(1689), to take Larache, the Spanish commercial
post on the west coast (which furnished eighteen hundred captives for
Meknez); to lay siege to Ceuta, conduct a campaign against the Turks of
Algiers, repress the pillage in his army, subdue more tribes, and build
forts for his Black Legionaries from Oudjda to the Oued Noun. But
almost each year's bloody record ends with the placid phrase: "Then the
Sultan returned to Meknez."

In the year 1701, Ezziani writes, the indomitable old man "deprived his
rebellious sons of their principalities; after which date he consecrated
himself exclusively to the building of his palaces and the planting of
his gardens. And in 1720 (nineteen years later in this long reign!) he
ordered the destruction of the mausoleum of Moulay Idriss for the
purpose of enlarging it. And to gain the necessary space he bought all
the adjacent land, and the workmen did not leave these new labors till
they were entirely completed."

In this same year there was levied on Fez a new tax which was so heavy
that the inhabitants were obliged to abandon the city.

Yet it is written of this terrible old monarch, who devastated whole
districts, and sacrificed uncounted thousands of lives for his ruthless
pleasure, that under his administration of his chaotic and turbulent
empire "the country rejoiced in the most complete security. A Jew or a
woman might travel alone from Oudjda to the Oued Noun without any one's
asking their business. Abundance reigned throughout the land: grain,
food, cattle were to be bought for the lowest prices. Nowhere in the
whole of Morocco was a highwayman or a robber to be found."

And probably both sides of the picture are true.

What, then, was the marvel across the valley, what were the "lordly
pleasure-houses" to whose creation and enlargement Moulay-Ismael
returned again and again amid the throes and violences of a nearly
centenarian life?

The chronicler continues: "The Sultan caused all the houses near the
Kasbah[A] to be demolished, _and compelled the inhabitants to carry away
the ruins of their dwellings_. All the eastern end of the town was also
torn down, and the ramparts were rebuilt. He also built the Great Mosque
next to the palace of Nasr.... He occupied himself personally with the
construction of his palaces, and before one was finished he caused
another to be begun. He built the mosque of Elakhdar; the walls of the
new town were pierced with twenty fortified gates and