His Usual Residence Is At The Village Of Mokhtar [Arabic], Three Hours Distant From Beteddein, Where He Has Built A Good House, And Keeps An Establishment Of About Two Hundred Men.

His confidential attendants, and even the porters of his harem, are Christians; but his bosom friend

[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.

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