Muley Abd Errahman, during his long reign, rendered the imperial authority more solid than formerly, and established a species of conservative government in a semi-barbarous country, and exposed to continual commotions, like all Asiatic and African states.  In governing the multitudinous and heterogeneous tribes of his empire, his grand maxim has ever been, like Austria, with her various states and hostile interests of different people, “Divide et empera.”  When will sovereigns learn to govern their people upon principles of homogenity of interests, natural good will, and fraternal feeling?  Alas! we have reason to fear, never.  It seems nations are to be governed always by setting up one portion of the people against the other.

Muley Abd Errahman was chosen by his uncle, on account of his pacific and frugal habits, educated as he was by being made in early life the administrator of the customs in Mogador, and as a prince likely to preserve and consolidate the empire.  The anticipations of the uncle have been abundantly realized by the nephew, for Muley Abd Errahman, with the exception of the short period of the French hostilities, (which was not his own work and happened in spite of him), has preserved the intact without, and quiet during the many years he has occupied the throne.

His Moorish Majesty, who is advanced in life, is a man of middle stature.  He has dark and expressive eyes, and, as already observed, is a mulatto of a fifth caste.  Colour excites no prejudices either in the sovereign or in the subject.  This Emperor is so simple in his habits and dress, that he can only be distinguished from his officers and governors of provinces by the thall, or parasol, the Shereefian emblem of royalty.  The Emperor’s son, when out on a military expedition, is also honoured by the presence of the Imperial parasol, which was found in Sidi Mohammed’s tent at the Battle of Isly.  Muley Abd Errahman is not given to excesses of any kind, (unless avarice is so considered), though his three harems of Fas, Miknas, and Morocco may be stocked, or more politely, adorned, with a thousand ladies or so, and the treasures of the empire are at his disposal.  He is not a man of blood; [4] he rarely decapitates a minister or a governor, notwithstanding that he frequently confiscates their property, and sometimes imprisons them to discover their treasures, and drain them of their last farthing.  The Emperor lives on good terms with the rest of his family.  He has one son, Governor of Fez (Sidi Mohammed), and another son, Governor of Rabat.  The greater part of the royal family reside at Tafilett, the ancient country of the Sherfah, or Shereefs, and is still especially appropriated for their residence.  Ali Bey reported as the information of his time, that there were at Tafilett no less than two thousand Shereefs, who all pretended to have a right to the throne of Morocco, and who, for that reasons enjoyed certain gratifications paid them by the reigning Sultan.  He adds that, during an interregnum, many of them took up arms and threw the empire into anarchy.  This state of things is happily past, and, as to the number of the Shereefs at Tafilett, all that we know is, there is a small fortified town, inhabited entirely by Shereefs, living in moderate, if not impoverished circumstances.