I had the opportunity the same evening of discussing the course events had taken with two men, who hold in different ways almost the highest positions in Morocco. One was himself a Vizier, the other far above all fear of arrest. They both told me the same tale; but, in spite of the high authority on which I heard it, I do not think it is to be credited, and in my opinion it was the officially agreed upon story, that was to give justice to the arrest of such important members of the Sultan’s Court. I was told that both the Viziers in question had addressed letters to Mulai Ismain in Fez, and to Mulai Mohammed in Morocco City, the young Sultan’s uncle and brother respectively, inviting them to seize the opportunity of attempting the throne, and offering all their large fortune and influence in the event of their doing so. These letters, it was said, were intercepted and the plot discovered. Although both the Viziers in question were quite capable of such a plot, I cannot believe that either pursued the course stated above. To a Moor a document of any sort is a far more important thing than to us, and any one who is acquainted with the Moors knows how extremely difficult it is to obtain any kind of matter in writing. Had such an idea as that stated above entered the minds of Haj Amaati and his brother, and had they formulated any conspiracy to that effect, they would never have been so foolish as to commit themselves to writing, and any communication with the two Shereefs in question would have been made with the aid of a trusted envoy. It was easy to see that one of my informants at least discredited the story he was telling me, which he only knew from official sources. My own opinion is this, that the whole affair was the result of Sid Ahmed’s jealousy, and that he was actuated no doubt also by a feeling that the course he pursued was the safest in the Sultan’s interests—for by removing his own two most dangerous enemies, he at the same time would find further scope for his influence and policy. That the Viziers deserved their fate none can deny. Haj Amaati had impoverished the whole country by his enormous and insatiable greed and black-mail, and his brother had deprived the soldiery of a very considerable portion of their pay.