Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/503

 FINANCE— ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS. 418 nucleus of the army, comprines a xHy of about 0,000, ut once grnclurmea, noldicn, and Government officiuU. ITie most formuluble of tht'He ure the Ahi<l Sidi-Iiokhuri, "Skves of the liokhura Lord," so-culled becuuse ut the time of their formation in 1679, they wert» pluctnl under the invocution of u liokhuriot "saint." Thin corp«, exclusively Negroes, constituted till recently a sort of Pnetorian Guard, a menace to the sultans themselves ; und, although now dispersed throughout the provinces^ they still hold nearly all the high military posts. They are largely employed at tax-gatherers, hence are everywhere the terror of the natives. The guides, when asked by travellers in abandoned districts the cause of the desolation, reply laconic- ally, "The locusts or the mukhzeni." liudly clothed, badly i>quip|)ed, badly commanded, and without discipline, the native troops are, nevertheless, excellent soldiers, brave under fire, sober, jwitient, industrious and intelligent. A battalion drilled at Gibraltar at the cost of the liritish Government, is reserved to {Nirude on State occasions, and Impress the foreign envoys with a feeling of respect for the notive army. Finance — Administrative Divisions. Marocco is one of the few countries which have no public debt, or which have at least a revenue amply sufficient for all requirements. But strictly speaking there is no budget, what is known by this name being simply the emperor's private purse. Ilis income is derived not only from his domains and the " presents" of all sorts offered to their sovereign or protector by the towns, tribes, and communes, but also from the regular taxes levied on the land and live stock, the judicial fines, the custom-house duties, the profits of the tobacco and other monopolies. The expenditure, almost wholly absorbt^ by the anny and the court, scarcely amounts to half the receipts, so that a large annual sum nMnains to the credit of the treasury. After the Spanish war, Marocco undertook to pay an indemnity of £4,000,000 for the ransom of Tetuan. To meet this charge, half of the customs, averaging about £280,000, were assigned to Spain, whose agents are arme<l with the right of inspecting the imperial custom-houses. A fourth of the same dues is secured to the English bankers, who served to negotiate the treaty of peace with Spain ; lastly the remaining fourth goes absolutely to the Sultan. The only national coin minted in IMarocco is a small copixT piece valued at about a third of a farthing. But the ordinary medium of exchange is the douro, that is, the five-franc piece. For administrative puqwses the empire is dividwl into amahtU, or district* governed by amils, or kauk. The vassal tribes also nceive a representative of the Sultan, either as master or envoy, according to the degree of submission to which they are reduced. In 1880, at the time of Lenz's visit, Marocco was divided into forty-four amulats, of which thirty-three were in Fez and Marrukesh, und nine in the Wed S(is and Tafilelt regions. According to Erckmann, the more or less inde- pendent tribes are administered by three hundred and thirty kaids.