With regard to the former, while avoiding all political questions, one or two words must be said. First, it must be understood that Mulai el Hassen, the late Sultan, was not only an autocratic ruler, but his own Minister of Foreign Affairs; and a great difficulty therefore arose as to who, in the case of sudden foreign complications, should be directed to fill his place. No one knew the temperament of his Ministers and Viziers better than the Sultan, and probably no one could trust them less; for although their patriotism might be all that was desired, it was very possible that this same over-zeal might lead them into difficulties. For this reason the relations of his country with the European Governments were temporarily put into the hands of a council, in which the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sid Fadhul Gharnit, held but only an equal voice with the rest; while the powers vested in Sid el Haj Mohammed Torres, the Vizier-resident at Tangier, were more fully specified and amplified, for alone of all the members of the Sultan’s Government this man could be said to possess the confidence both of the European Ministers and his master. Having announced the manner in which all questions of foreign affairs were to be regulated during his absence, there was to be considered the second serious difficulty of the enterprise—the reception he would receive. For the purpose of ensuring success in this respect, long before his Majesty started from Fez for the south, influential members of his family, already acquainted with the tribes in question and their attitude toward the Sultan, were sent out to bully and bribe. Of the two, the latter did the most toward ensuring his Majesty’s safe passage through the Berber tribes, and by March 1893 everything was prepared for a start to be made. It is usual for the rulers of Morocco to change their residence from year to year, spending the winters in one of the larger cities, either Fez, Meknas, or Marakesh, and during the summer and autumn to make the long marches from the north to the south of the empire, or _vice versa_. The enormous retinue accompanying the Sultan, the quantity of baggage to be transported, to say nothing of the insufficiency of all commissariat arrangements and the entire absence of roads, renders these royal progresses matters often of several months’ duration.