CONSTANTINOPLE, MAY 5.—A Turkish steamer is daily expected from Beyrout with eight Druse chieftains, recently arrested by order of the Seraskier, at Beteddin, near Deir el Kamr. The cause of their arrest is thus accounted for.

In order to insure the tranquillity of the Lebanon, and to prevent a renewal of the sanguinary struggles that have so repeatedly broken out between the Maronites and Druses, and, above all, to check the audacity and unprovoked aggressions of the latter upon the Christians, it has been held advisable by the Porte to disarm both tribes, as far as such disarmament was practicable. But the people, encouraged by their sheiks, refused to comply, and these sheiks, especially those arrested, menaced the Turkish authorities with a general revolt of all their clans, should forcible measures be adopted to produce submission.