There were more campaigns in the North and in
the South, and the Shareefian army ate up the land, so that there was a
famine more fatal than war. After that came more fighting, and again more
fighting. My lord sought soldiers from your people and from the French,
and he went south to the Sus and smote the rebellious kaids from Tarudant
to High. So it fell out that my Lord was never at peace with his servants,
but the country went on as before, with fighting in the north and the
south and the east and the west. The devil ships of the Nazarene nations
came again and again to the bay of Tanjah to see if the Prince of the
Faithful were indeed dead, as rumour so often stated. But he was strong,
my Lord el Hasan, and not easy to kill. In the time of a brief sickness
that visited him the French took the oases of Tuat, which belongs to the
country just so surely as does this our Marrakesh. They have been from
times remote a place of resting for the camels, like Tindouf in the Sus.
But our Master recovered his lordship with his health, and the French went
back from our land. After that my Lord el Hasan went to Tafilalt over the
Atlas, never sparing himself. And when he returned to this city, weary and
very sick, at the head of an army that lacked even food and clothing, the
Spaniards were at the gates of Er-Riff once more, and the tribes were out
like a fire of thorns over the northern roads.
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