Some thirty attendants, all dressed in white except for their red caps, surrounded the person of the Sultan, from whom, with white handkerchiefs, they kept off the flies. The regular troops presented arms, and the drums beat as His Majesty passed, whilst the female spectators screamed the ‘zagharit,’ or shout of joy.
April 18. Up before daylight. At seven o’clock the Sultan sent for me, and mounted on the Sherifian gift, I rode with a train of soldiers to the Ghásats E’Nil, or the Garden of the Nile, where it was arranged the audience should take place. The Mul Meshwa met me at the palace gate with his attendants, and I was conducted into a court some two hundred yards square, at the end of which, near the doorway of the palace, sat the ‘Exalted Presence’ on a raised platform in the open air. His Majesty was seated at first on a divan, but whilst I approached with measured steps, the divan was exchanged for a chair. Ben Dris was standing near. After various bows I came within some few paces of H.S.M. and then halted, when the Sultan said, ‘We have been glad to become acquainted with you; we had very friendly feelings towards your father, and have now the same towards you. Our minister has reported to us all you have represented, and we see that you are a prudent person and desirous of serving faithfully the interests of the two countries.’
I thanked His Majesty for such flattering sentiments, and expressed also my grateful acknowledgements for the readiness with which he had given ear and consented to the settlement of the various affairs that had been brought under his notice by the Uzir; but at the same time I urgently begged that he would keep in mind those affairs relating to commerce, upon which depended most important interests, as also the welfare of a large class of His Majesty’s subjects and those of my gracious Sovereign.
The Sultan replied that he should bear them in mind, but that he required time to consider the matter.
I then took leave, and H.S.M. commanded that I should be taken into the interior of the court and garden where his harem resided—a special favour which, the Sultan added, had been granted to my father, and therefore ‘the son should have the same privilege.’ Accompanied by two eunuchs, for I was now to be admitted within the prison cage of many a wild and lovely woman, we passed under a lofty archway, in which were two small carriages like bath-chairs, and entered the garden; like the rest in Marákesh, full of oranges, roses, and fruit-trees, adorned with fountains and wide walks. As we passed along the avenues I saw the spectre of a female vanish at our approach, and, as far as I dared indulge my curiosity, she was as pale and pretty as the negresses that accompanied her were sooty and hideous. The fair Sultana’s dress was white, and I confess I hardly observed how it was made, as I strained my vision to see her face rather than her form. At the windows, or small loop-holes of the palace, I could hear en passant whispers, and saw visions of tips of fingers, both white and black, and brilliant eyes darting fiery looks.
I came back by the way I had entered. The Sultan had retired. Ben Dris was still there, and we settled all remaining matters.
On April 18 Mr. Hay left Marákesh. On the 19th he writes:—While resting to-day, one of my Bokhári guards gave me a history of the origin of their becoming the body-guard of the Moorish Sultan, which legend I introduce as follows.
Mulai Ismael, who reigned some two hundred years ago, was one of the most powerful but vainglorious of the Moorish potentates who have been shadowed by the Sherifian umbrella. Desirous of extending his dominions, and in consequence of the black Kings of Sudan, Timbuktu, &c., not having sent him the customary annual present for some years, he determined to march into the desert and subdue the petty princes of the interior, who reigned over districts contiguous to his dominions.
Having prepared an army of ten thousand men he marched towards Timbuktu.
The Bokhári Kaid here described the sufferings and loss the army was said to have experienced on traversing the desert.