26 HISTORY.

wandered about the country as cripples, begging their daily bread from their neighbours, deprived of their noses, ears, or tongues, or with their eyes put out.

We may now easily imagine what fate befel this ill-starred country, when it became subject to the Turks. In former days, the inhabitants lived in freedom, without care, in the consciousness of security of property, or at least of life ; but, when the Turks gained possession of this province, a total change took place ; from that moment, the right of property ceased to exist, and the government considered all possessions as its own. Add to this the inhuman conduct of the Defturdar, which brought the people to the verge of despair ; for the slightest suspicion that any one subject had amassed a small fortune, either in goods, money, or cattle, was sufficient to bring him, under some pretext, to death, in order to be able to confiscate his property. The Defturdar was insatiable ; he robbed everything, if he only knew where to find it, and had thus collected immeasurable wealth in a very short space of time.

The government is, indeed, at present, rather more lenient, and its officers have received a check in their arbitrary abuse of power ; but the distance from the seat of government is too great to render the superior authorities cognizant of all abuses, too many of which, unfortunately, yet afflict this doomed province.