I saw the Sultan’s entry into Marakesh—his last entry into any Moorish city—and for days after half-starved men and beasts crawled into the town, lame and sick, the remnants of the great camp I had seen at Tafilet. I questioned many of those who came in, and their tale of suffering and hunger brought tears to one’s own eyes as well as theirs. Yet in justice be it said, the Sultan and the Moorish Government did all in their power to alleviate their sufferings by doling out supplies of food; but with a disorganised commissariat, of which probably a third of the baggage-animals had been frozen to death, fallen over precipices, or broken their legs on the bad mountain roads, it was but little.

From Marakesh I returned to Saffi, where again I was most hospitably entertained by Mr George Hunot, H.B.M. Vice-Consul, and a few days later found a small steamer going direct to Gibraltar.

Three days later I was back in Tangier again, after an absence of four months, to be laid up there for weeks in bed, my health temporarily completely giving way after the strain I had put upon it. But kind care and skilful nursing brought me round, and I no sooner recovered than the spirit of travel came upon me again, and I spent March and April in a most pleasant journey to my old haunts of Wazan, Fez, and Meknas. A couple of months later the news arrived at Tangier of the Sultan’s death, and I left hurriedly for Fez, travelling day and night, and in that city, with the exception of a week or two at Meknas, I stayed until August. Of the events that took place during that period a short description must be given; for although the account of my journey to Tafilet is now completed, the death of Mulai el Hassen and the succeeding crisis owe their origin to the Sultan’s expedition to that spot, for it was the effects of his long and weary journey that caused his end.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE ACCESSION OF THE NEW SULTAN OF MOROCCO.

A book dealing as this does, not only with my own travels, but also with the presence of the Sultan of Morocco at Tafilet, would not be complete, as already stated, were it not carried on for the space of the few months which succeeded that journey. For although the narration of my adventures in the regions south of the Atlas Mountains is already terminated, I was present during not a little of what I am now going to describe, the affairs that took place in June or July, when Mulai el Hassen was no more, and Mulai Abdul Aziz had succeeded to the throne. In order to render clear what follows, a few words in recapitulation must be said as to the Sultan’s journey to the desert.

We have seen that in 1893 Mulai el Hassen led his summer expedition from Fez to Tafilet, and thence returned to Marakesh, crossing the Atlas Mountains in the middle of winter. The journey in every particular was a dangerous and trying one. Such wild tribes as the Beni Mgild and Aït Yussi had to be passed through, and when safely traversed the Sultan found himself in the desert surrounded by the most ferocious of the Berber tribes, who had to be appeased with presents of money and clothes. Although, as a matter of fact, no opposition was put to his progress, he must necessarily have been during the whole expedition in a state of great anxiety, for had the Berbers amalgamated to destroy him and his vast army, they could have done so with the greatest ease. Food was only procurable in small quantities; barley in the camp reached a price that rendered it unprocurable except by the richer classes; while added to this the summer heat in the Sahara caused havoc among the soldiers.

Tafilet was reached in October, and a halt of three weeks made there. It is needless here to enter into any details, for I have already described the camp; suffice it to say that Mulai el Hassen’s camp was pitched on the desert sand near a spot called Dar el baida, to the east of the oasis of Tafilet, and that he was surrounded by an army and camp-followers numbering probably 40,000 men. I saw the Sultan several times during his residence in the camp, and was struck with the remarkable change that had taken place in his appearance. His bearing was as dignified as ever, but his black beard was streaked with grey, his complexion was sallow, and the lines of age showed themselves under his eyes. For over two years previously I had not seen him, and when last I had watched him he was still a young-looking man: now old age had set its indelible mark upon his countenance. The fire of his eye was gone; his head drooped slightly upon his chest; he looked like a man tired and weary. No doubt he was. Anxiety was always present. News had reached him that fighting, and most serious fighting, was occurring between the Spaniards and the Riff tribes at Melilla; there was a constant fear of assassination, and a still more constant dread of his whole camp being eaten up by the Berbers. Added to this his health was ailing, and winter fast coming on. Affairs delayed him at Tafilet, and before he left that spot at the end of November, although during the day the sun still beat down with almost tropical heat, rendering life in a tent insufferable, by night the cold was extreme, and frosts of almost nightly occurrence. Before the army lay a three weeks’ march to Marakesh, over desert and mountain, through wild tribes where dangers were many and food scarce. What wonder that Mulai el Hassen suffered! Yet the worst trials were before him after he left Tafilet: as he approached the Glawi Pass over the Atlas—the lowest there is, and that at an altitude of over 8000 feet above the sea-level—the cold increased, soldiers, mules, horses, and camels died of exposure. Snow fell and covered the camp, and only by forced marches were the remnants of the great horde dragged out from the deathly grip of the rocks and snows of the Atlas Mountains to the plains below.

I saw Mulai el Hassen and his army enter Marakesh, for I had returned thither a few days before them. What was noticeable at Tafilet was doubly apparent now. The Sultan had become an old man. Travel-stained and weary, he rode his great white horse with its mockery of green-and-gold trappings, while over a head that was the picture of suffering waved the imperial umbrella of crimson velvet. Following him straggled into the city a horde of half-starved men and animals, trying to be happy that at last their terrible journey was at an end, but too ill and too hungry to succeed.

Mulai el Hassen found no peace at Marakesh. Affairs at Melilla had become strained, and no sooner had his Majesty reached the capital than a Spanish Embassy under General Martinez Campos proceeded thither. How it ended is well known. It added to the enormous expenses of the Sultan’s summer expedition—which must have cost him nearly a million sterling—a debt to the Spanish Government of twenty million pesetas, at the same time necessitating the Sultan to abandon his idea of remaining in his southern capital, and forcing upon him a long march to Rabat and Fez, and an intended expedition to the Riff to punish the tribes who had caused the disturbance there. Fez was never reached, the expedition never took place, and Mulai el Hassen’s entry into Rabat was in a coffin at the dead of night.