r of the Sherifal
House in his place.

The Sherif chosen was Yahia ibn Serur, of a rival branch, the Dewy Aoun,
and a bitter animosity was, by this means, engendered between the two
families of Aoun and Zeyd, which is continued to the present day. Nor,
as may be supposed, was this lessened by the subsequent changes rung by
the Turkish and Egyptian Governments in their appointments to the
office, for, in 1827, we find Abd el Mutalleb, the son of the deposed
Wahhabite Ghaleb, reappointed, and in the following year again,
Mohammed, the son of Yahia ibn Aoun, an intrigue which brought on a
civil war. Then in 1848 a new intrigue reinstated Abd el Mutalleb and
the Zeyds; and then, in 1853, these were again deposed for rebellion,
and an Aoun was placed in power. From 1853 till 1880 the Aouns retained
the Grand Sherifate and were supreme in Hejaz. Coming into power at a
time when Liberal ideas were in the ascendant they have consistently
been Liberal, and still represent the more humane and progressive party
among the Meccans. In the desert, where all are latitudinarian, they are
the popular party; and, though themselves beyond a suspicion of
unorthodoxy, they have always shown a tolerant spirit towards the Shiahs
and other heretics, with whom the Sherifal authority necessarily comes
in contact every year at the Haj. They have even maintained friendly
terms with the European element at Jeddah, and as long as they remained
in power the relations between India and Mecca were of an amicable
nature.

Abdallah ibn Aoun, the son of Mohammed, who succeeded his father in
1858, and reigned for nineteen years, was a man of considerable ability,
and he is credited with having had views of so advanced a nature as to
include the opening of Hejaz to European trade. Nor was his brother, who
in 1877 became Grand Sherif, of a less liberal mind. Though of less
ability than Abdallah, he is described as eminently humane and virtuous,
and it is certain that, with the exception of his hereditary enemies,
the Zeyds, he was universally beloved by the Hejazi. So much was this
the case that, in the year following the disastrous Russian war, when
Constantinople seemed on the point of dissolution, the Arabs began to
talk openly of making El Husseyn ibn Aoun Caliph in the Sultan's place.
I have not been able to ascertain that El Husseyn himself indulged the
ambitious project of his friends, for he was eminently a man of peace,
and the Caliphal title woul