmed alone governed Morocco.

In 1900 he died. I was in Marrakesh at the time of his last illness, when he lingered on day by day, kept alive by inhalations of oxygen. No one cared, unless it was a few of his personal followers and attendants, who would naturally suffer by his demise. As for the rest, there was a general indifference. He had never been popular, and the immense fortune he had amassed and great palace he had constructed awoke the jealousy of others who had the same desires but not the same opportunities. He was feared certainly, for his will was indomitable, and he was cruel. A sort of superstitious reverence had encircled his life, but it disappeared when sickness laid him low ; and when he breathed his last, the pent-up feelings of the people burst forth, and they rose up and cursed him.

The death of a great personage in Morocco is terrible, and for several days as the Vizier lay expiring, guards were stationed outside his palace

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waiting in silence for the end. And then one morning the wail of the women within the house told that death had come. Every gateway of the great building was seized, and no one was allowed to enter or come out, while within there was pandemonium. His slaves pillaged wherever they could lay their hands. His women fought and stole to get possession of the jewels. Safes were broken open, documents and title-deeds were ex- tracted, precious stones were torn from their set- tings the more easily to be concealed, and even murder took place.

While all this was proceeding within the strictly guarded walls, Bou Ahmed's body was borne out and buried. The Sultan, weeping, followed the bier of the man who had put him on his throne and kept him there through those difficult years of his youth. He must, indeed, have felt himself alone as he stood beside the grave of his Vizier, who, whatever may have been his faults, however great may have been his extortions, had been loyal throughout. When Mulai Abdul Aziz, still weeping, had returned to his palace, his first act was to sign the decree for the confiscation of all Bou Ahmed's property. It was now organised loot, for officials and slaves were turned loose to carry out the royal commands. For days laden baggage animals, half -concealed under great masses of furniture, heaped with carpets and bedding, or staggering under safes, bore Bou Ahmed's pro- perty into the Sultan's palace. His women and his slaves were made to give up their loot, and

38 MOROCCO THAT WAS

the house was left empty and its owners penni- less. A few days later nothing remained but the great building — all the rest had disappeared into space. His family were driven out to starvation and ruin, his slaves were taken by the Sultan to be kept or sold, and his vast properties passed into the possession of the State. It was the custom of the country. The belongings of all State functionaries passed at death to their lord and master the Sultan. I see Bou Ahmed's sons now and again. They are in complete poverty, and accept as presents with real gratitude the little sums which an upper servant in England would despise.

The accepting of small presents of money is, in Morocco, not considered by any means derogatory, much less the accepting of large sums. I remember well a great-uncle of the reigning Sultan, a man who had been Viceroy in his time, who regularly toured the country with a slave or two, collecting alms. He was a pleasant genial old gentleman, and had no hesitation in asking any one he met to help him, or in accepting the smallest of coins. On one occasion he arrived at the residence of a native ex-official of the Moorish Court, who lived in Tangier. There was a tennis-party going on, and the guests, amongst whom were a certain number of the representatives of the European Powers, were at tea. His Highness called me aside and asked who all these Europeans were. " They are," I replied, " largely the Ministers of the foreign Powers." " Aha," said the Prince, " they

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ought to be good for a pair of shoes if not for a cloak. Rich people, rich people." I was able to deter him, much to his surprise, by explaining that it was not the custom in Europe for members of the royal families to ask total strangers for coats, or even shoes, and I added that if he would wait a little I would see what could be done. I mentioned the Prince's request to a few of my friends, and we subscribed between us the six francs necessary to purchase a pair of yellow slippers, the only footgear of the country. He was graciously pleased to accept them with the dignity of a Prince of the Blood.

The death of Bou Ahmed naturally brought about changes at Court. Whatever jealousies there may have existed amongst the viziers, and no doubt they were many, they realised that common action was necessary. Each might have, and probably would have, to defend his own particular position from the others, but collectively they had to defend their united positions from all the world. They must either succeed or fall together, and they determined to succeed.

The Sultan was now about twenty years of age, and might at any moment desire to assert himself ; and the self-assertion of young monarchs of auto- cratic power and no experience is dangerous. The viziers realised that in all probability the dis- appearance of the strong hand of Bou Ahmed would tempt the young Sultan to become more independent, and it was necessary to come to some arrangement as to how he should be led to think

40 MOROCCO THAT WAS

and act. Certainly it must not be in the direc- tion of affairs of State — those the viziers meant to keep to themselves. An occupation must be found for the inexperienced and hitherto secluded monarch.

It was the exact reverse of all the traditions of Morocco ; but the situation was an unusual one, for there had never been a Sultan in a similar position. The viziers felt that should influence be brought to bear to keep him in his palace he might rebel against this enforced seclusion, and rid himself, and probably in no gentle manner, of the men who had instituted it. No ; it was clear the Sultan must be amused, and his amuse- ments must be so numerous and so varied that his entire attention would be distracted from affairs of State. Morocco itself could not supply the novelties that would be required. Such plea- sures and such luxuries as the country could produce were his already — women, horses, jewels, and the whole paraphernalia that goes to make up an oriental potentate's surroundings. For further distractions appeal must be made to Europe. It was not made in vain. It was the beginning of the great debacle, of the reckless extravagance, of the follies and the debts that led to foreign loans, and step by step to the loss of Morocco's independence.

A strong and good adviser might have prolonged the life of an independent Morocco, for although possessed of no great attainments or will-power, Mulai Abdul Aziz was thoughtful, intelligent, and

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desirous of doing well. It was no easy matter, however, at Marrakesh, the southern capital, where the Court was at this time in residence, to keep the young Sultan amused. Situated 100 miles from the nearest port, which itself was 300 miles down the Atlantic coast, communication with Europe was necessarily very slow, and the Sultan's ever-increasing orders of European goods took long to carry out. Often, too, the heavy Atlantic swell rendered communication impossible between the ships and the shore for weeks together.

The Sultan's caterers were at their last resources. v Fireworks were played out ; bicycle tricks had led to bruises and sprains ; and even photography had lost its pristine interest. At this critical moment came word of a belated circus at one of the coast towns. It must naturally have been a very poor circus ever to have found itself at that dreary little port, but its advent was welcomed as enthusiastically as if it had been Barnum's entire show. Imperial letters were directed to the local Kaids and Governors, agents rushed wildly to and fro, and eventually the circus, bag and baggage, consisting of a dozen people and three or four horses, started out across the weary plains of Morocco to obey the royal command. It all took time, and meanwhile in Court circles it was the absorbing topic of conversation. One or two serious rebellions among the tribes, and an acute quarrel with the Government of a European Power, passed into temporary oblivion.

Now, the proprietress of this circus was an

42 MOROCCO THAT WAS

extremely stout Spanish lady of uncertain age, on whose corpulent body the rough jogging on a mule for more than a hundred miles had left almost as painful an impression as the discomfort, heat, and worry of the journey had upon her temper. She herself took no active part in the perform- ance, and it was on this account, to her intense indignation and wrath, that she was refused admit- tance to the court of the palace in which the Sultan was to witness the show. His Majesty's orders were that none but the actual performers should be allowed to enter.

So the fat lady and one or two of the employees of the circus remained in an outer courtyard adjoining the enclosure in which the Sultan, seated under a gorgeous tent, was witnessing the per- formance. A wall some twenty feet in height separated these two courts ; and in the outer one, where the fat lady found herself, the Sultan had been building some additions to the palace, and a pile of stone, mortar, and other material reached almost to the top of the wall. The lady was both angry and bored, nor were a herd of gazelle and a few fine specimens of mouflon — Barbary wild sheep — that roamed about the enclosure sufficient to keep her amused.

To have received a royal command to come all that way to the Moorish capital, and then to be deprived of the glory of seeing her own circus performing before a real Sultan, was more than she could bear, and she straightway began to climb the great heap of building material that lay

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piled against the wall. It was hard work, nor was her figure suited for such mountain-climbing ; but she was to receive assistance from a source undreamed of. Affected, no doubt, by her slow progress in a sport of which he himself was so proficient, the old ram mouflon lightly bounded after her. Balancing himself for a moment on his hind-legs, he lunged forward and butted the fat lady so successfully from below that her ascent was materially assisted. In a series of repeated bounds, owing to no voluntary action on her own part, she found herself pantingly grasping the top of the thick wall.

Meanwhile the performance of the circus was progressing to the Sultan's satisfaction. Suddenly, however, an expression of wrathful consternation became visible in his face, and, speechless, he pointed at the wall. There, far above, was the agonised and purple visage of the fat lady, peering down at the Sultan and his Court. In a moment the officers of the suite were shouting and gesticu- lating to her to retire. But the only reply they received was a sudden vision of a considerable portion of her immense body, as a playful mouflon, himself invisible, gave her another hoist up. At last all her body was on the wall, to which she clung for dear life with arms and legs, as she lay extended on its summit. It was at this moment that the mouflon appeared. With a majestic bound he leaped on to the summit, stood for a moment poised on his hind-legs, then suddenly dropped, and with a terrific prod from his wide

44 MOROCCO THAT WAS

horns, butted the fat lady at least a yard along the wall. He was evidently intent upon taking her round the entire circuit of the court- yard.

For a few moments there was turmoil. The Sultan sat silent and amazed, while the Cabinet Ministers all shouted to the lady to disappear, which she was certainly most anxious to do. The slaves, more wisely, pelted the mouflon with stones, and drove him from his point of vantage. Then slowly the lady disappeared — the fat legs first, then the heaving mass of body, and finally even vfche purple face was seen no more.

It was in 1901 that I became personally ac- quainted with the young Sultan. I had seen him once or twice, for I had accompanied Sir Arthur Nicolson's special Mission to Marrakesh in 1896 ; but at that time the Sultan had not emerged from his shell of reserve. He was still a young boy, evidently very shy, and entirely under the thumb of Bou Ahmed, the famous Grand Vizier. One audience that we had with him on that occa- sion was not without interest. We had ridden far into the depths of the great Agdal gardens to a summer-house, where His Shereefian Majesty was waiting to receive the British Minister. A tangled jungle of orange-trees ; vines climbing over broken trellis, and clinging in festoons to great cypresses ; here and there a broken marble fountain or a tiny stream — such were our sur- roundings. With our escort of white-robed Moorish cavalry, led by the Master of the Ceremonies, we

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rode through the great garden to dismount before a kiosk of arches and pillars, of green-glazed tiles and red geometric frescoes on a yellow wall. Everywhere the tangle of vegetation had over- grown its borders. The cypresses shot up, pillars of dark green, above the building, while vine, jasmine, and geranium strove for the supremacy below. Outside the building, and out of sight of ' its occupants, sat a row of Moorish officers, the Sultan's attendants. At the door of the one room that the kiosk contained — for it seemed all arches and pillars without — stood Bou Ahmed, the Vizier, a dark, stout, short man, showing his black origin in every feature.

Within, opposite the doorway, on a Louis Seize settee, was Mulai Abdul Aziz. He was seated cross-legged, with his hands folded in his lap and half -hidden in his soft white raiment. I remember being particularly struck with his pale complexion and his evident shyness. At the side of the divan was a chair, where the British Minister was in- vited to be seated, while we who were in attend- ance stood around the door. The Sultan himself said little, and that little was addressed to his Vizier in almost a whisper, and repeated by him to the British Minister. In a few minutes Mulai Abdul Aziz had largely recovered his self-posses- sion, and was busy taking in every item of the uniforms worn by the Minister's suite. He could scarcely keep his eyes off one man — the present Lord Loch — whose six feet five, capped by an enormous busby, was of evidently entrancing in-

46 MOROCCO THAT WAS

terest to His Majesty. Four years later, talking to Mulai Abdul Aziz in the intimacy of personal friendship, I reminded him of this episode. He laughingly replied that he had certainly been more struck with his height and uniform than anything else on that Mission, and requested me to ask the British Minister whether it would not be possible for Lord Loch to accompany a second embassy that was to start a few months later. This message duly reached the authorities at home, and in January 1902 Mulai Abdul Aziz, no longer shy, had the pleasure — and it was an evident pleasure — of once more welcoming Lord Loch at his Court. I little thought at their first meeting, when I watched the young Sultan's shy interest in the big Guardsman, that a few years later I should witness the same Guardsman instructing the same Sultan in the mysteries of " tip-and-run " in an enclosure of the Shereefian Palace.

My first private audience with Mulai Abdul Aziz was in the summer of 1901. After a considerable delay, largely owing to the discussion of the kind of obeisance I was prepared to make in entering His Majesty's presence, I was honoured with a private audience. I found His Majesty courteous, pleasant, and intelligent. He was easy to amuse, and by my departure from the austere etiquette of the Court in not confining my remarks to replies to His Majesty's questions, although at first it seemed a little to surprise him, I succeeded in gaining his attention and amusement. I had been told that my audience would be very formal and

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last a few minutes. It lasted over an hour. The Sultan was seated, and I remained standing the whole time — to which I could not very well object. In any case, I had overcome the difficulty of my reception by refusing point-blank to go down on my knees and to touch the floor with my fore- head— a form of salutation which was being prac- tised by the Europeans in His Majesty's service, for already he had begun to increase his Christian entourage. I had stated that I was prepared to enter the Sultan's presence in adopting the same formalities as I did in the presence of my own sovereign, and the Sultan had accepted that formula. Almost the first question he asked me was if I had ever been received in private audience by my own King. I replied that I had experienced that honour. He then asked what obeisance I had made. I replied that I had bowed on enter- ing the room, and again on approaching His Majesty's person. The Sultan seemed surprised, and demanded why it was the Englishmen in his service carried out the Moorish form of etiquette by kneeling and touching the floor with their foreheads ? I could only protest that I didn't know, except to surmise that, as they were in the service of a Moorish Sultan, they probably thought they ought to adopt the traditional Moorish form of obeisance. The Sultan gave orders that it was to be discontinued, though, as a matter of fact, the Europeans in his service still continued to use it on the great feast-days of the year until the end of his reign. A few years later, on one of

48 MOROCCO THAT WAS

these occasions I saw a long line of Englishmen drop on to their knees and bow their foreheads to the ground as the Sultan approached. It is a matter of personal option, based on prejudice. It seems to me that any human being has a right to act in such matters just as he thinks right. That he demeans himself or his country by so doing appears to me ridiculous. An Englishman, and much less England, cannot be demeaned by any fantastic gymnastics. I preferred not to do it solely for the reason that it seemed to me to be absurd, just as half the ceremonies at a British coronation would appear absurd and meaningless to a Moor. Nearly all etiquette is ridiculous, only we are more or less accustomed to it, and have largely modified its eccentricities. I have experi- enced things nearly as absurd as this Moorish custom in other Courts. Some years ago, on one of the very hottest days of a hot summer in a country of Southern Europe, I had the honour to be received by the sovereign. I arrived at the palace at half-past ten in the morning and left it at one o'clock. The king in question was dressed in the heavy blue uniform of an admiral ; I was in a frock-coat. The thermometer, even in the room, must have been in or very near the nineties. Yet we stood the whole time— for two hours and a half. At half-past two I was summoned back to the palace to complete this long but interesting audience. With a sigh of relief His Majesty said, " I think this time we can sit down." And we did. Why on earth we hadn't sat down in the

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morning during all those perspiring hours Heaven only knows. I could have understood a king sitting and his visitor being made to stand, but mutual discomfort and fatigue in such a case and for such a length of time appears to me to be almost childish folly.

The Moorish protocol would have compared favourably with this European etiquette. The Moorish visitor would have made his lowly obei- sance to the sovereign, but this done he would have squatted down, more or less comfortably, in his Sultan's presence, and remained seated till the end of the audience. It seemed to me to be preferable. But etiquette is all a question of custom and habit. Take kissing, for example. How well every man must remember how, when a small boy, he feared that his mother might kiss him in the presence of his schoolfellows. In after years, when it is too late, how he would have treasured those lost kisses were they now obtain- able ! What amusement, too, the kissing of foreign men on the railway platforms of the continent has caused us ! But witness the meeting of two great Morocco chiefs — the stately approach, the last few more hurried steps, and the graceful em- brace as each bends forward and kisses the other's shoulder. I have seen the meeting of great men in Morocco in the hour of sorrow, when they have fallen upon each other's necks and wept. How few soldiers know that the origin of the salute they give to-day comes from the East, and is really no more than the movement of the sub-

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ject to shield from his eyes the effulgent glory of his sovereign, only to-day it applies equally to the effulgent glory of his second lieutenant as well. Habit is everything, and prejudice scarcely less.

These were the first days of the toys and fire- works at the Moorish Court. For a time the t latter were paramount, and almost nightly the southern capital was illumined by the reflection of Catherine-wheels and startled by the flashing of the many colours of marvellous rockets. A man was brought especially from England to show and prepare the fireworks, and he became a permanent member of His Majesty's suite. The natives were partly amused, partly shocked. Thrifty as the Moor is by nature, he could not overlook the wild extravagance of this manner of spending money, and the fireworks by the time they had arrived in Marrakesh had cost a pretty price. Freight, insurance, and the long caravan trans- port from the cost had to be added to the original cost, and there was an item known as commission. They were certainly very beautiful fireworks and very expensive. I was present at a display given to amuse a British Minister, who highly dis- approved of this extravagance, but could not refuse the invitation. There was a set piece of an enormous elephant, and the show concluded with a waterfall of fire in a new shade of pink, just discovered, and accordingly of elevated price. It was certainly very beautiful, but it was very useless and very dear.

One afternoon the Sultan informed me that

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there would be a display that night in the palace grounds, but that it was for the " palace " — that was to say, the ladies — and no men would be invited ; but if I went up on to the roof of the house in which I was living, I should no doubt be able to witness something of it. I watched the beautiful rockets of every colour rise in their streaks of fire into the wonderful sapphire blue of the sky of the southern night, to burst with their thousand stars, filling the whole scene of the flat house-tops of the old city with the pale glow of greens and pinks and yellows. In the " Jumma el-Fenaa " — the open place that lies in the centre of the city — the crowds stood and watched the rockets as they rose over the high walls of the palace half a mile away.

The next day the Sultan asked me what I had thought of the display. I spoke of its beauty, and hinted at its waste. I mentioned the crowd in the square. " What did the people say ? " asked the Sultan. " I didn't hear much," I replied ; " but on several occasions some one would cry out, ' There goes another thousand dollars of our money.' 3

Mulai Abdul Aziz had expected to hear his own praises sung for having presented the brilliant spectacle to the people of his city, and my answer surprised him. It was, however, not without effect, or perhaps he was growing tired of coloured fires, for there was a great diminution in these displays, although the professional exhibitor re- mained for some time later at the palace.

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Throughout the many months that I spent at the Moorish Court, I always felt that a catastrophe must eventually happen. The Sultan was evidently being led upon the road to ruin, and near him as I was, all my efforts to persuade him of the fact were in vain. On more than one occasion, par- ticularly towards the end of 1902, I implored him, in language which he smilingly told me no one had ever ventured to address to him before, to pull himself up in time. He was kind, thanked me for being so outspoken, and continued his pro-European proclivities and his extravagances. Had he at that time dismissed the greater number of his European employees, leaving only his doctor, an engineer or two, and any one who had been in his father's employ, and ceased spending his money, the whole future of Morocco might have been changed.

His afternoons in Marrakesh were given up to play. More than once, always accompanied by Menebhi, the Minister of War, and some of his European employees, we rode in the immense wilderness of gardens of the Agdal Palace. At the edge of a great square tank we would dismount, and sometimes went for a row in one of the various boats that he kept there. On one occasion His Majesty and his Minister rowed — very badly in- deed— while I, the only other occupant of the boat, steered. The Sultan, who rowed bow, caught several crabs, and splashed poor Menebhi all over. The Minister of War rowed about one hundred short strokes to the minute, whilst the Sultan,

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struggling with his oars, rowed about ten extremely long ones. But both were hugely delighted with the performance, and our spirits were of the highest.

" We are both boatmen, and you are the pas- senger. We are crossing a Moorish ferry," cried the Sultan.

Entering into the Sultan's little joke, I replied " that they were the worst ferrymen I had ever seen, and that on landing I should complain to the authorities of their incapacity."

" Oh, you will, will you ? " replied Mulai Abdul Aziz. " Then all I can say is, we won't put you ashore until you pay us."

" Then I'll stop here."

" All right," replied the Sultan ; and he promptly began to splash me with all his might and main, though poor Menebhi was getting as wet as I was.

" Will you pay ? " asked His Majesty.

" Willingly," I laughed. " How much ? "

" Half a peseta each " (about 4d.), answered the Sultan, and they duly pocketed their fee. It was the first time in my life I had tipped a Sultan and a Minister of War.

In the autumn of 1902 I was invited to accom- pany the royal progress to the northern capital, Fez.

The Sultan's departure from Marrakesh, where he had now been in residence for some six years, had been expected earlier in the autumn ; but constant delays occurred, and although the im- perial tents had been for some time pitched out-

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side the city gates, it was not until late in November that a start was made. Early one morning, sur- rounded by all the characteristic pomp pertaining to the Sultanate of Morocco, Mulai Abdul Aziz left his palace in the southern capital for the first camp of his northward march.

There is no necessity to describe day by day the Sultan's progress. The etiquette and formali- ties of each were almost identical, though the scene was an ever- varying one, changing with the nature of the country traversed. An account of one day, picked out at hazard, will be sufficient to give an idea of the whole. Long before daylight the great camp was astir, and when, soon after 3 A.M., the morning gun was fired, a number of tents had already been struck, horses saddled, and mules and camels packed for the march. In the moon- light and early dawn the scene was one of great beauty — an indistinct medley of white tents, here silvery in the moonlight, there ruddy with the glow of camp-fires, whose tall red columns of smoke rose pillar-like into the still air. In and about the tents passed the shadowy forms of men and animals. As if by magic the scene was ever changing, as tent after tent silently fell to the ground, until with the first glow of dawn there remained of the great encampment only the canvas- walled enclosure containing the Sultan's tents, and a plain covered with horsemen and thousands upon thousands of baggage mules and camels. Already the cavalry were massed near the Sultan's enclosure, the horsemen forming an open square,

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in the centre of which, surrounded by the Ministers of State, lay a crimson-curtained palanquin with its couch of turquoise blue. From the entrance of the Sultan's tents to the square of cavalry a double line was formed by white-robed, red-capped officials, awaiting His Majesty.

A bugle sounds clear in the still atmosphere, and a moment later a great cry rends the air. There is a beating of drums and a sound of trum- pets, as a solitary white figure, erect and dignified, walks slowly through the bowing lines of officials, enters the square of horsemen, and seats himself upon the blue divan. Again arises the cry of wel- come, as, bending forward, the tribes greet their Sultan with the salutation, " May God prolong the life of our Lord."

The sun has risen now, his first rays falling upon the gold-orbed banners, heavy with brocades and silks that wave high above the heads of the cavalry ; then upon the wild horsemen themselves, their saddles of brilliant reds and greens, half- hidden in the heavy folds of their long white garments, and the scene becomes one of indescrib- able beauty. One by one the Sultan's tents are struck, and the great canvas-walled enclosure vanishes under the hands of hundreds of skilled tent-pitchers. Sometimes His Majesty gives an audience to an official, a local governor of a tribe, who, barefoot, approaches the Sultan, falls upon his knees, and three times touches the ground with his forehead, remaining crouched before his lord and master during the few seconds that

56 MOROCCO THAT WAS

such audiences last. Again a bugle ; and through the line of horsemen run dusky soldiers leading saddled horses, trotting them past the Sultan that he may choose upon the back of which he will perform the day's march. With a slight motion of his hand the choice is made, and the honoured steed is led up to the palanquin. Some- times it is a white, saddled and trapped in tur- quoise blue ; sometimes a grey, decked in rose- coloured silks ; sometimes a black, his head half hidden in primrose-yellow tassels.

As the Sultan mounts, the scene becomes for a few minutes one of wild confusion. The banner- bearers, the spear-bearers, the cavalry, the scarlet- and-blue mounted infantry, the high officials on their saddle-mules, the artillery, even the Sultan himself, seems hopelessly mixed in a struggling crowd. It is only for a very little while, and then from the medley emerges the royal procession, forming into order as it proceeds. The vanguard is formed of an escort of cavalry, headed by the standard-bearers, carrying flags of every hue and colour, the poles topped with glittering balls. Next come the artillery, the guns carried upon the backs of mules, and after them a troop of mounted infantry. Two mounted men, carrying long slender spears, precede the led horses, five or six of which, trapped in rich silks, always form a feature of the procession. Riding alone is the Grand Master of the Ceremonies, a dark man of fine presence, wand of office in hand. Then, after a space of some forty yards, the Sultan, a solitary

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white figure on horseback. At his side run negroes, waving long white scarves to keep the dust and the flies off his holy person. Immediately behind His Majesty rides a soldier, bearing aloft, so as to shade the Sultan from the rays of the sun, the Imperial parasol of crimson and gold. The red palanquin, borne by sturdy mules, follows, and behind it a long wide line of standard-bearers, the banners rich in gold thread and brocaded silks, and the poles of one and all crowned with gilded orbs. Immediately behind the flags ride the viziers and great officers of State, followed by a rabble of smaller officials and soldiery, of black slaves and tribesmen from all over Morocco.

There are no roads, and the procession of men and animals spreads widely out over the plains and undulating hills. Often as far as the eye can reach one can trace the great migration stretching from horizon to horizon, a rainbow of colour upon the green plains. Sometimes to cross a valley the procession narrows in, to spread out again in the open country beyond, till the whole land is dotted with horsemen and mules, and slow-gaited lumber- ing camels.

Now and again a tribal governor, with his escort of horsemen, comes to sahite his sovereign. Drawn up in a long line they await the Sultan's approach. At his approach the governor dismounts from his horse and prostrates himself before his lord, to rise again at a signal from His Majesty. Bending low, he approaches and kisses the Sultan's stirrup, then mounts again, and with a hoarse cry of

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welcome the tribesmen dig their spurs into the flanks of their barbs and gallop pell-mell hither and thither, now singly, now in line, firing their guns the while, until the horses are brought to a sudden standstill in a cloud of smoke and dust. These tribesmen are not the only people who come from afar to greet the Sultan on his march. There are beggars and representatives of all the dervish sects, from cymbal-beating negroes from the Sudan to the Hamacha of Meknes, who cut open their heads with hatchets. There are snake- charmers and acrobats, and men with performing apes ; little deputations of country Jews and Jewesses ; groups of white-robed scholars from local mosques, bearing white flags ; veiled Arab women, uttering shrill trembling cries of welcome, and offering bowls of milk ; lepers with their faces swathed and wearing great straw hats, bear- ing bowls of wood to collect alms in, for none may touch them — a thousand scenes of human life, with all its pleasures and all its tragedies.

On the sixth day's march one of the largest rivers in Morocco, the Oum er-Rebia, had to be forded. Fortunately the autumn rains had not yet fallen, and the river presented no great obstacle to the passage of so large a caravan. Almost the first to ride across was the Sultan, his horse sur- rounded by negroes on foot, while a line of expert swimmers were held in readiness, linked hand in hand, stretched from bank to bank. For over three hours the procession steadily waded through, and though many a mule fell and many a man

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and pack were soaked, no serious accidents oc- curred. It was a scene of wild confusion as the horsemen and laden animals climbed down the steep bank to the water's edge and entered the swiftly-flowing river ; but in the end all got across in safety, and great were the rejoicings and many the congratulations that night in camp, for it is seldom that a Sultan and his vast following have crossed the Oum er-Rebia without paying a toll in human lives.

Usually a ride about four hours brings the Sultan to his next camping-ground. A quarter of an hour before reaching the selected spot the bands commence to play, and the tribesmen, the cavalry, and mounted infantry gallop ahead, form- ing into two lines, between which His Majesty rides into a square of horsemen drawn up in the same formation as that of the early morning. The crimson palanquin is quickly unharnessed, the blue divan arranged, and Mulai Abdul Aziz seats himself in solitary state to await the pitching of his encampment.

No tent might be raised in the camp until the gilded globe which surmounts the Sultan's prin- cipal tent is in position ; but it required only a very short time for the skilled tent-pitchers to pitch the great mass of canvas crowned with its glittering orb. It is a signal to the rest of the camp, and almost as if growing from the ground arose the white canvas town. There was no con- fusion, no noise. Every one knew the right posi- tion to pitch in, and the whole system worked

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without a hitch. Probably the Moors are alone in the pitching of these great camps ; it seems a hereditary trait in their characters. Sultan after Sultan, ever since the Empire of Morocco first came under the dominion of the Arabs, had travelled in exactly the same manner as that in which Mulai Abdul Aziz was making the journey from Marrakesh to Rabat. In no detail had it changed. The very shape and decoration of the tents had never varied, and to such an extent had conservatism been maintained, the Sultan told the writer, that, so far from travelling with all the luxury that one could imagine, he was forbidden by the unwritten laws of tradition to cover the floor of his State tent, except for three small carpets. The rest of the floor-space must consist of the soil of the country, and this, on the day which His Majesty narrated the fact, was perhaps four inches deep in almost liquid black mud. Outside his tent he may lay down straw or matting, or any covering he may please, but within there must be nothing.

The Sultan's principal tent once up, the tent- pitchers turned their attention to the remainder of his camp, consisting of some half-dozen large marquees, the whole — an acre perhaps of ground — being enclosed with a nine-feet wall of white canvas, decorated in patterns of dark blue. This private encampment of His Majesty formed the centre of the camp, which stretched away on all sides, often for nearly half a mile in every direc- tion. At the outer extremity were pitched the

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tents of the infantry, so close to one another that entrance and exit to the camp was only possible at certain intervals, where spaces were left for the purpose.

The greatest interest naturally attached to the immediate surroundings of the Sultan's tents. No one but his ladies and their female slaves might enter the walled enclosure, with the exception of one small portion of it divided off from the rest, retained for unofficial audiences. His Majesty transacted all his affairs of State outside the en- closure, in a tent of scarlet and green cloth, pitched at the end of a large open square, and visible from a considerable distance. Here before the eyes of the public His Majesty received his Ministers, attended to his correspondence, and sealed official documents. Near this tent, known as the " Si wan," were two large marquees, one used as a mosque, the other the office of the viziers. In this quarter, too, were the offices of the other Ministers of State and high officials. Behind these were the private encampments of the more important personages, often consisting of several very large tents leading to one another by covered passages of canvas. Directly opposite, on the farther side of the Sultan's enclosure, were the royal stables, where a quantity of fine barbs were tethered, their number con- stantly being added to by the presents brought to His Majesty by the tribal governors.

As soon as his tents were ready, the Sultan remounted his horse, and amidst the playing of bands and the shouts of the tribesmen, rode into

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the seclusion of his private camp. It was generally not long after His Majesty's disappearance from view that a long line of white-robed and veiled women, mounted upon mules, passed silently amongst the tents and entered the royal precincts. As they filed through the camp every man turned his head away from the mysterious white pro- cession. Usually the whole camp was pitched by midday, and not long after that hour the neigh- bourhood of the Government quarters became astir with life. The white-robed viziers sought their offices, while soldiers kept order amongst the throng of people that were always crowding near the tent doors awaiting audiences with the Minis- ters of State. Only the " Siwan " was deserted, but not for long. A bugle sounds. There is a hurrying to and fro of officials and soldiers, and again the cry, " God prolong the life of our Lord," is heard, and the solitary white figure, round whom all this great camp revolves, is seen slowly entering under the shadow of the tent of scarlet and green.

His Majesty usually gave some two or three hours a day to the consideration of affairs of State, though, on the occasions on which the great cara- van did not travel and no journey was made, a considerably longer period was put aside for public business. Meanwhile, in another quarter of the camp, provisions and fodder were being distri- buted to the vast concourse of people who follow His Majesty upon these royal progresses. Yet, in spite of the fact that some thirty thousand persons

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and probably twenty thousand horses and mules had to be fed, the commissariat worked without a hitch, and food and fodder were supplied in an incredibly short period of time to all those who had a right to receive it. The local tribes alone were dependent upon their own resources, and, with this exception, the Sultan feeds the whole camp. Up till the time of this journey of Mulai Abdul Aziz the march of a Sultan through a dis- trict was sufficient to bring ruin upon the people, so extortionate were the demands made upon them. But he would have none of this, and most of the provisioning was paid for, not by local taxation, but from the Imperial Treasury, and His Majesty showed throughout solicitude for the welfare of his subjects. He allowed them to approach him, and listened attentively to their complaints against the local officials.

At sunset gunfire, His Majesty prayed, and retired to his tents for the night, though almost every evening he gave unofficial audiences to his friends in the divided-off portion of his private encampment reserved for this purpose. As night fell the camp became dotted with the little lights of lanterns, often gaily decorated with coloured glass, while here and there a camp-fire showed up ruddily amongst the tents. Now and again could be heard the tinkling of stringed instruments and the soft murmur of a singer, who seemed afraid to raise his voice in the stillness that pervades every- thing,— a stillness only broken now and again by an order to the guards and sentries — of whom

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400, shoulder to shoulder, encircled the Sultan's enclosure — or by the long-drawn accents of the mueddin as he called the Faithful to prayer.

The " last post " — and as the note of the bugle dies away, a wonderful silence fell upon the moon- lit camp.

III.

THE ROAD TO RUIN.

BY the end of 1902 Mulai Abdul Aziz had returned to Fez, desirous of introducing reforms, and reck- lessly extravagant. His intentions were the best ; but if there was one thing his viziers did not desire to see introduced it was reform, for their livelihoods and their fortunes depended upon a continuance of the state of corruption which they had every interest to see prolonged. So they closed their eyes to the young Sultan's extrava- gances, watched him waste his own and his coun- try's money on every sort of folly, and shared in the profits.

All sorts of rumours and stories were current amongst the tribes as to what went on in the palace. For instance, the Sultan, finding the white walls of one of the interior courtyards too dazzling for his eyes, had them painted blue — an innova- tion unheard of at a Court where tradition ruled. Now the walls of this courtyard were visible from the hills above Fez, and the patch of bright blue soon attracted the attention of the tribesmen attending the local markets. To them, as it was

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contrary to Moslem tradition, it must be of Chris- tian origin, and a story was soon being circulated that Mulai Abdul Aziz had lost his fortune playing cards with his Christian friends, and was now staking the various parts of his palace in lieu of money. He had lost this particular court, which the Christians had taken possession of and painted blue. As a matter of fact, at this period playing- cards were unknown inside the palace, and with all his extravagances Mulai Abdul Aziz never showed the least propensity to gambling. All play for money is forbidden by the Moslem religion, and the young Sultan was strict in the observances of his faith.

The rumours of Christian influence spread fast, and were soon taken advantage of. The Moors are essentially opportunists, and one, Omar ez- Zarhonni, was more opportunist than the rest. He was an educated man who had been a scribe at Court, but a forgery had put an end to his career in the precincts of the palace. For a time he was a sort of secretary to Hammou el-Hassen, the Berber Kaid of the Beni Mtir tribe, when I knew him. In 1901 he left the Kaid and dis- appeared into the country. Amongst other useful attainments he was a skilful forger, and knew a certain number of rather ordinary conjuring tricks. He possessed as well a most fluent tongue. By the aid of these accomplishments he was able to make a living, travelling from tribe to tribe on a she-donkey, from which fact he became known along the countryside as " Bou Hamara " — liter-

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ally, the "Father of the she-donkey." It was amongst the simple tribesmen of the Rif that he met with his principal success. Starting with the idea of merely earning a livelihood, he soon saw the possibilities of a career on a larger scale. His conjuring tricks, his wily tongue, and his forgeries — to say nothing of the she-donkey — encircled him with a sort of religious prestige ; and one day he suddenly declared himself to be Mulai Mohamed, the first-born son of the late Sultan Mulai Hassen, and therefore the elder brother of the then reigning sovereign, Mulai Abdul Aziz. For a time he did not discard his donkey, and the humility of this means of transit added attractions to his prestige in the eyes of the devout.

In the late autumn of 1902 Mulai Abdul Aziz left Fez for Rabat. His departure had been de- layed on account of this incipient rebellion of Bou Hamara's ; but affairs seemed to have quieted down, and the departure of the Court took place in November. An army had been meanwhile sent in the direction of Taza to put down the rebellion. The choice of a Commander-in-Chief for this army was typical of Morocco of those days. The situa- tion was critical, and the future depended largely upon the success of His Majesty's troops. The Sultan was leaving North Morocco, and by this fact alone his position would be weakened ; but the tradition of corruption — accepted and per- mitted— was too great. I asked the Sultan, for I was at Fez with him at that time, whom he had chosen as Commander-in-Chief. To my aston-

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ishment he replied, " My brother, Mulai el-Kebir." " But he is still a boy," I replied, " and has never been a soldier." " True," replied the Sultan, " but my other brothers have all commanded expedi- tions. It is Mulai el-Kebir's turn. He has never had a chance of making a little money." The making of a little money was, of course, the abstraction of the soldiers' pay and extortion everywhere. I accompanied the Sultan when he left Fez in November. The Court proceeded, with all its pomp and majesty, to Meknes, where we stayed a few days, and then on into the Zimmour country, where rebellion was rife. It is impossible to say of how many people the rabble which accompanied the Sultan consisted, but we were probably 18,000 or 20,000 in camp, with at least half perfectly useless for warfare. A number of Fez merchants, who followed the Court from capital to capital, accompanied the Sultan, and each had his family and retainers with him. Amongst other strange groups were hundreds of beggars, for the most part blind, who also migrated with the Court.

There was some fighting in the Zimmour country, but still more in the Sultan's camp. The incidents which occurred were typical of the time and country. The Zimmour tribesmen decided to re- sist the Sultan's progress at a deep ravine which crossed the plains at right angles to our line of march. This ravine was perhaps 400 feet in depth, a few yards wide only at the bottom, where a little river flowed, and half a mile across at its

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summit. Aware that the army was likely to meet with resistance at this spot, a halt was called on the edge of the valley. Half-way up the steep slope on the opposite side was an open ledge of green grass, on which was a group of black tents and thatch huts of the Zimmour villagers. From the thick brushwood opposite a few rebel shots were fired at the army. The Sultan's artillery and machine-guns were brought up to the edge of the ravine, and began firing promiscuously into the brushwood. It was soon clear that the valley was not strongly held. The Zimmour tribesmen are horsemen, and their attack was more likely to be made on the plain across the ravine, at the moment when the army was extricating itself from the precipices and brushwood.

A regiment — the Doukkalas — was ordered to clear the valley in preparation for an advance, and started down the steep hillside with much noise and singing. A few shots were fired at them as they descended. The river crossed, they began the ascent, and soon reached the little deserted village. Here temptation was too strong, and instead of mounting higher they began to loot. The villagers had carried off all their movable property, but their stores of grain remained, and grain is valuable in the Sultan's camp. The ques- tion was how to transport it. The Moorish soldier is not easily foiled, and the brave Doukkala regi- ment was quite up to the occasion. In the presence of the Sultan and of the whole army they laid down their rifles, took off their baggy uniform

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breeches of bright blue cotton, tied up the holes through which the legs ordinarily protruded with string, and filled the rest with wheat. This done, they loaded up their booty on their backs, picked up their rifles, and started to return to the army.

Nothing would make them go on : bugles were blown, signals made, orders shouted ; but the Doukkalas felt that their day's work was done, and steadily climbed homewards. In exasperation the Abda regiment, equally famous and equally brave, was sent to support them, and to see if they couldn't be persuaded to turn once more in the direction of the enemy and abandon their loot.

With music and singing the Abda regiment set out. They met the Doukkalas struggling up under their heavy loads near the river-bed. A collision was inevitable, and the Abda charged. The Douk- kalas threw down their loads and commenced firing, and in a few minutes a little battle was raging far down below us in the ravine between the two loyal regiments. A ceasing of the firing bespoke a compromise. The two bodies of troops fraternised, the Doukkalas temporarily abandoned their breeches' loads of grain on the river-bank, and returned barelegged to the Zimmour village with their comrades the Abdas. Once there it was the latter's turn to step out of their nether garments, and the Doukkalas assisted them to load up the remaining grain. This done, the two regiments, except for a few killed and wounded, returned together, every man bearing on his back

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his voluminous baggy blue breeches stuffed to bursting-point with wheat and barley. I shall never forget the sight of these troops struggling up the steep slope, puffing and perspiring, dressed in the scarlet " zouave " coats, with just a fringe of shirt encircling their waists — and nothing else, — and on the summit the enraged Sultan and his Court and the rest of the army, impotent to change the course of events. The afternoon was well over, and all thought of crossing the ravine that night was out of the question, so the camp was pitched on the side we were on.

I have passed many strange disturbed nights in Morocco, but this one was perhaps unique, for the Doukkalas and Abda regiments quarrelled over the division of the spoil, and fought on and off all the night through. Bullets were flying in every direction, and one had to lie as low to ground as possible. Eventually things quieted down, and one of my servants came and announced to me that "it is all right. The army is now being flogged," — which was a fact, for the energetic Minister of War had managed to arrest the sur- vivors of the two regiments concerned, and was having them individually severely flogged one after the other by soldiers of other regiments and slaves and volunteers.

We never crossed that ravine. The next day the news reached the Sultan that the army under his brother had been defeated by Bou Hamara near Taza. In all haste we turned back, and proceeded once more to Fez. That return journey

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over the track of our advance brought to light many things of which nothing apparently had been known, or at least cared about, in camp. The road was strewn with dead — stragglers from the Sultan's army who had been cut off by the rebel Zimmours; for woe betide any one who lagged behind. We found in the precincts of a country mosque a dozen corpses, decapitated and muti- lated ; and even the blind beggars on foot, whose afflictions made it almost impossible to keep up with the army, fell a prey to the tribesmen, and not a few were found stripped of their poor belong- -\ings and with their throats cut. Woe betide the wounded, too — left to die where they fell — for the Sultan's army possessed no hospital installation of any kind, and no ambulances. Every effort of the few doctors who from time to time were employed at the Moorish Court was almost in vain. Only if a fallen soldier's comrade chose to carry him to the camp did he escape death on the field of battle ; but the question of his transport and of his subsequent care rested entirely with his comrades, and the Moorish soldier's comrades were not always prepared to make sacrifices for a wounded " pal." Often they waited his death in order to steal his clothes ; often they stole his clothes and left him to perish without awaiting his death. In camp, if there was a doctor, medical attend- ance was given, but it was given almost without any encouragement or any help from the Maghzen, but none the less given whole-heartedly. Even when the whole army was attacked with malaria,

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it was often the doctor who supplied the entire quantity of quinine required out of his own pocket. The idea of the value of their men's lives never seems to have entered into the heads of the authorities.

Often the soldiers, if they took the trouble, buried the wounded alive, to prevent their heads being carried off as trophies by the enemy. I remember being told, while spending an evening with some of the riff-raff of the army — who, in spite of their characters, were often the most jovial and cheery of companions — the story of a recalcitrant wounded comrade who didn't want to be buried alive. The incident had happened the same day. The man was badly wounded, the camp was a long way off, and his " pals " didn't mean to have the trouble of carrying him there. So they dug his grave, and began to push him in. He naturally protested. " I am not dead," he cried ; " don't you see I am living ? " "Be quiet," said a companion ; " you were killed at least an hour ago. Don't you realise that you are dead ? " The poor man still cried out till the earth covered him and put an end to his protesta- tion and his life. The soldier who narrated the incident added, " The Moorish soldier is an un- grateful and unbelieving individual. This man, for instance, had no confidence in us, his comrades, when we assured him he was dead. I hate in- gratitude,"— and he filled up his little "kif " pipe and handed it to us for a whiff.

Life was of no value, but the Moorish soldier is.

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I have seen him often under all circumstances ; and in spite of all his faults, I have an admiration and a liking for him. He considered his "pal's" life as nothing, and his own almost as valueless ; and yet on my many journeys I have often experienced kindness, and never rudeness, from these outcasts of the old regime. Murderers often, generally thieves, and always blackguards, yet there existed amongst them the undercurrent of the pride of race, and a sense of honour in their dealings with a sympathetic European, which they would have considered quite unnecessary with a compatriot. In all life and on all my journeys in Morocco I have made a point of trusting every one, and seldom, if ever, have I been disappointed. I have put natives taken from the wild mountain districts into positions of confidence ; I have given them every facility to rob, but I have trusted to their honour, and they have not failed me. I am often told I have been and am foolish, and that some day ! — but that some day has not come yet, and my life has been rendered far easier and far happier by the mutual confidence that has always existed, and still, I am glad to say, exists, between the people of this country and myself. I start out on my journeys with this certain knowledge, that wherever I choose to go I am known at least by name and sure of a welcome.

A few days after taking the hurried decision to return, the Sultan reached Fez, where he remained for several years, unable to leave these disturbed regions where revolution was rife. In the summer

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of 1903, having returned to Tangier meanwhile, I was captured by Raisuli's tribesmen, and spent three weeks in captivity at Zinat and in the Anjera mountains. My experiences are narrated in the chapter which deals with the famous brigand and his doings.

In 1904 an arrangement was come to between France and England regarding Morocco. This book does not in any way pretend to be a history, and important as this event was, it need only be referred to here in a few words. France was permitted by this agreement to intervene in Morocco, on the condition of not changing the political status of the country, and was given a free hand to preserve order and to grant such assistance for the introduction of certain reforms as might be required. France at the same time agreed to come to terms with Spain. All British commercial rights and privileges were to remain intact.

Raisuli was all this time in communication, if not in league, with Bou Hamara, who remained in the Taza and Oujda districts. While I was a prisoner of Raisuli's in 1903, 1 managed to abstract from a secret cupboard in the room in which I was confined a number of documents of considerable interest. One of these was the " dahir " of the Pretender appointing Raisuli Governor of the mountain tribes of North-West Morocco. This dahir is stamped with the great seal of the Pre- tender under the name of Mohamed ben Hassen. No doubt Raisuli, who was at this moment Mulai

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Abdul Aziz's Governor in the same districts, was keeping this alternative appointment up his sleeve in a case of the necessity arising of having to proclaim the Pretender as Sultan.

It was only natural that this Anglo-French agree- ment should bring about a general spirit of unrest in the country, and in May 1904 Raisuli captured Mr Perdicaris and his stepson, Mr Varley. They were released seven weeks later against a ransom of £14,000 and political advantages for Raisuli, who obtained from the Sultan, Mulai Abdul Aziz, his own appointment of Governor of the north- west tribes as one of his terms.

Meanwhile the situation in the interior became so serious that all Europeans were withdrawn to the coast, and even at Tangier security was threat- ened. In December my country villa was attacked during the night, and I narrowly escaped a second capture. The soldiers guarding my house were seized and disarmed in the verandah ; but the brigands, under a young chief called Ould Bak- kasha, failed to force an entrance into the house. The telephone wire was cut, but I had just time to get a message through, and a few hours later troops arrived. Our total losses were one soldier killed and one wounded. I had to abandon my villa and come and live nearer the town.

Ould Bakkasha, the chief of this new band, was killed a few weeks later. He was a young man, of attractive manner and appearance, who evi- dently wanted to become a second Raisuli ; but fate was against him. During a raid which he

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and his men made upon a village, he was shot. He was forcing his way into a house, the owner of which was holding the door on the inside. Unable to leave the door, the owner of the house called to his son, a mere boy, to bring him his rifle, which was hanging on the wall. The boy in hurrying to his father fell, and the rifle went off. The bullet pierced the closed door, and killed Ould Bakkasha, who was attempting to force an entrance from without. The band fled, leaving their chief's dead body on the threshold.

The year 1905 saw the famous visit of the Kaiser to Tangier, the result of the Franco-British agreement of the previous year, and of the sub- sequent action of France in sending a special Mission to Fez to insist upon the introduction of reforms. It was on 31st March that the Kaiser landed. At the last moment he had hesitated to come ashore, partly on account of the roughness of the sea, and partly perhaps because he may have appreciated the far-reaching effects of this hostile demonstration to France and indirectly to England, and partly because he feared assassina- tion at the hands of anarchists.

The Emperor looked nervous as he rode through the decorated streets to the German Legation. Immense crowds of natives, who had been told that this visit meant the saving of the indepen- dence of their country, had gathered on the open market-place in front of the Legation, and volley after volley was fired by them as the Emperor arrived and left. Many of the guns and rifles

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contained bullets, one of which, in its downward course, struck and indented the leather helmet of one of the suite, but fortunately no accident occurred. I was in the room while the diplomatic corps and the native officials were presented to the Kaiser, and heard both his words to the French Charge d' Affaires, Comte de Cherisy, and to the Moorish authorities. To both he announced x^y his intention of considering Morocco as an in- ^j\dependent country, and of treating its Sultan as an independent sovereign.

Fez became a few months later the scene of action, for three special Missions — a British under Mr (afterwards Sir Gerard) Lowther, a French Mission under Monsieur Saint Rene Taillandier, and a German under Count Tattenbach — visited the capital. The French Government was insisting on the acceptance of its reform proposals by the Sultan, and every assistance was being rendered by the British Government to obtain this desirable result ; but German influence was too strong, and the Sultan Mulai Abdul Aziz definitely refused the French proposals on 28th May, only a day or two before the arrival of the British Mission in Fez. The moment was cleverly chosen. Mr Lowther's Mission was en route to the Court, and only learned of the Sultan's decision on his arrival at Fez. He was too late to influence the Sultan, and too late to abandon his Mission. This check to France led indirectly to the fall of Delcasse and the agree- ment to hold an International Conference on the subject of Morocco.

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Meanwhile there was no improvement in the interior situation of Morocco. Bou Hamara main- tained his rebellion in Eastern Morocco, and Raisuli governed in north-eastern tribes. Everywhere there was insecurity, and two British officers, Captain Crowther and Lieutenant Hatton, were captured in October on the shore of the An j era coast, where they were employed in the salving of H.M.S. Assistance, which had gone ashore there. The brigand who made this coup was the Shereef Ould Boulaish, an important Anjera tribesman. Their release was fortunately obtained without much difficulty.

The Court had lost its prestige. The Sultan was openly scoffed at and despised, and anarchy reigned on every side.

This final stage of the history of independent Morocco had begun and ended in the early years of this century, when the young Sultan, Mulai Abdul Aziz, entered upon that period of his reign which may be deservedly known as the years of the commis voyageurs. It was a pitiful period and one best forgotten, except that every now and again some incident would occur worth recording on account of its perfectly unintentional humour, which only rendered more pitiful still the depress- ing interludes. It was the last decadence of the] decadent Moorish Court. The Treasury was fast being emptied, the revenues were being wasted, foreign loans were being raised, and the palaces of the Sultan were littered with packing-cases, the contents of which the British Press once seri-

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ously described as " evidences of Christian civilisa- tion at Fez." Everywhere it was packing-cases, and even to-day on some of the tracks from the coast to the interior lie the wrecked fragments of machinery and other rusty forsaken goods, which the weary camels could transport no longer.

Of what did these " evidences of Christian civil- isation " consist ? Grand pianos and kitchen- ranges ; automobiles and immense cases of corsets ; wild animals in cages, and boxes of strange theatri- cal uniforms ; barrel-organs and hansom-cabs ; a passenger lift capable of rising to dizzy altitudes, destined for a one - storied palace ; false hair ; cameras of gold and of silver with jewelled buttons ; carved marble lions and living macaw parrots ; jewels, real and false ; steam-launches and fire- works ; ladies' underclothing from Paris, and saddlery from Mexico ; trees for gardens that were never planted, or, if planted, were never watered ; printing-presses and fire-balloons — an infinity of all that was grotesque, useless, and in bad taste. As each packing-case gave forth its contents they were looked at, perhaps played with, and the majority speedily consigned to rust and rot in damp stores and damper cellars. It was, indeed, a glorious period for the commis voyageurs, but it was the " agony " of Morocco. Every incident in Europe was seized to push their wares. The coronation of King Edward VII. brought crowns to the fore. The Sultan was told he must have a crown. He objected. It was contrary to his religion to put gold or jewels on his head.

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But escape was impossible. A coloured oleograph was spread out before him representing King Edward in his coronation robes, standing by a small table, with his index finger lightly resting on the summit of the Imperial Crown. This at least was a purpose to which the Sultan, without infringing the tenets of Islam, could put a crown. So the crown came.

The crown, it was rumoured, came from Paris ; but the State coach was British, and London's best, built by a famous coach-builder, and of fine workmanship. The afternoon that it arrived, transported in packing-cases carried on platforms, which in turn were slung between camels, the Sultan was playing bicycle-polo with some of his European suite, which included at this period an architect, a conjurer, a watchmaker, an American portrait-painter, two photographers, a German lion-tamer, a French soda-water manufacturer, a chauffeur, a firework expert, and a Scottish piper. All these enjoyed the personal friendship of His Majesty, and the entree into the presence of the ruler who, with the exception perhaps of the Grand Lama of Thibet, should have been the most exclusive and the most secluded of sovereigns. It is no wonder that the tribesmen looked askance on the high palace walls.

It was a gorgeous coach, of crimson lacquer, with gilded ornamentation. The inside was lined with rich green-brocaded silk, and the hammer- cloth was of scarlet and gold, and bore what were supposed to be the Royal Arms of Morocco— as a

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fact, non-existent. Like the coach itself, the purple harness, with its gilt fittings, was of the very best ; and together they formed an ensemble as expensive as it was utterly useless, for there were no roads in Morocco.

The bicycle-polo ceased, and the Sultan invited the Consul of a great foreign Power, who hap- pened to be at the Court, and the writer, to come and inspect his newest purchase. In the centre of an immense field of swampy grass, surrounded by high crenellated walls, stood the scarlet car- riage. In this field of many acres were opened all the packing-cases which were too large to pass through the gateways that led into the interior courts of the palace ; it served also as a grazing- ground for His Majesty's menagerie. In a wide circle at some little distance from the State coach stood a ring of zebras, emus, wapiti, Hindu cattle, apes, antelope, and llamas, with a background of more timid flamingos and strange storks and cranes — one and all intent on examining, from a position of safety, the extraordinary scarlet addi- tion to their numbers which had suddenly appeared among them.

The Sultan was evidently pleased. As usual, he said little ; but he called to one of his officers, and ordered four horses to be harnessed to the coach. It had to be explained to him that no horse in the Imperial stables had ever been in harness, for the Sultan's previous purchases of carriages and hansom-cabs lay rotting idle and neglected in stores and cellars. But His Majesty

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was not going to be deprived of the pleasure of seeing his coach in movement. Men — soldiers and slaves — were harnessed and told to pull. Slowly the lumbering, useless, expensive but glorious State coach began to move.

" We will ride in it," said the Sultan ; and, beckoning to the Consul of a Great Power to get up behind, he himself mounted to the scarlet-and- gold seat of honour on the box. The writer rode inside. When all were seated, the vehicle started on its first and last progress of State. The soldiers and slaves sweated and puffed as the wheels sank deeper and deeper into the swampy ground, and the " progress " was slow indeed. Slow, too, were the paces of the procession that followed us, for, doubting but fascinated, the whole menagerie was in our wake, led by an emu whose courage had already been proved by an unprovoked attack upon the Scottish piper, and by having danced a pas-seul on the prostrate form of the expert in fireworks a few days previously. Close behind the emu followed a wapiti — with the mange — and then in turn the zebras, the Hindu cattle, the apes, gazelles, and lastly, the timid llamas, with their great luminous eyes and outstretched necks. Away in the background half a dozen cranes were dancing and performing the most absurd antics.

It rained that night, and the next day the little lake of water in which the State coach stood was purple from the dye of the harness, and the beau- tiful hammer-cloth of scarlet and gold flapped

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limp and ruined in the wind. Inside there was a pool of water on the green-brocaded seat.

The great fault, or misfortune, of Mulai Abdul Aziz was his extravagance. He was never able to realise the value of money. He spent, in the few years since he emerged from the seclusion of his palace to take up the reins of government, not only the whole revenue of his country, but also the savings of his predecessors. And what had he got for it all ? A lot of rubbish, bought at fabulous prices, which was lying rotting and rust- ing in the gloomy cavernous stores of his various palaces ! He was to blame for this extravagance, no doubt, but others were to blame still more. Those to whom he looked for advice left no stone unturned to exploit him. They made their for- tunes, and left a broken unhappy Sultan, whose whole country was in rebellion, whose Treasury was exhausted, to bear the brunt of their sins. Mulai Abdul Aziz, full of the vigour of youth, anxious to learn, anxious to reform his country, anxious to do what was right, had a future be- fore him of much useful work. His advisers took his education in hand — and his education cost him dear, for his fortune, his influence with his subjects, and his reputation had all gone. He was weak and young and sometimes stubborn ; but no man ever lived whose intentions were better ; but these intentions were warped and frustrated by his advisers. The Sultan had no disinterested person about him ; no disinterested advice was given him. He was told, when he

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spent his money in ordering useless goods from . the various European countries, that it gave satis- I faction to the Governments of those respective I countries that he made his purchases in their/ markets.

Few of the things that he bought gave him any pleasure. Photography amused him for a time ; but even this was made a means of exploiting him. A camera of gold at £2000 came from London ; 10,000 francs' worth of photographic paper arrived in one day from Paris. His Majesty once informed me that his photographic materials, not including cameras and lenses, for one year cost him between £6000 and £7000 ! He natu- rally did not know what was required, and left it to his commission agents to purchase the " neces- sary " materials. They did, with a vengeance.

But it must not be thought that the Sultan lived no other life except this. His frivolity was of short duration — an hour or two perhaps every day ; but at other times affairs of State took up his attention, though scarcely as much as ought to have been the case. He could, too, on occasion be remarkably serious in his conversa- tions ; and as he possessed a quick intelligent mind, much prone to speculation, his talk was often exceedingly interesting, and there were many occasions when, alone with him for an hour or two at a time, he let his words flow on from sub- ject to subject. On the question of religion he was by no means a fanatic, though in every way a strict and orthodox Moslem, in spite of many

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stories to the contrary. His faults have been against the traditions of his predecessors, and never against his religion, though the two are so indissolubly mixed in the minds of the people that they are incapable of distinguishing one from the other, and so the untrue rumours which were spread broadcast all over Morocco appeared as based on fact. He would never have attracted attention and suspicion had he been a little better advised. The men who bought him European boots and European saddles, to their own profit and to his unmaking, were almost guilty of high treason. The men who ordered fancy European uniforms for him in the European capitals, as well as the men who photographed him in them, and allowed his photograph to appear in the illustrated papers of Europe, could almost have been tried for attempted regicide. From the newspaper to the picture post-card, the " Commander of the Faithful," the religious head of Islam in North- West Africa, was exhibited in a variety of costumes in the Tangier shop windows and sold for a halfpenny: and this in a country where pictures are considered as contrary to religion. That Mulai Abdul Aziz was weak there is no doubt ; but how easy it is to be weak in such circumstances, for every one was pushing him on, helping him day by day to become more and more unpopular, seeing his authority and his country slipping away from him — " educating " him, in fact, for so they called it, until in the end they left him with an empty Treasury to

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bear the brunt of the coming crisis. Every com-^\ mission agent had his vizier-partner, who recom- mended that particular agent and his goods, and shared the profits. There was no one, actually no one, who could make his voice heard in the sur- roundings of intrigue and — " education."

Had the men who really influenced him pressed him to stop buying instead of to buy, he would have done so, but such was not their obj They kept back from him the state of the country, and made little of the rebellion which was smoulder- ing all around him. The one man who realised more than the rest how badly things were going was the only man of energy at the Moorish Court, Sid Mehdi el-Menebhi, who had been a special < ambassador at London and Berlin. He ventured once or twice to speak seriously, but the mass of intrigue against him was too great. I remember one incident so well. It was in December 1902. I was leaving Fez in the course of a few days for Tangier, when I received from an unknown country Moor news that the Pretender's forces, which, my informant said, were very numerous, were on the point of attacking the camp of the huge disorderly army which Mulai Abdul Aziz had sent out of Fez a day's march to the eastward. I had reason to believe this news then, and I have reason to believe to- day that it was sent me in order that I might leave Fez, for the Pretender at that time intended to follow his attack on the camp with a march on the capital. My informant, an uneducated

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countryman, mentioned, as a guarantee of good faith, an incident which had happened some years before at Meknes, in which I had apparently been able to render some small service to a Moor whose name at that time I did not know. It was Jilali Zarhouni, the Pretender himself, who four years afterwards, mindful of my little act, sent me this word of warning.

I reported the whole matter to the Sultan, whom I saw alone that night, but I could make no impres- sion upon His Majesty. He laughed at the rebel- lion and at my fears for his troops, at the Pre- tender and his reputed forces. " Go," he said, " to Menebhi, and tell him from me to give you a good dinner, with musicians and ' kooskoosoo,' and don't worry yourself. Your fears are ground- less." Menebhi gave me the good dinner, but he knew my fears were not groundless. We sat late into the night talking — he was Minister of War at the time — and I think he was persuaded that some steps must be taken. Before we parted we had further evidence of how serious things were becoming, for a Shereef, who had relations at Taza, had received news which confirmed my estimate of the Pretender's forces, though not of his proposed attempt to attack the Government troops.

The next day I bade farewell to Mulai Abdul Aziz. He was standing under a great archway in the palace. He tried to persuade me to stay, but for many reasons I had to be back in Tangier in eight or ten days' time. We stood there a while

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talking, and nothing could have been more kind than he was.

" I shall miss you much," he said ; " good-bye," and with a shake of the hand he left me. I turned and watched his tall figure, draped in white, until he disappeared into the palace through a gate in the garden wall. It was Monday, 22nd December 1902. That very evening, some forty miles away, his whole army fled in a panic before the Pre- tender's forces, leaving their entire camp, artillery, stores, ammunition, money, and transport in the hands of Bou Hamara.

The commander of the Sultan's forces that suffered this severe defeat was Mulai Abdesalam el-Amarani, His Majesty's uncle. He was an elderly and much-respected member of the royal family, who, with a brother, Sid Mohamed el- Amarani, had played a considerable and worthy part in Moorish politics. That he possessed any military capacity is doubtful ; but his name and his already proved political influence rendered him a suitable person to command such expeditions, on which diplomacy was always, if possible, pre- ferred to fighting.

On my next visit to Fez, Mulai Abdesalam el-Amarani described to me the attack of Bou Hamara's forces upon the camp of the Sultan's army. His description of his own terror was pathetic. " I had no time," he said, " to collect my valuables, but there were two things I did not want to leave behind — a sack of money and the pills Dr Verdon had given me for my indiges-

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tion. The money was beside my bed, the pills under the mattress, and I couldn't find them at once, and between this loss and my terror and the sound of firing in the camp I had to flee. It was not until I was on my mule that I discovered that in my excitement I had forgotten both the money and the pills."

IV.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

IN spite of his extravagances, the life which the Sultan led was a very simple one. He rose early, and after prayers at dawn left the privacy of his palace for the buildings in which he held his Court. Here he took his seat, generally upon a settee or divan, in a private room, a little way removed from the great courtyard in which his viziers carried on then: business. This courtyard was surrounded by a colonnade on to which opened a number of small rooms. In these were seated the various viziers and their secretaries, while without in the shade of the colonnade sat those who sought interviews with the various Secre- taries of State. A gateway, guarded always by gatekeepers, led from this courtyard to the Sultan's private offices, and messages and letters passed to and fro. From time to time he would summon one or other of the viziers to his presence on affairs of State, and discuss with them what course it might be best to pursue. It can be understood from this slight intercourse that His Majesty held with the outside world, for he seldom had more

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than this, how easy it was for the people of his entourage to withhold from him all reliable in- formation, and to paint the existing state of affairs in the colours that might suit their own views, or, more often, their own pockets.

" Court," which commenced in the early morning, was finished by noon, and the Sultan retired into the palace, where he dined. He ate always alone, and, as is the custom all over Morocco, with his fingers. This habit, which seems almost revolting to Europeans, is by no means an unclean one, for the hands are washed in warm water both before and after the meal, and the food is always cooked in such a way that it can easily be broken. A habit of our own, which we con- sider far more cleanly than eating with our fingers, is looked upon by the Moors as filthy — that is, washing our hands or face in a basin, and, still more, taking a bath where the water is not running. The cleaner we become, they say, the dirtier the water we are washing with must necessarily be, and eventually we step forth as cleansed from water which is no longer clean. A Moor to wash his hands has the water poured from a vessel over them, and never by any chance dips them into the dirty water. The same way in their baths : the water is thrown over their bodies out of bright brass bowls, and flows away through holes in the marble or tile floor.

His midday meal over, the Sultan would rest for a while, generally issuing from the palace about three o'clock. There was no afternoon

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" Court," and on this account Mulai Abdul Aziz was free to spend the rest of the day as he pleased, and generally did so in the company of his Euro- pean employees and friends. Bicycle-polo, cricket, and tennis were the order of the day.

One evening, after a longer game of tennis than usual, we commenced to take in the net, as rain seemed probable. His Majesty had just retired into the palace, but had left his pocket-handker- chief tied to the top of the net, where he had fixed it, as the light was waning, and it was diffi- cult to distinguish the net's height. I unfastened the handkerchief, but feeling something large tied up in a corner of it, I examined it more carefully. It was a cut diamond, about the size of a small walnut, which His Majesty had lately purchased. Carefully secreting the handkerchief and its valu- able contents in my pocket — for there is no means of getting at the Sultan once he has, entered the recesses of the palace, where women only are allowed — I proceeded to leave the precincts by the usual exit. I had crossed one courtyard and was near the outer gate when I became aware that some one was pursuing me. I took in the situa- tion and ran ; but I was no match for the Sultan, who, stirred to more than usual activity by the loss of his valuable jewel, came down upon me like a whirlwind. Almost before I realised that I was caught, I was lifted off my feet and thrown to the ground, while Mulai Abdul Aziz, his knees pinning down my elbows, was rifling my pockets. He soon discovered his diamond, still tied in the

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handkerchief; but, not content with that, he de- prived me of a pocket-book, a ring I was wearing on my watch-chain, a necktie-pin, and a cigarette- case. He let me go at last, laughing at the adven- ture, but I never saw my property again.

On another occasion I was present when one of the Court officials came to offer his respects to the Sultan on receiving a high appointment. This man was the now famous Haj Omar Tazzi, the present vizier of Government domains.

I was standing talking to His Majesty alone in a courtyard along one side of which were situated the cages of the Sultan's wild beasts, when Haj Omar entered. Prostrating himself barefoot on the marble floor, he touched the ground with his forehead. The Sultan, scarcely heeding him, made a few formal remarks, and then turning to me, asked abruptly, " Do you know this man ? "

I scarcely did, but aware of His Majesty's love of humour, I thought I saw the opportunity for a practical joke upon Haj Omar, whom, being a Fez town Moor, I rightly guessed to be a coward.

" I know him well," I replied. " Only to-day he was at my house begging me to ask a favour of your Majesty on his account."

Haj Omar, who was still prostrate on the ground, looked uneasily in my direction, not understanding what was passing.

" His favour is granted," replied the Sultan, to whom I had made a slight signal to allow me to continue.

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" He asked," I went on, " that this afternoon, when summoned to your Majesty's presence for the first time in his new position, he might be allowed to give some proof of his fidelity."

" Certainly," replied Mulai Abdul Aziz.

" He proposed," I continued, " with your Majesty's permission, in order that his fidelity and courage might be put to the test, to spend half an hour in the lions' cage."

Haj Omar, still prostrate before the Sultan, squirmed uneasily, and lifted a fat pasty face toward the Sultan and myself.

" Certainly," replied the Sultan.

" If your Majesty bids me die, I am ready to do so," came a feeble voice trembling with emotion from the ground.

" Call the slave who has the keys of the lions' cage," replied the Sultan, and at the same time he moved in the direction of the wild beasts, Haj Omar following him on all-fours.

The slave arrived ; but Haj Omar's terror was now so evident that the joke could no longer be kept up. Seizing me by the hand, the Sultan led me away, and Haj Omar fled.

We played another joke on Haj Omar before I left Fez, and on this occasion Menebhi was my accomplice, if not my instigator.

Haj Omar was pointing out to the Sultan the arrangement of a new flower-garden then in course of construction. His Majesty stood somewhat in advance, and the rather stout, pompous little courtier a little behind him on his right. Menebhi

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and I, who had wandered a short distance in another direction, soon made a discovery — a pump and a long hose ! Standing the pump in the water-tank, I proceeded with the hose till I reached Haj Omar, and just as I put the nozzle down the back of his neck, Menebhi began to pump. The rich Moors never wash with cold water, and the voluminous stream which began to flow down Haj Omar's back nearly caused him to have a fit. The water poured out of his baggy trousers into his yellow slippers, but he daren't say a word, for His Majesty was addressing him. " It shall be done as your Majesty commands," he replied, when the Sultan had ceased speaking ; but his voice was so trembling, so truly pitiful, that Mulai Abdul Aziz turned hurriedly to see what had happened. It was a sad object that met his view — Haj Omar Tazzi standing shivering and dripping in a pool of water. Etiquette forbids the Sultan to laugh in public, but etiquette couldn't help him covering his face with the long sleeve of his jelab to hide his merriment, and walking hurriedly in another direction.

The mention of etiquette recalls to my mind one or two of the " traditions " of the Moorish Court. In comparison with the barbaric splendour of the Sultan's State appearances in public, when, in the shade of the crimson-and-green velvet umbrella, he receives his tribesmen, his private life is simple. There is perhaps no more pic- turesque sight in the world than one of these Morocco processions. The ragged troops in blue

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and red, who, with a background of crumbling yellow walls, line the palace squares ; the blue sky above ; the led horses in their gorgeous trap- pings of coloured silks; the white-robed Court officials on foot ; the splendour of gold-embroidered banners ; and in the centre of it all the Sultan him- self, swathed in flowing white robes, the only figure on horseback — all help to form a picture that, once seen, can never be forgotten. Then suddenly a great cry rends the air, " May God bless the life of our Lord the Sultan ! " and the motley company bow low as His Majesty, still shaded by the great umbrella of State, rides into their midst. Compared in picturesqueness to this gorgeous pageant, European State ceremonies are poor indeed. But in his private life the Sultan is simple enough. No man, of course, crosses the precincts of the inner palace, where women only are allowed to enter ; but Mulai Abdul Aziz on several occasions spoke to me of the boredom of his domestic life. He recounted one or two facts which show that, autocratic monarch as he is, his actions are much restricted by precedent. One of these referred to his bedroom, which must be furnished in the greatest simplicity, and one colour alone must be used, a deep, beautiful, indigo blue. The silk hangings are made and dyed in Morocco, and no European material must be employed. Curtains, bedcovers, carpets, and wall-hangings must all be of this one colour and manufacture. Again, when out in camp his sleeping-tent must contain but three carpets, and he must sleep on

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a mattress on the ground, and not on a bedstead. His viziers and courtiers cover the floor of their tents with straw, over which they lay matting and piles of rich carpets ; but the Sultan may have nothing but the bare earth and the tradi- tional three small carpets. In wet weather he is obliged to wade ankle-deep in mud, while slaves wait to wash his feet as he steps on to the rug on which the mattress is spread. No doubt this simple sleeping-tent owes its origin to days when constant dangers threatened the Sultans on their camping expeditions, and when they were liable to be called up at night to lead their troops into battle ; but however it may have originated, the custom — a particularly uncomfortable one — re- mains unchanged to-day. During the daytime the Sultan may spend his time in other tents, where no restrictions are placed upon his luxuries and comforts.

There is a certain room in the palace at Fez to which a recognised tradition pertains. The construction dates from a remote time, and there is supposed to exist, somewhere built into its walls, a certain charm. The purport of this charm is that as long as this particular chamber in the palace remains intact, no Sultan will die in Fez, and, curiously enough, no Sultan has died in Fez since the room was built. His Majesty described the chamber to me, for it is situated in the interior of the palace, where no men may enter. It is a large hall, richly furnished with its original rugs and divans, and every night special slaves, whose

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duty it is, light the many candles that are sup- ported in the chandeliers. Two huge candles, brought from Mecca once a year, are the only ones that are lit more than once ; all the others are replaced nightly. Nor may European candles be used — they must be of Fez manufacture.

The ceiling, rich in carving, still exists, but the roof above has been replaced again and again, one layer above another, without ever removing the underneath ones, lest the "charm" should be destroyed. In the same way the walls have been strengthened from the outside, until their thick- ness is immense. So exactly has this room been left in its original state that in one corner of it stands a ladder which has never been removed, while skins for holding water are still hanging upon the walls, little left of them but their gold spouts and pendent cups.

Mulai Abdul Aziz was an expert bicyclist, and there were often great games of bicycle-polo of an afternoon in one of the courtyards of the palace. The only other Moor who played was Menebhi, then at the height of his power and influence. The Sultan was a plucky but careful rider, seldom coming to grief, and handling his machine with the most perfect judgment. Menebhi was equally plucky, but much more excitable, and I have seen him, in pursuit of the ball, charge at full speed into the palace wall, to be rescued from what looked like a lot of broken umbrellas a minute later, as he shouted wildly for a new bicycle. As the Sultan was always supplied with the most

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expensive articles that could be purchased, most of his bicycles were of aluminium, and therefore not suited to bicycle-polo ; but the more that were broken the more were required, and his commission agents reaped their harvest. The record, I think, was taken by a young secretary of the British Legation, who successfully smashed six in one afternoon ! But it was not at polo alone that Mulai Abdul Aziz was a skilful bicyclist, for he could perform a number of tricks that would almost have done honour to a professional. I have seen him myself ride up a steep plank laid against a packing-case, then along another plank forming a bridge to another packing-case, and down an incline at the end again. On one of these occasions he fell, and lodged on his head ; but after being stunned for a minute or two, remounted his bicycle and successfully accomplished his object.

I only once saw him annoyed, and it was with myself. We were standing on the summit of an old outer wall of the palace. Immediately beneath us, in the shadow of the wall, were a dozen or so ill-clothed, half-starved members of what was in- appropriately called the Moorish Army. Many of the little group were evidently suffering from fever, very prevalent in Fez in summer, and alto- gether they formed a pitiful sight.

I spoke, perhaps, too warmly of the neglect with which the soldiers were treated, of their stolen pay, of their abject misery, and I failed to notice that the Sultan was not in a mood at that moment to listen to my complaint.

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" It isn't my fault," he said pettishly.

" It is," I replied. "Your Majesty doesn't take the trouble to see that your orders are carried out."

The blood rushed to the Sultan's face, and he drew himself up. " Remember," he said, " you are speaking to ' the Commander of the Faithful,' ' referring to his most coveted title.

" I do," I replied, " remember it. It is your Majesty who forgets that these men are ' the Faithful.' "

Alas ! as far as he is concerned, but few of them were any longer faithful.

He bore me no grudge for what I said, and his look of anger passed into one of great sadness. For a little while he stood looking over the great plain that lay before us, then turned and said very gently, " You don't know how weary I am of being Sultan," and tears stood in his eyes.

On one occasion while visiting Meknes with the Sultan, I took the opportunity to go to the Jews' quarter of the town, to call on an Israelite family who had often hospitably entertained me at a feast on previous visits. The lady of the house was an extremely portly dame, one might almost say of gigantic proportions, but as kind-hearted asjshe was large. I was received with open arms by my host and hostess, their children and grand- children, and after the usual salutations they began to pour out their woes. The Jews' quarter had been raided by Berber tribesmen, and my friends' house and stables had been broken into

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and robbed. Could I obtain justice for them ? Now, in spite of the Sultan's good intentions, justice was about the only thing in the world unobtainable in Morocco. The Sultan, I knew, would order the damages to be repaid by the responsible authorities, but my friends would certainly receive only a very small portion of what they had lost ; the rest would disappear en route. I therefore determined to obtain justice from the Sultan by a little ruse. I told the portly lady that His Majesty would make his State entry into the town the following day, and bade her climb on to the pedestal of one of the great marble pillars of the famous gateway of Mansour- el-Alj, and there to await his passage. Immediately she saw the Sultan appear from under the gateway she was to cry, " Will my Lord the Sultan allow me to die in misery ? Will my Lord the Sultan not protect me ? " I told her to look as fascinat- ing as possible — she was well on for sixty years of age — and to put on all the finery of gold lace and velvet to which the Israelite ladies of the Moroccan towns are so partial, and which forms their national gala dress.

She promised to carry out my instructions, and I laid my plans accordingly. An hour or two later I was received by the Sultan, and ventured to remark that I had experienced a curious dream the night before. The Sultan asked me to relate it, and I replied that I had dreamed that I was accompanying His Majesty on his State entry into the town, and that just as we passed under

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the famous gateway an enormously fat Jewess, in gala attire, clinging to one of the marble columns, cried out, " Will my Lord the Sultan allow me to die in misery ? Will my Lord the Sultan not protect me ? " The Sultan was by nature super- stitious, and wondered what my dream could mean. Needless to say, I didn't inform him.

Everything occurred as I had planned it, with one ludicrous addition. The Sultan emerged from the gate, and there, on the high pedestal of the column, embracing the marble pillar, was my stout friend, shouting out her petition. The Sultan, struck by the coincidence, turned to see if he could catch my eye, and I naturally looked as astonished as he did. But the lady's anxiety to be heard led her to lean too far forward, her hold on the marble pillar was relaxed, and the last I saw of her was taking a header into the midst of scarlet-and-blue soldiers who lined the gateway. An hour later messengers hurried me into the Sultan's presence. I found His Majesty all excitement at the incident, and I explained that no doubt my extraordinary dream was a revelation in order that the woman might receive justice. The Sultan asked me if I knew who she was.

" I have seen her more than once," I replied.

" Go immediately," said His Majesty, " and find out what she wants."

The delight of my friends can be imagined when I entered their house and, on behalf of the Sultan, asked for a " statement of claim." I fully reported the matter, and Mulai Abdul Aziz sent for one of

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his own relations, Amrani Shereef, and ordered him to see that the family were immediately re- funded for what they had lost, and that their house should be guarded in future. In this manner I knew they would get their money, which they certainly would not have done had the matter passed, in the usual course, through the hands of the viziers. The next day they were paid, and the day after I confessed my plot to the amused Sultan.

The year of the Algeciras Conference (1906) I was back in Fez again after an absence of three years. Everything was changed, for the days of prosperity and " packing-cases " were over, and the Maghzen had fallen upon evil times. Tribe after tribe had thrown off their allegiance. The robbery and pilfering and corruption were worse than ever. Famine reigned in the city.

The " campaign " which I, as ' Times ' corre- spondent, had carried on in the ' Times ' during the preceding year or two, rendered me no persona grata to the Sultan and his Court, and even accom- modation was refused me and the palace gates hermetically sealed. I stayed for some months, and enjoyed, as I have never enjoyed before or since, the goodwill of the people of Fez. They knew what had happened. They knew that the ' Times ' had called the attention of the world to the plight of their co-religionists and fellow-country- men in Morocco, and in their suffering and misery they showed an appreciation that was at once most marked and most valued. They knew that

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the Sultan had refused to receive me, and that the doors of the viziers' palaces were closed to me ; and they knew, too, the reason — that I repre- sented a great newspaper, the columns of which have always been open to the cries of distress of ill-used and neglected peoples, and that their plaints had already reached the British public — and the world's public — by these means. I shall never forget the sympathy and kindness shown to me by the mass of the inhabitants at Fez at this time. And what was this change that was so evident ?

It was famine — that was all ! Bread at seven- pence a loaf, and the loaf the size of a railway- station bun. Famine, because a few of the viziers •and officials had taken advantage of last year's poor crops to " corner " wheat, by buying it before it entered the town, and selling it at any profit they liked ; famine, because the same little coterie regulated the price at which even meat might be sold, and alternately robbed the poor and the butchers ; famine, because every neces- sary of life had to pass through their hands before it reached the public ; famine, because even charcoal, without which no cooking can be done, was " cornered." And the caravans of camels which should have been bringing grain from the coast to feed the starving people were comman- deered to transport marble for the floors of the viziers' palaces, built with the proceeds of foreign loans — and of famine.

Yes, three years had brought about a change

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in Fez, and it was not a change for the better. Life and energy seemed to have disappeared. The hang-dog starving soldiery, in rags of course, and paid, when they were paid at all, sufficiently well to buy half a small loaf of bread a day, prowled to and fro in the streets, — such few, that is, as were left of them, for the greater part had long ago deserted to the Pretender, who fed his men, or had sold their rifles to the nearest buyer, and gone back to spread sedition amongst the tribes. Really no one can blame them, and those that remained would have gone too, shaking the dust of Fez off their shoes — only they had no shoes, and most of them no strength to walk the distance. The streets were full of starving and half-starving people, many of whom begged only with their eyes, too pitiful to look upon unmoved. For a short time the proceeds of a public subscription did something to relieve these sufferers, but the funds disappeared — into the brick and mortar of palaces, it is said — and by, perhaps, more than a coincidence, the date of the conclusion of the Algeciras Conference was also the date at which the Maghzen ceased attempting to feed the poor. Could it have been that the eyes of Europe were no longer fixed on Morocco, and therefore the poor might starve again ? The long lines of suffering humanity cringed back against the walls of the narrow streets to make way for the camels, and mules and donkeys, laden with marble and mosaics for the palaces which the Court favourites were building — with the money of the people, with the

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proceeds of famine. Before, the people bore their sufferings — for even then they suffered enough from the exactions of the Maghzen, but consoled themselves by saying, " Our Lord the Sultan does not know." Now it was different. Famine had rendered them a little — a very little — more cour- ageous, and they said, " Our Lord the Sultan does not care." After all, there is only the difference of one word. In the country districts they went a little — just a little — further, and said, " There is no Sultan." It was not true, of course, for within the crumbling battlements of the expanse of palace, Mulai Abdul Aziz, bored by everything, but still kind-hearted, still with the best intentions, wandered from court to court and from garden to garden, giving orders that he knew would never be carried out, weary with trying to do better things, and content to await a change — any change — of circumstances, with implicit trust in God and a lurking mistrust in Europe. He, too, had lost his energy. It was not altogether his fault perhaps ; for at one time he really tried, and circumstances had been against him. Too much good nature and too little determination had led to his failure, until he had handed over everything to men far less capable and far less well-intentioned than himself, and allowed them to rob him as they pleased. He saw no one, and went nowhere, probably because, with his nature, he could not but feel the ignominy of his position and the degradation of his country. The palace itself resembled the palace of a dream, haunted

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by ghosts. Yet even as such it was more fitted for the residence of a Moorish Sultan than the palace of three years ago, when the courtyards were strewn with useless European goods, unsale- able for the most part in Europe, and piled with packing-cases — empty and full — and littered with straw. Probably most of this refuse remained there still — a poor return, after all, for what was expended on it.

The scene in the great courtyard, surrounded by its columns and arches, in which the Maghzen held its daily Court, was changed too. Under their respective arcades the viziers sat, sleepily transacting what they called business — that is to say, putting off till to-morrow, or longer, every- thing that they ought to have done to-day. There was no life, no movement, in this Court now. Where were the soldiers, who, slovenly as they were, added a touch of colour to the scene ? Where were the country governors and kaids and their escorts ? Where were the officers of the Court in their white robes and red-peaked fezes — where were they all ? And where that active lithe figure whose quick stride and energetic movements, whose keen eyes kept the whole fabric together — El Menebhi, where was he ? Gone, faded away like phantoms, leaving to a handful of incapable and self-seeking men — whose voices were mocked almost in their own hearing — the misgovernment of their country. What wonder that the people all over Morocco said, " We have no Sultan." What wonder that they disobeyed

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and ridiculed the Shereefian commands ! What wonder that the Pretender and Raisuli and a score of others had arisen all over the country ! No, the only wonder is that the population had not rebelled in a body. But they had no need to do so. They paid no taxes and acknowledged no government. As to the townspeople, years of extortion and suffering had crushed their spirit — though they knew that all the present regime was giving them was famine. ^

And Mulai Abdul Aziz, knowing something of all this — knowing, anyhow, enough to make him desirous of knowing no more — still talked of what he intended to do for his people, still poured out plans for their betterment into the ears of men whose one object was to frustrate them, and wandered aimlessly from court to court and from garden to garden inside the palace precincts — a kind intelligent gentleman, too good in many ways, and too weak in many more, for the arduous position he had been called upon to fill. If the Pope was a prisoner in the Vatican, the Sultan of Morocco was doubly so in the palace of Fez.

Yet these changes, such as they were, could be apparent only to those very familiar with Fez in former days. To all others the city must be the same as ever, with its narrow tortuous streets overhung by, and tunnelled through, the high projecting houses ; full of gloom and mystery ; with glimpses, here of orange-trees peeping over a high wall ; there, of tiled minarets and the green roofs of mosques and tombs — a city that

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extends not a yard beyond the walls that encircle it. Within, a tortuous maze ; without, mile upon mile of open country dotted by the thatch huts and tent villages of the tribes. Yet close to the walls, along the banks of the river that flows in so many channels through and around the town, have sprung up gardens of oranges and olives, of mulberries, apricots, and vines, that form a setting of richer green to the grey white city that meanders down from the plain to the valley of the Sebou, following all the way the form of the depression in which it lies.

There is scarcely a view of Fez that is not beautiful, scarcely a glimpse that is not sad. Its very colouring, or perhaps lack of colouring; its amazing alleys into which the sun never shines ; its ruined mosques, rich in fast-falling mosaics and wood-carving, in rotting arabesques and grass- grown roofs ; its damaged drinking fountains, from the broken tiles of which the water still splashes to where once a basin caught it, but now only to form a channel of mud in the narrow thoroughfare ; its stately caravanserais with their galleries of arches and trellis of wood that has turned purple and grey with age ; its garden quarter from which rise the modern palaces of the viziers, built with the people's money and the people's food — all add a mysterious charm to a city that stands alone as an unspoiled example of former prosperity and existing decay.

So it is with the people. They wore the de- spondent sad expression that came from years of

[Service des Beaux- Arts, Morocco. MEDERSA OF ATTARINE, FEZ.

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oppression — hopeless of the future, forgetful of the past, and yet with one solace left to them, and one only : that God had ordained it so. Nothing would shake their belief that all was predestined, unalterably predestined and inscribed beforehand, hi their book of life. "It is written " — and for them that was enough.

While the Powers of Europe had been almost on the verge of war over Morocco, while the eyes of the world's public had been fixed upon the Conference of Algeciras, while there still lay before the country a future that was unknown, while one-fifth of the land was in the hands of the Pretender, while the Sultan's authority scarcely extended outside a few walled cities — Fez had remained unmoved. Fatalists one and all, the Sultan and his viziers, the townspeople and the starving poor had scarcely given a serious thought to the future — to the crisis through which their country had passed, and was still passing. Mulai Abdul Aziz wandered from garden to garden and court to court inside the palace walls. His viziers still frustrated the good intentions of His Majesty — there was but little majesty left except in name — and the people still starved ; and one and all, firm in their unshakable belief, said "It is written."

The results of the Conference of Algeciras and of the " Acte " which promulgated its decisions were what might have been expected. All Europe sent its delegates to the pleasant little Spanish town lying a few miles from Gibraltar, and every

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Government had an axe to grind. They poured new wine — vinegar most of it — into old skins, and the result was inevitable. While the special Ambassadors, whose titles fill a couple of pages of print in the tiny volume that contains the *" Acte," were discussing Public Works, Inter- national Police, the State Bank, and the differences between " fusils rayes et non-ray es " — and a host of other things — Morocco was sinking deeper and deeper into a state of anarchy, rendered more hopeless than ever by the rumours which were circulated amongst the tribes as to what was occurring on the other side of the Straits of Gibraltar. From the hills above Algeciras on at least one occasion the smoke of burning villages in the Tangier district — the result of this anarchy — was clearly visible. Raisuli was supreme in the north, while to the east of Fez the Pretender, Bou Hamara, still held his own.

4 Bou Hamara was a native of the Zarhoun tribe, who had been employed at one time as a scribe by a high native functionary of Meknes. His conduct, however, had rendered him quite un- suitable to be maintained as a secretary, for he not only, so rumour says, forged his master's signature, but also caused a replica of the Imperial Seal to be made, by which he obtained a consider- able grant of money. He had also in his spare moments learned a few simple conjuring tricks. Already known as a scholar and a devout Moslem, these other acquirements stood him in good stead. But he was found out, and left Meknes hurriedly.

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Living on his wits, he made for the Taza districts, situated between Fez and the Algerian frontier, and there acquired, from his scholarship and his conjuring, a very considerable prestige. Almost unconsciously he was accepted as a " leader," and eventually declared himself to be Mulai Mohamed, the eldest son of the late Sultan, Mulai Hassen, and therefore the elder brother of the reigning monarch, Mulai Abdul Aziz. He caused a great Seal of State to be struck, and was proclaimed as Sultan. Mention has already been made of the defeat the troops of Mulai Abdul Aziz suffered at his hands in December 1902. His prestige had now reached its zenith, and caused the greatest anxiety to the Moorish Court. He ruled Eastern Morocco for several years with scarcely varying success. At times, it is true, he was driven back into the mountains of the Rif when Taza was captured by a Moorish army under El-Menebhi, the active young Minister of War ; but Bou Hamara was always able to reassert his authority and regain his lost possessions. In spite of every effort of El-Menebhi to maintain an adequate force, the corruption and incapacity of the Court was such that even his energy could avail nothing. The soldiers' pay failed, and the Sultan's troops melted away. It was not until Mulai Hafid had come to the throne in 1912, after the abdication of Mulai Abdul Aziz, that Bou Hamara was captured and brought to Fez. Con- fined in a cage carried on the back of a camel, the famous Pretender was brought into the

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Sultan's presence. The interview was protracted. For several days Bou Hamara, squatting in the small space of his cage, was exposed to public view in the great court of the palace where the Sultan held his receptions — and the Sovereign who held the throne and the Pretender who had so long threatened it were face to face. Eventually the prisoner of State was put into the lions' cage in the presence of the Sultan, while the ladies of the Court lined the roof of the palace to witness the execution. The lions, however, too well fed, refused to eat him, but mangled one of his arms. After waiting for some time longer to see if the king of beasts would change their minds, the Sultan ordered the Pretender to be shot, and he was despatched by the slaves. His body was after- wards burnt, to deprive him of any possibility — for the Moors believe in a corporeal resurrection — of going to heaven. Terrible as was his end, Bou Hamara himself had been guilty of every kind of atrocity, and had regularly burnt, after sprinkling them with petroleum, any of the Sultan's soldiers that he had been able to capture during his campaigns.

The vicinity of the Pretender's jurisdiction to the Spanish port of Melilla, on the Rif coast, had seriously inconvenienced the Spanish authorities and inhabitants of that town ; and at length, in order to obtain supplies for the population, the Spaniards had been obliged to negotiate and to enter into direct relations with him. A mining- engineer told me that he had once accompanied

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some Spanish capitalists on a visit to Bou Hamara's headquarters at Selouan. They all went with a certain fear and trembling, but the stake was a big one. They wanted to obtain a concession for the working of some valuable iron-mines in the neigh- bourhood. The Pretender received them cordially enough, and invited them to sit down with him on a large carpet spread in the shadow of a tree. The discussion of the terms of the concession proceeded, and Bou Hamara's demands became more and more exacting. The capitalists hesitated and protested, but were brought to acceptance by the fact that while the conversation was still in progress a number of the Pretender's soldiers arrived carrying the recently-severed heads of a dozen or so of his enemies, which they arranged round the edge of the carpet. At the end of the interview the three or four very pale capitalists had accepted in their entirety the Pretender's propositions, and were thanking him for his cordial reception, surrounded by the ghastly ex- hibition that had n£>t a little influenced their decision.

The heads of enemies were, until the end of Mulai Hafid's reign, commonly exposed upon the gates of the towns of the interior of Morocco. In 1909, during the official Mission of the late Sir Reginald Lister to Fez, the Bab Mharouk was hung with the heads of rebels. One of these grisly monuments fell, with a resounding thud, as the British Minister and some of his party were passing underneath. The manner of affixing them was

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by passing a wire through the ear, which was fastened to a nail in the wall. Over and over again during my long residence in Morocco I have seen the gates and other buildings at the Moorish capitals decorated with these horrid trophies.

\ A more serious rival to the Sultan Abdul Aziz came upon the scene when Mulai Hafid, his half- brother, set up the banner of revolt in Southern Morocco in 1908, and proclaimed himself Sultan. The moment was opportune. The previous year (1907) the French had bombarded Casablanca — after the massacre of a number of European workmen by the natives. These workmen, Italians and Frenchmen, were engaged upon the quarrying and transport of stone for the construction of the

Nport. The little railway used for this purpose passed through, or close to, a Moslem cemetery. Native opinion, excited by religious agitators, burst all bounds of restraint, and the Moors attacked the train. The labourers returning from their work were murdered. A French warship arrived on the scene, and an armed party landed for the protection of the European population of the town. The forts and native official quarters were at the same time bombarded. Scenes of the wildest confusion ensued, for not only was the town under the fire of the cannon of the warship, but the tribes from the interior had taken advan- tage of the panic to invade and pillage the place. Every sort of atrocity and horror was perpetrated, and Casablanca was a prey to loot and every kind of crime. The European force was sufficient to

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protect the Consulates, and the greater part of the Christian population escaped murder. When order was restored the town presented a pitiful aspect. I saw it a very few days after the bom- bardment, and the scene was indescribable — a confusion of dead people and horses, while the contents of almost every house seemed to have been hurled into the streets and destroyed. The looting was incomplete : piles of cotton goods, cases of foodstuffs — in fact, every class of mer- chandise still lay strewn about the roads. Many of the houses had been burned and gutted. Out of dark cellars, Moors and Jews, hidden since the first day of the bombardment, many of them wounded, were creeping, pale and terrified. Some had to be dug out of the ruins of their abodes. Over all this mass of destruction horses and men had galloped and fought. Blood was everywhere. In what had once been the poorer quarter of the town, where the houses, mostly thatched in straw, had been burned, I only met one living soul — a mad woman, dishevelled, dirty, but smiling — -who kept calling, " Ayesha, my little daughter ; my little son Ahmed, where are you : I am calling you." Turning to me she asked, " You haven't seen my little children, have you ? — a little girl and a tiny boy, almost a baby." She didn't wait for an answer, but passed on, still calling Ayesha and Ahmed.

There were many people completely mad with fear. The Jews and Jewesses were perhaps those who suffered the most. One Jewess, rescued from

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a cellar, was brought, stunned with terror, to Tangier on a relief ship. It was only after landing that she remembered that she had hidden her baby, to save it from death, in a corner of the cellar where she had been concealed — three days before.

The bombardment of Casablanca and those days of horror necessitated a campaign to clear the sur- rounding country of the evil tribes that hovered about, waiting another occasion to murder, rape, and pillage. ^Ll£M--tbe beginning of the French occupation of Morocco, and the final end of cen- turies of cruelty, corruption, and extortion.

THE LIQUIDATION OF THE SULTANATE.

THE year 1912 saw the end of the independence of Morocco, and though there must always be present a regret when something very old and picturesque disappears, yet, on the whole, the end of its independence was a matter for congratulation.

Built up originally on the foundation of the religious prestige of its rulers — for the Sultans of Morocco were descendants of the Prophet — the rotten old edifice had stood for many years in a state of imminent collapse. Only its isolation, and the exclusiveness and fanaticism of its people, had postponed its earlier disintegration, and for a long time, in the throes of mortal disease, Morocco had kept up a semblance of life. A young and spendthrift Sultan, Mulai Abdul Aziz, had wasted the revenues of the country and emptied its Treasuries — for the greater part on the most use- less purchases of European origin. His reign had been the epoch of the commis voyageurs, when caravans converged upon Fez from all the seaports, bearing cages of wild beasts, and the most astound- ing assortment of every imaginable and unpractical

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object of luxury and bad taste. It was the time of fireworks and barrel-organs, of fantastic uniforms and beds made of looking-glass, of cameras and parrots from the Amazons. This expenditure, his association with Europeans, and the weakness with which he administered his Government, gave rise to a rebellion. His half-brother, Mulai Hafid, pro- claimed himself Sultan in the southern capital.

The war between the two Sultans was tedi- ous and uninteresting. The principal object of both seemed to be how to avoid an encounter, and they contented themselves by issuing edicts of mutual excommunication, and, in order to obtain money, by pillaging the tribes, regardless of their political opinions. When either Sultan had funds he had also soldiers ; failing resources, the armies alternately dwindled away almost to the point of disappearance. In fact, both were dependent for troops on deserters from each other's forces.

In 1908 Mulai Abdul Aziz left Fez for the scene of the rebellion, and marching slowly by a very devious course, so as to avoid any possible en- counter with the enemy, he set out for the south. Meanwhile Mulai Hafid, equally pluckily, set out to conquer the north — also, and for the same reason, by a very devious route. In all probability each would have successfully reached the other's capital without a hitch, if Mulai Abdul Aziz's army, when only a short distance from its goal, Marrakesh, had not suddenly pillaged the Imperial camp, driven the Sultan to seek refuge, after a long and dangerous journey, on the coast, and

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declared for his rival. A few months later he abdicated in favour of Mulai Hafid, who, with only a few followers, for his army had likewise deserted him, had meanwhile arrived in Fez with little more than the proverbial half-crown in his pocket.

Fez accepted him as Sultan, on the distinct condition that the city was to be exempted from all taxation. This His Majesty solemnly promised — and he kept his promise for a few weeks, until, in fact, he was strong enough to break it — and then he collected taxes, legal and illegal, with gusto never before experienced.

His ability to act thus was owing to his having meanwhile collected a little army. Naturally the Treasury was empty, and no tribesmen presented themselves as desiring to take military service, as no pay was forthcoming. The situation was pre- carious. Without troops Mulai Hafid could do nothing, not even collect the taxes he had promised to forgo ; and without the taxes he couldn't live. At all costs he must have an army.

So one morning the public criers announced in the streets and market-places that the Sultan was on a certain day giving a great feast at the palace to the adepts of the sect of the " Gennaoua." Now the confraternity of the " Gennaoua " is very popular in Morocco, though — limited almost entirely to the Southerners, who are largely of negro extraction, and form a class by themselves of labourers and water-carriers — it is looked upon as unorthodox by the more educated Moors. The

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Sultan even hinted that he himself had leanings towards their particular doctrine.

On the day in question the " Gennaoua," washed and in their best clothes, flocked to the palace, and entered its great walled courts, surrounded by frowning towers. With every sign of holiday- making and joy, they manifested their pleasure at the honour of being invited to the Sultan's religious-garden-party — and sought refreshments. Alas ! there were none — nothing but high walls and closed gates — and the next day a sad but resigned army was being drilled on the palace parade-ground.

Mulai Hafid was not the man to restore the dying Morocco back to health. Tribes revolted ; he himself adopted barbarous methods, and the con- dition of Morocco became worse than before. In the early months of 1912 the Sultan was besieged by the tribes in Fez. He appealed to the French, already installed at Casablanca on the Atlantic coast. An expedition was hurriedly despatched to the capital, which was relieved, and a few weeks later the Treaty of the French Protectorate was signed, to be followed immediately by a massacre of French officers and civilians in Fez. Mulai Hafid' s position became impossible, both in the eyes of France and of his own people, and he decided to abdicate. The Court moved to Rabat, on the coast, and there the final scenes of Moroccan independence took place. They con- sisted in the most rapacious bargaining on the part of the Sultan, in order to obtain the best possible terms for himself.

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Before leaving Fez he had already begun to se- cure his future comfort in life. He had informed all the royal ladies of his palace — and they were legion — the widows of former Sultans and a host of female relations — that they must all accompany him to Rabat. He gave them stringent orders as to their luggage. All their jewels and valuables were to be packed in small cases, then" clothes and less costly belongings in trunks. They strictly followed these injunctions, but on the day of the Sultan's departure the ladies and the trunks were left behind. They are still in Fez : the jewels, there is reason to believe, are in Europe. Mulai Hafid always prided himself on his business qualities.

The last weeks of his reign were one continual period of wrangling with the French authorities. He was still Sultan and therefore dangerous, and the question of his successor had not been settled, so he yet held some trump cards, which he played successfully. Even when everything was arranged, and the letters for the proclamation of his younger half-brother, Mulai Youssef, the reigning Sultan, had been despatched to the interior, Mulai Hafid changed his mind. On reconsideration, he stated, he thought he wouldn't abdicate or leave the country, as had been decided. He had already obtained the most generous terms from the French Government, but the situation was desperate. Instructions had already been circulated in the interior to proclaim the new Sovereign, and the reigning one refused to abdicate ! Then Mulai

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Hafid said that possibly he might be persuaded again to change his mind. He was ; but it cost another £40^000, which was given him in a cheque as he left the quay at Rabat for the French cruiser that was to take him on a visit to France. In exchange, he handed to the French Resident-General the final document of his abdication. The mutual confidence between these two personages was such that for a spell they stood each holding an end of the two documents, and each afraid to let go of his lest the other paper should not be delivered.

The night before the signing of his official abdication Mulai Hafid destroyed the sacred em- blems of the Sultanate of Morocco — for he realised that he was the last independent Sovereign of that country, and was determined that with its independence these historical emblems should dis- appear too. He burnt the crimson parasol which on occasions of State had been borne over his head. The palanquin he hewed in pieces and consigned also to the flames, together with the two cases in which certain holy books were carried. The books themselves he spared. The family jewels he took with him.

From Rabat, Mulai Hafid proceeded to France, where, as the guest of the French Government, and travelling in semi-state, he made a protracted tour. At the conclusion of this journey he returned to Tangier, where his immediate family and re- tainers— in all about 160 persons — had meanwhile arrived. The old Kasbah (castle) was placed at

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His Majesty's disposal, and there he took up his residence.

Almost immediately after his arrival at Tangier began the discussion of the terms of his abdication, for only its more general lines had been settled at Rabat, and in a very sTTort time the ex-Sultan's relations with the French were seriously embroiled. Mulai Hafid did not apparently regret having abdicated. He knew that his continued presence on the throne in the actual circumstances was out of the question. What he did regret was that he had not made better terms for himself, and he still hoped to be able to extort more money and more properties. Thus the negotiations were being carried on by him in a spirit of grasping meanness, that rendered any solution impossible. At the beginning of his reign, only four years before, he had shown signs of an elevated and patriotic spirit, and really intended to do his best to main- tain the independence of the country. But he had quickly realised how impossible his self-set task was. He became unscrupulous, neurasthenic, and cruel. He made enemies on every side — amongst his own people by his barbarities and his extortions, and amongst the Europeans by his cynicism and intransigence.

So it came about that in a very short time after his arrival in Tangier his relations with the French authorities were strained to breaking-point. It was at this moment, when everything seemed almost hopeless, that the writer was asked, independently by both sides, to intervene in the interests of peace.

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This invitation to intervene came about as follows. There had been a terrible scene between the ex-Sultan and the French authority charged with the negotiations, and Mulai Hafid had used language so unparliamentary that any further meeting was out of the question.

Early one morning the writer received the visit of a French official, who implored him to become the medium of the conversations and proposals, paying him the compliment of saying that he seemed to be the only person who had any influence over the ex-Sultan, whose conduct was bitterly resented in high quarters.

Scarcely had this person disappeared when the ex-Sultan himself arrived. His nerves appeared to have completely given way, and he was in a state of the deepest depression. Throwing himself upon a sofa, and in tears, he poured out all his woes, real and pretended, attacking the French with a vehemence that was as violent as it was unjust. " You," he said to the writer, " seem to be the only person who has any influence upon these villains. Will you continue the negotia- tions ? " Under the circumstances there was nothing to do but to accept.

An hour later the conversations had recom- menced. The ex-Sultan spent the whole day at the writer's villa, and could scarcely be persuaded to eat or drink. During the writer's absence at the French Legation, Mulai Hafid took his de- parture— and that was not all he took, for he car- ried away with him ths^choicest specimens of the

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writer's Arabic manuscripts. Being of a literary disposition, the temptation of the illuminated books was too great. The writer never saw them again, but it is only fair to state that His Majesty sent a present in exchange the same evening — a, gold and enamelled dagger.

During the following weeks the principal points of the negotiations were successfully solved — the question of the pension, funds for the construction of a palace in xangief, the retention of certain large properties in the interior, and the future of the ex-Sultan's wives and children.

Then came the question of the debts, about which there ensued a long and acrimonious dis- cussion. It had been accepted on principle that all debts that had been incurred directly, and in certain cases indirectly, in the interests of the State, should be considered as Governmental debts, and be paidj^ the French Protectorate Govern- ment, while all private debts should be settled out of the ex-Sultan's private fortune.

Now this distinction of debts was rendered extremely difficult by the systems under which Morocco had been governed. The Sultan of Morocco was always an absolute monarch, and, as such, the revenues of the country were his. There had never been any distinction between public funds and private funds — all belonged to the Sultan. As a rule, the expenses of the State, as well as the palace upkeep, were paid by bills drawn upon the custom-houses of the coast. It was therefore no easy task to arrive at an agree-

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ment as to what were State and what private debts, so inextricably mixed had they been in the past.

There was, for instance, a bill for a fine marble staircase, ordered in Italy for the palace at Fez. The French authorities argued that this very expensive staircase was merely a piece of wild extravagance on the part of Mulai Hafid, and that accordingly he ought to pay for it. The ex-Sultan, on the contrary, insisted that the palace was the property of the State — he had argued just the other way when he had been called upon to explain why he had brought away with him certain valu- able fixtures — and that any additions and improve- ments he had made to it were all to the advantage and interests of the State. It was, he said, his successor and not he himself who would benefit by the marble staircase. The Protectorate Govern- ment allowed the justice of this argument and paid the bill.

The sequel to this incident is worth the telling. A few months later, when the ex-Sultan was signing a contract for the construction of his new palace at Tangier, he eliminated one of the several marble staircases marked in the plan. He had, he said, a very superior marble stair which would do admirably in its place. The writer ventured to ask if it was the same one about which there had been so much discussion. " It is," replied Mulai Hafid. " You see, it had not yet left Italy, so I telegraphed and had it delivered here instead of being sent to Fez."

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A still more complicated claim was for some hundreds of yards of very expensive and very fine crimson cloth. Naturally the Protectorate author- ities scheduled this amongst the private debts. The Sultan protested. The cloth, he said, had been purchased for Governmental purposes — in fact, for the trousers of the Imperial kitchen-maids — for there are several hundred slave-women employed in preparing the palace food. The Protectorate Government refused to be responsible for this debt. The ex-Sultan drew up an historical treatise to prove that Imperial kitchen-maids were part and parcel of the State, and passed, like the palace itself, from Sultan to Sultan. The principle was accepted, but the debt was disallowed, on the ground that these good ladies did not require such expensive stuff for their nether garments. A cotton material, they argued, would have equally well served the purpose. The Sultan's reply was unanswerable and crushing. " In Europe," he said, " it may be the custom for the Imperial kitchen-maids to wear cotton trousers, but in Morocco we have more appreciation of the dignity of their position."

There was nothing more to be said. The debt was paid by the Protectorate Government.

The long discussions which the writer, practically unaided, had to maintain with the Sultan were not always facilitated by the surroundings in which they took place. There were no regular business hours for these conversations or for the examina- tion of the voluminous documents which they

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often necessitated, and which were always in the wildest disorder, but which none the less required a careful perusal. Whenever and wherever His Majesty felt inclined he would burst out with his grievances, and as at all costs he had to be kept apart from the French authorities, the whole storm used often to fall on the writer's head. At times the ex-Sultan, struck by a brilliant idea how to escape the payment of some small sum, would arrive at my villa at dawn — at others I was hastily summoned to the palace at mid- night. The debts were discussed and argued over in every possible situation, and any one present, native or European, high authority or slave, was dragged into the discussion. There were two aged ladies whose opinion was constantly asked. One was an old black slave nurse, the other a Berber woman, quite white, who was the Sultan's soothsayer and fortune-teller. Her advice was always good and to the point, and she never hesitated to tell the ex-Sultan that he was acting foolishly when occasion required, and she rendered distinct services toward the unravelling of these complicated questions.

Sometimes it was when seated on mattresses and rugs in a garden, surrounded by his slaves, that Mulai Hafid would argue that all debts were State debts, and that private property never had legally existed, and that individual responsibility — especially for debts — was contrary to the highest principles of divine nature. He discoursed with

MULAI HAFID.

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great facility and great literary ability. He had a classical Arabic quotation at hand — often most skilfully misquoted — to prove his every argument. He could persuade others quickly, and himself at once. Leaning slightly forward, swathed in his soft white robes, he would speak slowly and with great distinctness and charm, with an accompany- ing slow movement of his right hand — and then in the middle of it all his attention would be attracted by his elephants or his llamas or a group of cranes that would come wandering out of the shrubberies, and turn his thoughts and his conversation into new channels.

While the two elephants were being brought from Fez to Tangier at the time of the abdication, one of them escaped on the road, and being an unknown beast to the villagers of the countryside, it met with many adventures. Wherever it ap- peared arose panic and consternation, and the whole male population turned out with such weapons as they could lay their hand on to drive away this terrible and unknown beast. The country popula- tion, however, possessed little but very primitive firearms, whose range was short, and whose bullets dropped harmlessly off the sides and back of the huge pachyderm, thereby increasing the panic. The elephant, luxuriating in the spring crops, grazed undisturbed, while from as near as they dared to approach the outraged proprietors poured volleys against its unheeding bulk. But one day it found itself on the road again, and came rolling

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along into Tangier none the worse, but remark- ably spotted all over with the marks of the spent bullets.

It was during one of these long discussions of claims that news was brought to the Sultan that one of these elephants was lying down in its stable and was unable to rise. This information, of course, put an end to all business, and we set out at once to see what had happened. Sure enough, the female elephant was lying on her side, every now and then struggling but vainly to get up.

After everybody present had given an opinion, and every effort had been made to put the poor creature on her legs — from twisting her tail to lighting a lucifer match under her hind-legs, which failed, of course, even to singe the skin — Mulai Hafid arrived at the conclusion that only by the aid of a crane could the elephant be raised.

A heavy beam was found, and made fast to ropes hung from the roof. Two other ropes were passed under the elephant's recumbent body, one just behind her front-legs, the other just in front of her hind ones, a manoeuvre that entailed considerable labour.

When everything was ready the slaves began to haul. With cries and shouts of mutual encour- agement they managed to raise the elephant till she was swinging suspended in the air, and then set to work to lower her gently on her feet. In this they would no doubt have been successful had not the forward one of the two ropes slipped back, with the result that the unfortunate pachy-

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derm, suspended now only from aft, stood on her head, and remained hung up in this posture until she was lowered to earth once more, this time with her face to the wall in a more impossible position than ever. But in spite of all the diffi- culties, after much shouting, swearing, and a good deal of real hard work, she was restored to a standing posture.

There were many occasions when our conversa- tions were in less pleasant places than the gardens. There was a room, for instance, in a hideous villa that Mulai Hafid had bought as it stood, and greatly admired, that seemed haunted by the microbe of irritability. Not only was its decoration appalling, but it was full of a host of objects which the ex-Sultan had brought from Fez, amongst them innumerable musical-boxes, clocks of every shape and form — he evidently particularly fancied a kind made in the shape of a locomotive engine in coloured metals, the wheels of which all turned round at the hours, half-hours, and quarters, and mechanical toys. Everything, or nearly every- thing, was broken, and an Italian watchmaker was employed in trying to sort out the wheels, bells, and other internal arrangements of this damaged collection of rubbish. It was in this room that he had set up his workshop, and nothing pleased Mulai Hafid more than to sit and watch him.

Now it was not unseldom the writer's duty to break to the ex- Sultan the news that the French authorities refused to pay such and such a debt.

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With all oriental autocrats it is best to break bad news gently, for they are usually wanting in self-restraint, and are not accustomed to blunt facts. Often it required considerable time and a neatly-expressed argument, couched in Arabic at once diplomatic and literary, to carry out the task successfully and escape an access of temper. I would begin with a little discourse on the origin of revenues, the ex-Sultan would listen attentively, and then just as the moment arrived to bring generalities into line with actual facts, the Italian watchmaker would meet with an un- expected success. Clocks would begin to strike and chime, or a musical-box, old and wheezy, to play, or an almost featherless stuffed canary in a cage would utter piercing notes in a voice that moth and rust had terribly corrupted — or from near the Italian's chair some groaning mechanical toy would crawl its unnatural course over the carpet, eventually to turn over on its back and apparently expire in a whizz of unoiled wheels. The ex-Sultan's attention would stray. There was an end of business, and it generally led to the ordering of a meal to be served to every one — at any hour and on any excuse — at which the watch- maker, who might have only just finished a repast, was the guest of honour, and was forced to eat incredible quantities of very rich, but very excel- lent, food. And what was left of the royal repast was handed out of the windows and served to the slaves and gardeners.

Perhaps the most difficult claim to settle was

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that of the Sultan's Spanish (ientist, for not only ' was it extremely complicated, but it also became almost international. It might naturally be sup- posed that the dentist's bill was for professional services; but no — it was for a live lion. In the early days of his reign the Sultan had engaged the dentist at a regular stipend, and he had become a permanent member of His Majesty's household. For a time he was kept busy patching up the mouths of the Court, but the task was at length accomplished, and the ladies' teeth glistened with gold. The dentist remained unemployed.

Now there is no possible reason in the world why dentists shouldn't be employed to buy lions. ,• It is not, of course, usual, and so sounds incon- gruous. In Morocco, views as to the limitations of professions are much less restricted than with us. In Mulai Abdul Aziz's time, a very few years ago, one of the duties of the Scotch Court-piper was to feed the kangaroos, the professional photo- grapher made scones, a high military authority supplied the Sultan's ladies with under-linen, and the gardener from Kew was entrusted with the very difficult task of teaching macaw parrots to swear. And so it was not surprising that the dentist became a buyer of lions.

In the first flush of his success at the beginning of his reign, Mulai Hafid was setting himself up as an orthodox Sovereign by Divine Right, and this necessitated a menagerie. It is one of the attributes of royalty which has almost dis- appeared, except in the East, though at one time

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universal. It is perhaps fortunate. The hurried entrance of an excited rhinoceros amongst the guests at a garden party at Windsor Castle would prove embarrassing, and so, to a lesser degree, would be the presence of a hyena at the evening service at St George's Chapel ; but at Morocco similar incidents would have attracted little or no atten- tion. The father of Mulai Hafid, Mulai Hassen, allowed his tame leopards to roam about his reception-rooms ; but his son, more timid by nature, confined the leopards in cages, and replaced them in his drawing-room by guinea-pigs. The effect lost in majesty, but the afternoon callers were less nervous.

So the dentist was sent to Hamburg to buy wild beasts from Hagenbeck. But he erred. He should have returned with the menagerie and shared its glory. He delayed, and when he arrived in Fez a few months later the novelty and glamour of the wild beasts was passed, and the reception that he and the belated unpaid-for lion — the last of a series of lions — met with was by no means en- thusiastic. Mulai Hafid had discovered that the upkeep of so many sheep-eating beasts was ex- pensive, as the tribes, on the eve of revolt, refused to supply the sheep, and insultingly demanded payment.

So far the claim presented no insurmountable difficulties, but there were complications ; for the Sultan, immensely attracted by the mechanism of the dentist's operating - chair, had some time previously ordered from the dentist, and paid for,

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a throne to be constructed on the same mechanical principles. This throne had never been supplied, so there was a counter-claim. The Sultan stated that he had paid for the lion ; or if he hadn't, then it was a State debt, for which he was not responsible, and demanded the delivery of his mechanical throne. The question was still under discussion when the term of the dentist's contract expired, and the ex-Sultan notified him that it would not be renewed. But the dentist held a trump card, for the ex-Sultan had lodged him, rent free, in a little villa situated on one of His Majesty's Tangier properties. The dentist refused to quit, and the Spanish authorities upheld him, for by the capitulations each Power protects the interests of its respective subjects. A body of slaves were sent to eject him. They found the villa barricaded, and were met with pistol-shots. The complications were becoming serious, and in- ternational in character. The Sultan, the French authorities, the Spanish dentist, the black slaves, the writer, a British subject, and the German lion threatened to cause annoyance to the Govern- ments of Europe if recourse was made to firearms. I made an impassioned appeal for conciliation on every one's part. After much delay and no little difficulty, an interview was arranged between the ex-Sultan and the dentist, at which as medi- ator I was to be present. Each was st ' >usly coached in the part he was to play : the dentist's pj-ainjive appeals to the generosity of the ex- Sovereign were carefully rehearsed, as were also

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the Sovereign's " gracious reply," while the writer's little speech on the blessing of brotherly love was a gem of the first quality.

Mulai Hafid was seated on a divan studiously reading a book when the dentist entered and made his obeisance, but this obeisance — polite but inten- tionally curtailed — did not meet with His Majesty's approval. Instead of, as arranged, smilingly acknowledging the dentist's salutation, the ex- Sultan continued reading half aloud in a sing- song drawl.

A long period ensued, broken by one of the suite, who said, " My lord the King, the dentist is here."

Without raising his eyes from his book the ex- Sultan asked in the softest of voices —

" Has he^brought my mechanical throne ? "

fNow that wasn't on the programme at all ! There was to have been no mention of such dis- tressing objects as dentist-chair-thrones or lions. There was to have been purely and simply a reconciliation : a sum of money promised to the dentist if he would quit the villa, and a general abandonment of claim and counter-claim. But alas ! before any one could intervene the dentist shouted out —

" Pay me for my lion ! "

And then the fat was in the fire. For some moments the atmosphere boiled with vituperative allusions to lions and dentist-thrones, until, while the writer restrained the infuriated potentate, the dentist was, struggling and shouting, removed from the presence-chamber.

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By dint of great persuasion the writer eventually brought about a settlement. The Sultan did not get his throne, nor did he pay for the lion, which the Protectorate Government took over, not having been informed that it had meanwhile died. The dentist received a sum of money in payment of all his claims. The writer, whose solution it was, got the thanks of none of them, all three parties concerned expressing themselves as distinctly dis- satisfied with the settlement arrived at.

VI.

THE SULTAN AT HOME.

IN 1912-1913 the modern palace which the latest of the abdicated Sultans, Mulai Hafid, has built himself at Tangier, and which covers several acres of ground with its immense blocks of buildings and its courtyards, was still rising from the level of the soil, and His Majesty was temporarily housed, with all his retinue, in the old Kasbah at the top of the town. It is a spacious, uncomfort- able, out-of-date, and out-of-repair old castle, and it formed by no means a satisfactory place of residence, for it was not easy to install 168 people within its crumbling walls with any comfort or pleasure. When, too, it is taken into account that many of these 168 people were royal ladies with royal prerogatives as to their apartments — to say nothing of their pretensions to the " most favoured ladies' ' ' treatment — it can be realised that the solution was not easy. Even in the most luxurious of quarters the ladies of the palace are said to give considerable trouble, for jealousy is rife ; and if one of them receives more attentions — personal or in presents — than the rest, there are

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often disturbing scenes — and rumour says that the " Arifas " — the elderly housekeepers charged with keeping order — not unseldom make use of the equivalent of the " birch rod " — a knotted cord.

The royal ladies completely filled all the avail- able accommodation in the Kasbah, and the Sultan was able to reserve for his private use only a couple of very shabby rooms over the entrance. Here he would, apologetically, receive his guests until the purchase of the large garden in which he con- structed his new palace furnished him with more convenient apartments ; for there was a villa in the garden which had been erected by its former owner, a wealthy and respected Israelite, who had for years filled the post of Belgian Vice-Consul. This villa, which still exists, is an astounding example of extraordinary taste — a pseudo-moresque \ copy of a toy -house, over which plaster and paint of every colour had been poured in amazing pro- fusion. Plaster lions guard its entrance, more like great diseased pug-dogs than the king of beasts, and to add to their attractions they were then painted all over with red spots. A scalloped arch- way crowned the front door, and the former owner had once pointed out to the writer that each of the thirty-two scallops was painted a different colour, which was quite evident. Inside, decora- tion had run riot in the wildest way. The ceilings dripped with plaster protuberances in reds and gold. Mouldings pursued their strange courses all over the parti-coloured walls, enclosing odd-

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shaped panels painted with views of lakes and mountains and impossible fishing-boats — designed and executed by some local genius. Chande- liers of coloured glass hung suspended from the ceilings, and the windows were fitted with panes of green and purple. The Sultan was in ecstasies, and furnished these astounding apartments with chairs and sofas covered in red plush trimmed with blue and yellow fringes, and studded with blue and yellow buttons. On the walls he hung pro- miscuously a score of clocks of all sizes and shapes ; he littered tables with mechanical toys ; he piled up musical-boxes in every corner ; he hung cages of canaries in every window, and adorned the chimneypiece with baskets of paper-flowers — and then he sat down, happy, to enjoy civilisation.

Amongst many mechanical toys which Mulai Hafid possessed was one which in its absurdity surpassed any toy I have ever seen. It was — or had been — a parrot, life-sized, seated on a high brass stand which contained music. Moth and rust had corrupted, and there was little left of the gorgeous bird except a wash-leather body the shape of an inflated sausage, with the two black bead eyes still more or less in place, and a crooked and paralysed-looking beak. The legs had given way, and the cushion of a body had sunk depressedly on to the brass perch. One long red tail-feather shot out at an angle, and round its neck and sparsely distributed over its body were the remains of other plumes, of which little but the quills remained. On either side were the foundations

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of what had once been its wings, consisting of mechanical appliances in wood and wire. Any- thing more pitiful than this relic of parrotry could not be imagined.

Every now and then, apparently for no reason, this strange toy came to life. The sausage-like body wriggled, the broken beak opened, the tail- feather shot out at a new angle, and the framework of the wings extended itself and closed again with a click ; and then after a mighty effort, which ^ ,0 gave one the impression that the ghost of a bird was going to be sea-sick, the whistling pipes con- cealed in the brass stand began to play. The music was at a par with the bird — notes were missing, and the whole scale had sunk or risen into tones and demi-tones of unimaginable com- position. To recognise the tune was an impossi- bility, but the thrill of the performance was undeniable. It seemed as though there was a race between the bird and the pipes to reach the climax first. Both grew more and more excited, until suddenly there was a long wheeze and longer chromatic scale from high to low, and, with an appealing shake of its palsied head, the parrot collapsed once more into its state of petrified despair.

Mulai Hand was completely content. He realised that at last, after the sombre pomp of the palace at Fez, he had settled down to modern life and refinement, and had attained " taste." It was his custom to arrive early in the morning and spend his days there, riding down from the Kasbah on a

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fat saddle-mule caparisoned in purple or pale blue or yellow, accompanied by men on horseback, and with his black slaves running beside him. Two old women — one a negress, the other a white Berber woman — nearly always accompanied him, poised upon fine saddle-mules and closely veiled. The negress was his old nurse, the Berber woman a soothsayer already mentioned. Arrived in the garden, the usual series of mishaps began. One of his old ladies would fall off her frisky mule, or the key of the empty house was lost, and an entry had to be made by forcing a window after every one had fussed about pretending to look for the key for half an hour or so. Then a carpenter would be sent for to mend the broken window, and a slave would suddenly remember that for fear of losing the key he had tied it round his neck on a string, where it still hung heavily on his chest. Then breakfast would arrive, carried down from the Kasbah on the heads of black slaves — great trays of fresh bread, bowls of milk, sodden half-warm cakes smothered in butter and honey, excellent native crumpets, and a host of dishes of fruits and pastry and sweets, and tea and coffee on immense silver trays. It was a sort of pro- miscuous meal, partaken of first of all by the Sultan and his particular friends, then passed on to the " courtiers," and finally handed out of the windows to the slaves, gardeners, and retainers, who completely finished what was left, however great the quantity.

By this time the workmen had begun building

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operations on the great palace a hundred yards or so away, and the ex-Sultan would visit the site, taking a very intelligent interest in every detail. Then back to the villa, where native visitors would be received and literary and religious questions discussed. Mulai Hafid himself is no mean author, and his Arabic verses would, if published at that time, have gained him much praise and many enemies. To-day there is no reason to remain silent. Circumstances have changed. Was it not he who wrote of Tangier ? —

" In the last day the people of Tangier came to the judgment - seat of God; and the Supreme Judge said, ' Surely you are the least and worst of all people. Under what circumstances did you live?'

" And they replied, ' We have sinned ; we have sinned ; but our Government was international : we were ruled by the representatives of Europe.'

" And the Supreme Judge said, ' Surely you have been sufficiently punished : enter into Paradise.' '

By any one who knew and experienced the international Government of Tangier these verses cannot fail to be appreciated.

Did he not also write the following in his days of contention with the French Government ? —

" Is not the wisdom of God manifest ? Has He not given intelligence even to the dog ? A little less, it is true, than to the elephant, But a little more than He bestowed upon the French Administration."

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When Mulai Hafid purchased the property of Ravensrock at Tangier, which had for many years been the country residence of the late Sir John Drummond-Hay, he began at once to fell the beautiful trees for which the place was famous. Most people of Arab race have a dislike for trees, which is no doubt one of the reasons why Morocco is so treeless. One after the other the great pines and eucalyptus disappeared ; but though numbers of men were employed, the work did not progress fast enough to satisfy his ex-Majesty.

One day some one proposed to him that dyna- mite would do the work more quickly, so he promptly despatched one of the workmen to town to buy dynamite cartridges from the Spanish fishermen, who used them for killing fish at sea. I was with the ex-Sultan when the messenger returned. He stood before us, and, turning the hood of his jelab inside out, let fall on the ground at our feet a couple of dozen of these highly- explosive cartridges. Fortunately none exploded. A few minutes later the work had begun. Holes were quickly drilled in the trees near the roots, and the cartridges placed in position. Fuses were lit, and one saw scurrying groups of men bolting out of reach. Then there was a crash, and some giant of the mountain came crumbling down to earth, to the intense delight of Mulai Hafid. It was reckless destruction of what had taken years of care and attention to create, but nothing would persuade the ex-Sultan to allow these beautiful woods to remain. By dint of very special pleading

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a few of the finest trees were spared, but only a few. This wholesale destruction was carried out principally because Mulai Hafid feared assassin- ation, and wished to eliminate from his surround- ings any covert in which the would-be assassin could conceal himself.

The ex-Sultan took assiduously to bridge, and played whenever he got the chance. One of these chances was with his dentist. His rela- tions with his own particular Spanish dentist having been very strained on the question of the price of a live lion, he was forced to apply else- where for such dental repairs as he required from time to time ; and fortune favoured him, for he discovered an excellent American dentist who had lately arrived. A close friendship sprang up between the ex-Sultan and the dentist, and, as often as not, bridge took the place of dentistry. The American would arrive with his timid lady- assistant and all his implements of torture, only to be invited to sit down at the table and play cards. The lady-assistant was very young and very shy, and was more accustomed to play children's games than bridge. A fourth player would be found, and the ill-assorted party com- pleted. The ex -Sultan enjoyed himself im- mensely. He generally won, perhaps a little by never permitting the trembling lady-assistant to be his partner. In this manner the whole afternoon would be passed, and Mulai Hafid in the evening would show the few francs he had won with great joy. The points were one franc a hundred, so no

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very serious damage could be done ; but rich as the Sultan was, he rejoiced more in his humble winnings at bridge than over his many thousands in the banks. Not a little of this enjoyment was owing to the fact that he felt that he was " doing " the dentist. " He comes," the ex-Sultan would say, " to mend my teeth and to take my gold, and in the end I win his francs." Weeks went by. Now and again there was an afternoon for real dentistry, but there were many more for bridge, and every time the Sultan won. But one day the climax came. The teeth were excellently repaired — the work was of the best, — there was no more to be done — but to pay the bill; and the bill very naturally and rightly included all the bridge hours — at so much per hour. It was the most expensive bridge Mulai Hafid ever played.

The ex-Sultan's bridge was peculiar. It would not for a moment be hinted that the irregularities that occurred in the game were due to anything but accident, but these little accidents were very frequent. The ex-Sultan, who all his life had been accustomed to sit cross-legged on a divan, soon tired of sitting upright on a chair. He would become restless, and tuck his legs underneath him. Now ordinary chairs are not intended to be sat in cross-legged, especially by bulky people ; and as generally an arm-chair had been placed for His Majesty to sit in, he would constantly be changing his position, and wriggling to make himself more comfortable and to find more room for his capacious legs. These wriggles occasioned

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at times a decided movement to right or left, and if the players did not hold their cards well up it was their own fault. Sometimes he would drop his cards, and his long sleeve at the same time would sweep the tricks already won on to the floor, and there was confusion in sorting them. Once or twice an ace unexpectedly appeared for the second time in the game, picked up by accident from the floor, no doubt, — and as to revokes — but with a plaintive voice he would say, " I am only a beginner." When he won he was in the highest spirits ; when he lost he sulked — but he didn't very often lose.

It is a characteristic of the Moors that they hate to lose a game, no matter what they are playing. I have seen the most exciting games of chess, skilfully and quickly played, where the loser has insisted on going on playing game after game till sometimes in pure desperation his adversary allows him to win. Mulai Abdul Aziz, Mulai Hafid's predecessor on the throne, had a unique manner of scoring at cricket. When he was Sultan we used to play cricket in the palace at Fez, generally four on each side. The score was carefully kept, but no names were entered. When the game was finished the Sultan himself placed the names against the score, always, of course, putting his own in front of the largest. Then the name of the player he liked best on that particular afternoon had the second best score, and so on, and the lowest being reserved for the person most out of favour. The score-book was

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religiously kept, and often referred to by the Sultan, who would say, " That was a great afternoon. I made 61 runs and Harris made 48. X. played abominably, and only made 2." While as a matter of fact His Majesty himself had made 2 and Harris perhaps none ; while the unfortunate man who was down in the book as having scored 2 was probably the excellent batsman who had made the 61 that the Sultan claimed. If one is an autocratic monarch one can do anything — even poach your neighbour's cricketing score. I remem- ber well the first game of bridge I ever played with Mulai Abdul Aziz. It was in my own house after a dinner — the first European dinner the Sultan ever attended. There were present the British and French Ministers, and the staffs of the two Legations. It was all rather formal. The Sultan sat at the head of the table, and ate very little ; he was then not at ease with knives and forks. After dinner we sat down to bridge. The Sultan and Sir Reginald Lister, who then repre- sented Great Britain in Morocco, played against a member of the staff of the French Legation and myself. We cut for deal, and I drew the lowest card. The Sultan was seated on my left. I dealt, and declared " Hearts." " I can't play hearts," burst out His Majesty petulantly. " I haven't got any. You must give me your cards " ; and I was obliged to pass him over the excellent " Heart " hand on which I had declared in exchange for his barren thirteen cards, containing only one small trump. But " Hearts " we had to play, and

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played, and my partner and I went down five tricks, much to the Sultan's delight. Luckily we were not playing for money.

That was not the only amusing episode that happened at that dinner. There had been a long diplomatic discussion as to the etiquette to be observed with the ex-Sultan, as this was the first European dinner he had ever attended and would form a precedent. It was decided that the guests should arrive at my house punctually at 8, and the Sultan at 8.15. I was to meet the Sultan at the door and conduct him into the drawing-room, where I was to present to him the Ministers of Great Britain and France, who in turn would present their suites. This was all very well on paper, but Mulai Abdul Aziz, taking an intelligent interest in dinner parties, thought he would like to see what went on before the guests came, and instead of arriving at 8.15 he came at 5 in the afternoon. He apologised for being a little before the time, and expressed his desire to see the pre- parations. Two minutes later he was in the kitchen, where his august and highly-saintly pres- ence— for he was a direct descendant of the Prophet, and to his countrymen " the Com- mander of the Faithful" — somewhat upset the tranquillity of my native cooks and servants. But ovens had to be opened and saucepans un- covered, spoons introduced into them, and the contents exhibited ; the ice-machine to be thor- oughly explained, and a thousand and one ques- tions answered. Then the pantry occupied for

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some time His Majesty's attention. Nor was he less interested in the floral decorations of the table and the distribution of the plate. While I dressed for dinner he sat and talked to my native servants — the Sultan never losing his dignity nor my men their respect — and all concerned were completely at their ease. The Moor has nearly always the perfect manners of a gentleman, no matter what his position, and the sentiment of the country is essentially democratic. It was a common incident at the many dinners I have since given for the two ex-Sultans, that they would appeal to the men who served the table for con- firmation of some statement, or for the generally accepted opinion of the Moorish people on some subject under discussion.

At 8 o'clock the guests arrived, and Mulai Abdul Aziz, being already in the house, instead of arriving at 8.15 as by the programme he should have done, had to be concealed in a room upstairs. Punctu- ally at 8.15 he descended the stairs, crossed the hall, and entered the drawing-room. He was dressed in his fine long white flowing garments, and all my guests expressed to me afterwards their appreciation of his dignity and carriage as he made his formal entry and during the pre- sentation of the guests. Nor were they less struck by the undoubted charm of his manners, the gentleness of his voice, and his intelligence, which render Mulai Abdul Aziz perhaps the most attrac- tive figure in Morocco of to-day.

When the moment arrived for the ex-Sultan to

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take his departure, he called me aside and said that he had a kitchen-range in his palace, but had never used it. He was pleased to say that the excellence of my dinner had convinced him that his own range must be set to work at once — and had I a sack of coal, as he had none, for in his kitchens only wood and charcoal were burned ? In a few minutes my servants, in their smartest liveries, were filling a sack with coal in the back premises. When it was ready the Sultan left. The guests rose to their feet, the Sultan shook hands with them all, and I conducted him to the door. A magnificently caparisoned riding -mule awaited him, and mounted slaves were at the gate. On a second mule was an officer of his household, beautifully dressed in white clothes, struggling to balance across the front of his crimson saddle the almost bursting sack of coal.

It was always my great desire to bring about a reconciliation between the two ex-Sultans, Mulai Abdul Aziz and Mulai Hafid, but I never suc- ceeded. Mulai Hafid had driven his brother, Mulai Abdul Aziz, from the throne, and naturally his brother had no reason to be grateful to him. At the same time, Mulai Hafid always blamed Mulai Abdul Aziz for having ruined Morocco, and of having sown the seed of the loss of Moroccan independence. There was also the question of precedence. Mulai Abdul Aziz had been Sultan first, and claimed the first place. Mulai Hafid equally claimed it, because he had been Sultan last. After many unsuccessful endeavours, I per-

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suaded both to agree that if they met by chance on the road they would salute each other and embrace. For months they did not meet, but one day, turning a sudden corner, their riding-mules collided. So taken aback were their two Majesties that they entirely forgot their agreement, and rode away in opposite directions as fast as their mules could carry them.

Immediately after the reconciliation — if such it could be called — between Mulai Hafid and the French authorities, the ex-Sultan gave a dinner- party to the members of the French Legation and a number of other French officials, in a charming villa he had meanwhile taken on the Marshan, at Tangier. Not sure of whom he ought to invite to this solemn repast, Mulai Hafid had left the choice of his guests to the French Charge^ d' Affaires, who had sent in a list. The hour of dinner arrived, and so did the guests, amongst whom was the very capable and excellent " Commissaire " of the French local police, whom His Majesty had not yet met. The presentations took place, and the Sultan called me aside — I was in attendance — and asked who certain of the guests, whom he didn't know by sight, were. When I informed him that one of them was the French Commissaire de Police, he became a little uneasy, and a shadow passed over his face. " What do you think he has come f or ? " asked the ex-Sultan nervously.

Seeing an opportunity for a joke at His Majesty's expense, I hesitated a moment, and then, with many apologies, informed the Sultan that there

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had been stories current about his manner of playing bridge. No one, I said, believed them, but naturally the French authorities were most desirous that there should be an end to this false rumour, and had therefore decided, very privately of course, to bring the " Commissaire de Police " to watch his play on that particular evening. As soon as they were assured that His Majesty's play was above all suspicion, an official dementi could be given to these disturbing rumours. Mulai Hafid's face wore a look of unusual gravity during the long and sumptuous dinner.

After the guests had adjourned to the drawing- room we sat down to bridge. The " Commissaire," who was not a player, was purposely invited, without the Sultan's knowledge, to seat himself at Mulai Hafid's side. The game began. His Majesty was terribly nervous. Every time he wriggled in his chair and leant either to right or left, he would pull himself together and fix his eyes upon his own cards. Not once did he let his " hand " fall on the floor. Not once did his long sleeves sweep the tricks off the table. Not once did he revoke. He lost game after game, and his distress became painfully manifest.

Between two " deals " a guest approached and politely asked, " Is Your Majesty winning ? "

1 Winning ! " cried the now thoroughly upset monarch, " winning ! How can I possibly win with this horror of a policeman watching every card I play ? " And the writer had to explain to the assembled company the whole plot.

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Mulai Hafid was an excellent host, and was never happier than when entertaining. His dinners were well served and always amusing, and his guests, European and native, suitably chosen. On one occasion some charming and aristocratic French ladies were visiting Morocco. Amongst a series of fetes given by the Diplomatic Corps and others for their entertainment was a banquet at the residence of the Moorish ex-Minister of War, Sid Mehdi el-Menebhi, G.C.M.G. At this ban- quet the ex-Sultan presided. The distinguished lady guests had been purchasing Moorish cos- tumes, and it was arranged that they should come to this feast arrayed in all their recently-acquired magnificence. The result was charming — so charm- ing that it was decided to send for a photo- grapher and have the group taken. On his arrival the guests were posed, Mulai Hafid seated on a cushioned divan surrounded by the ladies in their Moorish dresses. The men stood behind.

The photograph was a great success, but its indirect results almost a tragedy, for Mulai Hafid placed a large copy of the group on the mantel- piece of the drawing-room of his villa. The ladies of his household never left the Kasbah, but on one occasion he sent an old Berber lady, before mentioned, and an aged slave, who had been his nurse, to visit the villa, and the eagle eyes of this venerable dame discovered the photo- graph. In their minds no clearer evidence of Mulai Hafid' s wickedness could be imagined, for here was the ex-Sultan seated in a bevy of apparently

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very attractive native ladies, surrounded by Euro- pean men. No combination of facts could to their eyes be more shocking. Not only was it clear that Mulai Hafid had been enjoying the society of ladies other than his wives, but he had even not hesitated to do so in the presence of " Christian " men. So the photograph was con- veyed in their voluminous raiment to the Kasbah, where it was presented to the gaze of the Sultan's outraged wives. Mulai Hafid was out hunting that day, and it was he himself who recounted to the writer what occurred on his return. None of his ladies were in the courtyard to meet him ; no one, except a slave or two, was visible. Not a word of welcome, not a question as to the sport he had enjoyed ! Seeking the apartments of one of the royal wives, the Sultan had the mortification to see her go out of one door as he entered by the other. He called to her, but she paid no attention. He sought consolation elsewhere, with no better results. He was shunned and in exile — not one of the ladies would speak to him. He knew, of course, nothing of the reason, and could obtain no explanation. He slept in his little reception- room over the entrance of the Kasbah, and hoped for a brighter situation in the morning, but things were no better.

Then the two old women who had found the photograph and given it to the Sultan's ladies grew alarmed, and confessed, but the many wives were difficult to convince, and it was only when the writer was called in and explained to some

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invisible persons, concealed behind a thick curtain drawn across an archway, that peace and calm were restored in the Shereefian harem. As the Sultan said afterwards, " There are some institu- tions in Europe which are in a way preferable to ours. Monogamy has its advantage. When a man ever quarrels he has only one wife to quarrel

with, whereas we ! ''

The ex-Sultan had a very numerous family of young children, to whom he was really devoted, and with some of whom he would play for long hours together. They were — and are to-day — exceedingly well brought up, nice-mannered, and beautifully dressed, and now that they are a little older are being well educated. I sometimes was taken to see them in a garden in the Kasbah. There would be a few black slave women, and from ten to twenty children, all probably under seven years of age, and varying in colour from very dark to very fair. Once I mentioned to Mulai Hafid that they seemed to be many. He laughed, and replied that they were not all there : none of the younger ones were present, and that in all there were twenty-six under six or seven years of age. He was certainly a devoted father to his numerous offspring. During the whole period of the War he has been separated from them. In 1914 he went to Spain, where his relations with the German Embassy caused him to be suspected of instigating intrigues in Morocco. His pension was cancelled, and he remains to-day an exile. Any one who has

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known him in his family life and witnessed his devotion to his children cannot help desiring, if his actions in Spain have not been more than follies, that he may be permitted once more to return to his home.

VII.

THE SULTAN IN FRANCE.

IT was on the quay at Rabat, that picturesque old town on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, that the Sultan Mulai Hafid finally handed to General Lyautey, the French Resident-General in Morocco, the documents of his abdication. It had been a long struggle to get them ; for although His Majesty was decided that the only course open to him was to cede the throne and leave the country, still he was desirous, and made no concealment of his desire, to bargain to the very last moment. However, at length the question was settled, and as the Sultan stepped on board the launch to proceed to the French cruiser that was to take him as far as Gibraltar, en route to France, the official document of abdication was handed over. In return he received a cheque of £40,000, the last instalment of the agreed sum of money which the new Protectorate Government of Morocco had undertaken to pay him.

The following morning the cruiser, with the ex-Sultan on board, arrived at Gibraltar. I happened to be there, returning from Morocco

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to England, and was leaving the same day for Plymouth by steamer direct. Desirous, however, of seeing some personal friends who were amongst the ex-Sultan's suite, I proceeded on board the French cruiser to visit them. It was my desire, if possible, to avoid meeting the ex-Sultan, for a few months previously there had been a scene in Fez, in which the unchecked torrents of Sultanate wrath had been poured on my head for having given too much publicity to the barbarous atro- cities which His Majesty had been committing, especially in the case of the torturing of the wife of the Governor of Fez, in order to discover an imaginary hidden fortune, and in the wholesale amputations of the feet and hands of certain rebel tribesmen. I had no desire that the dis- cussion as to the necessity or advisability of perpetrating horrors should be continued on the deck of a French warship, and so I took every precaution not to be seen by His Majesty in order to avoid the outpourings of renewed wrath. But in vain. The ex-Sultan caught a glimpse of me as he stepped on board, and, hurrying to meet me, embraced me in the most cordial manner, and then stated that unless I would consent to join the suite and continue the journey with him to France, he (the ex-Sultan) would claim the right of being in British territorial waters, and refuse to proceed an inch farther. The situation was difficult. The Sultan, always neurasthenic, appeared, and undoubtedly was suf- fering under great nervous tension, evidently not

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diminished by the sufferings he had undergone during a particularly rough passage on a warship that was renowned for its rolling.

A hurried consultation was held with the French officials who were accompanying the ex-Sultan on his journey to France. My plans were already fixed : it was no easy matter to change them at the last moment; but the Sultan insisted. The French authorities, too, foreseeing real diffi- culties, begged me to alter these plans and to proceed to France, to which I eventually con- sented. The Sultan, appeased, offered no more resistance to continuing his journey, and by midday we were en route for Marseilles.

What had influenced the Sultan was this. He was suffering from nerves, and once on board the warship had become convinced that he was under arrest, and was on his way to imprisonment in France. He was particularly desirous of having, therefore, as members of his suite one or two persons of British origin, so that there might be witnesses— or even objectors — in the case of his incarceration. Of course such a thought had never entered the minds of the French Government. The Sultan had abdicated, and for political reasons it was advisable that he should absent himself from Morocco for a short period, so that the proclamation and installation of the new Sovereign might proceed without any hitch ; for it was always possible that so long as the ex-Sultan remained in the country there might be some opposition to the elevation of his successor to

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the throne. Two days later Mulai Hafid landed in Marseilles, where he was officially received. The quay was hung with flags, there was a cavalry escort, and military music enlivened the scene.

At Gibraltar the French cruiser had been abandoned for the greater comforts and more ample space of a P. & 0. On board this steamer, en route to Australia, was a music-hall troupe, and it was their kind thought to give a perform- ance in honour of the Sultan. The sea was calm, the night warm, and after dinner the performance took place — singing, dancing, and some juggling. One item of the show took place in the saloon, where a very attractive and skilful lady-conjurer performed some most astonishing tricks. The Sultan and his suite were much impressed, but their astonishment reached its climax when the charming young lady filled an apparently un- limited number of glasses with an apparently unlimited variety of drinks out of a medium-sized teapot.

As we threaded our way out of the saloon, one of the more influential of the native suite whis- pered in my ear, " What do you think the lady would take for the teapot ? " I naturally replied that probably all the wealth of the world could not purchase so unique a vessel. My friend was disappointed ; he would clearly have liked to own a teapot, and to have had it always beside him, which would pour out any beverage he com- manded. " It would have been," he added with a sigh, " so useful when one was travelling."

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His Majesty's stay at Marseilles was uneventful. Official visits, a gala at the theatre, and excursions to places of interest filled up his days. However, during the dinner — a semi-state ceremony — which was given to His Majesty at the hotel on the evening of his arrival, a little incident occurred. The manager of the hotel, looking very troubled, approached the high official of the police to whom the precautions for the personal security of the Sultan had been entrusted, and whispered in his ear. A few moments later I received a message asking me to leave the table for a moment's con- versation in the next room. Here I was informed that, while dinner was proceeding, the Sultan's little black slave boys had found a big bag of five-franc pieces in His Majesty's bedroom, and were amusing themselves by throwing them one by one into the street, to be scrambled for by the N.crowd. The Cannebiere was blocked, all traffic was at a standstill, and various wounded persons had already been taken to the hospital ; but the black imps, delighted with their game, persistently refused to abandon so amusing an occupation unless they received the express orders of their lord and master to do so. These orders the writer hastily invented, and, personally visiting the scene, threatened such chastisement that the three or four little black demons slunk away to bed.

During this dinner the news had been published in the local evening papers of a serious battle in Morocco ; for, although the French Protectorate had been proclaimed, yet there was still anarchy

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existing in the remoter parts of the country. Now the ex-Sultan had never been popular in France, perhaps with some reason. He had driven from the throne his brother, whose more friendly feelings toward the French were known and appreciated, and he had succeeded in so doing by a frankly unfriendly programme toward French policy. His tribes, and even his troops, had fought them in the Chaouia Campaign of 1907-8, and during the four years that he had held the throne (1908-12) he had done his utmost to assist German intervention in Morocco. It was therefore not to be wondered at that the people of Marseilles showed no enthusiasm for their guest, and com- plained of the honours that were being rendered him and the cost the French Government was incurring in his entertainment. Up till now, how- ever, there had always been a show of interest in his movements, and a little crowd to see him wherever he went ; and though his reception had been by no means enthusiastic, no hostile demon- stration had taken place. The receipt of the news, however, of heavy French losses in this latest Moorish battle, had stirred up some feeling against him. The people felt it was ridiculous that while their troops were being shot in Morocco the origi- nator of the attacks of the tribes should be their honoured guest in France. And so it was that when, after the dinner, the ex-Sultan entered the box that had been reserved and decorated for him in one of the great music-halls of Marseilles, he was met with hoots and whistling.

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For a moment no one could explain this hostile demonstration, for the news of the battle had only just been published, and had not reached the dinner at which we had all been present. The manner in which the demonstration was suppressed, and a few moments later changed into a most friendly reception, was admirable, and spoke well for the capabilities of the " Commissaire de Police " attached to the ex-Sultan's suite. It was manoeuvred in a way that was almost un- noticeable. A number of people seemed to be leaving the theatre, but discreetly, as if in the ordinary course of their affairs, and meanwhile their places and every vacant seat, and even the passage, were being filled up. In five minutes the building was full, and then suddenly the band burst out with the " Marseillaise" ; the Sultan stood up, and the whole audience, turning toward the royal box, shouted and cheered. It was well done, and had all the appearance of being a spontaneous demonstration.

Although Mulai Hafid was by no means popular in France, his visit received a good deal of atten- tion, and the French public took considerable interest in his personality. He was, in fact, the man of the hour. His portrait appeared in every paper, and all his movements were closely reported and read.

His Majesty, who never minded how dangerously fast he travelled in motor-cars, had a horror of the train, and it had been a little difficult to persuade him to consent to proceed to Vichy by

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that means. The distance being great, the journey by motor, with his numerous suite of French officers and diplomats and all his native retinue, would have been a difficult one to have organised. So three days after his arrival at Marseilles he entered the carriages that had been specially added to the train that was to convey him to the fashionable health resort. He was un- mistakably nervous as we left, and made no secret of it. As the pace increased he wanted the train stopped, and said he would walk to Vichy rather than continue ; but the climax was reached when, with a shrill whistle, the train hurled itself into a long tunnel, and apparently into unending darkness.

The Sultan's fear was pitiful to behold. He literally clung to the French officer beside him, with terror staring from his eyes. All he could utter was, " Tell them to stop ; why don't you tell them to stop ! " The fright of his native retainers was even more marked. They called out and clung to each other in abject fear, except the little black slave boys, who seemed intensely amused. Then the train whirled out of the tunnel into daylight again. The Sultan pulled himself together, and said, with an air of offended majesty, " You will kindly tell them not to do it again."

" I am afraid it will be difficult to avoid."

" Why ? "

" Because the line must pass under the hills."

" Then the train must stop and I will walk over the top and join it again on the other side."

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" The distance . . ."

"I do not mind the distance. Anything is better than such suffering as it occasions me."

However, he was persuaded that his proposal was impracticable, and bore the few more tunnels that we passed through with commendable sang- froid and courage, though on each occasion His Majesty expressed his very distinct disapproval of railways and their builders, and more especially the folly of making tunnels.

At Vichy a villa, which formed an annexe to the well-known Hotel Majestic, was placed at his disposal. His Majesty was an early riser, and sometimes he would take an early morning prome- nade in the gardens and streets of the town. On one of these occasions he bought a little mongrel puppy, which an itinerant dog-seller was hawking at the end of a string. Returning to his villa with his purchase, the antics of the little puppy so amused the ex-Sultan that he called in his slaves, and ordered them to disperse over the town and buy more dogs. One of the dusky servitors ventured to ask how he was to know which dogs were for sale. The Sultan, fresh from his experience of purchasing the puppy, replied that every dog at the end of a string was for sale. As, of course, none of the slaves spoke anything but Arabic, they were ordered to bring dogs and sellers alike to the villa, where the bargains would be completed.

Now the municipal authorities of Vichy had recently issued an order that all dogs were either

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to be led or muzzled, so when the fashionable world went out to drink its early morning waters, at least half of the ladies had little dogs at the end of a string.

The writer was at breakfast when he was hur- riedly summoned to the villa. At an open window on the ground floor, sitting cross-legged on an arm-chair, was His Majesty looking down with a puzzled expression upon the little garden, crowded with excited ladies and little dogs. Some were in tears, others wore expressions of interested curi- osity, and a few were evidently trying to look their best, for no social distinctions had been recognised by the slaves who had " rounded them up " in the promenades of Vichy.

" I want to buy," said the ex-Sultan from his window, " all these little dogs, but the sellers do not seem to understand the first principles of trade, and seem to be making a terrible fuss."

The situation was evident and acute. I ex- plained it to the ex-Sultan, who politely apolo- gised for having disturbed the ladies' early walks, but still insisted, without success, in trying to buy the dogs. It required all the writer's tact and diplomacy to put an end to a difficult situa- tion, and to restore equanimity to the indignant ladies.

The ex-Sultan's purchases were often embarrass- ing. One evening at sunset he visited a farm a few miles from the town, and insisted upon going all over it. In an enclosure were collected from twenty to thirty fine specimens of the beautiful

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white cattle for which this part of France is so justly famous. The ex-Sultan decided to buy the lot, and gave the farmer his card, saying, " Send them round to-night to this address."

Now the address he gave was the Hotel Majestic, the most fashionable and magnificent of Vichy's palaces. About eleven o'clock that night, when life at the hotel was at its height, the manager sought the writer, and announced the unexpected arrival of twenty-seven enormous cows in the coiirtyard of the hotel. And there, sure enough, meandering in and out of smart motor-cars, lowing gently into the ground-floor windows, were the ex-Sultan's latest purchases. Where they passed the night the writer never knew, but the next day more suitable quarters were found for them.

The Sultan dined in the great dining-room of the Hotel Majestic. His table, a very large one, for there were constant guests, was raised on a dais at one end of the room, which gave him an excellent view of all the diners — and the diners at the Hotel Majestic at Vichy in the height of the season are worth seeing. One night the Sultan appeared " distrait " at dinner, and his eye roved over the crowded room with an anxious and sympathetic expression. He spoke little, and it was difficult to get him to talk. At last he asked to see the manager, and that most amiable and deservedly popular gentleman, the proprietor of the hotel, appeared at once. " These people," said the Sultan, waving his hand toward the crowd at dinner, " are badly distributed. Many

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are not happy. Let us rearrange them. The old gentleman with the long grey beard has no right to be dining with the beautiful young lady in the big black hat, wearing a pearl necklace. There is a terrible disparity in their ages. She should be dining with the charming young officer over there " — he pointed to another table, — " and the elderly lady, no doubt his mother, should be dining with old greybeard. You should have " — and he addressed the proprietor — " some thought for the happiness of your guests. Now that lady there " — and again he pointed in another direction — " is terribly bored. She has been tapping the edge of her plate with her fork for half an hour. She evidently dislikes extremely the gentleman with whom she is dining — probably her husband, — but I have watched her, and she keeps looking at the young man dining alone with the waxed mous- taches. Go and introduce them. Her husband hasn't spoken to her once this evening. He won't miss her — and you will make two people happy ; and if the husband is dull, invite that strange lady with the red hair, who is just coming in, to sit down beside him. She will keep him occupied, I expect, to judge by her appearance."

But, alas ! interesting as such an experiment would have been, it was impossible.

The first few days of the ex-Sultan's visit were wet and cloudy, but one morning the August sun asserted itself with uncompromising efficiency. The villa reception-rooms faced south-east, and by eight o'clock in the morning were insufferably

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hot, for the Sultan refused to close the outside shutters, as he liked to see and to be seen. Half an hour later he decided to change his quarters. On the opposite side of the road was a charming villa, in the deepest shade, with a balcony on the first floor wreathed in flowering creepers. Order- ing his slaves to follow him, the ex-Sultan strode across the road, entered the villa, and found his way to the upstairs room with the balcony. It was gorgeous but empty. An immense bed, which had evidently been slept in, stood with its head against the wall. A word from His Majesty and the bed was wheeled by the slaves into the window which opened on to the balcony, and, arranging the silk quilt and the lace-fringed pillows, the ex-Sultan seated himself cross-legged, gazing down into the street below.

Now the Russian lady of title who had occupied the bed had retired a few moments previously into her adjacent cabinet de toilette to take her morning bath. Her ablutions completed, but not clad for a reception, she entered her room to find a dusky oriental potentate, with his still more dusky slaves, in possession. The ex-Sultan's politeness was extreme. He bade her welcome, and invited her to sit down beside him.

An overflowing sense of humour on the part of the lady saved a situation which might other- wise have been embarrassing, and when the writer, hastily summoned, arrived, the lady, now more suitably arrayed, and her husband were thoroughly enjoying the novelty of the situation.

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Mulai Hafid was often bored with such official functions as his position and his duty necessitated his attending. At a dinner given at a large pro- vincial town within motoring distance of Vichy, he made his first public speech in France. He certainly had great fluency, and spoke well — in Arabic, of course, his words being immediately translated into French. When, with tears in his eyes, he explained his love and gratitude to France — whose policy in Morocco he had all his reign done his best to wreck — he was really immense. Never did words bear a more genuine ring ; never was deep affection more apparent in a speaker's voice. But Mulai Hafid must not be misjudged. He had learnt much during his stay in France, and had probably realised long before this episode how much more successful a Sultan of Morocco he would have been had he followed more strictly and more sincerely the advice of his French advisers. But the Germans had been always at hand, with their intrigues and their incentives, with vague promises and much ready money, and with their recommendations to absolutism and to cruelty. On one occasion the Governments of Europe officially, through their Consuls at Fez, protested to Mulai Hafid their abhorrence of the barbarities he had been per- petrating. The German Consul was noticeable by his absence. Berlin deliberately refused to protest, and its representative at Fez was instructed to inform the Sultan that his Government considered that His Majesty had a perfect right to do what he

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pleased, and advised him to pay no regard to the protest of the Consuls of Great Britain, France, and Spain speaking in the names of their respective Governments and in the interests of civilisation. But, happily, Germany has paid dearly in Morocco for her sins in the past. It is a closed country for her to-day, and her people are rightly looked upon as outcasts and outlaws.

Successful as Mulai Hafid's first public utter- ances were, these long and ceremonious dinners profoundly bored him. As many as he could he escaped, but some he had to attend. He took the strongest dislike to the " Prefets " — a title that, in the functions of the post, resembles our " Mayor." He always had to sit on the Prefet's right, and he complained that they were pompous and dull.

When the programme of his journey to other parts of France was being drawn up, he was asked what towns he would like to visit. It was one of his " off " days — he was silent and depressed. He said he didn't care where, or when, or how he travelled. No amount of pressing could get a direct answer from him ; but the official of the French Home Office could not return to Paris without a reply. Urged finally to give some idea, however vague, of where he would like to go, the ex-Sultan answered wearily, " Anywhere — to any town that has no ' Prefet.' " Many other distinguished travellers must have often felt the same, but few probably ever dared to avow it.

Mulai Hafid was by no means always in low

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spirits. On one occasion we made a long motor trip to a famous watering-place, and after an official luncheon we ascended a neighbouring peak in a sort of funicular railway. In the railway carriage was a frock-coated and top-hatted gentle- man of irreproachable get-up — a typical French fonctionnaire — polite, deferential, and with an official smile that must have taken a long time to acquire. Speaking through an interpreter, he informed Mulai Hafid that he was charged by the French Government to accompany and point out to His Majesty the beauties and spots of interest of the local scenery. Mulai Hand, in an equally polite reply, thanked him, but hinted that he already had in his suite some one who knew the country extremely well, who would be only too pleased to assist in giving the required information, and he suddenly presented the writer to the French official. Needless to say, I had never been within a hundred miles of the place, and had no idea whatever of its beauties, its historical associations, and even less of its geological forma- tion. I appreciated, however, one thing : that Mulai Hafid meant to play a practical joke on the suave and black-gloved functionary.

The train started and began the steep ascent. Mulai Hafid, innocently seated between the French official and the writer, asked, " What are those rocks ? " Before the authorised and official guide could reply, the writer had begun, " Those rocks are of the tertiary period, and contain many interesting remains : the skeletons of mammoths

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have been frequently found there, as well as the household utensils — a corkscrew amongst others — of primitive man." The poor functionary, too polite to protest, scarcely showed his astonishment, except in a furtive look in my direction. " And that wood ? " continued the ex-Sultan. " That wood," I went on, " was the scene of the eating by a bear of the children who mocked at Elisha." This time the functionary gave a little start. Farther up the line were the ruins of what had once probably been a wooden shed perched on a high rock. " And that ? " asked the Sultan. " That," replied the writer, "is all that remains of Noah's Ark, which came to rest here after the subsiding of the Flood." But the functionary was now only too palpably suffering tortures. He was on an official mission and terribly serious. He could not see that the episode was a joke, and seemed sincerely to believe that Mulai Hafid, the guest of the French Republic, was being purposely deceived. " It may have been," he began politely, " that local tradition at some period claimed this spot as the resting-place of the Ark — of that I know nothing — but historical facts have clearly proved that it was elsewhere that that interesting event took place."

A few nights later a gala performance of Meyer- beer's ' Roma ' was given in the ex-Sultan's honour at the Opera. Now, singing in Morocco is a nasal monotonous repetition of words, with little ex- pression and no gesture. The " basso " in the opera was an extremely corpulent gentleman, with

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a voice like thunder, accompanied by wild gesticu- lations. A few bars of recitative by the orchestra, and his great voice burst out and filled the theatre. To the Sultan the effect had nothing in common with music, and all he could imagine was that the performer was suffering intense unbearable pain, more especially as the louder he sang the more he waved his arms about and beat his capacious stomach.

Springing to his feet, His Majesty cried, " Where

is Dr V ? " (Dr V was his English doctor,

who had accompanied him on his visit to France)

— " where is Dr V ? Find him quickly, some

one. He may be able to save his life " ; and with an expression of terrible anxiety the ex-Sultan's eyes alternately gazed fascinated at the singer or sought for the doctor in the gloomy recesses of the royal box. It was not without difficulty that His Majesty was persuaded that the singer was suffering no pain ; but that he was actually supposed to be giving pleasure to the audience he entirely refused to believe.

The ex-Sultan was bored, and left the theatre before the end. The following morning he asked me what had taken place in the last act, and on being told of the terrible fate that almost all the characters in the tragedy had suffered, he replied, " I am sorry I did not stay. I should have sent for the manager and insisted that the piece should end happily. The young lady should have married the soldier with the big sword. The blind woman should have had her sight restored by an able

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doctor, and no one should have been stabbed or built up in a tomb."

It was perhaps as well that he didn't stay till the end, for his amiable intervention might have disturbed the tragic climax of the opera.

RAISULI.

MULAI AHMED BEN MOHAMMED ER-RAISTJLI is to- day a man of about fifty years of age. He is by birth sprung from one of the most aristocratic families in Morocco, and is a Shereef, or direct descendant of the Prophet, through Mulai Idris, who founded the Mohammedan Empire of Morocco, and was the first sovereign of the Idrisite Dynasty. The children of Mulai Idris were established in various parts of the country, and it is from Mulai Abd es-Salam, whose tomb in the Beni Aros tribe is a place of great sanctity, that the famous brigand is directly descended — his family, and he himself, still holding a share in the lands, the rights and the privileges which were enjoyed by their renowned ancestor. A branch of the family settled in Tetuan, where a fine mosque forms a mausoleum for his more recent ancestors, and is venerated as a place of pilgrimage.

Possibly it was this holy ancestry that turned Raisuli from the paths of virtue, for after having received an excellent education in religion and religious law at Tetuan, he took to the adventurous,

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lucrative, and in Morocco by no means despised, profession of a cattle robber. It is a risky business, and requires courage. You may just as likely be shot yourself as shoot any one else ; but pres- tige tells in favour of the head of the band, and a reign of terror of the young Raisuli ensued. He became celebrated. He was a youth of great courage, of the most prepossessing looks, and he and his followers earned money easily and fast — and spent it still faster. But cattle robberies led to other crimes. Murders followed, and it must be confessed that Raisuli' s hands are none 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 he 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 com- plained. 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 house and put to death the young bride and her mother.

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. When, in 1903, I was Raisuli's prisoner at Zinat,

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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 delayed flight. He escaped, but for a very few hours. He did not know his way about the 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 he was released on the petition of Haj Mohammed Torres, the Sultan's representative at Tangier. He came back to his home, meaning to live a quiet and peaceful life, but he found that his friend who had betrayed him had become Governor of Tangier, and con- fiscated all his property. He applied for its return, but could not obtain it. He threatened, but they laughed at him — and then he took to his old profession 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 the night at my camp. I confess that his person- ality was almost fascinating. Tall, remarkably handsome, with the whitest 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-Raisuli was a typical and ideal bandit.

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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 better later on, I never heard him laugh. With his followers he was cold and haughty, and they treated him with all the respect due to his birth.

When next I saw him I was his prisoner at his stronghold at Zinat, situated about twelve miles from Tangier — in June 1903. He had altered a littta His face had filled out, the mouth had

become harder and a little more cruel, but he was still remarkably handsome. He had not changed for the better. Only a few months before my capture he had sold one of his prisoners to an enemy for $1500, and stood by to see the pur- chaser cut the victim's throat. As long as he had restricted his energies to cattle-lifting and to attacks upon natives no one paid very serious attention to him, though the Maghzen were trying to encompass his capture. On 16th June 1903 the Shereefian troops attacked and burnt Zinat ; the same afternoon I was captured.

Hearing that a battle had taken place at that spot, situated some eight or nine miles away, I rode out toward the middle of the day in that direction, accompanied by my native groom, whose parents lived at Zinat, and who was most anxious as to the safety of his relations. Already the alarm had spread to the neighbouring villages, and we found the country round entirely deserted, the population having fled to the mountains of Anjera

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with all their cattle and as much of their goods as they could carry away. Although the attack of the Government troops had been made with the object of capturing Raisuli, the native cavalry had wandered far afield after loot, and a consider- able number of cattle, &c., had been carried off from villages innocent of any rebellious intentions, and in no way accessories to Raisuli' s depredations.

I found it difficult on this account to obtain any accurate information of what had occurred, and a desire to do so, coupled with my groom's anxiety, persuaded me to approach nearer than was perhaps advisable to the scene of the morn- ing's action. Skirting the stony hill on which Zinat is situated, I entered the plain, crossed by small gulleys, that lies to the south of the villages, and until within two miles of the place met with no incident worth recording. The whole country was absolutely deserted. Not a single person, not a head of cattle, was to be seen.

It was when we were crossing this plain that suddenly a volley was fired at us from men con- cealed in the brushwood and rocks of a small hill near by. The range was a long one, and though we could hear the bullets whizzing over our heads, I do not believe that any passed us very closely. Setting spurs to our horses, we cantered away out of range, and drew rein on an elevation in the plain in the midst of a field of corn. Turning to see what was happening, I perceived three or four natives a considerable distance away, who had taken off their cloaks and turbans, and were

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waving to me to return. This waving of turbans is always in Morocco a sign of " aman " or safety, and I therefore waited for the men, who were moving quickly in our direction. Two alone approached us, both well known to me ; and having arrived at the spot where we were stationed, they apologised profusely for the mistake of their men in having fired, and begged me to return with them to Zinat to discuss the situation there. They were Anjera men from the neighbouring Roman hills, who had not been present at the battle, but who had come down to Zinat, as the irregular cavalry had carried off a considerable number of their cattle. They stated that they were desirous of knowing the intentions of the Moorish Government with regard to their tribe. If, they said, it was the Government's intention to attack them, they were ready to resist; but if the Moorish forces had been ordered merely to capture Raisuli and had looted their property without authority, they demanded the return of their cattle — a very reasonable demand. They added that they were afraid to proceed to Tangier to interview the authorities for fear of capture and imprisonment there, and asked me accordingly to take their message to the native officials, as on such occasions I had often done before. Under a promise of safety I proceeded with them in the direction of Zinat, having agreed that I should go to a spot near the hills where three or four of the headmen of the tribe were to meet me. It was when proceeding in that direction that I

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was captured. We were crossing a small gully, thick with crimson-blossomed oleanders, when sud- denly I discovered that I had fallen into an ambush. Flight was impossible, and as I was unarmed, resistance was out of the question. From every side sprung out tribesmen, and in a second or two I was a prisoner, surrounded by thirty or forty men, one and all armed with European rifles. I received no rough treatment at their hands, but was told that I was their prisoner and must proceed to Zinat. On arrival at the woods which surround the several villages which lie scattered on the Zinat hills, messengers were sent to inform Raisuli of my capture, and in a short time I was taken to him. He was seated under some olive-trees in a little gully, surrounded by his men and by the headmen of the neighbouring tribes, who had collected on learning what had taken place. Raisuli received., me pleasantly enough. He was still a young man of handsome appearance, refined in feature and manner, and with a pleasant voice. He was dressed in the costume of the mountain tribes, a short brown cloak covering his white linen k clothes and reaching only to the knees, with a turban of dark-blue cloth. His legs were bare, and he wore the usual yellow slippers of the country. After a short talk with Raisuli, who narrated to me all that had taken place, he led me to what remained of his house, the greater part of which had been burned by the troops. Up to this time I had nothing to complain of in the attitude of the

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tribesmen, but a great number had collected in the vicinity, all anxious to catch a glimpse of the Christian captive, and not a few inclined to wreak summary vengeance on me for the devastation the Government troops had committed in the place. There was a good deal of hooting and cursing, but Raisuli's influence was sufficient for him to be able to hurry me through the crowd, now very threatening, and his own followers closed round me and guarded me from the mountaineers. It was an unpleasant moment, for I soon perceived that no authority existed over this collection of tribesmen, who numbered at this time perhaps 2000 — though by nightfall this number was pro- bably doubled, — and that there would be no possi- bility of protection did they proceed to extremes. It was with no little relief that I saw the door of a small room in the remaining portion of Raisuli's house opened, through which I was pushed in. A moment later it was closed again, but it seemed as though the crowd without would break it down. But Raisuli and his men, and a score of personal friends amongst the tribesmen, formed up against the doorway outside, and were able to dissuade the rabble from their intention of dragging me out.

The room in which I found myself was very dark, light being admitted only by one small window near the roof, and it was some time before my eyes became accustomed to the gloom. When I was able to see more clearly, the first object that attracted my eyes was a body lying in the middle of the room. It was the corpse of

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a man who had been killed there in the morning by the troops, and formed a ghastly spectacle. Stripped of all clothing and shockingly mutilated, the body lay with extended arms. The head had been roughly hacked off, and the floor all round was swimming in blood. The soldiers had carried off the head in triumph as a trophy of war, and they had wiped their gory fingers on the white- washed walls, leaving bloodstains everywhere. However, I was not to suffer the company of the corpse for long, for half a dozen men came in, washed the body, sewed it up in its winding-sheet, and carried it away for burial ; and a little later the floor was washed down, though no attempt was made to move the bloody finger-marks from the wall.

Here I remained alone for some hours, and it was certainly an anxious time. I reviewed the situation quietly, and came to the conclusion that, in spite of the danger which I knew existed, I had much in my favour. The fact that the language of the people was almost the same to me as my own tongue was a great assistance, and amongst these mountain tribes I have a large number of personal friends, who, I believed, and rightly, would protect me as far as they were able. Unfortunately, few of my influential acquaintances amongst the mountaineers had arrived, though to my joy I learned, from the conversation of the guards outside the door, that they were expected during the coming night. I decided meanwhile to pretend absolute ignorance

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of any danger, and to talk of my condition as only one of a series of adventures that I have undergone in Morocco and elsewhere.

At sundown Raisuli and some of his men brought me food, and I had a long conversation with them. Raisuli was polite, and made no secret that he intended to make use of me, though he had not yet decided in what way. He, however, kindly informed me that, should the attack of the troops be renewed, I should be immediately killed. His career, he said, was practically finished, and his sole desire was to cause the Moorish Government as much trouble and humiliation as possible, and he argued that there would be no easier way to do this than by causing my death. However, he promised me, at the same time, that provided no fresh attack was made upon the place, he would do his best to protect me. I was allowed to com- municate with the British Legation, but was not aware till later that this letter never reached its destination, though the following morning I was in direct communication with His Majesty's Min- ister, and throughout my captivity no difficulties were put in my way in corresponding with the British Legation.

During the night a large contingent of the Anjera tribe arrived, amongst them several influ- ential men on whose friendship I felt I might implicitly rely ; and as a matter of fact I owe my release, and probably my life, largely to these men.

There is no need to give the details of the nine days that I spent at Zinat, sufficient to say that I

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suffered very considerable hardship. Though never actually roughly handled, except for a few insult- ing blows with slippers, &c., my discomforts were extreme. During those nine days I was never able to wash ; I never took my clothes off, with the result that I was smothered with vermin. Once I went for thirty-six hours without any food, for none was procurable, as the village had been burnt, and during the whole time my life was threatened. My friends did what they could for me, but it was little they could do. There must have been some 4000 tribesmen present, and they obeyed no one, and no one had any authority over them. It was a trying time, but my only chance lay in pretending to place implicit confi- dence in them, and thus gain time while the negotiations for my release proceeded.

No words of praise are sufficient for the great tact displayed by Sir Arthur Nicolson, the British Minister, in conducting these negotiations. From the very beginning he realised the difficulties of success, and throughout, in every dealing that he had with the tribesmen, he showed the greatest tact and skill. He from the very commencement warned the Moorish Government not to take any steps to treat with the mountaineers, and con- ducted the entire proceedings himself, Mulai Ahmed, the young Shereef of Wazzan, being the means of communication between the British Government and the tribesmen. These negotiations were doubly difficult owing to the fact that the mountaineers had no recognised chiefs, and that many tribes

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were concerned. Yet in such a manner were the negotiations conducted, that throughout the wiiole proceedings the ignorant and fanatical tribesmen placed entire confidence in the Minister's word, and though delays occurred, as they always do in Morocco, there was never a serious hitch.

The first demand made to me for my release was the removal of all Englishmen from the Sultan's Court. I naturally treated this as pre- posterous, and persuaded the tribesmen that it was mere folly to mention it. This was followed by other equally impossible conditions, which were likewise abandoned ; and by the time that the British Legation was in communication with the tribesmen they had lessened their demands to the release of a certain number of tribal prisoners confined in the prisons of Tangier and Laraiche.

At no time was a demand made for a ransom in money, and in this my capture differed entirely from those of Mr Perdicaris and Kaid Maclean, which took place later. I owe this immunity from a pecuniary ransom to an admirable trait in the character of these wild mountain tribes- men. My country-house at Tangier was situated about two and a half miles from the town, on the sea-coast, on the main track that passes between the An j era tribe and Tangier. Just beyond my grounds, on the town side, is a tidal river, which then and now possesses no bridge, but it is ford- able at low tide. Often the tribes-people found the tide too high to cross, and were obliged to wait long weary hours, in winter at times in dark-

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ness and rain. A large number were women and young girls carrying loads of charcoal to market. I had always made it a rule to give shelter to all such as asked for it, and had built a room or two for this purpose, and in winter-time it was seldom that some of the benighted peasants were not spending the night there. When it was cold and wet they had a fire, and as often as not a little supper. A very short time after my capture a proposal was made from Tangier that a very considerable sum of money should be paid for my immediate release. This was discussed by the tribesmen and refused. They decided that in the case of one who had shown such hospitality to their women and children, and often to them- selves, there must be no question of money — and there was none.

There was one hitch which threatened to break down our negotiations, and which caused some delay to my release.

It had been agreed that twelve prisoners from the tribesmen, confined in various Moorish Govern- ment prisons, were to be released in exchange for myself ; but after a very numerously-attended meeting, at which a large number of fresh moun- taineers arrived, a demand was made for the release of over fifty. The British Legation was notified of this, and very rightly objected to this sudden and very large addition. Sir Arthur Nicolson wrote me to this effect. Before, however, making known the contents of his letter, I obtained the names of all the fifty tribesmen whose release was

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demanded, and sent the list to Tangier, pretending that it was to be submitted to the authorities, in order that in the case of its acceptance, orders for the release of the men might be given. Once this letter well on its way, I made known to the tribesmen that on no account more than the original twelve prisoners would be released. At first they tried persuasion, and then threats — but I felt sure of my position. " You propose," I said, " to kill me. Possibly you will do so, but you have kindly given me a list of all your relations who are in the Moorish prison — some fifty-six in all, I think. This list is now in Tangier. You will have the satisfaction of killing me, but remember this — on fifty-six consecutive days one of your sons or brothers or nephews will be executed — one each morning ; and more — their bodies will be burnt and the ashes scattered to the wind. You will see the smoke from here " — for Tangier was visible from where we were. Now, the Moors believe in a corporeal resurrection, and the burn- ing of a body means the depriving of the soul of resurrection. It was a splendid bluff, and I felt the greatest delight in using it. I was there alone, seated in the centre of a great circle of the tribes- men, who swore and cursed and threatened ; but to no avail. I even explained that it was a matter of no importance in the Christian religion what became of one body — and pointed out the conse- quent loss of fifty-six good Moslem souls, deprived of going to heaven. I was successful. The tribes- men returned to their original demand.

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In all my dealings with the Moors I have found this, that the intelligent European, provided he has a complete and absolute knowledge of the language, holds a very distinct advantage over the Moor. He has, in fact, two advantages — her- editary training of thought, and education. The Moor is generally, by his environment and isola- tion, a slow thinker, and in the many difficult situations in which I at times found myself I have always had confidence in my own mental superi- ority over the average native. I have been able to turn threats into ridicule, or to raise a laugh, or to persuade by the mere superiority of the power of thinking and of giving utterance to one's thoughts. The Moor is very susceptible to sarcasm and ridicule, and often I have turned what looked like becoming a stormy incident into the pleasantest of channels. I have, almost without exception, carried no arms, which are often more a source of danger than of security.

The only time that I left my quarters at Zinat for more than a few minutes together was on one occasion, a few days after my arrival, when I was taken down to a gully below the village to be shown the corpse of a Moorish cavalry soldier who had been killed during the engagement. In revenge for the beheading of the Zinat man who had been killed, the tribesmen had mutilated the soldier's body. It was a ghastly sight. The summer heat had already caused the corpse to discolour and swell. An apple had been stuck in the man's mouth, and both his eyes had been gouged out.

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The naked body was shockingly mutilated, and the finger-tips had been cut off, to be worn, the tribes- men told me, as charms by their women. The hands were pegged to the ground by sticks driven through the palms, about a yard in length, bearing little flags. A wreath of wild flowers was twined round the miserable man's head, and the village dogs had already gnawed away a portion of the flesh of one of the legs. I was jokingly informed that that was probably what I should look like during the course of the next few days.

During the entire nine days that I was at Zinat I was no doubt always in danger, and certainly always in great discomfort ; but I had used every opportunity to bring the friendly tribe of Anjera over to my side, and on the night of the ninth day my friends rose nobly to the occasion. They surrounded Raisuli's house and village with per- haps a thousand men, all armed and prepared, and demanded that I should be handed over to them, threatening that, if this were not immediately carried out, they would shoot or arrest Raisuli. It was a little coup-d'etat, and it was successful. In the middle of the night I was hustled out of the small room which I shared with a dozen guards, placed on the back of a mule, and carried off into the Anjera mountains by my friends of that tribe. For six hours we proceeded through mountain passes and thick brushwood, arriving soon after sunrise at the village of Sheikh Duas, one of the most influential of the Anjera tribesmen. It was a journey I will never forget — the dark-

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ness of the moonless night, the rough mountain tracks, the silence of the hundreds of armed men who accompanied me, and the intense relief that, even if my captivity was long protracted, I was amongst men who would, at any rate, protect my life. I was tired and weak. Nine days of constant strain, in great heat, on a diet of inferior dry bread and water, with the necessity the whole time of pretending rather to enjoy the situation than otherwise, had worn me out. But from the friendly tribe of Anjera I received nothing but kindness — every word, every act of theirs was cheering and thoughtful ; and though life among them was rough enough in its way, I owe them a debt of gratitude that it will be difficult ever to repay. I remained twelve days at Sheikh Duas's village in the Anjera mountains, and throughout that period I never suffered an indignity or an insult from him or his people. A little room in his house was put at my disposal, and infinite pains were taken to render it clean and habitable. The best of such food as was procurable was given me — milk and cream-cheese, and a rough porridge of sour milk and millet. His followers — for Duas is not above being a cattle robber on a large scale — helped me to pass my time pleasantly enough, and with them I explored the neighbouring moun- tains, and sat in the shade of the fruit trees of their little gardens listening to their local musicians or watching the ungraceful movements of their dancing-girls. I made friends there whose friend- ship I shall always value. I was treated as one of

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the tribe. I wore their dress, shaved my head, and conformed to all their customs ; but above and beyond all, my anxiety was at an end — I knew that I was out of grave danger.

Meanwhile the British Minister, ably assisted by the Shereef of Wazzan, was carrying on the negoti- ations. Although I was now amongst friends, these negotiations were delicate and difficult, for the Anjera tribe had given their word to the other tribes concerned not to release me until their prisoners were set free, and these other tribes were constantly desirous of changing their condi- tions, and, owing to the distances which separated them, this necessarily meant delay. The very fact that I was now some twenty-seven miles — a day's journey — from Tangier protracted the negotiations. Several times I seemed on the point of release, but some small hitch, unimportant, it is true, would arise and a delay occur.

Except for this, time passed pleasantly; the scenery was delightful, and although it was the middle of summer the air was cool at this altitude. Little streams of water ran in every direction, and I was able to bathe and be clean once more. To all intents and purposes I was free to go where I pleased, and though always accompanied by guards, so thoughtful and kind were they that one forgot that they were there to prevent my escape, and we all became the best of friends. Meanwhile the Shereef of Wazzan spared himself no trouble. No sun was too hot for him to travel, no journey too tiring for him to undertake. He

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attended the tribal meetings and made known to the headman the British Minister's intentions with regard to the tribal prisoners, orders for whose release had meanwhile been received from the Sultan. His Majesty's readiness to comply with Sir Arthur Nicolson's request was deserving of all praise, for it must be remembered that the action of the rebels throughout was intended to humiliate the Sultan and his Government. What rendered the situation during my captivity, especially during the first part of it, doubly insecure was the fact that the tribes were in active communication with the Pretender to the Moorish Throne — the leader of the rebellion in the Rif, — and it was proposed over and over again to send me to him as a useful hostage ; and, had it not been for my friendship with the An j era tribe — a friendship of long stand- ing— I have no doubt this proposal would have been carried out.

On Saturday, 4th July, a large tribal meeting was held near Sheikh Duas's village, and during the usual wrangling which occurred on these occasions the Shereef of Wazzan arrived, having travelled the twenty-seven miles from Tangier that day, in spite of the heat of the July sun. His opportune presence settled my fate, and the negotiations were brought to a conclusion, not without considerable opposition. The following day a large contingent of tribesmen, the Shereef, and I set out for Tangier, spending the night some twelve miles from that place. Even here a last attempt was made — an attempt that nearly led

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to bloodshed — to prevent my release, but happily unsuccessfully. The next morning we moved down towards my own house, which stands alone, some two and a half miles from the town. In a ruined fort a quarter of a mile from my villa a halt was made, and messengers were despatched to town with letters to the British Minister to release the tribal prisoners, who for the last week or so had been comfortably housed in the basement of the British Consulate, having been brought up from Laraiche in specially-chartered steamers. Within an hour we saw the sixteen prisoners arriving, and very shortly afterwards they were being welcomed by their friends. Lord Cranley, Mr Wyldbore-Smith, Mr Kirby Green, and Mr Carleton accompanied the prisoners on behalf of the British Legation, but no formal exchange took place. The moment the prisoners arrived I was free to depart, though the many adieux that I had to make with my mountain friends took some little time. We parted on the best of terms, and, wild and savage as the two hundred tribesmen looked, I could not but feel how great a debt of gratitude I owed them for having released me from the dangers and discomforts of my first days of captivity.

For a year after this adventure R-aisuli remained tolerably quiet, but the following spring he carried out a coup even more daring. He surrounded the villa of Mr Perdicaris at night, and carried off both the proprietor and his son-in-law. The American Government sent a fleet to Tangier, and the whole

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world watched the ensuing negotiations. Mr Per- dicaris and Mr Varley were restored to liberty ; but at what a price ! Raisuli demanded and obtained from the Sultan the following terms. That he should be appointed the Governor of all the districts in the neighbourhood of Tangier ; that the existing Governor — his former friend, who had betrayed him — should be deposed ; a ransom of $70,000, the imprisonment of all his enemies, and the release from prison of all his friends — and other concessions of less importance. The Sultan surrendered, and the terms were carried out. Raisuli found himself all-powerful — a hero in the eyes of the Moors, a menace in those of Europe.

His first acts were good. He put down the effervescence which Bou Hamara's rebellion had caused in the neighbourhood, and he opened the roads to caravan traffic, and since he was made Governor not a single caravan had been robbed within the limits of his jurisdiction. He brought about, in fact, a period of greater security than had existed during the previous year or two — but a security that depended upon Raisuli was natu- rally a doubtful one.

As his influence increased he became a despot. He squeezed the people under him, and extorted money from even the very poorest of the poor. The Maghzen lived in terror of him, and let him know it, with the result that he ignored their orders and commands, and even the treaties with Europe. He threatened and blackmailed even the

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Maghzen authorities, who openly acknowledged then- incapacity to deal with him, and he became at the same time the protector and the scourge of Tangier and the surrounding districts. He enforced his authority up to the very gates of the town, and his armed followers even entered and dragged out of prison men who were not in his jurisdiction. His representatives administered jus- tice (!) in the market-place, and beat people to death within a few yards of the French and German Lega- tions. In 1906 Raisuli had reached the zenith of his power. At Zinat it was sufficient to tell a man that he was a prisoner, and he would never attempt to escape. There was no need to lock him up — he knew that his master's arm was long enough to reach him wherever he fled to, — and the strange sight of dozens of prisoners at liberty could be seen there on any day. Raisuli showed all the qualities required by a strong Governor in Morocco, but unfortunately he overdid it. For him there existed no treaties. His and his representatives' actions at this period are well known. The flog- ging of protected natives, the cutting off of the electric light, the blackmailing of Europeans, the destruction of property — a long list of acts of unbearable tyranny.

At length the representatives of the European Powers could endure it no longer. They addressed a collective Note to the Moorish Minister of Foreign Affairs at Fez, demanding that an end be made to the impossible state of affairs existing in the Tangier districts. It was almost an ulti-

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matum, for the bay was full of the warships of France and Spain, present to protect European interests until the introduction of the new police. The Sultan and his viziers could not misunderstand the purport of this Note. The Minister of War was ordered to proceed to Tangier with all avail- able forces.

Early in January 1907 the troops that had arrived from Fez were camped not many miles from Raisuli's stronghold, waiting for orders to attack. News was brought to me that this attack would take place two days later, on Saturday, 6th January; and it was still dark when that morning, at a very early hour, I left Tangier on horseback with three trusted Moors to see what I could of it. I had clothed myself in the flowing dress of a trooper of Moorish irregular cavalry, as I knew that orders had been issued to prevent Europeans approaching the spot, and also so as to be able to move about the scene of action with- out attracting notice. Before we had emerged into the open country we had passed no less than six outposts of some twenty-five men each, for the Maghzen authorities had been taking great precautions to protect the town ; but even the clattering of our horses' shoes upon the paved roads failed to wake a single man from the deep slumber in which they were lying inside their tents. At dawn we were a good many miles away, but we had time to spare, and rode slowly, realising that a long day lay before us ; and it was seven o'clock before, from the point of a low

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hill, the camp of the Shereefian troops was visible in the plain below us. A mile to our left was the famous hill of Zinat, with its rocky crests and precipices, and its steep lower slopes stretching down to the plain, at places dotted with olive groves. Set in the midst of this background stood Raisuli's stronghold, a large rambling building, half-fort, half-house, with windows dotted irregu- larly about its front, and here and there a battle- mented tower rising above the rest of the roof, a strong building in a very strong position. Away behind Zinat and in front of us rose the higher peaks of the Beni Msaour Mountains, range beyond range, until, bounding the eastern horizon, they were overtopped by the snow-clad summits of Beni Hassan. There were no signs of the coming struggle at that moment. Cattle were feeding near the little villages on the plain, and thin white smoke, hanging heavily in the bright air, issued from the thatched roofs and tents of the plains-people as they cooked their breakfasts. In the Shereefian camp there was some movement, and near Raisuli's stronghold his followers could be seen strolling about, while the smoking chim- neys of his house bespoke the fact that they too were preparing their breakfasts.

It was nine o'clock before the scene changed. Clear in the still air a bugle rang out in the camp. They must have heard it away at Zinat, for sud- denly from the summit of the rocks above Raisuli's fortress a long thin column of white smoke arose, then another and another, and then from peak to

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peak, as far as the eye could reach, the fires were answered. The mountaineers were signalling to one another that the great battle was imminent. Down in the camp below us the infantry were " falling in " and the cavalrymen mounting their horses, and it was only a few minutes later when amongst the beating of drums and the blowing of bugles, the neighing of horses and the fluttering of coloured banners and flags, the Shereefian troops marched out on to the plain. A hoarse shout arose from every throat, " Ah ! salih en- Nebi, Rasoul Allah ! " an invocation to the Prophet, repeated again and again, and answered by a far-away and fainter cry of the same words from the fortress and rocks of Zinat.

Once all the troops are out on the plain they are drawn up in formation for the attack. On the right were the artillery, two field-guns, and a couple of Maxims, carried by mules. Near them, amidst a panoply of banners, rode the Commander-in-Chief and his staff, a group of a hundred or so persons well mounted and gaily dressed, with their bright saddles of every shade of coloured cloth and silk adding to a scene already brilliantly pictur- esque. In the centre were some 800 infantry with a strong support of tribal cavalry, while on the left a somewhat smaller force formed the flank. The contingent of loyal mountaineers in their short black cloaks could be seen already scaling some low hills away on the extreme right. Then slowly the whole army advances.

It was a moment of thrilling excitement. From

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the rocky hill where I had taken up my point of vantage the whole scene was passing at my very feet. On my left the fortress and rocks ; on my right the slowly advancing forces — the left flank within a hundred yards or so of where I stood. At Zinat there was not a sign of life, though with my glasses I could see the glint of rifle-barrels in the em- brasures of the house, and now and then amongst the precipices and rocks above it. The troops are within 1200 yards now, and in the open, but still advancing slowly, for the most part in close forma- tion, and offering even at that range — a long one for the Moors, who are proverbial bad shots — an excellent target. The sunlit air is so still that every little sound rises unbroken from the plain below : a word of command here, a bugle-call there. Then suddenly the firing opens from Zinat — the quick nervous spitting of the Mauser rifles, — rendered the more impressive from the fact that nothing can be seen, for there is not a single man there who does not use smokeless powder. A few Askaris are seen to fall, killed or wounded, and the advance ceases. The whole army replies, firing at an impossible range into a solid fort and still more solid precipice with rifles that have only reached Morocco after they have long been dis- carded as useless in Europe, and with powder that issues, evil-looking and evil-smelling, from the barrels of their weapons. After all, it made little difference where they fired, for few or none had ever handled a rifle before, and there was nothing to shoot at. Meanwhile the cavalry

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galloped to and fro in every direction, except to advance, waving flags and firing their rifles, appa- rently at the green plover that swept over in flocks, disturbed by the unusual racket.

Inane impotent warfare, carried on by undis- ciplined and uncourageous men, whose uniforms alone bespoke them as soldiers.

A curl of thin yellow smoke, widening as it ascended, rises from the rocks far above the house — the first shell fired by the artillery, followed by another and another, which, although aimed at the house itself, fall in widely different directions, more than once nearer the Maghzen troops than the enemy. During the entire action of this Saturday, although the range was only about 1000 metres, the house was only struck twice, and even the explosion of these two shells did not force the defenders to abandon the flat roof and windows, though they cannot have failed to be effective. Meanwhile the troops on the left, under the cover of the rocks, had entered and burned a village out of Raisuli's line of fire, and were return- ing toward the camp laden with loot, under the impression that their duty for the day was over. Nor did any one attempt to persuade them to re-enter the fight, and I watched them disappear, staggering under huge mattresses, chests of painted wood — the dowry of every Moorish bride, — and a thousand other household articles. For a back- ground— the burning village, the flames of which rose lurid and roaring into the still air, to pass away in great rolls of heavy white smoke.

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From one to two o'clock the firing slackened, but at the latter hour another attempt was made to advance. The whole line pushed forward, but 700 or 800 yards from Zinat they broke, and — well, if they did not exactly run, they certainly returned very quickly. It was at this moment that two picturesque incidents occurred. From Raisuli's house emerged a woman, who, crossing the open ground under a heavy fire, mounted upon a rock and thence cursed the troops. She threw back her thick " haik," and, tearing her hair, waved her arms towards heaven, but the firing drowned her voice. Then slowly and majestically she drew her veil around her and retired. A few seconds later eight men, no doubt encouraged by her bravery, rushed into the open grounds, shout- ing and jeering at the retiring forces, and firing the while with their Mausers. It was then that the Commander-in-Chief fell wounded in the neck. A mule was brought, and, supported by his ret- inue, he was hurriedly taken back to the camp. By this time the army had used up all their shells and nearly all their cartridges. Even a reserve force, hidden in a river-bed a mile in the rear, had been firing at that range at the mountain ever since the morning, to the imminent danger of their advancing comrades.

The army was now retiring in good order, fol- lowed by Raisuli's eight men, who every now and then sped a parting shot at them. The battle at Zinat was over. The great effort of the Maghzen had failed, and the stronghold and village, except

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for a few holes made by the shells, stood as placid and peaceful in appearance as it had been in the morning. The great Shereefian army had proved itself to be — like everything else in Morocco, except perhaps Raisuli himself — a gigantic bluff.

It was well on in the afternoon now, and the scene of the fight was deserted. I crept up a little gully to within 400 or 500 yards of the house, and, peeping from between the rocks, I took a long view with my glasses. On the green sward in front of the house stood a man holding a pair of glasses to his eyes. On either side of him were a few retainers. He stood silent and still, watching the retreating army. It was Raisuli.

At dawn on Sunday morning I was back again in the hills near Zinat. Never did the sun rise over a more peaceful scene or one more serenely beautiful. Peak after peak, many touched with snow, turned pink and gold as the first rays of the rising sun touched their summits. At Zinat itself all was quiet. A little blue smoke, the smoke of wood fire, arose from the chimneys of Raisuli' s house, in front of which half a dozen mountaineers were warming themselves over a small bonfire.

It was nine o'clock before the troops left the camp, and, deploying in much the same formation as the day before, advanced across the plain. But their numbers were increased, for reinforce- ments had been hurriedly sent by night from Tangier, and fresh contingents of loyal moun- taineers had turned up in force. But what was still more important was the addition of one man,

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an Algerian artillery officer attached to the Sultan's service by the French Government, whose shooting with the field-guns at Taza and Oujda had largely saved the situation at both places. It had been the intention of the Maghzen to send him on Saturday, but owing to his being a French subject they decided not to do so, as in their own con- sideration any one to do with France was at this period a person to be avoided. Their folly lost them the day. Had Si Abderrahman ben Sedira been behind the guns on Saturday, Raisuli's house, and probably Raisuli and most of his followers, would have been destroyed. The proof, if one were needed, is this. He accomplished more destruction with the two shells he fired at the fortress on Sunday morning than in the 130 shots fired on Saturday. A general advance toward Zinat was commenced a little before two, and the two shells above mentioned were fired from the field-guns. There was no reply from the house or from the rocks above it. Already the troops were considerably nearer than they had ever got the previous day. A little hesitation was visible, for no doubt the soldiers imagined that they were being allowed to approach to within an easy and certain range. The left were well ahead, led by Raisuli's late Calipha, more royalist than the King nowadays, who was followed close by his contingent of the Fahs tribe. Three hundred yards only now separated them from the village. With a wild shout and a volley from then* rifles the cavalry charged. Over the rising ground they

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passed, a brilliant flash of colour, and never drew rein till they were at Raisuli's door.

The house and village were empty. Then began a scene of pandemonium. Askaris, horsemen, and tribal contingents rushed upon the castle, and the wildest looting commenced. Other bands, intent upon pillage, ransacked the neighbouring houses. In a few minutes flames burst forth from the thatched roofs of the surrounding huts. The flames spread, and in as short a space of time as it takes to write it the whole village was ablaze. The strong wind drove the heavy smoke in huge clouds across the face of the mountain, and in half an hour all that was left of Zinat were the burning houses from above which Raisuli's for- tress towered, as yet but slightly damaged. Then smoke burst out from its windows. The roof, already half blown off by the shells, fell with a crash ; a wall toppled over in clouds of dust, and little by little the stronghold became a useless ruin. Not a shot was fired from the mountain, for there was no one to fire one. Silently in the night Raisuli and his followers, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, with all their old people, their women and children, and their flocks and herds, had crept away into the darkness over the plain and on into the mountains. Not a guard had been posted to keep watch, not a blow had been struck to prevent them escaping. Under the rocks upon which I was seated the soldiers, laden with loot, were returning. Carpets, mattresses, boxes, vases of artificial flowers, tea-trays and tea-cups,

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sacks of flour and grain, rolls of matting — all the belongings and appurtenances of Moorish houses formed their burdens. One soldier, a cheery kindly-looking giant, was whistling to a canary in a cage, which he had brought away in preference to more valuable loot.

As I rode over the brow of the hill on my way back to Tangier I drew rein for a moment and looked back. The army was leaving Zinat, and the burning houses were little more than heaps of smouldering ashes. Beyond lay the high moun- tains of Beni Msaour, whence Raisuli and the inhabitants of his villages must have been looking upon the ruins of their homes.

II.

RAISULI was now completely outlawed. He lived in the fastness of his mountains, where the Sultan's troops could never even attempt to penetrate. Thence he spread alarm right and left, causing constant fears and panics, even to the Europeans at Tangier.

The whole situation in Morocco was seething. The tribes had become to all intents and purposes independent, and many threw off all pretence of obeying the orders of their Governors or of paying taxes. Such as were more vulnerable, either from their geographical position or by their numerical weakness, were persecuted and squeezed to make up for the delinquencies of the others. The rapacity of the viziers was greater than ever, and the Sultan's extravagances seemed to have in- creased by the fresh supply of money that an ill- advised foreign loan had a year or two before brought into his spending power. Bou Hamara, the Pretender, in the Rif, and Raisuli amongst the mountain tribes, were the two principal thorns in the Maghzen's side. With Bou Hamara, who stated that he was the eldest brother of the Sultan, nothing could be done. He remained in the

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inaccessible Rif tribe-lands, where he governed as a petty Sultan ; and even the Spanish authorities, who waited long to see him driven out, were at last obliged to enter into relation with him, in order to ensure the security of their "Presidios." That Bou Hamara and Raisuli were in com- munication is certain, but there was little respect and little confidence between them, and except for the passage of letters no compact of real or practical importance seems to have existed between them. Yet that their relations were cordial is clear, from the original document in my possession sealed by Bou Hamara with his great seal of State, by which he appoints Raisuli Governor of certain of the mountain tribes. On this seal of State, Bou Hamara uses the style " Mohammed ben Hassen " — claiming thereby to be Mulai Moham- med, the eldest son of Mulai Hassen, and therefore the elder brother of the reigning Sultan.

Raisuli had no pretensions to the Sultanate, though in the eyes of Europe he played a more important part, for his principal activities were employed in the districts of Tangier, the diplo- matic capital of the country.

In 1906 that futile Conference of Algeciras — futile, that is to say, in so far as it had any bene- ficial effect in Morocco — had met, discussed, signed, and separated. It had for Europe, no doubt, cleared the situation, and was a check to Germany ; but poor Morocco gained little — in fact, it marked one more step on its road to ruin. Never probably did such a collection of diplomatists, whose high-

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sounding titles fill the first few pages of that insignificant little yellow -book which contains the results of their insignificant labours, give themselves airs of such importance. For days together they discussed the questions of the import of sporting-guns and the rifling of gun-barrels with all the pomposity of affairs of the gravest moment — to pass to the rules for the distribution of parcels post. Three or four men were playing a great stake — representatives of England and France, and of Germany — and it was well played. The victory remained with the two former. The rest were puppets, but didn't realise it. They really thought, or seemed to think, that their endeavours were being of service to the country which few of them knew anything about, beyond the distant view they could obtain of it from the hills above Algeciras.

Northern Morocco was at its worst the year after the Algeciras Act had been signed, and even the pleasure-loving Mulai Abdul Aziz perceived that affairs were becoming serious. He decided to open negotiations with Raisuli. For this purpose Kaid Maclean had an interview with the brigand chief in April (1907). Raisuli listened to the Raid's proposals, but refused to accompany him to Fez, where the Sultan was then residing. However, a step had been made toward a possible arrangement. A month later, armed with the authority of the Sultan, Kaid Maclean returned to Alcazar, a town on the Tangier-Fez road, situated about sixty miles from the former. But

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meanwhile it has leaked out that Raisuli would attempt the capture of this important functionary. Every effort was made by the Sultan, who had also received the news, and by the British Legation, to cancel the interview, and the British Consular Agent at Alcazar was instructed to this effect to continue the negotiations. An interview with Raisuli was secretly arranged, to be held on the borders of the Ahlserif tribe-lands, some few miles from Alcazar. There these two personages met. The Sultan's propositions were made known to Raisuli, who pretended to accept them, and to be disposed to return to Fez with the Kaid. He would, he said, start at once, and if the Kaid would accompany him to the village where his camp was pitched they would set out the next day. The Kaid agreed, and entered the mountains with his host — only there was no setting out the next day, for he found himself a prisoner, and remained in captivity for some seven months, suffering considerable hardships.

Of all the negotiations for the obtaining of the liberty of Raisuli' s prisoners, these were the most difficult. The terms demanded by Raisuli were preposterous, and a score of people seemed negotiat- ing on their own account, while the Kaid himself was doing his utmost, and very naturally, to obtain his release. The result was confusion and mis- understanding, and the distance from Tangier at which Raisuli kept his captive increased the difficulties. Had the whole affair been left in the hands of Sir Gerard Lowther, who at this period

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ably represented England in Morocco, it is probable that Kaid Maclean's release would have been more quickly obtained. But on every occasion on which a solution seemed near some perfectly new pro- position, emanating from unauthorised sources, would frustrate the official plans. In the end Raisuli obtained £20,000, and he was made a British protected subject ; and there were other minor terms. Kaid Maclean was released. The only pleasing aspect of all these brigandage cases was the absolute confidence that Raisuli always placed in the word of the British Government, the British authorities, and in fact that of all Britishers.

Some years after this event, when the ex-Sultan Mulai Abdul, Aziz, who had just abdicated, was visit- ing my villa at Tangier, I showed him two Arabic documents. One was his original " Dahir " for the nomination of Raisuli as Governor of the tribes, which the brigand had extorted as part of the ransom of Perdicaris ; and the other was Raisuli' s appointment as Governor of the same tribes, bearing another great seal of State, that of the Pretender, Bou Hamara. Mulai Abdul Aziz asked me how I had become possessed of these two documents. I told him. The " Dahir " of the Pretender I had found, during my im- prisonment, in a secret cupboard in a room of Raisuli's house at Zinat. I had carried it, sewn up in my clothing, with other equally interesting correspondence, during the whole period of my captivity. The firman of the Sultan himself I

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had obtained the day Raisuli's house was looted by the Maghzen troops, at which picturesque incident I had been present.

The ex-Sultan smiled. " There seems," he said rather cynically, "to be nothing of interest in Morocco which hasn't reached either your know- ledge or your hands ; nothing that you haven't had given you — acquired ? "

" The most valuable of all things was given me," I replied.

" And that was ? " X" Your Majesty's friendship."

It was at this period, while an outlaw in the mountains, that Raisuli nearly made his most important capture. It was an incident that was kept very quiet at the time, but leaked out in the French Press a little later. The truth was, we Europeans who played a part — and we very nearly played a very serious part — in the story had no desire for publicity.

The facts were these. The ruins of Raisuli's stronghold at Zinat were only distant from Tangier about fourteen miles, and formed a tempting excursion, but one which no one undertook, as it was notoriously unsafe. However, as time went on and nothing occurred in the neighbourhood of Tangier to disturb the tranquillity, and as Raisuli and his band seemed permanently to have taken up their residence in the mountains at a con- siderable distance from the scene of their former activities, a picnic at Zinat was decided upon, and I was invited. The other members of our

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party consisted of Sir Gerard Lowther, then British Minister to Morocco, Monsieur and Madame de Beaumarchais of the French Legation, and Mr Christopher Lowther, the son of the Speaker of the House of Commons. I formed the fifth member of the party.

One hot summer morning we rode out, having sent our lunch on in advance. On nearing Zinat we were hailed by a countryman who was plough- ing his fields. I rode to see what he wanted, and was informed that Raisuli's band was back at Zinat, apparently having come to take away some treasure which had, by being buried, escaped the looting of the soldiery at the time of the destruc- tion of the castle. He advised us not to proceed. We discussed this news, and in the folly of an enjoyable excursion, decided, as the lunch was on ahead, to proceed. Nothing could surpass the tranquillity of the scene on our arrival, and we were soon lunching under the shade of the olive- trees. I confess that the pleasure of the foie-gras was mingled, in my case, with a certain nervous apprehension from which the others appeared immune. We did not believe, or had pretended not to believe, the story of the return of Raisuli's brigands.

Lunch was nearly over when the glint of a rifle- barrel in the thick brushwood caught my eye, and another and yet another in the rocks, for the hill at Zinat is a wild precipitous slope of broken masses of rock and scrub. A minute later we were surrounded. The men were perfectly polite, and

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to all intents and purposes appeared merely to have come to wish us good- day. At their head was the good-looking young Ahmed el-Aoufi, Raisuli's second-in-command, a personal friend of my own, who had shown me considerable kindness during my captivity with the brigands in 1903. He shook us warmly by the hand, and, his rifle between his knees, sat down to spend the time of day. A few yards away, in a complete circle round us, were thirty or forty of his men.

I confess that situations like this exhilarate me. I hate bloodshed and noisy encounters, but a delicate situation has a zest that is unique, and, heavens ! it was a delicate situation. The British Minister and the French Charge d' Affaires — what a coup ! I was the only member of the party who spoke Arabic, and the suspense the others must have suffered during the next hour or two must have been extreme. Yet no one made a sign. I have often seen great examples of self-restraint, but never, I think, greater than on this occasion. Remember, my friends understood nothing of what I was saying, except that every now and again I referred to them for confirmation of my assertions. For me the situation was very exciting. If I was taken after all, it was only what had happened before, and I was used to adventure and hardship — but for the others ! and I could not help thinking of the terms — probably impossible terms — that Raisuli would demand for their re- lease— and of the possible consequences ! I have found on occasions like these — for this was by

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no means the only tight place of the kind that I have been in — that not only is there a kind of exhilaration, but also that one's power of concentration of thought is accentuated. How- ever inauspicious the actual surroundings may be, one feels and knows that the mental superiority rests with the European, and that hereditary training of thought and education stand one in good stead. The Moor is no fool, he is cunning and astute, but his mind is untrained — and he is confiding when dealing with Europeans. In the first moments of our encounter at Zinat I knew that our safety depended upon the game that I was determined to play — and which I played successfully.

I began with an enormous untruth. Holding El-Aoufi's hand, I told him I was delighted to see him, and that his visit was most opportune — nothing, in fact, could have been better. Then I sat him down, and talked to him and to his chief companions seriously. It was at this moment that Madame de Beaumarchais, with the admir- able sangfroid of a talented and courageous Frenchwoman, took a photograph. The man to whom I was talking was Ould el-Aoufi ; the Euro- pean seated just behind me was the late Sir Gerard Lowther.

The story that I told them was this. I reminded them that Raisuli had been driven from the Governorship of Tangier and the surrounding tribes at the demand of the European Powers. They had acted unwisely and realised it, and now

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they regretted their action. " Do you know," I asked, " who these people are who are here to-day ? "

" We are not sure," they replied.

" Then I will teU you," and I did. Instead of, as would seem natural, trying to conceal the identity of my distinguished friends, I launched out into exaggerated statements as to their im- portance. I saw I had made an impression. My audience were now thoroughly puzzled.

" And why are they here ? " I asked. " Listen, and I will tell you. The Powers of Europe regret Raisuli's departure and disgrace. They desire him to be reinstated, but the Sultan has refused. The Powers insist, and as the Maghzen still holds out, the Governments of England and France have telegraphed to their representatives — the gentle- men you see here to-day — instructing them to visit the scene of the depredations on Raisuli's castle, and to make all the necessary arrangements for its reconstruction as quickly as possible, so that Raisuli can be restored to his own, and once more introduce law and order into the region. For this purpose we are come to-day — against the advice of all our friends — so that the work can be undertaken at once. Meanwhile the letter recalling Raisuli from the mountains is being drawn up." I then added, " We were warned on the way that we should find you here, and advised to turn back, but I told the people who warned us that Raisuli's men would perfectly understand our mission, and nice trouble they

[Photo by Madame de Beavmarchttit. THE AUTHOR, EL AOUFI, AND RAISULl's BRIGANDS.

[Photo by Madame de Beautnarchais.

THE AUTHOR MEASURING THE WALLS OF THE RUINS OF

RAISULI'S HOUSE. (The European standing in the background is the late

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would get into with their chief if they captured the very men who are insisting on restoring him to his former grandeur, and obtaining the return of all his confiscated property — and even rebuild- ing his castle at the expense of the Governments ^ they represent. " I should like to see your face, -^n^ friend Ahmed el-Aoufi, after Raisuli had discovered the ' gaffe ' that you had made ; and if I know your chief, friend and confidant as you are, I can imagine the stripes he could lay upon your bare back. Do you think that, unless we had been really his benefactors, we should ever have been such fools to have ventured into this hornets' nest ? Now up with you," I cried, rising, " and we will see what we can do with these ruins."

I led the way down to the ruins, and for the next hour measured walls, took notes of the local price of masons and carpenters and the possibilities of obtaining bricks on the spot, proposed a new water-supply which the laws of gravitation ren- dered quite impossible, and even whispered in El-Aoufi's ear that there would be money to build him a little house adjoining his chief's. We came to the conclusion that for between £12,000 and £15,000, taking into consideration that Raisuli could obtain a plentiful supply of forced labour, and as much material as he liked, the house could be restored to more than its pristine glories.

Another photograph taken by Madame de Beau- marchais pictures us pacing out the length of the walls of the house.

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My note-book full of figures, I sat down again and dictated to El-Aoufi the following letter, which he wrote : "To the trusted and well-beloved Shereef , the learned Mulai Ahmed er-Raisuli, peace and the mercy of God be upon you ; and acting on the instructions of their Governments, of which the letter I sent you yesterday will have given you full particulars, the British Minister and the French Charge d' Affaires have paid a visit to the ruins of your Kasbah. They have grieved much to see its piteous state. As you will have learned by the contents of my letter, it is the intention of their Governments not only to restore you to power but also to reconstruct your castle. To-day we are at Zinat, and we had the good fortune to find your faithful and intelligent deputy, my lord Ahmed el-Aoufi, and your followers, who have been of great use to us, and have shown us many things that have helped us, and have guarded us in security and peace from any bad people who may have been about. We are grateful. And my lord Ahmed el-Aoufi will tell you of many things which in our friendship for you we have confided to him. We will await at Tangier a reply to the letter I sent you yesterday, explaining fully those things, and immediately on receiving the reply measures will be taken to commence the restora- tion of your Kasbah ; but it is trusted that you will not wait its completion before returning to your former position, for any delay will only protract the unsatisfactory state of affairs existing at present, and continue the nervousness of the

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population of Tangier and the oppression of the poor country people. My lord El-Aoufi will tell you all. May peace be with you."

To this epistle I put my signature, and not one pang of conscience did I feel, nor have felt since. Raisuli and I had played many games — only this one was a little bigger than the rest. To tell the truth, so far from feeling guilty, I literally revelled in my deception.

It was time to return to Tangier, and I confess I was nervous. I proposed to El-Aoufi that the others should start first, and that I should remain for a while and catch them up on the road. I wanted to spend, I said, a little while longer in his company — it was a pleasure so rare and so valued.

With a sigh of relief I saw the rest of our party mount. El-Aoufi shook hands with all of them and thanked them for their visit — and they rode slowly away. My fears were at an end.

I sat for half an hour, and explained to El-Aoufi that Raisuli would have already received my (perfectly imaginary) letter of yesterday which explained the whole situation, and that on his return to his chief in the mountains, some six or eight hours' journey farther on, he would find him fully informed. He (El-Aoufi) must, I added, have crossed my letter en route. Had he not met the messenger, whose name I gave ? No ! Well, then, he must have taken another track. My friends were now no more than little black specks far away in the plain. I rose and embraced El-

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Aoufi, and in the manner of the country we kissed each other's shoulders. My horse was brought, and, cantering slowly down the slope, I rode away toward Tangier.

In spite of the deliberate series of falsehoods of which I had been guilty during those few hours, I never felt less conscience-stricken — and perhaps never happier — in my life.

I have seen Raisuli many times since the inci- dent. He referred to El- Aoufi, after a trial fight, as a lion of courage.

" There was no finer creature in God's world," I replied, " than the lion, but sometimes the wily jackal deceives him."

I noticed a little flash in Raisuli' s eye, but he answered languidly, " Verily the jackal is an unclean beast."

Sir Gerard Lowther, the Beaumarchais, Christo- pher Lowther, and I all dined together the night of our adventure, but we didn't talk very much about it. Our thankfulness for our escape was only equalled by our appreciation of our immense folly in having undertaken the expedition. We agreed that, if possible, the incident was to be kept a secret, but a few weeks later the ' Temps ' contained the whole story, which had leaked out from native sources and got to Paris.

I should have liked to have seen the interview of Raisuli and El- Aoufi when the latter related the incident and gave him my letter. He fell from favour for a time, as might be expected, but he came to see me in Tangier a few months

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later. We did not mention the visit to Zinat, but discussed more general subjects. Talking of the good and bad qualities of mankind, El-Aoufi said, " The most degrading thing in the world is deceit," and he said it quite nastily.

" In my opinion there is something even more humiliating," I replied.

" That is ? "

" To be made a fool of."

But we parted the best of friends.

III.

ALTHOUGH, as will have been appreciated, my relations with Raisuli were varied and adventure- some, I bear him no grudge ; and I think he always considered me as a friend, and I hope does so now. He has, on his visits to Tangier, often spent hours at a time in my house, discussing the many situa- tions in the country and the varying attitudes of the mountain tribes. He had lost much of his former handsome appearance, having become heavy and stout, and his expression perhaps more cruel. He was always courteous and generally amusing, often in a very sarcastic cynical manner. He was full of his own importance, and seemed to realise that he was unique — which, perhaps happily, he certainly was.

On one occasion while at my house, he saw in a glass case an illuminated Koran of considerable artistic value, both on account of its antiquity and of its beauty. Now, the Moors cannot bear to see their religious books in the possession of Europeans, and Raisuli, without more ado, ex- tracted the book from the vitrine, kissed it rever- ently, carefully wrapped it in a silk handkerchief, and placed it in the hands of one of his slaves.

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He gave no explanation of his action, which, after all, needed no explanation. The conversation flowed on in other channels, and he never so much as mentioned the book. A little later he left — and so did my Koran.

I had two of these Korans, but the one which Raisuli had taken was much the finest, from the collector's point of view. The second copy was, however, newer and more brilliant in colour, and certainly would appear in the eyes of a Moor a more desirable acquisition, for to them antiquity is of no great account. This second copy Raisuli had not seen.

The next day I sent one of my Moors with it, wrapped in silk, to ask Raisuli whether he would be willing to restore me the one he had taken in exchange for this newer and far better preserved volume. The first copy, I informed him, perhaps not quite truly, had a very great personal interest to me, and I begged him to accept the second and restore me the older one. I hinted that the second was a much superior book. My man returned crestfallen and sad. His mission had failed. He brought me many friendly messages from Raisuli but no book, neither the first nor the second, for Raisuli had kept both. It was ex-/ asperating, but there was nothing to be done but to swear to be equal with him at some future time.

One morning, about a month later, I sent to him asking him to lend me two riding-mules with their saddles, for some friends of mine to ride on

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to a picnic — good pacing mules, as my friends were not accustomed to riding. Half an hour later two very fine mules, caparisoned in rich red saddles, arrived, led by Raisuli's slaves. I myself put them in my stable and turned the key. I then sent to Raisuli to say that when I had my books he could have his mules. One of his secre- taries returned with my messenger, and after the usual compliments informed me that his master had instructed him to say that the books were invaluable, and that he could not restore them. The mules were mine, he added ; in fact every- thing Raisuli possessed was mine — except, of course, the books — and if I required more mules or horses he could send me as many as I wished. He could easily have done so : he possessed dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, nearly all confiscated or extorted from the people of the country. They had cost him nothing to get, then they would therefore cost little to give.

My conscience smote me. My little trick ap- peared so mean beside this dignified magnificence and generosity of Raisuli. I offered to restore the mules, but he would not hear of it. They continued in my stables, and my friendship with their former owner flowed on undiminished and unchanged. I saw him often. Since the episode of the Koran, books have never been mentioned between us ; now mules were also placed upon the Index. Never directly or indirectly in his conversations did we ever refer to the subject. Nor was my capture ever spoken of. Only once a tactless

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European broached in the brigand chief's presence of my having been for some time at his stronghold at Zinat. With a pleasant smile Raisuli interposed : " My house is always at the disposal of my friends." Hospitality is innate in the Moorish character.

The giving and taking of presents was practised a great deal in the " old " Morocco, but it is now happily disappearing. It was always a great nuisance. One often gave away something one really wanted — and it was so difficult to replace anything — and got in return some perfectly useless acquisition. I have arrived back in Tangier after a long journey in the interior with half a dozen new horses, most of them neither good nor bad. I couldn't possibly ride them all, and they were only a very irksome expense and luxury. At first, and for a long time, I hesitated to adopt the custom of the country, and hand them on as presents to some one else. A feeling possessed me that gifts were " sacrosanct," and must be kept at all costs, and that the giver would be hurt in his feelings to learn that his present had been passed on. But in time I found that the donor didn't care the least what became of his presents, or ever give them a second thought.

One of the viziers once gave me an amber neck- lace of transparent cut beads. He said the Sultan had given it to him, and that His Majesty had received it from a high official from the southern capital. A few years afterwards I gave it to a young European lady about to be married, as a wedding present, to find out that it had been her

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father who had brought it to Morocco — as looking much more expensive than it really was — and had given it to one of the tribal Governors in return for something else. It had travelled all over Morocco, but got home at last to where it had started from, to meet with no appreciation. We laughed over the history of the necklace, and the damsel got another present in exchange. My amber beads now deck the fair throat — if she ever wears them — of a beautiful and distinguished lady far away from Morocco.

My stables were often full to overflowing, and were a very great strain upon my resources, until I steeled my heart and gave the horses away as they came in. But unfortunately it was not horses the Moorish authorities wanted : they had already too many. No, it was one's watch or one's shot-gun, or a sporting-rifle, or a barometer or field-glasses that they always set their hearts upon — something rare and impossible to procure or replace in the country. Nor were one's troubles over when the exchange of presents was accom- plished, for there were the numberless tips that had to be given. A horse would be brought, led by a slave and accompanied by the chief of the stables and two grooms — and they had to be satisfied. Then probably the son of the donor would pay a visit to my camp and express a sudden and intense desire to be possessed of my shot-gun or my watch-chain ; and when he had left, satisfied perhaps with a less costly present from a box of objects brought for the purpose, the secretary of

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his father would arrive to apologise for the son's rudeness, and to say that he would be punished by his father for having ventured to ask for any- thing. He would sing the praises of my recently- acquired horse. Then a tone of sadness would be adopted. He was a poor man ; he had had troubles. He wouldn't have breathed of it to another, not if lions' teeth were tearing his entrails ; but he felt that the bond of sympathy between us was so close that — and then came out a long story, perfectly untrue of course, of the meanness of his employer, and of his unpaid salary, &c. He could keep his secret no longer, he must tell it, and with tears in his eyes he would beg for a sum of money, generally modest enough. However, there was always scope for bargaining, and his demands would diminish, till eventually he would go away with a few coins in ecstasy of pretended gratitude. Accepting the hospitality of the great chiefs was only a little less costly, and a night's enter- tainment by some dignitary or governor of a tribe was often both tiring and expensive. It meant a succession of visits to one's camp on the part of a host of inquisitive people, most of whom wanted something. There were the guards too, who were specially given one to keep away these inquisitive people, but who, in fact, only added to their number. These guards expected payment for the duties they so signally failed in accomplishing. Then great quantities of food were sent by the high official — living fowls, a live sheep, loaves of sugar, packets of tea, barley for the horses, and these

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commodities, supplied in abundance that was as extravagant as it was irksome, necessitated un- ending tips in exchange. It took three men, for instance, to lead the sheep, and a slave to carry each fowl — and one and all waited their pourboires before departing. Then at dinner-time — generally it was so late that it was nearly midnight — great dis

Morocco that was

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