was profound, and the winter of my first year in the island was one of
great distress. Ismael had laid new and illegal taxes on straw,
wine, all beasts of burden, which, with oppressive collection of the
habitual tithes (levied in accordance not with the actual value of the
crops, but with their value as estimated by the officials), and short
crops for two years past, made life very hard for the Cretan. Even
this was not enough; justice was administered with scandalous venality
and disregard of the existing laws and procedure. Not long after my
arrival at Canea, the hospital physician, a humane Frenchman, informed
me that an old Sphakiot had just died in the prison, where he had been
confined for a long time in place of his son, who had been guilty of a
vendetta homicide and had escaped to the Greek islands. According to a
common Turkish custom, the pasha had ordered his nearest relative to
be arrested in his place. This was the old father, who lay in prison
till he died.

The capricious cruelty of Ismael was beyond anything I had ever heard
of. One day I was out shooting and was attacked by a dog whom I
saluted with a charge of small birdshot, on which the owner made
complaint to the pasha that I had peppered accidentally one of his
children. Ismael spread this report through the town, learning which I
made him an official visit demanding a rectification and examination
of the child, which was found without a scratch. The pasha, furious at
the humiliation of exposure, then threw the man into prison, and as
he, Adam-like, accused his wife of concocting the charge, he ordered
her also to prison for two weeks, without the slightest investigation,
leaving three small children helpless. I protested, and insisted on
the release of the man, who had only obeyed the wish of the pasha in
making the charge against me.