Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/214

198 the other from the heart of the Middle Atlas to the ranges of the Rif. This latter is a strategic and commercial route, along which many tribes have flowed northward in search of more congenial surroundings and an easier life.

"Look at this crowd—one that you will never find in other towns except, perhaps, on pilgrimage days or at the feast of Bairam. It counts representatives from almost every tribe living on the Beni Mtir plain or in the mountains near it. I shall point out to you men from the tribes of Gerwan, Zaian, Mjat, Beni Mgild and even those from the neighborhood of Ujda."

It was also here at Meknes at the end of the seventeenth century that the unusual religious teacher, Ben Aïssa, or "the son of Jesus," promulgated a new doctrine, chiefly among the poor and oppressed. He worked among the lowest elements of the population and became so powerful that men defied even the authority of the bloody sultan when sure of his support. He united and organized Berbers and slaves, forming a great confraternity, somewhat wild in its traditions but bound together by the oath of absolute obedience to the supreme head of the organization. He was finally acknowledged as a saint by Sultan Mulay Ismail, and his tomb was erected in the cemetery opposite the gate, Bab Jdid, to become the object of worship and pilgrimage which has brought many of his followers to the city among the olives.

His Sultan master, Mulay Ismail, the founder of the Alawite dynasty, which still rules in Morocco, was no ordinary man. Though he was a tyrant, bloody, cruel and admittedly courageous, and a despot such as the