ou 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.

[Illustration: 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 tha