Three days later I was back in Tangier again, after an absence of four months, to be laid up there for weeks in bed, my health temporarily completely giving way after the strain I had put upon it. But kind care and skilful nursing brought me round, and I no sooner recovered than the spirit of travel came upon me again, and I spent March and April in a most pleasant journey to my old haunts of Wazan, Fez, and Meknas. A couple of months later the news arrived at Tangier of the Sultan’s death, and I left hurriedly for Fez, travelling day and night, and in that city, with the exception of a week or two at Meknas, I stayed until August. Of the events that took place during that period a short description must be given; for although the account of my journey to Tafilet is now completed, the death of Mulai el Hassen and the succeeding crisis owe their origin to the Sultan’s expedition to that spot, for it was the effects of his long and weary journey that caused his end. CHAPTER XIII. THE ACCESSION OF THE NEW SULTAN OF MOROCCO. A book dealing as this does, not only with my own travels, but also with the presence of the Sultan of Morocco at Tafilet, would not be complete, as already stated, were it not carried on for the space of the few months which succeeded that journey. For although the narration of my adventures in the regions south of the Atlas Mountains is already terminated, I was present during not a little of what I am now going to describe, the affairs that took place in June or July, when Mulai el Hassen was no more, and Mulai Abdul Aziz had succeeded to the throne. In order to render clear what follows, a few words in recapitulation must be said as to the Sultan’s journey to the desert. We have seen that in 1893 Mulai el Hassen led his summer expedition from Fez to Tafilet, and thence returned to Marakesh, crossing the Atlas Mountains in the middle of winter. The journey in every particular was a dangerous and trying one. Such wild tribes as the Beni Mgild and Aït Yussi had to be passed through, and when safely traversed the Sultan found himself in the desert surrounded by the most ferocious of the Berber tribes, who had to be appeased with presents of money and clothes. Although, as a matter of fact, no opposition was put to his progress, he must necessarily have been during the whole expedition in a state of great anxiety, for had the Berbers amalgamated to destroy him and his vast army, they could have done so with the greatest ease. Food was only procurable in small quantities; barley in the camp reached a price that rendered it unprocurable except by the richer classes; while added to this the summer heat in the Sahara caused havoc among the soldiers.