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Originally posted by Doug M:

This is tired. I already said that the statement I made originally was wrong. Ok. I said it.

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Doug M:

Done deal case closed. Its over.

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Doug M:

My point was and still is that Egypt, in putting volumes of information on the walls about everyday life, culture and relgious beliefs IN SCULPTED MONUMENTAL STONE, was unlike most civilizations in Africa.

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Doug M:

The point was and still is that the fact that they built so many monuments using very large stone blocks and on such a large scale allowed the monuments to survive along with the carved reliefs and give us more insight on the nature of African civilizations at such an early date than would be otherwise possible.

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Doug M:

Egypt is an extension of other ancient African civilizations, however much of the evidence for the overall nature of these civilizations prior to ancient Egypt has been lost, leaving somewhat of a gap between the developments of the ancient Nile Valley and other parts of Africa.

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Doug M:

We know that there were direct antecedants to Egyptian civilization in the Sudan, but unfortunately much of the evidence is lost under lake Nasser.

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Doug M:

Now I am sure you want to nit pick this to death and try and find any small flaw you can to sidetrack the discussion into something totally irrelevant.

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Doug M:

However, I made my point and I am done with this issue in this thread.

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Doug M:

However, if you again want to go into another thread about stone building civilizations in Africa or resurrect that same old one, feel free to do so and I will contribute, as it will give others insight into the traditions of stone building in ancient Africa that they may not have known about.

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“Noah’s Ark, Beatus de Facundus” Spain, X century

This book is one of the most flamboyant examples of mozarab art – the art of the christians of Spain when the country was occupied by the Maures. The Spanish christians, organised by the “infidels” lived in fear of their loss of identity, hence the popularity of the Apocalypse and its commentary written by Beatus de Liebana, which overshadowed the Gospels. The Apocalypse predicted the success of the reconquest and the end of the infidel’s power.

The commentaries of the Apocalypse were, remarkably, copied 32 times between the X and XIII centuries.“Noah’s Ark” by the illuminator Facundus is exceptionally shown in a cross section and is characterised by bands of horizontal colours.

At the top of the Ark, Noah, surrounded by his family, receives the dove carrying the olive branch announcing the end of the rains.

The representation of the griffin in the fourth band marked the interest of the Maures and their influence for the antique culture yet, this was to dissipate in the west in the VI centuryThe range of colours, audacious yet always harmonious, is the mark of the mozarab illuminator.

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The earliest known illustrated rolls come from Egypt; they include the oldest example, the Ramesseum Papyrus (c.1980 BC) and fragments from the Book of the Dead, found in tombs. Little or nothing survives of ancient Greek illumination, although scientific treatises and epic poetry are said to have contained pictures. It is thought that by the 2d cent. AD the long papyrus roll began to be replaced by the parchment codex (or leaved book). Thus a new, compact format was introduced as the framework for the picture. From the late classical period (probably 5th cent. AD) come the illustrations of Vergil (Vatican) and the Iliad (Ambrosian Library, Milan).

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It is from North Africa that the earliest Latin literature of the church has come down to us. The church of North Africa early received a baptism of blood, and could point to an illustrious roll of martyrs. It had also a distinguished list of Latin authors, whose Latin might sometimes be rude and mixed with foreign idioms, but had a power and a fire derived from the truths which it set forth. One of the most eminent of these Africans was Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who won the martyr's crown in 257. His genuine works consist of a number of short treatises, or tracts, and numerous letters, all teeming with Scripture quotations. It is certain that he employed a version then and there in use, and it is agreed that "his quotations are carefully made and thus afford trustworthy standards of African Old Latin in a very early though still not the earliest stage" (Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in Greek, 78).

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Some evidence indicates that the codex format as used for literary works was distributed from African models. This codex model is related to the papyrus industry of Egypt4 and to sectarian book production in north and eastern Africa extending uninterrupted from late antiquity to the present.
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The idea of a single African codex model also lumps together Christianized Egyptian and non-Egyptian book making, in spite of the fact that these traditions are as distinct as they are related.8 Religious texts of the Coptic Church are in the Egyptian language of the first centuries AD, written in the alphabet derived from the Greeks. Religious texts of the Ethiopian or Abyssinian Church are in Ge'ez a liturgical language using an extremely ancient syllabic alphabet derived from southern Arabian origins. The contemporary language of the Egyptian Copts is Arabic while a main contemporary language of Ethiopian Christians is Amharic. Coptic Egyptian bookbinding is known from archeological materials which feature papyrus texts and covers and a bridled, encircling stitch to connect the boards. Ethiopian bookbinding is known from ethnographically collected vellum manuscripts with an internal, tunnel lacing stitch to connect the boards.
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From the perspective of technology, many comparisons of the scroll and codex format focus on text management features of the two formats. However, during this early period all books, both scroll and codex, lacked text management devises such as word spacing, pagination or punctuation. Only the punctuation of the codex page itself9could have played a part in the first century selection of the format. The influence of page format on illustration, as opposed to text, would recommend the codex since iconography could be set off into distinct fields. The African model is relevant here since the tradition of illuminating Christian books was advanced, not by Greek convention, but by the heritage of Coptic art. In pharonic times prayers and liturgies were illustrated with figures of deities and protective symbols in bright colors with boarder designs at the top and bottom. The texts were traced in black outline with catchwords written in red.
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The legacy of the African model codex is apparent in the modern paperback. The speed and economy of three-edge trimming and perennial features of stackability, portability, light weight and structural pliancy project this early prototype far into the digital era.37 The African model and the modern paperback have no rounding or backing, that is, no shaping of the contour of the text back. The boards are flush to the folds of the endpapers and the binding has a rectangular geometry that shelves like a video cassette or CD case. Other characteristics of the African model that persist in the modern paperback are its all paper construction, its equitable leaf attachment, attachment of covers as if they were outer leaves and a flush trim of covers and text to the same size. These perennial features are so taken for granted that they are frequently discounted.

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A most valuable Greek manuscript of the Old and New Testaments, so named because it was brought to Europe from Alexandria and had been the property of the patriarch of that see. For the sake of brevity, Walton, in his polyglot Bible, indicated it by the letter A and thus set the fashion of designating Biblical manuscripts by such symbols. Codex A was the first of the great uncials to become known to the learned world. When Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Alexandria, was transferred in 1621 to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, he is believed to have brought the codex with him. Later he sent it as a present to King James I of England; James died before the gift was presented, and Charles I, in 1627, accepted it in his stead. It is now the chief glory of the British Museum in its manuscript department and is on exhibition there. [Editor's Note: The British Museum and the British Library split in 1973, and the Codex is now kept in the latter.]
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The handwriting is generally judged to belong to the beginning or middle of the fifth century or possibly to the late fourth. An Arabic note states that it was written by Thecla the martyr; and Cyril Lucar the Patriarch adds in his note that tradition says she was a noble Egyptian woman and wrote the codex shortly after the Nicene Council. But nothing is known of such a martyr at that date, and the value of this testimony is weakened by the presence of the Eusebian Canons (d. 340) and destroyed by the insertion of the letter of Athanasius (d. 373). On the other hand, the absence of the Euthalian divisions is regarded by Scrivener as proof that it can hardly be later than 450. This is not decisive, and Gregory would bring it down even to the second half of the fifth century. The character of the letters and the history of the manuscript point to Egypt as its place of origin.

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Oxyrhynchus (Greek: Οξύρρυγχος; "sharp-snouted or sharp-nosed"; ancient Egyptian Per-Medjed; modern Egyptian Arabic el-Bahnasa) is an archaeological site in Egypt, considered one of the most important ever discovered. For the past century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been continually excavated, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the time of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history. Among the texts discovered at Oxyrhynchus are plays of Menander and the Gospel of Thomas, an important early Gnostic document.
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The town was named after a species of fish of the Nile River which was important in Egyptian mythology as the fish that ate the penis of Osiris, though it is not known exactly which species of fish this is. One possibility is a species of mormyrid, medium sized freshwater fish that figure in various Egyptian and other artworks. Some species of mormyrid have distinctive downturned snouts or barbels, lending them the common name of elephantnoses among aquarists and ichthyologists. A figurine from Oxyrhynchus of one of these sacred fish has many attributes typical of mormyrids: a long anal fin, a small caudal fin, widely spaced pelvic and pectoral fins, and of course the downturned snout.[1]

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A book of hours is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Each book of hours is unique in one way or another, but all contain a collection of texts, prayers and psalms, along with appropriate illustrations, to form a reference for Catholic Christian worship and devotion.

The Latin name for a book of hours is horae, the English one primer. The original books were always printed in Latin. There are over 800 books of hours made in England scattered to libraries all over the world.

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The minting of Aksumite coins begins in the third century A.D., and from this point it is possible to date the individual reigns of Aksumite royalty. In the fourth century A.D., the rule of one monarch in particular marked a defining transition in Ethiopian religious and cultural history. Byzantine and Roman historians chronicle how a Syrian Christian named Frumentius, called Abba Salama in Ethiopian versions, came to be captured and later hosted by the Aksumite court, whose king he ultimately converted. Following his conversion, King Ezana (r. 320–50) had the crescent-and-disk of South Arabian polytheism removed from his coins and replaced with the Christian cross.

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When Al Hakkam II left Medina Al Zahra, in AD 971, he was 'proceeded by different classes of banners and ensigns, among which, for the special honour with which his lord distinguishes it, was the lofty satrang'. This word comes from the persian shatrang meaning chess or chessboard. On another occassion Galib ibn Abd al-Rahman sent a military detachment to cordoba in 'perfect formation with parade ornaments including the Satrang' The oldest pattern in European heraldry is, in fact, the checky, a word with again springs from Persian shatrang.

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· The earliest known quilt is carved on an ivory figure of a Pharoh of the Egyptian First Dynasty about 3400 BC

· The oldest surviving example of patchwork is a quilted Egyptian Canopy used by the queen for festive occasions in 980 BC. It now resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

· In 1924 archaeologists discovered a quilted floor covering in Mongolia dating back from first century BC to the second century AD

· As early as the 1300’s, Mali warriors wore quilted suits of armor for protection in battle

· In the Sudan, full quilted garments for both warriors and their horses were worn as protective armor in battle

· Until the end of the 19th century, the Fulani calvary wore quilted cloaks (sometime decorated in patchwork) for warmth or ceremonial occasions. They would have been too cumbersome in battle. Under the cloaks, heavy quilted armor (made in several pieces to protect different parts of the body) was worn. These were worn over metal body armour or chainmail.

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Islamic Sicily

Just two miles off the toe of the Italian boot lies a sunny island once dedicated to Muslim accomplishment.

"It is a fair kingdom, is it not, sir?" asked King Roger II of Sicily, lifting his blond-bearded head and gazing round him in the summer morning.

"It is indeed," answered Idrisi, his Arab geographer, a shorter man with a swarthy skin, but nonetheless noble, descended from African caliphs and princes of Malaga. "And especially your capital here, known for its elegance. Palermo turns the heads of all who see it."

The two men stood together on a rocky hill in the Cassaro, the walled inner city, and gazed over the roofs and towers below them to the shimmering plains and far-off foothills wooded with cypress, chestnut and stone pine. Close around the Cassaro circled the outer city, also walled. Beyond lay the villages and market gardens providing all manner of succulent food—corn, melons, tomatoes, celery, onions, cucumbers, herbs and salad greens unknown in Europe, come from the Old East, as Idrisi's people had come. The Muslims, too, had devised the system of narrow canals for irrigation, the tall tapering giarre or water towers standing up everywhere. Beyond the villages stretched broad arable lands, criss-crossed with little rivers. Great fish swam in these rivers, both men knew, and mills rose along their banks. Windmills spread their arms above wide wheat fields. As in Muslim times, this island just to the south of Italy waxed rich in the Mediterranean.

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Muslim interest in Sicily goes back to the very threshold of Islamic history. The first military expedition against the island took place during the caliphate of 'Uthman, only 20 years after the death of the Prophet, Muhammad, when Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria, sent a naval expedition. This was an extension of the battles that were taking place in the east, where the most formidable enemy the Muslims faced was the Byzantine empire. Sicily was a Byzantine province and from its strategic location in the Mediterranean the Byzantines were able to control shipping and launch naval attacks against the coastal cities of the Muslim Levant and North Africa.

Through the years, many efforts were made by the Muslims to invade Sicily, but it was not until June of 827 that they finally obtained a foothold by taking Mazara on the western end of the island.

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The Arabs and Pasta

The first certain record of noodles cooked by boiling is in the Jerusalem Talmud, written in Aramaic in the 5th century AD. The word used for the noodles was itriyah. In Arabic references this word stands for the dried noodles purchased from a vendor, rather than homemade noodles which would have been fresh. Dried noodles are portable, while fresh must be eaten immediately. More than likely, pasta was introduced during the Arab conquests of Sicily, carried in as a dry staple. The Arab geographer, Al Idrisi wrote that a flour-based product in the shape of strings was produced in Palermo, then an Arab colony.

Some historians think the Sicilian word "maccaruni" which translates as "made into a dough by force" is the origin of our word, macaroni. Anyone who has kneaded durum wheat knows that force is necessary.

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Fresh pasta is dough made of flour and water and is present in most cultures and on all continents. Dry pasta began in Italy and embarked from there to conquer the world. People have attributed Marco Polo with having introduced spaghetti to Italy from China, but that is incorrect. Mediterranean people even before the Romans knew fresh pasta, and dry pasta was unknown to the Chinese.

Dried pasta was familiar in the Mediterranean area in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and also was mentioned in Genovese documents. The first traces of dry pasta in Europe came from Sicily, where documents of the twelfth century tell of something like a factory of dry pasta, localized in the area of Palermo. From this site the pasta (called itrjia) was then exported to other regions of southern Italy.

Genovese sailors were among the most active traders within the Mediterranean. It is not surprising that in the thirteenth century Genova became trader, and then fabricator, of dry pasta, spreading it to many other countries — which led to this pasta gaining the name Genovese.

The oldest macaroni recipes found are from Sicily: macaroni with eggplant (eggplant was introduced by the Arabs in Sicily around the year 1000 from India) and macaroni with sardines. Both these delicious dishes are still present today in Sicilian cooking.

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Like so much of southern Italian life, the Arab invasions of the 8th century heavily influenced the regional cuisine and is the most accepted theory for the introduction of pasta. The dried noodle-like product they introduced to Sicily is most likely the origins of dried pasta and was being produced in great quantities in Palermo at this time. The modern word "macaroni" derives from the Sicilian term for making dough forcefully, as early pasta making was often a laborious daylong process. How it was served is not truly known but many Sicilian pasta recipes still include other Arab gastronomic introductions such as raisins and spices like cinnamon. This early pasta was an ideal staple for Sicily and it easily spread to the mainland since durum wheat thrives in Italy's climate. Italy is still a major producer of this hard wheat, used to make the all-important semolina flour.

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In the anonymous thirteenth-century Hispano-Muslim cookbook Kitab al-tabikh fi al- Maghrib wa’l-Andalus, we find some of the earliest references to macaroni. We are told that there are three ways of making it. It can be "made round like a coriander seed," "thin with the thinness of kaghit [sheet of paper] and which is woman’s food," and "lengthened in the mode of wheat" [fidawsh, vermicelli].46 The coriander seed-type appears to be a form of pasta secca, called maccarone in fifteenth century Sicily, that later became known as maghribiyya in Syria, also known as the name of a dish, and the muhammas of Tunisia and the burkukis of Algeria. The one with the thinness of kaghit sounds much like lasagne. "It is cooked with zucchini, aromatics and fat; and then there is the kind like qataif [sic]." This qataif is the qata’if mentioned above, a kind of pastry made from both soft and hard wheat and almond oil. Interestingly, the Kitab al-tabikh instructs the cook to cook fidawsh in the same manner as you would macaroni (itriya). From the word al-fidawsh came the Spanish word for spaghetti, fideos, as well as similar words in other Iberian and northern Italian dialects.47 The Kitab al-tabikh gives a recipe for macaroni:

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Another spectacular sight is the Durbar in Kano - traditionally held in February. Nowadays there are two Durbar celebrations (the main and the lesser Dubar). They're a culmination of the two Muslim festivals Id el Fitri and Id el Kabir.

The original Durbar dates back hundreds of years to the time when the Emirate (state) in the north used horses in warfare. During this period, each town, district, and nobility household was expected to contribute a regiment to the defense of the Emirate. Once or twice a year, the Emirate military chiefs invited the var­ious regiments for a Durbar (military parade) before the Emir of Kano and his chiefs.

During the parade, regiments would showcase their horsemanship, their preparedness for war, and their loyalty to the Emirate.

These days the day begins with prayers out­side town, followed by processions of horsemen to the public square in front of the Emir’s palace, where each village group, district, and noble house take their assigned place. Last to arrive is the Emir and his splendid retinue; they take up their place in front of the palace to receive the jahi, or homage, of their subjects.

The festival begins with each group racing across the square at full gallop, swords glinting in the sun. They pass just few feet away from the Emir, then stop abruptly to salute him with raised swords. It can be scary watching them charging forward with their spears but somehow they manage to stop. The last and most fierce riders are the Emir’s household and reg­imental guards, the Dogari. The Emir then heads a procession of the ruling families (there's a pecking order and each family have their own recognizable clothing and historic regalia) around Kano town and back to the Old city to his palace. The fanfare is intensified by drumming, dancing and singing, with small bands of Fulanis performing Shadi.

It is an obligation for all chiefs, district heads and lesser rulers to take part in the event. It takes days for many of them to travel by road to Kano with their families and guards. They don't have horse-boxes (nowadays the older men travel in cars leaving the younger one to bring the horses). Lamido took part in the event well into his 80's. He was about 6'4" and during the parade he was very distinctive because he was seated noticably taller on his horse.

Lamido once showed me the boxes where he kept the traditional regalia for the family and the royal horses. It was one of those awe-inspiring moments to see old gold & bronze footwear, spears and chain-mail garments. They were so heavy. It was like looking at items going back to the Crusades. He had no idea how old they were and was bemused when I mentioned their historical value to museums. Some of my questions were answered in sort of stories - it was difficult to talk to him at the best of times because he spoke Fulfulde in the village so we needed a translator - The people are Fulanis and have their own language.

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Morocco has been French only since 1912. Before that, for eleven centuries, it had been a free and sovereign state since the time when a dissident leader of the all-conquering Arabs declared his independence of faraway Baghdad in the 8th century. For centuries, rulers alternated between Arab dynasties and the indigenous Berbers. The empire waxed and waned but was never conquered. While medieval Europe fought and languished, the university of Fez gathered scholars from all over the known world. The Moorish empire reached into Spain, building aqueducts, huge irrigation systems, and the great Alhambra at Granada. The present Sultan is of a dynasty founded in 1660, claims direct descent from the Prophet's only daughter, Fatima. This gives him baraka, the spiritual quality that makes it lucky just to kiss his garments and gives him special title to spiritual (as well as temporal) leadership of his people.

The French Presence. France grabbed Morocco from the weak Sultan Moulay Habid in that grand African divvy on the eve of World War I in which Britain got a free hand in Egypt, Spain a piece of northwest Morocco, and Germany a slice of Africa south of the Sahara.

As first governor of its new protectorate, the French sent the revered Marshal Louis Hubert Lyautey to Morocco. Lyautey's policy: "Do not offend a single tradition or change a single habit." He ordered French towns built alongside but separate from the Moroccan towns, put all mosques off limits to unbelievers, and met the Moroccans as friendly equals. When he sent the Foreign Legion to subdue rebellious chiefs, he warned his commanders: "Always show your force in order to avoid using it. Never enter a village without thinking that the market must be opened the next day."

Paris was not for long content with such enlightened methods. Frenchmen poured into Morocco, grabbed up the best farmland with the help of laws dedicated to "extending the French presence," and allowing French farmers to pay 20% less tax than a Moroccan. They displaced the Moroccan administrators. They dug mines, made Morocco the world's second in production of phosphate, fifth in manganese, seventh in lead. They built roads and railroads, power plants and dams, constructed ports (Casablanca handles more tonnage than Marseille). They built 133 hospitals, at one time boasted they were opening a school a day. But the roads mostly went to French farms or French factories, the schools were chiefly for French children. Even now, only one in five Moroccan children goes to school; and in the 44 years of the protectorate, only an average of eleven Moroccans a year completed a pre-university education.

As a result, 875 Moroccan physicians are French, only 19 Moslem; there are 350 French lawyers, only 27 Moslem. The French lived in Morocco as in a good hotel, and luxurious apartment houses overlooked squalid bidonvilles where Arab laborers crowded into shacks roofed over with flattened gasoline tins.

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Mohammed began collecting guns, race horses, and fast cars which he drove himself (he once drove a Bugatti 55 miles from Rabat to Casablanca in 32 minutes). He kept a reported 40 concubines, frequently adding fresh ones and sending faded beauties off to a convent. The French encouraged such distractions from more serious affairs of state (though later, to discredit him, they spread the word that he dealt savagely with servants who seduced some of his concubines, had one whipped to death). He exercised fully the Sultan's traditional right to exact gifts from his subjects, and the saying was that for the Moroccans, there were three possible catastrophes : drought, locusts, and a visit from the Sultan. Once he called on a minor caid and remarked pointedly on the caid's china, saying: "This is a tea set fit for a king." The cups were in the king's luggage when he departed.

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"Morocco Must Realize." After the war, France sent tough Marshal Alphonse Juin to put the now restless Moroccans in their place. Juin began by arresting scores of Istiqlal (Independence) leaders, announced: "Morocco must realize that at the end of its evolution it will remain tied to France." The Sultan retaliated by always meeting Juin unshaven and by committing himself wholeheartedly to the Istiqlal, smuggling leaders into the palace, sometimes in trucks delivering groceries. In the classic divide-and-conquer style. Juin assiduously cultivated the antagonism of the mountain Berbers for the urban Arabs. He made a special ally of rich old El Glaoui, Pasha of Marrakech, who claimed to command some 300,000 fighting Berbers.

Whenever the Sultan showed signs of obduracy. El Glaoui would summon Berber horsemen down from the hills to surround the Arab towns in ragged but menacing array. In 1951, Juin forced a showdown, demanding that the Sultan condemn the Istiqlal and fire all nationalists from the government. Berber horsemen headed for Rabat, and Juin had a plane waiting at the airport to carry Mohammed V to exile if he balked. Glumly, Mohammed V capitulated; he denounced "violence," but he refused to condemn the Istiqlal. To Juin, it was clear that Mohammed would have to go.

One day in the spring of 1953, old El Glaoui got into his Cadillac, began rounding up signatures demanding the Sultan's abdication. The Glaoui was armed with a photograph of the Sultan's lissome daughter Aisha in a one-piece bathing suit. How could Mohammed be Imam to his people when he allowed his daughter to expose herself in public, offending every right-thinking Moslem? Urged on by the French, back-country chiefs signed up, until El Glaoui had the signatures of 311 of Morocco's 323 caids. In a matter of days a crestfallen Sidi Mohammed was bundled onto a plane with his two wives, five children, and assorted veiled ladies of the court for exile in Corsica. El Glaoui briskly produced his replacement as Sultan—goateed Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa, a timid cousin of Sidi Mohammed's.

The Terror. Exile consolidated Mohammed's place in the hearts of his people as his presence never had (a process which the British seem doomed to repeat in Cyprus with Archbishop Makarios). Moroccan women began to see Mohammed's face in the full moon. Imams refused to say prayers in Cousin Moulay Arafa's name. The French did their best to discredit Mohammed, releasing a flood of stories of alleged collaboration with the Nazis, and hustled him even farther away, to Madagascar. Back in Morocco, anger swelled, and terrorism began. Trains were derailed, warehouses fired, boycotts of French goods organized. It became virtually a death sentence for an Arab to be caught smoking a French cigarette.

The French reacted with brutal ratissages, in which thousands of Moroccans were savagely beaten with clubs in the search for a handful of terrorists. Moroccans were thrown in jail simply for shouting the Sultan's name. French colons launched counterterror, shooting down Frenchmen suspected of sympathy with Moroccan aspirations.

The end came in a welter of blood in Morocco and political chaos in Paris. The Berbers rebelled against El Glaoui and his stooge Sultan, went on a major uprising in the Atlas Mountains. The last straw for the French came when El Glaoui himself drove into Rabat in his black Bentley and blandly declared: "I identify myself with the wish of the Moroccan nation for a prompt restoration of Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef."

Mohammed V was brought back from Madagascar to France. The throne council which was supposed to replace him flew to Paris to pledge their allegiance. So did scores of Moroccan chiefs and notables. Sycophant El Glaoui humbly prostrated himself before Mohammed, kissed his monarch's feet and begged forgiveness. Suddenly anxious to please. Foreign Minister Antoine Pinay agreed not only that Mohammed should return to the throne, but that France would help Morocco to "achieve the status of an independent state, united to France by the permanent ties of an interdependence freely accepted and defined." Pinay even agreed that the terms of "interdependence" could be negotiated later (they are still unsettled). Grumbled one unreconstructed colon: "The Sultan asked for a cup of water and Pinay gave him the ocean."

The Triumph. Mohammed returned to Morocco in triumph. All Morocco went on a week-long celebration. Berbers staged feasts in crenelated mud-walled casbahs. In the cities Arabs paraded with flags and portraits of the Sultan. In factories and mines, work stopped. In the hills, guerrillas calling themselves the National Liberation Army looted French plantations, murdered rich Moroccan farmers who had sided with the French. In the subsequent panic, thousands of Frenchmen packed up and fled to France, taking with them capital roughly equivalent to Morocco's whole annual budget.

Well aware that Morocco needs French capital, Mohammed V reacted with typically shrewd sense. He appointed 27-year-old Prince Moulay Hassan commander of the Royal Moroccan Army (trained and equipped by the French), and sent him out to disband the Liberation Army by swearing its men into the Sultan's own force. Steely-nerved Moulay Hassan had soon sworn in some 5,000 irregulars, sent the rest home except for some holdouts mostly in the deep south. The Sultan himself toured all Morocco, traveling in a huge caravan and camping in tents on the plains. Talking to crowds of 100,000 at a time, Mohammed V drummed home his message that independence was not an end in itself, that the new nation must go back to work if it wanted new schools, roads, houses. Morocco needed the French, and Mohammed V indulged in no rabble-rousing rhetoric about "expelling the oppressors." He called for the "creation of democratic institutions resulting from free elections . . . within the framework of a constitutional monarchy."

Until democracy can be established (municipal elections are scheduled this fall, provincial elections the following year for an assembly which will write a constitution), Mohammed is still conducting an autocratic reign, with the help of a Cabinet which he appoints and a 76-man consultative assembly which he selects. Out of a palace budget of $4,000,000, the Sultan maintains a yoman "Black Guard" and their 300 horses, keeps 35 cars ranging from a Rolls Royce to a jeep, and big villas and staffs for his two sons and the three elder daughters. Apple of her father's eye is three-year-old Lalla Amina, daughter of the Sultan's second wife, who can break up any council of state by dashing in and flinging herself into her father's arms.

Although one wing of the rambling Rabat palace is still called "the harem," its inhabitants are mostly poor relatives or aging concubines left over from his father's regime. Court attendants are now referred to as "ladies in waiting." Explains one Moroccan: "The word concubine is outmoded."

In a normal day, Mohammed V rises at 6, dresses himself in slacks and sports jacket, climbs into one of his sports cars, and drives into Rabat to look around. He is a confirmed sidewalk superintendent, often stops to watch workmen putting up a new building. Audiences take up most of the rest of the morning. In the afternoon, the Sultan confers with Premier Si M'Barek ben Mustapha el Bekkai, a onetime lieutenant colonel in the French cavalry who lost a leg in the Ardennes. After dinner, the Sultan usually works until midnight, often dealing with the affairs of his personal fortune, which is estimated to run into several millions.

Nearly all of Morocco's problems stem from its relations with France, and Morocco's man of balances has the delicate task of steering between the intemperate demands of Arab nationalists and the soberer counsel of those who recognize that France still has a considerable hold on Morocco's purse strings. The dominant Moroccan political force, stoutly behind Mohammed V, is still the Istiqlal, a party whose leadership is largely intellectual, membership mostly trade unionist. But one of Mohammed's problems is how to balance its laicist modernists against the conservative religionists of the medinas and the rural areas. Chief of the Istiqlal, and probably the most popular man in Morocco after the Sultan himself, is Allal el Fassi, a fire-breathing orator who spent nine years in exile, mostly in Cairo.

Waiting for Money. After Morocco got its independence, the economy staggered under the flight of French capital. Industries have slowed down, the tourist trade has fallen off. By unhappy coincidence, drought has parched the fields, and a slim harvest means hunger, discontent, and a flight from the starving countryside into the already bursting bidonvilles. Morocco is also confronted with the need of developing its own administrators, technicians and civil servants (the government's daily business is still conducted by some 11,000 Frenchmen). A crash educational program has been devised: private houses converted into schools, teachers drafted, and any Moroccan with a good education is asked to teach 20 others what he has learned. The Ministry of Education has blueprinted a plan to put every Moroccan child into school within five years, at a cost of $160 million. When does the program start? "When we get the money," shrugs an education official. The money can come only from France.

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There never was, nor ever can be again, such a perfect example of a confederation of the brethren of the sea as that of the Pirate Republic of Bou Regreg. Rabat and Sale were the twin cities at the heart of this Republic. They were both guarded by medieval walls that had been greatly reinforced by artillery fortresses dug into the outlying cliffs that overlook the dark, muddy waters of the Bou Regreg estuary from the north and the south banks. Submerged rocks, a line of forbidding cliffs, Atlantic reefs and a sand bar at the mouth of the tidal Bou Regreg made the estuary waters a very safe harbour.

It was from this secure base that the free-ranging pirate squadrons known as the Sallee Rovers set out to harass the sea-lanes, merchant ships and harbours of Europe. They were brilliantly successful for their ships crews were a kaleidoscope of international talent that allied the military élan of Moroccans and exiled Spanish Moors with Dutch, German and English professional skills. The crews spoke a lingua franca that was based on Spanish with a mixture of French, Italian, Portuguese and Arabic loan words.

The Sallee Rovers did not just restrict their
operations to the capture of shipping but took the war into the lands of the enemy; landing raiding parties that returned with captives. Their notoriety as white slavers reached a crescendo in the mid 17th century England when a series of daring slave raids seized captives from St Micheals Mount in Cornwall and Baltimore in south-west Ireland as well as intercepting the cod fishing fleet off Iceland. The boasting verses in Rule Britannia about Britons never shall be slaves could certainly not have been written in those years. It has been calculated that in this period that there were more Britons labouring away as slaves and concubines in North Africa than as settlers in all of the colonies of North America put together.

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