A British subject, Mr. Levy, had possessed, and successfully cultivated for many years, a large estate on the coast of the regency of Tunis, called the Suyah. Europeans holding land in this country, as in all others, are amenable in transactions concerning it to the _lex loci_, which, in this particular instance, is the Muhammedan code. One of the best known and most frequently practised principles of that law is called _shoofâ_, or pre-emption, which may be shortly described as the right of a partner or neighbour to acquire any property sold in which he has a share, or which is contiguous to his own estate, on paying down the purchase money agreed on by the original vendee. This right is as frequently resorted to through the local courts at Tunis by European settlers as by Arab proprietors. General Kheir-ed-Din was the owner of a very important domain bordering on Mr. Levy’s estates, and even surrounding a portion of his lands, which property is known as the Enfida. During the autumn of 1880 Mr. Levy entered into negotiations for its purchase, and obtained promises of support from his friends to raise the required capital. Suddenly the news reached Tunis that Kheir-ed-Din had sold his estate to the Société Marseillaise, the French financial company which had already succeeded M. De Sancy at Sidi Tabet for a large sum, but on the express condition that the sale was to be effected according to Muhammedan law. Mr. Levy then determined to invoke his right of _shoofâ_, and no sooner had the Société Marseillaise completed the formalities of purchase (which they did in the manner prescribed by the law and immemorial custom of Tunis) than he made the requisite declarations, and was, with the sanction of the cadi, placed in possession of the Enfida. The original purchasers were next obliged by the requirements of Muhammedan law to sue Mr. Levy before the cadi to test the validity of his right, and so conscious were they of this, that they had actually left a zone of land, one mètre in width, all round the estate still the property of Kheir-ed-Din, in order to place Mr. Levy out of the category of contiguous neighbours. It, however, transpired that this fiction must ignominiously fail on account of Mr. Levy possessing gardens within the Enfida, and a _coup d’état_ was hastily resolved on by M. Roustan.