The Sultan, pausing beneath his velvet dome, waited
to receive the homage of the assembled tribes.
An official, riding forward, drew bridle and called
out a name. Instantly there came storming across
the plain a wild cavalcade of tribesmen, with rifles
slung across their shoulders, pistols and cutlasses
in their belts, and twists of camel’s-hair bound
about their turbans. Within a few feet of the
Sultan they drew in, their leader uttered a cry and
sprang forward, bending to the saddle-bow, and with
a great shout the tribe galloped by, each man bowed
over his horse’s neck as he flew past the hieratic
figure on the grey horse.
[Illustration: From a photograph from “France-Maroc"
The Sultan of Morocco under the green umbrella (at
Meknez, 1916)]
Again and again this ceremony was repeated, the Sultan
advancing a few feet as each new group thundered toward
him. There were more than ten thousand horsemen
and chieftains from the Atlas and the wilderness, and
as the ceremony continued the dust-clouds grew denser
and more fiery-golden, till at last the forward-surging
lines showed through them like blurred images in a
tarnished mirror.
As the Sultan advanced we followed, abreast of him
and facing the oncoming squadrons. The contrast
between his motionless figure and the wild waves of
cavalry beating against it typified the strange soul
of Islam, with its impetuosity forever culminating
in impassiveness. The sun hung high, a brazen
ball in a white sky, darting down metallic shafts
on the dust-enveloped plain and the serene white figure
under its umbrella. The fat man with a soft round
beard-fringed face, wrapped in spirals of pure white,
one plump hand on his embroidered bridle, his yellow-slippered
feet thrust heel-down in big velvet-lined stirrups,
became, through sheer immobility, a symbol, a mystery,
a God. The human flux beat against him, dissolved,
ebbed away, another spear-crested wave swept up behind
it and dissolved in turn; and he sat on, hour after
hour, under the white-hot sky, unconscious of the heat,
the dust, the tumult, embodying to the wild factious
precipitate hordes a long tradition of serene aloofness.
THE IMPERIAL MIRADOR
As the last riders galloped up to do homage we were
summoned to our motors and driven rapidly to the palace.
The Sultan had sent word to Mme. Lyautey that
the ladies of the Imperial harem would entertain her
and her guests while his Majesty received the Resident
General, and we had to hasten back in order not to
miss the next act of the spectacle.
