Morocco: The Way to the Throne

The molten noonday sun glared on the restless crowd of 100,000 people jammed before the cream-colored stucco palace. Wailing women ripped off their veils and clawed at their tattooed faces in an ecstasy of grief. Men in flowing djellabahs rushed about emptying buckets of water on the hundreds who fainted. Attendants lifted hysterical, writhing women onto stretchers. Broadcasts summoned all of Rabat's doctors and nurses to emergency work in the city's packed dispensaries.

28 Concubines. The palace gates opened. Shrieks rose to the sky as the coffin of King Mohammed V emerged,...

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