PICTURESQUE FUNERAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 21 November 1927, Page 6

PICTURESQUE FUNERAL

LATE SULTAN OF MOROCCO.

Fez Nov. 19.

Crowds kneeling in tire tortuous streets of the city chanting, rendered the Sultan’s funeral picturesque. Crowds surrounded the palace winch was guarded by troops all night, while inside three brothers squatted in Eastern fashion around the body, now and again protstrating them selves with arms outstretched and shins touching the marble floor. When th e French Resident-General arrived the Moroccan national anthem was played. Viziers, Sheiks and Arabs of all sta tions in life prostrated themselves in touching gesture of grief as the body, wrapped in fine wool and covered with a richly embrdidered shroud, was carried on a yellow stretcher’ over which was a sort of cover, draped like a Moorish mausoleum. When the centre was reached the body was removed from the stretcher to the ground and troops marched past the body and then carried it, while the palace servants chanted prayers to the Mosque of Mulay Abdulla into which only Moslems were admitted.

Moulay Mohammed, the late Sul tan’s 14-ycar-old son, has been proclaimed his successor.—(A. and N.Z.;