The tragic death of Mulai Hassan while on the march, and the manner in which the throne was saved to Abdul Aziz, his favourite son, made graphic reading in the summer of 1894; and they will serve to-day to illustrate the sad, chaotic state of the whole poor Moorish empire. The old Sultan was not well when he returned from Tafilet, but serious disorders throughout the country allowed him to rest at Marakesh, his southern capital, only a few months. Proposing to move on to Rabat, thence to Fez, punishing lawless and rebellious tribes that had risen while he was away, he set out from Marakesh with an army composed of many hostile elements, conscripts kept together largely by their awe of him and hope of loot. They came to but the first rebellious district, that of the Tedla tribes, when Mulai Hassan fell seriously ill and was unable to go on. But after several days the news was spread one morning that he had sufficiently recovered and would proceed. Only the viziers and a few slaves--who held their tongues to save their heads--knew that Mulai Hassan was dead. For a day the body, seated within the royal palanquin, was borne along in state, preceded as usual by many banners, the line of spear-bearers, and the six led horses, and flanked by the bearer of the parasol and the black who flicks the silken scarf. Though speed was imperative the usual halts were made that no suspicion should arise. In the morning at ten o’clock, the Sultan’s usual breakfast time, the army stopped, a tent was pitched, and into it the palanquin was carried. Food was cooked and green tea brewed and taken in, to be brought out again as if they had been tasted. At night the royal band played before the Sultan’s vast enclosure. But the secret was not to be kept long in a climate like that of Morocco in summer; and lest the corpse should tell its own tale, at the end of a long day’s march, as the army pitched its camp in the evening, the news went out, spreading like a wave through the company, that the Sultan was dead, and that Abdul Aziz was the Sultan, having been the choice of his father. In an hour the camp split up into a hundred parties, each distrustful of some other. There was not a tribe but had some blood feud with another, and now the reason for the truce that had held hitherto was gone. Men of the same tribe banded together for defence and marched together at some distance from the others; conscripts from the neighbouring districts, or districts to the south, took their leave; private interests actuated now where awe and fear had held before. Soon the news got to the country, and the tribes through which the _m’halla_ passed began to cut off stragglers, to plunder where they could and drive off animals that strayed.