There was a pause here, as though my host were overwhelmed with reflections and was hard driven to give sequence to his narrative.  “Our present Lord was young,” he continued at last thoughtfully; “he was a very young man, and so Ba Ahmad spoke for him and acted for him, and threw into prison all who might have stood before his face.  Also, as was natural, he piled up great stores of gold, and took to his hareem the women he desired, and oppressed the poor and the rich, so that many men cursed him privately.  But for all that Ba Ahmad was a wise man and very strong.  He saw the might of the French in the East, and of the Bashadors who pollute Tanjah in the North; he remembered the ships that came to the waters in the West, and he knew that the men of these ships want to seize all the foreign lands, until at last they rule the earth even as they rule the sea.  Against all the wise men of the Nazarenes who dwell in Tanjah the wazeer fought in the name of the Exalted of God,[33] so that no one of them could settle on this land to take it for himself and break into the bowels of the earth.  To be sure, in Wazzan and far in the Eastern country the accursed French grew in strength and in influence, for they gave protection, robbing the Sultan of his subjects.  But they took little land, they sent few to Court, the country was ours until the wazeer had fulfilled his destiny and died.  Allah pardon him, for he was a man, and ruled this country, as his Master before him, with a rod of very steel.”

“But,” I objected, “you told me formerly that while he lived no man’s life or treasure was safe, that he extorted money from all, that he ground the faces of the rich and the poor, that when he died in this city, the Marrakshis said ‘A dog is dead.’  How now can you find words to praise him?”

“The people cry out,” explained the Hadj calmly; “they complain, but they obey.  In the Moghreb it is for the people to be ruled as it is for the rulers to govern.  Shall the hammers cease to strike because the anvil cries out?  Truly the prisons of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz were full while Ba Ahmad ruled, but all who remained outside obeyed the law.  No man can avoid his fate, even my Lord el Hasan, a fighter all the days of his life, loved peace and hated war.  But his destiny was appointed with his birth, and he, the peaceful one, drove men yoked neck and neck to fight for him, even a whole tribe of the rebellious, as these eyes have seen.  While Ba Ahmad ruled from Marrakesh all the Moghreb trembled, but the roads were safe, as in the days of Mulai Ismail,—­may God have pardoned him,—­the land knew quiet seasons of sowing and reaping, the expeditions were but few, and it is better for a country like ours that many should suffer than that none should be at rest.”

I remained silent, conscious that I could not hope to see life through my host’s medium.  It was as though we looked at his garden through glasses of different colour.  And perhaps neither of us saw the real truth of the problem underlying what we are pleased to call the Moorish Question.