MOROCCO IN EXTREMIS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1617, 25 February 1903, Page 73 (Supplement)

MOROCCO IN EXTREMIS.

TITV “FATHER OF THE SHE-ASS” f AXP THE VCHJNG SULTAN. (By A. J- Dawson.) (Author of “African. Nights’ Entcrtammeats,” “Hidden Manna’). Disraeli was of opinion that the next great European war would he fought over Morocco. Nelson was of °P I^ 1011 that the possession of the port of laagier, which England held and le.ineuished as useless, was of more importance to Britain than the holding or Gibraltar. French statesmen are ou. opinion that the acquisition. of Morocco, wiicso borders march witn their Algerian colony, would mean the realisation of the French patriot, s dearest dream—the establishment of a Aovtii African Empire, a set-off to pern kuous Albion’s great Indian Empire, and a glorious recompense for vanity outraged in Egypt. , An' important little corner of vim great Dark Continent, then, is this Morocco. And it may he doubted if there exists upon the face of the earth any other land about winch Engl mm newspaper readers know less. Its shores are within sight or our Clapham Junction of the Mediterranean, Gibraltar; but most Englishmen know far more about the kopjes of the iar South, the Boxers of the lar East, and the hot-blooded revolutionists of Central America, than they know of the Land of the Setting Sun (for so its Arabia name may bo translated) and its picturequo and passionate, if decadent sous, tho. Moors. -THE OLD AND NEW SULTANS, Up to the time of Grand Wazcer Ba Ahmed’s death, a couple of years ago, ono may say that Morocco was under tho same rulo as that of the Sultan; and an iron-handed rule it v,as, in which the pres'ent young Sultan, M ouiai Abd el. Aziz IV., played a very small pare indeed. Then that clearheaded. stone-hearted, iron-handed man. Ba Ahmed, took his departure (may Allah have forgiven him!) for, Jet us say, a Pavillion in Paradise, siiu Abd el Aziz entered into his inheritanco of the Sheroefian Parasol, vitli no man to say him nay, unless those invincible prosers, tlio Ulema, or learned ones, and no human being to check tho cut-carrying of his whims, unless tho once-beautixu 1 Circassian slave and widow of tho la to Sultan, vliose sen ho is. It was a trying position for a youngster bred in a Moorish harem. But Abd el Aziz found it merely delightful. French commercial agents brought him complaisant ballet girls, performing dogs, circuses, and other among the 1 triumphs of latter-day civilisation. And the young man found them good. Laid Sir Harry Maclean more modestly insinuated 'the pleasures of the bicycle, tho camera, the golf clubs, and such wholesome frivolities. And the young man found these also good. Behold this enlightened young ruler turning towards civilisation, as a. flower to the sun, said everybody concerned. And, if this is civilisation, give me more gx it, said the Prophet’s Anointed. So

they gave him more of it, by the score of packing eases, by tne shipload—and tho bills came later. BRITAIN’S HAND.

“Now is the time for more serious advances on tho macadamised road of progress,” said enlightened Britain, andmntelligent pressure was brought to bear upon the lad under the Parasol in the matter of his many noisome dungeons and the hopeless oppression involved in his primitive methods of taxation. “Tims and thus such things should be,” we told him —as any Christian was bound to tell —“it is all pam of tho Broad wood pianos and the delightful mol or car atmosphere; you umst have fixed taxes, and every man sent to prison must have his name written down in a book, and some definite period fixed for his confinement,, and some food given him while he endures it.” “Why, certainly!’ one fancies Abd el Aziz replying. Am then, to his wazeers, “See to it. Ami they saw to it, in their own peculiar fashion. And, in tho matter of taxation, for example, the effect, to men of tho country, was something like this: “Before, the Raid used to bleed us ct all ho eculcl wring out from our villages once a year, and there was an end to it. Now ho round and eats us up for what ho calls ‘The Sultan’s Tax’ in spring, and in autumn comes and clears up what remains foi himself, and if any say him naj the Sultan sends troops to eat us up for refusing to pay the new tax. Tho devil wo know was much better than this strange one. And. cut of it aU tuey say our Lord tho Sultan gets less than ever.” THE RISE OF BU HAMARA. Studying upon thbse things in sacred Menial Zarhon, a certain educated Moor cf tho middle-class, decided that the time for action had arrived. rode out into tho country, insignificantly and modestly mounted upon a snoass. and so earned his name, Bu Mamara, tho Father of the She-Ass, and announced himself a loader oi men. bent uTJO.n checking the inroads of European methods and Nazarene contamination in Al Moghreb. Ho gathered followers as a snowball gathers snow, and, pondering upon his own success, announced himself as tho forerunner of tho veritable Mahdi of Islam. Then the Father of the She Ass readied Tezza, 70 miics oast of the pal aco at Fez, and with his great following was received as a prophet. Now tho Government was obliged to act, and a force of 2000 foot and 000 horse were sent cut to crush the pretender. But the streets of Fez, liko those of every other town in the country, were seething with rumours of tho marvellous deeds performed by the new -prophet, and the more marvellous deeds premised by him for tho near future; and I know that men cf high standing, men attached to the Court, were but waiting to see how the cat would jump now troops were engaged, before turning against tho young Sultan and his hated innovations.

An English missionary was shot in tho streets of tho capital by an ignorant fanatic from tho hills. There wore English advisers at tho Sultan’s elbow. He pluckily ordered his astonished officers to drag tho murderer out from the most sacred sanctuary in Morocco, a step never before taken in the history cf Morocco, and shoot him in the market place. The man was duly executed —“For killing a dog of a Nazarene !” said the people. “A dog of a Nazarene —ono of the people who are new twisting your Sultan about their contaminated fingers as they choose!” echoed tho crafty Bu Hamara, in Tezza,. Tho Pretender’s following, armed only in the most primitive manneir, stole upon the Sultan’s troops just before dawn, and came within an ace of utterly destroying them before modern weapons cf precision ccukl be brought to bear and to repulse the cleverly managed attack. Then they were routed, and those they had slain were finely revenged. Many were tho dripping heads carried into Fez at the saddle-bows cf the Sultan’s troopers, a ncl—“That was- tho end cf the Pretender,” said the well-informed newspaper correspondents. THE PRETENDER’S SUCCESS.

But as a fact, Bu Hainara knew _ a tr.iek worth several of that. He retired to the mountains with the cream of his following, and there sat down to “explain” the "whole situation to his somewhat chilled admirers. I hat his explanation was satisfactory is sufficiently proved by the fact that at tins moment ho holds the oldest city in Morocco, and the Sultan, besieged. “the beauteous and plentifully watered,” as old Abu Tikr sings, _ has her water supply cut off, and is in a poor way. And now, consider what the best informed c<f the correspondents says in the “Times” on the subject :

“Tangier, Dec. 30tli. —The Moors are confident, after what passed, between Mennebhi, who was in London last year, and Lord Lansdowne, that in case of necessitv England cannot lof use to gfv e armed assistance to Moulai Abet el Aziz,. It is impossible to disabuse them of this idea, as they lay the entire responsibility for the rebellion at England’s door, for fostering European ideas and introducing Christians into the Moorish Courts

In this connection, please remember that Mennebhi was treated in England last year with what to him must have appeared almost cringing deference, by England’s greatest men. “it is impossible to disabuse- them of this idea,” says the “Times.” The present writer well believes it. The question is, wliero docs our moral responsibility end of in this matter:' “Morning Leader.”