Shehaab and their numerous adherents. Anarchy was an argument in the
mouth of each, that the Lebanon must be governed by the Porte, or that
there never could be tranquillity without a Shehaab prince. The Porte in
general contented itself with being passive and watching the fray, while
the agents of the Great Powers planned and promulgated their scheme of
polity. The Shehaabs were more active, and their efforts were greatly
assisted by the European project which was announced.

The principal feature of this administrative design was the institution
of two governors of Lebanon, called Caimacams, one of whom was to be a
Maronite and govern the Maronites, and the other a Druse and govern his
fellow-countrymen. Superficially, this seemed fair enough, but
reduced into practice the machinery would not work. For instance, the
populations in many places were blended. Was a Druse Caimacam to govern
the Christians in his district? Was the government of the two Caimacams
to be sectarian or geographical? Should the Christian Caimacam govern
all the Christians, and the Druse Caimacam govern all the Druses of
the Lebanon? Or should the Christian Caimacam govern the Christian
Mook-atas, as well as such Druses as lived mixed with the Christians
in the Christian Mookatas, and the Druse Caimacam in the Druse country
exercise the same rights?

Hence arose the terms of mixed Druses and mixed Christians; mixed Druses
meaning Druses living in the Christian country, and mixed Christians
those living in the Druse country. Such was the origin of the mixed
population question, which entirely upset the project of Downing Street;
happy spot, where they draw up constitutions for Syria and treaties for
China with the same self-complacency and the same success!

Downing Street (1842) decided upon the sectarian government of the
Lebanon. It was simple, and probably satisfactory, to Exeter Hall;
but Downing Street was quite unaware, or had quite forgotten, that the
feudal system prevailed throughout Lebanon. The Christians in the Druse
districts were vassals of Druse lords. The direct rule of a Christian
Caimacam was an infringement on all the feudal rights of the Djinblats
and Yezbecks, of the Talhooks and the Abdel-Maleks. It would be equally
fatal to the feudal rights of the Christian chiefs, the Kazins and
the El-dadahs, the Elheires and the El Dahers, as regarded their Druse
tenantry, unless the impossible plan of the patriarch of the Maronites,