The civil government of Rabat is vested in the Caïd, whose functions I have already described. The financial officers are the _Emirs_ of the custom-house, the chief of whom is called the _Administrador_, and which, from that title, seems to have supplanted the original municipal Government; the _Mehatzib_, an officer appointed to fix the price of provisions, and to stamp goods publicly sold; and the _Nadir_, or administrator of the Sultan’s property, which consists in the houses and gardens he comes into possession of on the demise of his debtors, by which means he has extinguished in part, and is in process of extinguishing, the ancient rights and privileges of the town. There is no confiscation in Rabat for any crime; but by the custom-house system he is becoming the proprietor of all the property. The Nadir has from these funds to pay the poor _Talebs_, or learned men, which absorbs a great portion of the profits. There is a _Beit ul Mal_, or public treasury. The judicial power belongs of right to the Caïd, or to him who is next in dignity to the Caïd. The office is well known in Turkey, but here he belongs to no independent body, and exercises but slender influence: it has not, however, been always so. Mr. Addison, a chaplain of Charles II., and some time at Tangier during the English occupation, thus speaks of what he calls “The Moors’ Church Government.” “They have in every cavila (or county) an Alcalib or high-priest, in whose nomination the secular power doth not at all interpose, for he is chosen out of and by the Alfaques, and invested with power to depose or otherwise chastise the offending clergy. Immediately upon this arch-priest’s election, he is possessed of the Giamma Gheber, or Great Church, wherein upon every Friday he expounds some text of the Alchoran, unto which exercise he always goes accompanied with the chief personages of the neighbourhood. This eminent churchman is seldom seen in public but at this exercise. For, to make himself the more reverenced, he affects retirement,[229] spending his hours in the study of the Alchoran, and in resolving such cases as the laity present him, who esteem his resolutions as infallible; and this, with a careful inspection into the deportment of the inferior clergy, doth constitute the office and government of the Alcalib. As for his revenues, they are suitable to his condition; and as to his life, it is austere and reserved, he affecting a peculiar gravity in all his carriage. Every Alcalib has his distinct diocese, out of which he has no power, so that the Alcalib of Beni Aros hath nothing to do in Minkél, for every one is absolute in his own cavila.” Mr. Addison gives the following interesting details respecting their judicial proceedings:--