withdrew to the coast, but
during their retreat they were attacked by the Moroccans. This put an
end to peaceful negotiations, and Tangier was besieged and taken. The
following August Bugeaud brought his troops up from Oudjda, through the
defile that leads from West Algeria, and routed the Moroccans. He wished
to advance on Fez, but international politics interfered, and he was not
allowed to carry out his plans. England looked unfavourably on the
French penetration of Morocco, and it became necessary to conclude peace
at once to prove that France had no territorial ambitions west of
Oudjda.

Meanwhile a great Sultan was once more to appear in the land.
Moulay-el-Hassan, who ruled from 1873 to 1894, was an able and energetic
administrator. He pieced together his broken empire, asserted his
authority in Fez and Marrakech, and fought the rebellious tribes of the
west. In 1877 he asked the French government to send him a permanent
military mission to assist in organizing his army. He planned an
expedition to the Souss, but the want of food and water in the
wilderness traversed by the army caused the most cruel sufferings.
Moulay-el-Hassan had provisions sent by sea, but the weather was too
stormy to allow of a landing on the exposed Atlantic coast, and the
Sultan, who had never seen the sea, was as surprised and indignant as
Canute to find that the waves would not obey him.

His son Abd-el-Aziz was only thirteen years old when he succeeded to the
throne. For six years he remained under the guardianship of Ba-Ahmed,
the black Vizier of Moulay-el-Hassan, who built the fairy palace of the
Bahia at Marrakech, with its mysterious pale green padlocked door
leading down to the secret vaults where his treasure was hidden. When
the all-powerful Ba-Ahmed died the young Sultan was nineteen. He was
intelligent, charming, and fond of the society of Europeans; but he was
indifferent to religious questions and still more to military affairs,
and thus doubly at the mercy of native mistrust and European intrigue.

Some clumsy attempts at fiscal reform, and a too great leaning toward
European habits and associates, roused the animosity of the people, and
of the conservative party in the upper class. The Sultan's eldest
brother, who had been set aside in his favour, was intriguing against
him; the usual Cherifian Pretender was stirring up the factious tribes
in the mountains; and the European powers were attempting, in the
confusion of an