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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 26, 1918)
THE BEE: OMAHA, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1918. ii Mfu "i rjz i i" 1 1 i i i i i ilk vii ii i n i ca i nr ysvilj. iliihii rotjv ii w i 1 1 PALACE OF THE SLAVE-BORN VIZIER How Bou Ahmed Jollied the Sultan of Morocco, Eose to Power and Beared a Moorish Castle. When Bou Ahmed, the grand vizier, built the palace of the Bahia "The Effulgence" at Marakesh modern Moorish architecture reached its zenith. &o man before had attempted , such a work, and no man in Morocco wilLfver be rich enongh to surpass it. Not only would the wealth required be fabulous, but the very idea would be so fantastic that its originator could not escape being stamped as a madman. Yet twenty-two years ago it was scarcely begun, and seventeen years ago its builder died, and the aswork ceased. In those five years this extraordinary palace was originated and completed such as it stands with its wealth of decoration, its great courts, its fountains, and its colon nades. And the builder was the son of a slave, for Bou Ahmed's father. Si Moussa, the confidential servant of the Sultan Mulai Hassen, was a palace slave. By his integrity, or his cun ningprobably the latter he had risen to a position of some importance and at his death his son only a very little less a negro than the father was appointed chamberlain in his place, a position he held until the sul tan's death in 1895. It was then that his opportunity came and he seized it. The sultan's death occurred while he was on mili tary experition against the dissident tribes of Tadla. Bou Ahmed, who with a few confidential slaves alone knew of Mulai Hassen's death for he died in his tented enclosure in the im perial camp, amongst his women realized that the tragic event must be kept secret Otherwise the tribes would fall upon the army, now lacking a chief, and the soldiera themselves would join in the pillage and murder and loot. So orders were given for the court and the army to continue their march towards the coast, and at dawn the day after the sultan's death a start was made. Meanwhile Bou Ahmed's messengers were hurrying to Rabat to proclaim the late sultan's youngest son, Mulai Abdul Aziz, a boy of 12 years of age. The critical moment was past; the army was in a safe region, the dissident tribes were left far behind, and the accession was a fait accompli. It was Bou Ahmed's first card and he played it well. . Pushing to the Front. But other things remained to be done. Bou Ahmed was only chamber lain, and the more important posts of ... grand vizier and minister of war were held by his rivals, two brothers of the ' powerful Jamai family, who, aristo crats, despised the slave's son and his origin. The situation demanded that the young sultan should proceed at once to Fez, the northern capital, for, until he had been accepted and re ceived as sultan there, his throne was not consolidated, and Fez was no safe place for Bou Ahmed. He played his second card an even bolder one than his first While the sultan was at Mekinez, only thirty miles from Fez, Bou Ahmed obtained his master's consent to the arrest of the Jamai brothers. The pretext was treason. One morning the grand vizier, Ha Amaati, rodt Into the pal ace square of Mekinez and passed into the young sultan's presence between long rows of bowing officials. The sentries saluted, but, disdainful, the vizier noticed no one. Bou Ahmed was with the sultan. He accused the vizier of treachery, of treason, of innumer able crimes, and asked the pale boy seated upon the throne to authorize his arrest. ! The sultan nodded and Haj Amaaati was dragged by jeering soldiers to prison, smitten with blows, and the object of a hundred gibes. His brother, the minister of war, joined him in goal only a few moments later. Bou Ahmed was now grand vizier. So Bou Ahmed, freed from anxiety, Vegan the building of the "Bahia." With stone and mortar and the money and blood of men, by every exaction and cruelty, by murder and sudden death, he built it, raising court after court grandiose and fantastic to please his own pride or the fancies of some woman. Every favorite had her courtyard and her apartments, and lit tle it matttered to her, or to the man who for a time cherished her, how many might die, how many might starve, that ,the ceilings of carved cedarwood might be paid for, or the marble foundation basins be brought from Italy. The vizier's revenues were prodigious, for every coin that came to the Moorish government passed through his hands, and a few went on to the .imperial treasury, but only a few; He was lone and omnipotent. A sort of superstitious romance en circled him and his wealth. His name was whispered in the streets and in the byways. Acres of Household Razed. He started largely. He took a whole quarter of the town and razed it to the ground. It covered many, many acres. No householder could resist his on slaught Where necessity arose, he compensated, according to his own . ideas, the owners of the houses he de stroyed. In other cases he found it unnecessary to do so. Whole house holds were turned loose into the world. Beyond were gardens, great groves of olives and oranges. He be came possessed of them, tearing down the dividing walls and laying out the whole as a great park. He built a raised irrigating tank as large as a lake, and encircled the whole property with immense walls. The energy of this small, dark, awkward, unsympa thetic man was immense. He governed as he built, without a thought of hu man life or of the suffering he oc casioned. He destroyed whole tribes and confiscated their wealth. It all served to build the "Bahia." On the ruins of . the demolished quarter he raised his palace, encircled .nh walls and what walls! zreat I windowless expanses of masonry thirty feet and forty feet high, here and there pierced with gateways that led into vast open spaces, seemingly as objectless as the walls themselves great, barren, dusty courtyards And then, passing through a small gate, a blaze of color an immense court, paved in white marble and colored mosaics, surrounded by a colonnade roofed in brilliant green tiles spported upon wooden pillars, painted red and green and white and orange in strange designs. The ceilings under the col onnade are richly decorated and color ed. In a line i.i the center of the court are three great marble fountains, splashing water the whole a blaze of sunlight and color. The surrounding buildings are of one story only, but the height of the great apartments, with their gilded, painted and domed ceilings, that open into the court yard, renders this one story of very con siderable altitude. In contrast with this great open sunlit space is a shady walled garden, full of flowering trees, from amongst which tall cypresses rise high above the walls and tree-tops. Here, too, there is water everywhere in marble fountains and marble basins, that fill the cool air with the music of their streams. In the surrounding walls are deep recesses, festooned with deli cate arabesques in incised plaster, and roofed with carved and painted beams, cool retreats from the fitful sunlight that pierces the foliage of the trees. At either end of this delicious garden are vast apartments, the lofty ceilings of which, half hidden in the gloom, rise tier above tier of carved and pain ted domes. Colored mosaics from Fez, full of luster, line the lower part of the walls to a height of some six or seven feet, and the floors are of marble and similar mosaics. On the walls pass long bands of delicately fretted plas ter, bearing geometric . designs and Arabic inscriptions. All is still, cool, and mysterious, and half veiled in the half light of the shade of the trees without. . The Gem of the Palace. A small exit and tortuous narrow passages lead into other suites of apartments, each more gorgeous than the last In one case the rooms open into a covered courtyard, its ceiling some forty feet above the marble floor great beams and painted and gilded surfaces of wood rich in geo metric designs. A row of little win dows, just below the ceiling and en circling the whole court, give light to this fine hall, with its marble floor and marble fountain, and in exquisite designs in mosaics of faience. On all sides are rooms, half-lit and myster ious, but rich in decoration. The great carved and gilt doors stand open and a glimpse is obtained of the dim richness of the rooms within. Then long passages again here straight, here turning sharply to right and left and courts and more courts, and great rooms, and endless colonnades! till the very vastness and complexity of the palace wearies. And then, sud denly, hidden away in the recesses of this labyrinth the gem of all a won derful little garden, surrounded by arched recesses and great rooms, the walls of the garden a mass of ex quisite design in white incised plaster work; and above, a deep cornice, richly carved in little arches and col umns, of cedar wood, supporting over hanging eaves of the same beautiful wood, upheld by delicate beams. Above is a glimpse of rich green iridescent tiled roof. The paths, which bisect the little garden, raised a foot or so above the soil, are paved in marble and mosaic and edged with a low delicate design In iron work in a frame of wood. The marble basin is there, too, with its cool splashing water falling upon the mosaics of col ored tiles. Beyond this garden lies another infinity of apartments, each series a house in itself. Death and Devastation. In fivj years Bon Ahmed built it all, with thj life and blood of the tribes and ihen he died, in 1900. The sultan wept the loss of the man of iron will who had set him firmly on the throne. On foot he followed his body to the grave, and returned to sign the edict of the confiscation of all his property. In the Bahia reigned confusion and lamentation. The great courts rang with the wail ing of the shieks of the women and the palace, deprived of the iron hand of its master, became a pande monium. Its inmates knew a great crisis was at hand, and each strove to steal as much as he or she could in the few hours that remained. Safes were broken open, jewels were torn from thei. settings, the more easily to be concealed, the doors of the treas ure rooms and the store rooms were torn from their hinges. Wives, con cubines, and slaves fought and looted and it is said killed for how many jealousies found their chance of revenge; and in the r.iidst of it all came the jultan's emissaries and the soldiers, to continue the loot and pillage in the name of the sovereign. For days caravans of mules passed through the streets bearing Bon Ah mend's treasures to the sultan's palace. Then the women were driven forth the older ones to hunger, and perhaps to death; the younger to live as best they might. The slaves fled, or were passed on to new masters. And when all was accomplished, when not a hole or a corner had been left unsearched for treasure and how fews days it all took 1 when no one was left, except a few in poverty and in exile to tell of its past glories, when even the children of the great vizier were starving in the open country or hidden in the houses of a faithful few, and his wives and concubine had fal len a prey to others, then the sultan closed the- grea'. palace and set his seal of state upon the doors of the man who had given him a throne. London Times Letter. PRIEST CAPTURES ENTIRECOMPAHY Germans in "Dragon's Cave" Lay Down Their Arms When Surprised by French Stretcher-Bearer. (Correspondence of The Auoclated Prese.) French Front. Aue. 1. The storv of the capture of nearly a company of German troops who were trapped in the Dragon's Cave near the famous Chemin Des Dames, when the French troops stormed and carried the Ger man position along that historic road was told 'to The Associated Press correspondent by Father Py, a Fran ciscan priest, who, with a doctor, brought the orisoners into the French near lines. Father Py was acting as stretcher-bearer to one of the most celebrated regiments of the French army, the 152d infantry. The Dragon's Cave is near the farm of Hurtebise, or what was a farm, for it has now become nothing but a heap of bricks, mud and splintered timbers. He is a small man, is Father Py, who when the war broke out was en gaged in missionary work in Brazil. The call of his country brought him back to France, and, although he is a native of the south of France, he vol unteered for service in the ambulance section of the 152d, a regiment from the Vosges. He explained to the cor respondent how on the day of the battle he had been detailed to go out and tend to the wounded, but not to advance beyond a certain trench, whidi was very near the most ad vanced French line. When he got there he found no one. The trench soldiers had gone forward with one bound right in the track of the cur tain fire put up by the artillery and had reached German trenches on the other side of the crest out of sight with miraculously slight losses. The priest and a companion looked about in search of wounded but could find none. Then, thinking under the cir cumstances they were justified in dis obeying orders they climbed over the top of the trench and went further forward. Clothing On Fire. A little farther on they saw a Ger man running about with his clothes aflame and uttering cries for help, at the same time pointing behind him to a hole in the ground where two other men were gesticulating. The pries! went on thinking to find some more wounded men perhaps men of his own regiment, but soon he saw Cole Eight Tourstir Seven Passenger Pole 'Presents the jyfm?-ElGHT TEN-TH O US AND-TI RE-MI LES with Aerotype Bodies The magnificent range of power and the poise an4 spirit of the new body designs cause the Cole eAero- Eight Sportsters to inspire ownership. : '-7 ifs mm Traynor AutomobJU Co. Retail Distributors 2210 Faroam Street Phone Douglas 5268. 5FACE 14 COLE MOTOR CAR COMPANY, Indianapolis, U. S. A- Do Brown Auto Sales Co. holeeal Distributor for Iowa and orthern Nebraska. Soma Good Tor tory Open lor Live Dealer. MO Taraam St., Omaha. Nbraka. 1414 Locust St., Oea Momoe, Iowa. AT THE SHOW 1ST they were Germans. At once he raised his crucifix in the air in the be lief it would protect him, and he con tinued to advance. The Germans did not threaten him as he approached and soon he saw they were wounded. On arriving at the entrance to what he had believed was a dugout, he found the hole went far into the sfde of the crest. He entered the Dragon's Cave still holding his crucifix before him and shouting "Catholic 1" Inside he found the hole spread out in all di rections and that it was full of armed German soldiers. Four or five of them were officers and, under the im pression some of them at least would understand French, he called out in that language that he was a Catholic priest and that if there were any Ger man wounded there he was prepared to administer the rites of the church. One of the officers spoke to him, asking what he was doing there and what was going on outside. He in formed him thi 'French had made a long advance over their heads and had crossed the crest and that they had better lay down their arms, for they would either be killed or taken pris oners in any event. Officers Hold Conference. The officers then held a discussion among themselves, at the end of which one of them with tears stream ing down his face said he supposed they must resign themselves to their fate, but they could only surrender to an officer. Father Py scribbled on a piece of paper a note to one of the French captains, which was handed to his companion who had remained outside the cave. While the note was being carried to the French officer a German doc tor in the cave showed the priest the resting place of several German wounded. Among them was a Jesuit priest who was serving in the Ger man army as a soldier, with whom the French priest spoke in Lain. To the other wounded Germans Father Py gave the consolations of the church. Afterwards and while awaiting the return of his messenger with the French officer, Father Py advised the German officers to disarm their men in order to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding. He himself super intended the operation, telling each soldier to discard every weapon he possessed, but that they might retain small pocket knies. Germans Surrender. A little later, just when the process of disarmament was being completed, a French officer or rather a doctor appeared at the mouth of the cave and the German' office) s surrendered their swords and revolvers to him.. Then began the exit of the prison ers through the narrow entrance and they were all marched through a com munication trench back to French regimental headquarters, with an es- cort composed only of the priest, his stretcher-bearing comrade and the French doctor. They were almost a company and their arrival caused con siderable surprise at headquarters. The little priest, who always was a favorite in the regiment, with which he participates in all the hardships of fighting and in constant exposure to wounds and death, is now quite a hero. He never leaves the men to go on leave and did not even go to Paris when a detachment of the regiment went there to receive the decoration of the knotted cord in the colors of the military medal which has been conferred on it for having been five times mentioned in general army or ders for bravery The 152d,is the only regiment in the French army be sides the Foreign Legion which has won this honor. As a result of its good work at Hurtebise and on the Californie pla teau further east, the Chemin des Dames is now almost entirely m French hands. T'ae women for whom it was constructed would scarcely recognize it in its present condition, for there is not a foot of its length which is without a shell hole and the whole of the sheltering trees which formerly lined its sides have all been torn away. To discover why Hurtebise has at tained such prominence one has to learn of its high importance as a mili tary position. 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