GOVERNMENT OF ARABIA. 133 



mited to a few trifling dues at certain ports. These 

 are, however, more than counterbalanced by his ex- 

 penditure in pensions, grants, and pious foundations 

 established at the different sacred places. 



Except under the reigns of the warlike caliphs, the 

 same primitive and simple form of government may 

 be said to have subsisted in Arabia from the most 

 remote period of its history. Among the modern 

 Bedouins it remains in all its purity ; in other parts 

 it has undergone some changes, without, however, 

 being materially altered. The whole peninsula is 

 divided unequally among a vast number of petty 

 sovereigns, under different titles, and exercising va- 

 rious degrees of authority ; bearing a strong ana- 

 logy to those social arrangements which appear to 

 have prevailed in Europe in the middle ages, and 

 more recently among the Highland clans of Scotland; 

 except only that the inferior chiefs have seldom 

 been in a state of vassalage, and never knew the 

 feudal government. In the fertile and civilized dis- 

 tricts, monarchies more or less extensive have been 

 formed, either by conquest or by religious prejudices. 



Among the most considerable of the Arabian 

 princes is the imam who resides at Sanaa, and who 

 may be styled King of Yemen, as his dominions 

 extend over the greater part of that large and fer- 

 tile province. The elevation of this royal family 

 is coeval with the expulsion of the Turks in 1630; 

 a revolution which was achieved by their ancestor 

 the famous Khassem, who traced his descent from 

 the Prophet. It was while residing privately on 

 his patrimonial inheritance, on the mountains near 

 Loheia, that with the aid of the neighbouring sheiks 

 he freed his country from the odious sway of the 



