III. The Road to Ruin

BY the end of 1902 Mulai Abdul Aziz had returned to Fez, desirous of introducing reforms, and recklessly 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 extravagances, watched him waste his own and his country'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 innovation 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 contrary to Moslem tradition, it must be of Christian 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 playingcards 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 ezZarhonni, 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 disappeared 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 " — literally, 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 delayed 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 situation 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 permitted— 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 astonishment 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 expeditions. 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 resist 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 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 question was how to transport it. The Moorish soldier is not easily foiled, and the brave Doukkala regiment 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 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 Doukkalas 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 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 survivors 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 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 mutilated; 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 attendance 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, 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 protestation and his life. The soldier who narrated the incident added, " The Moorish soldier is an ungrateful and unbelieving individual. This man, for instance, had no confidence in us, his comrades, when we assured him he was dead. I hate ingratitude,"— 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.

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 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 Pretender under the name of Mohamed ben Hassen. No doubt Raisuli, who was at this moment Mulai

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 agreement 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 northwest 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 threatened. 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 Bakkasha, 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 evidently wanted to become a second Raisuli; but fate was against him. During a raid which he 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 subsequent 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 assassination 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 independence 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 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 his intention of considering Morocco as an independent 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 agreement to hold an International Conference on the subject of Morocco.

Meanwhile there was no improvement in the interior situation of Morocco. Bou Hamara maintained 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 depressing 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 seriously described as " evidences of Christian civilisation 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 civilisation " consist? Grand pianos and kitchenranges; automobiles and immense cases of corsets; wild animals in cages, and boxes of strange theatrical 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 fireworks; 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.

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 hammercloth was of scarlet and gold, and bore what were supposed to be the Royal Arms of Morocco— as a 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 happened 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 carriage. 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 grazingground 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 addition 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 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-andgold 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 beautiful hammer-cloth of scarlet and gold flapped 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 rusting 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 fortunes, 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 before 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 spent his money in ordering useless goods from. the various European countries, that it gave satisI 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 naturally did not know what was required, and left it to his commission agents to purchase the " necessary " 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 conversations; 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 subject 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 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 NorthWest 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 bear the brunt of the coming crisis. Every com-^\ mission agent had his vizier-partner, who recommended 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 surroundings 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 smouldering 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 today 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 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 impression upon His Majesty. He laughed at the rebellion and at my fears for his troops, at the Pretender 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 groundless." 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 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 Pretender'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 elAmarani, 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, preferred 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 indigestion. 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."