Broken Blue Sultan

Each time the French Foreign Legion nabs an important chieftain in the perpetual Berber rebellion in French Morocco, another springs up to take his place. Two of the greatest of these blue-cowled die-hards were the Brothers El Hiba and Merebbi Rebbo Mehammedan of the south, sometimes called "The Blue Sultan,"* sometimes "The Saint." Nabbed in 1917 by the French, El Hiba passed his baton on to Brother Merebbi. For 16 years Merebbi's home has been the wide Moroccan Desert and the passes of the Atlas Mountains. By day he has worn dust on his tongue, sand in his eyes, and in his heart the resolve to wrest Morocco from the Christians. Last week a leather-skinned man stalked into the Spanish garrison at Cape Jubion the coast of Spain's colony of Rio de Oro south of Morocco. "I am a political exile from French Morocco," said he. "I ask for your protection. I am the Blue Sultan." In Madrid Spain's Premier Alejandro Lerroux told the good news. For the nth time the French command announced that "'the back of Moorish resistance is broken." Sixty thousand Legionaires and French colonials had their best night's sleep in years.

*The "Blue Men of the Rio de Oro" and their 'Blue Sultan" are a leaden blue from head to toe. When they buy the indigo cottonades for their robes, they wet their thumbs and rub them over the cloth to make sure the dye is not fast. In the wet coastal heat they sweat the dye from the cloth to their skins. No true Blue Woman would look at a man who was not also a good deep blue. The Blue Men's rebellion flickers 200 mi. south of the main Berber rebellion around Marrakesh. Their chief capitals, fortified oases, are Tiiznit, Smara and Kerdous. Their last few Sultans have been notably stupid.

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