This inner region is less ruined than the mysterious vaulted structure, and one of the palaces, being still reserved for the present Sultan’s use, cannot be visited; but we wandered unchallenged through desert courts, gardens of cypress and olive where dried fountains and painted summer-houses are falling into dust, and barren spaces enclosed in long empty facades.  It was all the work of an eager and imperious old man, who, to realize his dream quickly, built in perishable materials, but the design, the dimensions, the whole conception, show that he had not only heard of Versailles but had looked with his own eyes on Volubilis.

[Illustration:  From a photograph from the Service des Beaux-Arts au Maroc

Meknez—­the ruins of the palace of Moulay-Ismael]

To build on such a scale, and finish the work in a single lifetime, even if the materials be malleable and the life a long one, implies a command of human labor that the other Sultan at Versailles must have envied.  The imposition of the corvee was of course even simpler in Morocco than in France, since the material to draw on was unlimited, provided one could assert one’s power over it; and for that purpose Ismael had his Black Army, the hundred and fifty thousand disciplined legionaries who enabled him to enforce his rule over all the wild country from Algiers to Agadir.

The methods by which this army were raised and increased are worth recounting in Ezziani’s words: 

“A taleb[A] of Marrakech having shown the Sultan a register containing the names of the negroes who had formed part of the army of El-Mansour, Moulay-Ismael ordered his agents to collect all that remained of these negroes and their children....  He also sent to the tribes of the Beni-Hasen, and into the mountains, to purchase all the negroes to be found there.  Thus all that were in the whole of Moghreb were assembled, from the cities and the countryside, till not one was left, slave or free.

[Footnote A:  Learned man.]

“These negroes were armed and clothed, and sent to Mechra Erremel (north of Meknez) where they were ordered to build themselves houses, plant gardens and remain till their children were ten years old.  Then the Sultan caused all the children to be brought to him, both boys and girls.  The boys were apprenticed to masons, carpenters, and other tradesmen; others were employed to make mortar.  The next year they were taught to drive the mules, the third to make adobe for building; the fourth year they learned to ride horses bareback, the fifth they were taught to ride in the saddle while using firearms.  At the age of sixteen these boys became soldiers.  They were then married to the young negresses who had meanwhile been taught cooking and washing in the Sultan’s palaces—­except those who were pretty, and these were given a musical education, after which each one received a wedding-dress and a marriage settlement, and was handed over to her husband.