ABDUL AZIZ.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9212, 15 April 1908, Page 2

ABDUL AZIZ.

MOROCCO'S DUSKY RULER. (" Tit-Bits.") "The Sultan of Morocco'," says an Englishman who has spent twenty years in Tangiers, " is one of the most remarkable bundles of contradiction in the woTld. Learned as a savant, he is also as simple as a child; one of tiie most dignified of monarchs, lie can be as impish as any schoolboy. He is resolute and weak, brave and cowardly, good and bad. In short, he is a mass of inconsistencies, and yet few men better deserve than Abdul Azia his title of 'Beloved.'" Perhaps the most interesting side or this strange personality is the Sultan's love of costly toys— for to him they are little else— of all kinds, on which he lavishes fortunes. A few years ago, for instance, ho was seized with a anania for photography, and nothing would satisfy, him but the most sumptuous and expensive camera in the world. All the metalwork of this camera is solid 18ct. gold, each ecrew being of • that precious metal and stamped with the official hall-mark. The case of the camera is of pure white morocco leather, lined with plush and finished of? with massive gold mountingsr and lock; while the cost of this extravagant toy was no less than. £1500. For a. fow weeks the Sultan was pho-tography-mad. He had a skilled operator imported from England to initiate him into the mysteries of picturemaking, and quickly mastered the whole art, from developing the plates to burnishing tho finished prints. His happiness was complete when he had two of his adipose Court officials on bicycles and ia few others on roller skates, and secured'finapsh^fcs of their gyrations and tumbles.

Another favourite toy of the Sultan is a ballon, of the military type, in which his Majesty, makes ascent® — carofully attached, however, to terra firma by a rope — and from which he converses, through a telephone, with his admiring courtiers down below. A few years ago he purchased a small locomotive and a number of sumptuously furnished carriages, had a track three miles long specially constructed in the grounds of his palace at Fez, and spent many hours supremely happy in driving the miniature train, with th« ladies of his harem as passengers.

From France he ordered a number of automobile cars, marvels of costliness and luxury^ in which he races round his palace track at a speed which makes his Court officials gasp with alarm for his Royal safety. When motoring palls he turns to his stud of bicycles, some of which are thickly plated with gold and encrusted with jewels; and, with his white garments floating in a wake behind him, flies over the track like a fugitive ghost. And these are but a few of the " toys " of this singular monarch of the Moors, which include also a number of motor-bicycles, a naphtha launch, a switch-back railway, and., so it is said — even a merry-go-round.

It is one of the Sultan's greatest regrets that he cannot go to Europe which he •would give half his possessions to explore; but, by means of tLa cinematograph, he has brought as much of Europe as possible to Morocco. He has by this means become acquainted with most of the sights of London, Paris and New York ; and it is the pictures of reviews of European troops that have led him to re-organise his army under the skilful direction of Kair Sir Harry Maclean. "Europe," he says, " has heard nothing but the stories of the .dark side of Morocco; I want to give them something appreciative to say about it."

In appearance the Sultan, is* strikingly picturesque and dignified. Though the " Beloved " covers his liead in the Moorish fashion, the folds that encircle his head do not hide the beautiful modelling of his brows, nor the delicate outline of the eyebrows and nose. The eyes are large, long and luminous, with more than a suggestion of melancholy. The upper portion of his face is wholly poetical, scholarly, and aristocratic. The falling-off comes with the mouth, loose-lipped and thick, with a weak, vacillating chin, and a feeble jowl with a forward droop; in fact, the whole of his 1 Majesty's contradictions and inconsistencies are mirrored in his face. \ / For the rest the Sultan is a man of great learning and nimble wit, full of humour and amiability, with a dignity, however, which makes any liberties ~ impossible, and with a rare gift of inspiring affection and respect in all who are brought into contact with him.