As Ghaleb was a merchant and land-owner, and procured all the articles of consumption at the first hand, the maintenance of his household, with his women and slaves, did not, I should imagine, require above twenty thousand pounds sterling per annum. In time of peace the Sherif kept a small permanent force, not exceeding five hundred men, of whom about one hundred were in garrison at Djidda, fifty at Tayf, as many at Yembo, and the rest at Mekka: of this body about eight hundred were cavalry, in addition to his own mounted household. Many of the soldiers were his domestic slaves; but the greater part were Bedouins from different parts of Arabia; those from Yemen, the mountains of Asyr, and Nedjed, being the most numerous. Their pay was from eight to twelve dollars per month; [p.237] and they were commanded by Sherifs, whom they obeyed as Bedouins obey their leader during war, that is to say, that, trained to no regular exercise, they accompanied the Sherif whenever he took a ride out of the town, and on returning fired off their guns, according to the Arabian custom, in leaping wildly about. The arms of the infantry were a matchlock and crooked knife; the horsemen had a lance. When Ghaleb engaged in war, this force was increased by the accession of many Sherifs and their retinues, who received no pay, but occasional presents, and a share in the booty acquired; these wars being generally directed against some Bedouin tribes, whose cattle was the sole object of invasion. Upon these occasions, the Sherif was joined also by other Bedouins, who returned with their Sheikhs to their homes, as soon as the expedition was terminated. On the breaking out of the Wahaby war, and when the Wahabys began to make successful attacks upon the Hedjaz, Ghaleb found it necessary to increase his standing force; he therefore added to it a number of black slaves, thereby augmenting it to eight hundred, following, in this respect, the practice of his predecessors, who always considered their own purchased slaves as the most faithful men under their command; [During the last century, the Sherifs of Mekka constantly kept a small corps of Georgian Mamelouks as their body guard.] he also enlisted additional numbers of Bedouins, and had, during the whole of the contest, generally from two to three thousand men; a number thought fully sufficient to guard his cities. Whenever he planned an attack on the Wahabys, he collected his allies among the Bedouins, and advanced several times towards Nedjed with an united force of ten thousand men. When those allies were obliged, successively, to yield to the invaders, and the southern Bedouins, on whom Ghaleb always principally depended, were conquered by the great exertions and activity of Othman el Medhayfe, Ghaleb found himself alone, with his few troops, unable to prolong the contest, and was soon driven to extremities and obliged to submit, though he still kept a corps of troops in his pay,