As soon as these blacks had gathered their party and belongings all together, they loaded the tents and trunks two to a mule, and lifted the women into the high red saddles, always ridden astride; then, picking up their guns, they started on to the palace, leading the animals through the ancient gate and across the crowded town, shouting ‘Balak! Balak!’ Make way, make way! Once they had begun to move, the eunuchs paid no attention to any man, not deigning even to reply to the dog of a boatman who often followed them some hundred paces cursing them for having paid too little, sometimes nothing at all, when much was expected for ferrying the _Lai-ell_ of the Sultan. The caravan had been a long time on the road from Fez. Travelling only part of the day and camping early, it had taken a fortnight to come a distance little more than 150 miles. The Sultan had brought with him twenty of his favourites, trailing them across country rapidly, when he had hurried to this strategic place at the news that Mulai Hafid had been proclaimed Sultan at his southern capital and would probably race him to Rabat. [Illustration: A FEW OF THE SULTAN’S WIVES.] But why Abdul Aziz brought with him any of his wives is a question. Perhaps they had more to do with it than had he; and perhaps it was for political reasons. At any rate (I have it from the Englishman quoted before) his harem bores him; to the songs and dances of all his beauties he much prefers the conversation of a single European who can tell him how a field gun works, what it is that makes the French--or any other--war balloon rise, and explain to him the pictures in the French and English weeklies to which he subscribes. He has here a motor-boat, which he keeps high and dry in a room in the palace, and the German engineer who makes its wheel go round is a frequent companion. It is said in Morocco that while other Sultans visited their wives all in turn, showing favouritism to none, the present youthful High Shereef has cut off all but half a score, and never sees the mass of them except _en masse_. And it is said, too--among the many current stories regarding his European tendencies--that for these ten ladies he has spent thousands of pounds on Paris gowns and Paris hats to dress them in and see what European women look like. It naturally suggests itself that the poor fellow is hopelessly puzzled, and on a point that would of course catch his scientific mind: while the women of Paris are apparently built in two parts and pivoted together, those of his own dominions are constructed the other way. According to the ideas of the Orient the waist should be the place of largest circumference. CHAPTER XIV GOD SAVE THE SULTAN!