United States or Ghana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The princes of the Houses of Shehaab, Kais, and Assaad, and Abdullah, the Habeish and the Eldadah, the great Houses of the Druses, the Djinblat and the Yezbek, the Abuneked, the Talhook, and the Abdel-Malek, were not of this school. Silently, determinedly, unceasing, unsatiated, they proceeded with the great enterprise on which they had embarked.
The moment he found that the Emir Bescheer and his sons were prisoners at Constantinople, he returned to Syria, lived quietly at his own castle, affected popularity among the neighbouring chieftains, who were pleased to see a Shehaab among them, and showed himself on every occasion a most loyal subject of the Porte.
Acted upon by the patriarch of the Maronites, Kassim, who was a Christian Shehaab, countenanced the attempts of his holiness to destroy the feudal privileges of the Druse mookatadgis, while those of the Maronites were to be retained.
IN ONE of those civil broils at Damascus which preceded the fall of the Janissaries, an Emir of the house of Shehaab, who lost his life in the fray, had, in the midst of the convulsion, placed his infant son in the charge of the merchant Besso, a child most dear to him, not only because the babe was his heir, but because his wife, whom he passionately loved, a beautiful lady of Antioch and of one of the old families of the country, had just sacrificed her life in giving birth to their son.
Sheikh Said Djinblat inquired of Lord Montacute whether there were hyenas in England, but was immediately answered by the lively and well-informed Kais Shehaab, who apprised him that there were only lions and unicorns.
Fakredeen Shehaab, Emir of Canobia, and lineal descendant of the standard-bearer of the Prophet, had not such faith in Arabian principles as to dream of converting the Queen of the Ansarey. Quite the reverse; the Queen of the Ansarey had converted him.
The calico merchants will call out for a prince of the house of Shehaab! Riza will propose me; Bourqueney will not murmur, and Sir Canning, finding he is in a mess, will sign a fine note of words about the peace of Europe and the prosperity of Lebanon, and 'tis finished. 'And my father, you have seen him? 'I have seen him, said the young Emir, and he cast his eyes on the ground.
It was the interest of two parties, whose cooperation was highly essential to the settlement of this question, to prevent the desired adjustment, and these were the Turkish government and the family of Shehaab and their numerous adherents.
A Shehaab committee was appointed, with perpetual sittings at Deir el Kamar, the most considerable place in the Lebanon; and, although it was chiefly composed of Christians, there were several Druses at least in correspondence with it.
In the year '39, Fakredeen being then fifteen years of age, the country entirely tranquil, even if discontented, occupied by a disciplined army of 80,000 men, commanded by captains equal it was supposed to any conjuncture, the Egyptians openly encouraged by the greatest military nation of Europe, the Turks powerless, and only secretly sustained by the countenance of the ambassador of the weakest government that ever tottered in England, a government that had publicly acknowledged that it had forfeited the confidence of the Parliament which yet it did not dissolve; everything being thus in a state of flush and affluent prosperity, and both the house of Shehaab and the house of Besso feeling, each day more strongly, how discreet and how lucky they had been in the course which they had adopted, came the great Syrian crash!
Word Of The Day