The lands of
Lebanon are divided into fifteen Mookatas, or feudal provinces, and the
rights of the mookatadgis, or landlords, in these provinces, are power
of punishment not extending to death, service in war, and labour in
peace, and the collection of the imperial revenue from the population,
who are in fact their vassals, on which they receive a percentage from
the Porte. The administration of police, of the revenue, and indeed
the whole internal government of Lebanon, are in the hands of the
mookatadgis, or rather of the most powerful individuals of this class,
who bear the titles of Emirs and Sheikhs, some of whom are proprietors
to a very great extent, and many of whom, in point of race and antiquity
of established family, are superior to the aristocracy of Europe.
There is no doubt that the founders of this privileged and territorial
class, whatever may be the present creeds of its members, Moslemin,
Maronite, or Druse, were the old Arabian conquerors of Syria. The Turks,
conquerors in their turn, have succeeded in some degree in the plain to
the estates and immunities of the followers of the first caliphs; but
the Ottomans never substantially prevailed in the Highlands, and their
authority has been recognised mainly by management, and as a convenient
compromise amid the rivalries of so many local ambitions.
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