PIERRE LOTI.

PIERRE LOTI, pseudonym of LOUIS MARIE JULIEN VIAUD, a French novelist; (retained by him from an early nickname, given him for his modesty, and referring to a flower of Polynesia that hides itself); born at Rochefort, Jan. 14, 1850. He was educated in the naval school at Brest, 1867; became lieutenant in 1881, and made many voyages in Oceanica and to Japan, Senegal, etc. Participating in the French war against Anam (south of China) in 1883, his letters to Figaro led to his suspension from active service; he painted "too black" the conduct of the French soldiers in taking the forts of Hué. "From Lands of Exile" appeared in 1887. His other works are "Aziyadé" (1879); "Rarahu, a Polynesian Idyl" (1880), (reprinted under the title of "Marriage of Loti"); "The Romance of a Spahi" (Algerian soldier), (1881); "Flowers of Ennui," "Pasquala Ivanovitch," in which is included "Sueleima" (1882); "My Brother Yves" (1883); "The Three Women of Kasbah" (1884); "The Iceland Fisherman (1886); "Madame Chrysanthème" (1887); "Japonneries d'Automne" (1889); "Au Maroc" (1890); "Le Roman d'un Enfant," an autobiography (1890); "Le Livre de la Pitié et de la Mort" (1891); "Fantôme d'Orient," a sequel to "Aziyadé" (1892); "Matelot " (1893). Of the above works, "From Lands of Exile," "Rarahu," "The Iceland Fisherman," and "Madame Chrysanthème," have been published in English.

LOTI MEETS THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO.

(From "Into Morocco.")

THIS morning we are to be presented to the Sultan, one day of our quarantine having been graciously remitted to us. At half past eight we all assembled in full uniform in the Moorish courtyard of the house occupied by the minister and his suite. Then comes the Caid Introducer of Ambassadors, a gigantic bull-necked mulatto carrying an enormous staff of some cheap metal. (To perform the duties of this office one of the largest men of the empire is always selected.) Four persons in long

white robes enter in his suite and remain standing motionless behind him, all of them furnished with staves like his, which they hold in front of them at arms' length, just as a drum-major holds his cane.

people.

Their duty is simply to keep our road clear of

When we are ready to mount, we pass through the orange grove, where that same fine wintry rain is falling that has accompanied us so faithfully thus far on our journey, and direct our steps toward the low gateway which gives access to the street; here the horses are brought up, one by one. The street is so narrow that the animals cannot turn about in it nor proceed two abreast; we accordingly mount them as they come up, haphazard, hastily and without order.

From here to the palace is quite a long distance, and we have to pass through the same quarters that we did in coming here day before yesterday. In front of us, the sticks play here and there upon the backs of people who are obstructing the way, and we are surrounded by a file of terrified, red-uniformed soldiers who are constantly getting under our horses' heels, and whose bayonets, reaching to the height of our eyes, are a constant menace to us in the confusion of our rapid movements. As on the day of our entry, we cross the waste lands which lie between Old Fez and New Fez, with their rocks, aloe-trees, caves, tombs, ruins, and the heaps of decaying animals above which the birds of prey are wheeling. At length we arrive before the first inclosure of the palace, and make our entry into the court of the Ambassadors through a great ogival gateway.

This courtyard is of such immense extent that I know of no city in the world that possesses one of similar dimensions. It is surrounded by those lofty and forbidding walls that I have spoken of before, flanked by solid square bastions—in the same manner as are the walls of Stamboul and Damietta - with something about them still more dilapidated, more threatening, more awe-inspiring; the place is covered with coarse grass, and in the center is a marsh where the frogs are piping. The sky is black, filled with angry clouds; birds leave their niches in the towers and wheel in circles in the air.

Notwithstanding the thousands of men who are standing in dense array around its four sides under the old walls, the place seems empty. The spectators are the same as ever, the same colors also prevail; on one side, a white multitude in cloaks and cowls, on the other a red multitude, the troops of the Sultan,

with their band at their head in their robes of orange, green, violet, brown and yellow. The central part of the immense court, where we have taken our position, is completely deserted. And the crowd, far distant from us as it is, and heaped up against the foot of these overpowering battlements, looks like a crowd of Lilliputians.

This place has communication with the inner precincts of the palace through one of its corner bastions. This bastion, in less ruinous condition than the others and newly whitewashed, has two charming great arched gateways, surrounded with pink and blue arabesques, and it is through one of these arches that the Sultan is to make his appearance.

We are requested to dismount, for no one may presume to remain mounted in the presence of the Commander of the Faithful. So our beasts are led away, and here we are, standing in the mud, among the wet grass.

There is a movement among the troops, and the red infantry and their parti-colored band come and form up in two ranks, making a wide avenue from the center of the court where we are stationed down to the bastion yonder from which the Sultan is to approach, and all eyes are fixed on the gate surrounded with arabesques, awaiting the holy apparition.

The gate is fully two hundred meters away from us, such is the great size of the courtyard, and the first ones to approach through the lane of troops are the great officers of state, the viziers: men whose visages are thoughtful and whose beards are growing white; they too, are on foot to-day, like ourselves, and walk with slow steps in the dignity of their white veils and floating bournouses. We know almost all these persons from having met them on our arrival day before yesterday, but they presented a prouder appearance then, mounted on their fine horses. There appears also the Caid Belal, the black court buffoon, with his indescribable turban shaped like a dome; he advances by himself with a distracting gait, swaying to and fro as if he were hung on wires, supported by an enormous bludgeon-like staff; there is an unspeakable repulsive and scoffing air about him, which seems to tell his consciousness of the favor which he enjoys with his master.

The rain still threatens; storm clouds, impelled by the high wind, drive through the heavens in company with the flocks of birds, giving an occasional glimpse of that deep blue which alone reminds us that we are in the country of light. The

walls, the towers are in every direction bristling with their pointed battlements, rising in the air with the appearance of combs from which part of the teeth have been broken; they loom up gigantic, shutting us in as in a citadel of immense size and fantastic form. Time has endowed them with a goldengray color that is very striking; they are broken, cracked, ready to fall; they produce upon the mind the impression of an antiquity that is lost in the night. Two or three storks are looking down upon the throng from their perches among the battlements; a donkey, too, that has in some way or other succeeded in getting up into one of the towers with his red-covered saddle upon his back, surveys the scene from his vantage ground.

Through the gateway that is bordered with pink and blue arabesques, upon which our attention is more and more closely fixed, there now streams a band of fifty little negro slaves, dressed in red with white surplices, like choir boys. They march awkwardly, huddling together like a flock of sheep.

Then six magnificent white horses are led forth, all saddled and caparisoned in silk, rearing and pawing the ground.

Then a gilded coach, of the time of Louis XV. — incongruous with the surroundings, and looking very trifling and ridiculous among all this rude grandeur. It has the distinction of being the only wheeled carriage in existence at Fez, and was the gift of Queen Victoria.

These events are succeeded by a few moments of silent waiting. Then suddenly the long lines of soldiers vibrate under a thrill of religious awe; the band, with its great brasses and its drums, strikes up a deafening, mournful air. The fifty little black slaves run, run as if their lives were at stake, deploying from their base like the sticks of a fan, resembling bees swarming, or a flock of birds. And yonder, in the shadowy light of the ogive, upon which all eyes are turned, there appears a tall, brown-faced mannikin, all veiled in white muslin, mounted on a splendid white horse led in hand by four slaves; over his head is held an umbrella of antique form, such an one as must have protected the Queen of Sheba, and two gigantic negroes, one in pink, the other in blue, wave fly-flaps around the person of the sovereign.

While the strange mannikin, or mummy, almost shapeless, but majestic notwithstanding in his robes of snowy white, is advancing towards us, the music, as if exasperated to madness,

wails louder and louder, in a shriller key; it strikes up a slow and distressful religious air, the time of which is accentuated by a frightful beating of the bass-drums. The mannikin's horse rears wildly, restrained with difficulty by the four black slaves, and this music, so mournful and so strange to us, affects our nerves with an indescribable agonizing sensation.

Here, at last, drawn up close beside us, stands this last authentic descendant of Mahomet, crossed with Nubian blood. His attire, of the finest mousseline-de-laine, is of immaculate whiteness. His charger, too, is entirely white, his great stirrups are of gold, and his saddle and equipments are of a very pale green silk, lightly embroidered in a still paler shade of golden green. The slaves who hold his horse, the one who carries the great red umbrella, and the two- the pink and blue ones, who shake napkins on the monarch's face to drive away imaginary flies, are all herculean negroes whose countenances are wrinkled into fierce smiles; they are all old men and their gray or white beards contrast with the blackness of their features. This ceremonial of a bygone age harmonizes with the wailing music, could not suit better with the huge walls around us, which rear their crumbling summits high in the air.

This man, who thus presents himself before us with the surroundings which I have described, is the last faithful exponent of a religion, a civilization that are about to die. He is the personification, in fact, of ancient Islam; for it is well known that pure Mussulmans look upon the Sultan of Stamboul almost in the light of a sacrilegious usurper and turn their eyes and their prayers toward the Moghreb, where dwells the man who is in their eyes the true successor of the Prophet.

What result can we expect to attain from an embassy to such a man, who, together with his people, spends his life torpid and motionless among ancient dreams of humanity that have almost disappeared from the surface of the earth? There is not a single point on which we can understand each other; the distance between us is nearly that which would separate us from a Caliph of Cordova or of Bagdad who should come to life again after a slumber of a thousand years. What do we wish to obtain from him, and why have we brought him forth from his impenetrable palace?

His brown, parchment-like face, in its setting of white muslin, has regular and noble features; dull, expressionless eyes, the whites of which appear beneath the balls that are half concealed