We who know and love the country, finding in its patriarchal simplicity so much that contrasts favourably with the hopeless vulgarity of our own civilisation, must recognise in justice the great gulf lying between a country’s aspect in the eyes of the traveller and in the mind of the politician.

[Illustration:  A MARRAKSHI]

Before we parted, the Hadj, prefacing his remark with renewed assurance of his personal esteem, told me that the country’s error had been its admission of strangers.  Poor man, his large simple mind could not realise that no power his master held could have kept them out.  He told me on another occasion that the great wazeers who had opposed the Sultan’s reforms were influenced by fear, lest Western ideas should alter the status of their womenkind.  They had heard from all their envoys to Europe how great a measure of liberty is accorded to women, and were prepared to rebel against any reform that might lead to compulsory alteration of the system under which women live—­too often as slaves and playthings—­in Morocco.  My friend’s summary of his country’s recent history is by no means complete, and, if he could revise it here would doubtless have far more interest.  But it seemed advisable to get the Moorish point of view, and, having secured the curious elusive thing, to record it as nearly as might be.

Sidi Boubikir seldom discussed politics.  “I am in the South and the trouble is in the North,” said he.  “Alhamdolillah,[39] I am all for my Lord Abd-el-Aziz.  In the reign of his grandfather I made money, when my Lord his father ruled—­upon him the Peace—­I made money, and now to-day I make money.  Shall I listen then to Pretenders and other evil men?  The Sultan may have half my fortune.”

I did not suggest what I knew to be true, that the Sultan would have been more than delighted to take him at his word, for I remembered the incident of the lampmaker’s wager.  A considerable knowledge of Moghrebbin Arabic, in combination with hypnotic skill of a high order, would have been required to draw from Boubikir his real opinions of the outlook.  Not for nothing was he appointed British political agent in South Morocco.  The sphinx is not more inscrutable.

One night his son came to the Dar al Kasdir and brought me an invitation from Sidi Boubikir to dine with him on the following afternoon.  Arrived before the gate of his palace at the time appointed, two o’clock, we found the old diplomat waiting to welcome us.  He wore a fine linen djellaba of dazzling whiteness, and carried a scarlet geranium in his hand.  “You are welcome,” he said gravely, and led the way through a long corridor, crying aloud as he went, “Make way, make way,” for we were entering the house itself, and it is not seemly that a Moorish woman, whether she be wife or concubine, should look upon a stranger’s face.  Yet some few lights of the hareem were not disposed to be extinguished altogether by considerations of etiquette, and passed hurriedly along, as though bent upon avoiding us and uncertain of our exact direction.  The women-servants satisfied their curiosity openly until my host suddenly commented upon the questionable moral status of their mothers, and then they made haste to disappear, only to return a moment later and peep round corners and doorways, and giggle and scream—­as if they had been Europeans of the same class.