more from its very novelty. The scene in the
different court–yards had a strange mixture of
the Oriental and the feudal. I could easily
imagine the counterpart of what I saw at
Beit–ed–Deen, as taking place some seven
hundred years ago, in one of the castles built and
inhabited by the Crusaders when in Palestine.
Christians, Druses, and Moslems, monks, sheiks,
emeers, and peasants, crowded the various halls,
passages, and courts: either waiting for an
audience with the pasha, or some other
functionary, or attending as witnesses, plaintiffs,
or defendants, on the various tribunals of justice.
There must have been several hundred people
about the place, no two of whom seemed dressed
alike, nearly all being armed, and the brightest
colours predominating in all their costumes. Our
progress through the crowd was slow, for each
man present stopped our guide, the English
officer, to salute him and say a few words. The
"English Beg," as they called him, seemed
a favourite with every one. As a matter of
course, nearly every man in the crowd was
smoking. The most wealthy chiefs, or others
who had pipe–bearers and attendants with
them, smoked either long chiboques, or the
more complicated narghilé—water pipes; the
poorer men chiefly contented themselves with
cigarettes, of which they smoked one, and at the
same time rolled up another to take its place
when finished. I was particularly struck with
the courtesy and good breeding of the crowd;
most of them had manners which would do
honour to a London or Paris drawing–room;
yet our guide told us, many of them, during
the civil war, had shed blood without mercy.
Amongst the Druses there was one venerable–
looking old man whose appearance particularly
struck me. He had a snow–white beard reaching
almost to his waist, and his manners
were those of a benevolent church dignitary.
He stopped the English officer, and asked after
his health with an air of patriarchal anxiety
which was quite touching. After leaving him,
I asked who he was? "About the most blood–
thirsty rascal in Lebanon," said my informant.
"He once confessed to me that during the
massacre of Dheir–el–Kammar he had, with his
own hand, murdered thirty unarmed men in cold
blood."

Our guide took us up to where the courts of
justice were sitting. When we entered the
law court, the members, or judges, all rose and
salaamed to us, inviting our guide and his
friends to a seat upon what in England would
be termed "the bench." The judges of this court
are twelve in number. There are in the mountain
three Christian, and three non–Christian
sects. The former comprise the Maronites, the
members of the Orthodox Greek Church, and
the Greek Catholics; the latter include Druses,
Moslems, and Metualis. Each of these
communities nominate two judges for the criminal
court of the mountain, and two for the
civil court, besides a wukeel, or agent, who
looks after the affairs of his "nation"—in
Lebanon each religious community is called "a
nation"—at the head–quarters of the pasha.
Besides these six different "nations," the Protestant
community is now recognised in Mount
Lebanon as a distinct religious body, thanks to
the exertions of Lord Dufferin when he was
British commissioner in Syria after the
massacres of I860. The Protestants are few—
numbering not more than a thousand souls—
but, whenever one of this community has a
lawsuit before the tribunals, the Protestant judge
has a seat on the bench.

The law court into which we were first shown
was that in which criminal cases are tried. The
twelve judges seemed to perform the functions
of jurymen as well as judges. The proceedings
were all in Arabic, the language of the country.
As a matter of course, the whole affair was very
Oriental in its characteristics, and—to our
European eyes—highly irregular. Thus, of the
twelve judges ten were smoking—some, long
chiboques; others, cigarettes; one or two
narghilés. A young man accused of theft was
talking to one of the casual bystanders in the
court, while both the policemen who guarded
him were indulging in cigarettes, as was also
a person who seemed to perform the functions
of clerk of the court. The judges all sat on a
divan with their legs tucked under them, and—
like every one else in the court—each seemed
to make up for the inactivity of his body by the
incessant movement of his tongue. A young
native who spoke French very well, translated
the proceedings to us. Though not, perhaps,
administered according to European notions, there
was evidently a fair amount of rough justice in
the trial, and the judges appeared anxious to do
what was right. The judges have an immense
fear of the pasha, who punishes most severely
anything like corruption or injustice on the part
of any functionaries.

We did not wait to see the end of the trial,
but proceeded to visit the barracks of the police
corps, which Daoud Pasha had recently organised
for the service of the mountain. Like
everything else in Lebanon, the chief difficulty
connected with this corps is the difference of
creeds among the individuals that compose
the regiment. The six sects agree in one
article of faith; and that is, each man, woman, or
child, hates, distrusts, and would, if possible,
murder and destroy, all who profess a different
creed. This is the reason why Daoud Pasha
employs so many foreigners in the service of the
mountain. If the superior officers of his police
corps were natives, it is only the natives of the
same sect that would obey their leaders. If he
were a Christian, the non–Christians would not
obey him; if he were a Moslem, the Christians
would immediately cry out that they are being
persecuted. And so on throughout the various
sects. In the police corps we saw, there
were no fewer than three foreign commissioned,
and five non–commissioned officers. The chief
instructor, or drill–master, was a French captain
of infantry, who had been lent for a time by his
own government to the governor–general of
Lebanon, in order to drill and form the regiment.