"The Ansayrii nation--for such it is--being capable of mustering forty thousand warriors able to bear arms, is divided into two classes--sheiks and people; the sheiks again into two--Sheiks or Chiefs of Religion, Sheik el Maalem, and the temporal Sheiks, or Sheiks of Government; these being generally called Sheik el Zullom, or Sheiks of Oppression. These latter, though some of them are of good families, are not so generally: having gained favour with government, they have received the appointment. Others there are, however, whose families have held it for many generations--such as Shemseen Sultan, Sheik Succor, &c. The sheiks of religion are held as almost infallible, and the people pay them the greatest respect. With regard to the succession, there seems to be no fixed rule: the elder brother has, however, rule over the rest; but then I have seen the son the head of the family while the father was living. "The sheik of religion enjoys great privileges: as a boy he is taught to read and write; he is marked from his fellows from very earliest childhood, by a white handkerchief round his head. Early as his sense will admit, he is initiated into the principles of his faith: in this he is schooled and perfected. Early he is taught that death, martyrdom, is a glorious reward; and that, sooner than divulge one word of his creed, he is to suffer the case in which his soul is enshrined to be mangled or tortured in any way. Frequent instances have been known where they have defied the Turks, who have threatened them with death if they would not divulge, saying, 'Try me; cut my heart out, and see if anything is within there.' During his manhood he is strictly to conform to his faith: this forbids him not only eating certain things at any time, but eating at all with any but chiefs of religion; or eating anything purchased with unclean money;--and the higher sheiks carry this to such an extent that they will only eat of the produce of their own grounds; they will not even touch water, except such as they deem pure and clean. Then the sheik must exercise the most unbounded hospitality; and, after death, the people will build him a tomb, (a square place, with a dome on the top,) and he will be revered as a saint. "The lower classes are initiated into the principles of their religion, but not into its more mystical or higher parts: they are taught to obey their chiefs without question, without hesitation, and to give to them abundantly at feasts and religious ceremonies: above all, even the uninitiated is to die a thousand deaths sooner than betray his faith.