"But," I objected, "you told me formerly that while he lived no man's life or treasure was safe, that he extorted money from all, that he ground the faces of the rich and the poor, that when he died in this city, the Marrakshis said 'A dog is dead.' How now can you find words to praise him?"
"The people cry out," explained the Hadj calmly; "they complain, but they obey. In the Moghreb it is for the people to be ruled as it is for the rulers to govern. Shall the hammers cease to strike because the anvil cries out? Truly the prisons of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz were full while Ba Ahmad ruled, but all who remained outside obeyed the law. No man can avoid his fate, even my Lord el Hasan, a fighter all the days of his life, loved peace and hated war. But his destiny was appointed with his birth, and he, the peaceful one, drove men yoked neck and neck to fight for him, even a whole tribe of the rebellious, as these eyes have seen. While Ba Ahmad ruled from Marrakesh all the Moghreb trembled, but the roads were safe, as in the days of Mulai Ismail,—may God have pardoned him,—the land knew quiet seasons of sowing and reaping, the expeditions were but few, and it is better for a country like ours that many should suffer than that none should be at rest."
I remained silent, conscious that I could not hope to see life through my host's medium. It was as though we looked at his garden through glasses of different colour. And perhaps neither of us saw the real truth of the problem underlying what we are pleased to call the Moorish Question.
A GLIMPSE OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS
"When the days of the Grand Wazeer were fulfilled," the Hadj continued gravely, "his enemies came into power. His brother the War Minister and his brother the Chamberlain died suddenly, and he followed them within the week. No wise man sought too particularly to know the cause of their death. Christians came to the Court Elevated by Allah, and said to my Lord Abd-el-Aziz, 'Be as the Sultans of the West.' And they brought him their abominations, the wheeled things that fall if left alone, but support a man who mounts them, as I suppose, in the name of Shaitan; the picture boxes that multiply images of True Believers and, being as the work of painters,[34] are wisely forbidden by the Far Seeing Book; carriages drawn by invisible djinoon, who scream and struggle in their fiery prison but must stay and work, small sprites that dance and sing.[35] The Christians knew that my Lord was but a young man, and so they brought these things, and Abd-el-Aziz gave them of the country's riches, and conversed with them familiarly, as though they had been of the house of a Grand Shareef. But in the far east of the Moghreb the French closed the oases of Tuat and Tidikelt without rebuke, and burnt Ksor and destroyed the Faithful with guns containing green devils,[36] and said, 'We do all this that we may venture abroad without fear of robbers.' Then my Lord sent the War Minister, the kaid Maheddi el Menebhi, to London, and he saw your Sultan face to face. And your Sultan's wazeers said to him, 'Tell the Lord of the Moghreb to rule as we rule, to gather his taxes peaceably and without force, to open his ports, to feed his prisoners, to follow the wisdom of the West. If he will do this, assuredly his kingdom shall never be moved.' Thereafter your Sultan's great men welcomed the kaid yet more kindly, and showed him all that Allah the One had given them in his mercy, their palaces, their workplaces, their devil ships that move without sails over the face of the waters, and their unveiled women who pass without shame before the faces of men. And though the kaid said nothing, he remembered all these things.
"When he returned, and by the aid of your own Bashador in Tanjah prevailed over the enemies who had set snares in his path while he fared abroad, he stood up before my Lord and told him all he had seen. Thereupon my Lord Abd-el-Aziz sought to change that which had gone before, to make a new land as quickly as the father of the red legs[37] builds a new nest, or the boar of the Atlas whom the hunter has disturbed finds a new lair. And the land grew confused. It was no more the Moghreb, but it assuredly was not as the lands of the West.
"In the beginning of the season of change the French were angry. 'All men shall pay an equal tax throughout my land,' said the King of the Age, and the Bashador of the French said, 'Our protected subjects shall not yield even a handful of green corn to the gatherer.' Now when the people saw that the tax-gatherers did not travel as they were wont to travel, armed and ready to kill, they hardened their hearts and said, 'We will pay no taxes at all, for these men cannot overcome us.' So the tribute was not yielded, and the French Bashador said to the Sultan, 'Thou seest that these people will not pay, but we out of our abundant wealth will give all the money that is needed. Only sign these writings that set forth our right to the money that is brought by Nazarenes to the seaports, and everything will be well.'
"So the Sultan set his seal upon all that was brought before him, and the French sent gold to his treasury and more French traders came to his Court, and my Lord gave them the money that had come to him from their country, for more of the foolish and wicked things they brought. Then he left Marrakesh and went to Fez; and the Rogui, Bu Hamara,[38] rose up and waged war against him."