security of life and property. Still, the Emperor will use every means
to build up a barrier against innovation.

Just at this time, a _rekos_ (courier) arrived from Mr. Willshire (now
at Morocco), bringing letters in answer to those which I had addressed
to him, touching my visit to the Emperor. He writes that he had "already
received orders from His Imperial Majesty respecting the object of my
mission," which words give me uneasiness, as they are evidently
unfavourable to it, and consequently to my journey to Morocco.

There is a misunderstanding between the provinces of Shed ma and Hhaha.
These districts adjoin Mogador, the city belonging to Hhaha. Shedma is
mostly lowland and plains, and Hhaha highlands and mountains, which form
a portion of the south-western Atlas, and strike down into the sea at
Santa Cruz. There seems to be no other reason for those frequent
obstinate hostilities on both sides, except the nature of the country.
It is lamentable to think, because "a narrow frith" divides two people,
or because one lives in the mountains and the other in the plains, that
therefore they should be enemies for ever! Strange infatuation of poor
human nature.

Here the feud legend babbles of revenge, and says that, in the time of
Muley Suleiman, one day when the Hhaha people were at prayers at
Mogador, during broad day light, the Shedma people came down upon them
and slaughtered them, and, whilst in the sacred and inviolable act of
devotion, entered the mosques and pillaged their houses. This produced
implacable hatred between them, which is likely to survive many
generations; but the story was told me by a Hhaha man, and not
improbably the people of Shedma had some plausible reason for making
this barbarous attack.

Even before this piece of treachery of one Mussulman towards another at
the hour of prayer, the feuds seemed to have existed. It is a remarkable
circumstance in the history of Islamism, that many of the most
treacherous and sanguinary actions of Mahometans have been committed
within the sacred enclosures of the mosques, and at the hour of prayer.
One of the caliphs having been assassinated in a mosque, seems to have
been the precedent for all the murders of the kind which have followed,
and indelibly disgrace the Mussulman annals.

These Hhaha and Shedma people are also borderers, and fight with the
accustomed ferocity of border tribes.

Their conflicts are very desultory, being carried on by twos and