Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎479r] (82/238)

Morocco : the Sultan and the Bashadours. 295
least, is vested the power to dispose of the lives and
fortunes of the inhabitants.
After the death, in 1894, °f Mulai el Hassan, and whilst
the late Grand Vizir, Ba Hamed ben Musa, a fanatical
Moslim of the old type, resolute in his fixed opposition to
all foreign influence, was in office, the young Sultan him
self seemed but a pale effigy of authority, without policy or
will of his own, an inert and uninterested spectator of
events, scarcely known to his subjects except as a passive
feature in state functions. No sooner, however, was the
imperious Vizir dead, than Abd-el-Aziz threw off the
silence and reserve which had hitherto characterized him,
and awoke from his apparent lethargy. Never, perhaps,
has a change so sudden or radical been seen. Eager and
alert, the once immobile prince now shows the most lively
interest in all that concerns his country and his people, and
what is the more surprising, considering the circumstances
and his education, welcomes with enthusiasm frequent inno
vations from abroad, and betrays the most lively curiosity
concerning foreign customs and modern inventions, even to
the sports in which the foreign communities take so keen a
delight. Not only has he become an adept on his bicycle
and with the camera (with a special predilection for the snap
shot), but he has had a cement tennis court laid at Rabat
for the purpose of enjoying the game with his diplomatic
guests; whilst, on other occasions, discarding all his Oriental
magnificence of velvet saddles embroidered in gold, he rides
to the hounds on English leather and dressed like an
English sportsman.
How striking such a change must seem to many of his
subjects can best be realized when the fact is remembered
that only fourteen years ago, when Mulai el Hassan, the
late father of the present Sultan, visited Tangier, a
European photographer, established in front of the lega
tions, was stoned by the mob for venturing to photograph
the Sultan as the latter rode through the main street of the
town on his way to the principal mosque.