[p.199] is Sheikh el Nedjem [Arabic], a fanatical Druse, and one of the most respected of their Akals. The Sheikh Beshir has the reputation of being generous, and of faithfully defending those who have put themselves under his protection. The Emir Beshir, on the contrary, is said to be avaricious; but this may be a necessary consequence of the smallness of his income. He is an amiable man, and if any Levantine can be called the friend of an European nation, he certainly is the friend of the English. He dwells on no topic with so much satisfaction as upon that of his alliance with Sir Sidney Smith, during that officer's command upon this coast. His income amounts, at most, to four hundred purses, or about £10.000. sterling, after deducting from the revenue of the mountain the sums paid to the Pashas, to the Sheikh Beshir, and to the numerous branches of his family. His favourite expenditure seems to be in building. He keeps about fifty horses, of which a dozen are of prime quality; his only amusement is sporting with the hawk and the pointer. He lives on very bad terms with his family, who complain of his neglecting them; for the greater part of them are poor, and will become still poorer, till they are reduced to the state of Fellahs, because it is the custom with the sons, as soon as they attain the age of fifteen or sixteen, to demand the share of the family property, which is thus divided among them, the father retaining but one share for himself. Several princes of the family are thus reduced to an income of about one hundred and fifty pounds a year. It has constantly been the secret endeavour of the Emir Beshir to make himself directly dependent upon the Porte, and to throw off his allegiance to the Pasha; but he has never been able to succeed. The conduct of Djezzar Pasha was the cause of this policy. Djezzar, for reasons which have already been explained, was continually changing the governors of the mountain, and each new governor was obliged to promise him large sums for his investiture. Of these sums few [p.200]were paid at the time of Djezzar's death, and bills to the amount of sixteen thousand purses were found in his treasury, secured upon the revenue of the mountain. At the intercession of Soleiman Pasha,who succeeded Djezzar at Akka, and of Gharib Effendi, the Porte's commissioner (now Pasha of Aleppo), this sum was reduced to four thousand purses, of which the Emir Beshir is now obliged to pay off a part annually. By opposing the Druse parties to each other, and taking advantage of the Christian population, a man of genius and energy of the Shehab family might perhaps succeed in making himself the independent master of the mountain. Such an event would render this the most important government in Syria, and no military force the Turks could send would be able to overthrow it. But at present the Shehab appear to have no man of enterprise among them.