At the time that the Krupp Company were mounting heavy-calibre guns at Rabat other German contractors proposed to cut the bar of the Bu Regreg and open the port to foreign trade. But the people of both Rabat and Sali protested, saying that this would let in more _Nasrani_ and that the half-dozen already there, who bought their rugs and sold them goods from Manchester and Hamburg, were quite enough. Up to the time the French gunboats appeared--preceded by the news of their effective work at Casablanca--the arrival of twenty Europeans at Rabat would have given rise to much murmuring and no doubt to a good many threats. Now, however, more than double that number of Frenchmen alone had come to the town. From Tangier had come the Minister of France and all his staff, accompanied by a score of soldiers and marines; and from Casablanca had followed a troop of correspondents, French and English. Yet the hapless Moors, stirred as they had never been before, were required to give them right of way. ‘Balak! Balak!’ went the cry of the Maghzen soldier, leading the Christians through the crowded, narrow streets, and meekly, usually without a protest, the natives stood aside. Most of the people did not understand. Had not the Prophet said that they should hate the Christians? Yet now their lord, Mulai Abdul Aziz, Slave of the Beloved, sat upon his terrace--so rumour vowed--sat with some Frenchmen and listened towards Ziada to the cannon of some other Frenchmen as they slaughtered faithful Moslems! At Rabat, besides the townsfolk, there were refugees from Casablanca; there were tribesmen still in arms; there were saints who had followed the Sultan from Fez; there were madmen who are sacred, and impostors who pretended to be mad; there were soldiers trained to every crime; in short, there were men from every corner of the variegated empire, any one of whom would gladly have laid down his life to slay a Christian had the Sultan so commanded. Yet months have passed and they have kept the peace, though Frenchmen still slay Moors within the sound of Rabat’s walls.