MULAI HAFID'S CRUELTIES
PARIS, October 20. Sultan Mulai Hafid's treatment of French traders and the overbearing violence of his chiefs are provoking strained, relations and angry comments from the French press. The Tangier correspondent of the Daily Mail, writing on August 30, gave the following account of the cruelty practised by the Sultan on Bu Hamara, the Pretender: — "My correspondent at Fez writes: — 'Today (August 24} was a public holiday at Fez, and by order of the Sultan the shops were closed and the people assembled in the Mouchwar of the palace — a great, enclosed space for public receptions —to witness the entrance of Bu Hsunara, the Pretender, who was captured two days ago. It was worth vraiHng some hours in a tropical sun to see the famous outlaw. Suddenly the old canon on the turrets of the city w«ll boomed, and one could make out a square object swaying about over the heads of 1.1k» people. As it a.nproaehed cm peroeived it wm a huge cage mounted on a camel; and in the cage a human figure. The camel and its load, surrounded by soldiers with fixed bayonets, came before the Sulton, and one had a good view of t.h'3 pri.«£"ner. Dressed in an old whire robe, his heed bare and powdered with du.,t, with heavy ukains otr his ]eg«, Eu Hamaiu sat leaning against the end of the ca.g-e and holding by both hands to t.h.3 bars on either side. Tann€<i deap brown, h-c had small, good features, and a r^olute chin, md little hair on the' face, but longer on his head than is customary with the Arabs. Quite composed and with His-nity he looked about him. Of all present he seemed tho most uninterested — veTy tired and fomawhat bored. There was no jeering from the crowd, ©:ily intense curiosity. A soldier poked him in the back with th-a sheath of his bayonet, and Bu Hamara tunned and cursed him quietly, and effectively, for the man stopped at onice. The cage was lowered from the camels back and placed j in front of t*he SuHa-n, but Tin Hamara v ; fused to answer any questions and meivly replied, 'I am tired, hungry, ar.d thirsty and rhis is no place for talking.' Again '• the cage was raised, and Bu Hamara en ' his camel disappeared thvorirh tr<> nala'o j Rates. It was a wpird and ivpuii2;ant =iirht, . this man cag>-d likf> a wild boa-fr aiid rhe "Ruroneans who saw it will not easily forgot it." * • I
MULAI HAFID'S CRUELTIES
Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 26
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