truth,
Morocco has been no more than one of the pawns in the diplomatic game
these many years past.

We who know and love the country, finding in its patriarchal simplicity so
much that contrasts favourably with the hopeless vulgarity of our own
civilisation, must recognise in justice the great gulf lying between a
country's aspect in the eyes of the traveller and in the mind of the
politician.

[Illustration: A MARRAKSHI]

Before we parted, the Hadj, prefacing his remark with renewed assurance of
his personal esteem, told me that the country's error had been its
admission of strangers. Poor man, his large simple mind could not realise
that no power his master held could have kept them out. He told me on
another occasion that the great wazeers who had opposed the Sultan's
reforms were influenced by fear, lest Western ideas should alter the
status of their womenkind. They had heard from all their envoys to Europe
how great a measure of liberty is accorded to women, and were prepared to
rebel against any reform that might lead to compulsory alteration of the
system under which women live--too often as slaves and playthings--in
Morocco. My friend's summary of his country's recent history is by no
means complete, and, if he could revise it here would doubtless have
far more interest. But it seemed advisable to get the Moorish point of
view, and, having secured the curious elusive thing, to record it as
nearly as might be.

Sidi Boubikir seldom discussed politics. "I am in the South and the
trouble is in the North," said he. "Alhamdolillah,[39] I am all for my
Lord Abd-el-Aziz. In the reign of his grandfather I made money, when my
Lord his father ruled--upon him the Peace--I made money, and now to-day I
make money. Shall I listen then to Pretenders and other evil men? The
Sultan may have half my fortune."

I did not suggest what I knew to be true, that the Sultan would have been
more than delighted to take him at his word, for I remembered the incident
of the lampmaker's wager. A considerable knowledge of Moghrebbin Arabic,
in combination with hypnotic skill of a high order, would have been
required to draw from Boubikir his real opinions of the outlook. Not for
nothing was he appointed British political agent in South Morocco. The
sphinx is not more inscrutable.

One night his son came to the Dar al Kasdir and brought me an invitation
from Sidi Boubikir to dine with him on the following afternoon. Arrived
before the