Ismael Pasha had only one object,—­to do anything that would advance his promotion and wealth.  He regarded a foreign consul, with the right of exterritoriality, as a hostile force in the way of his ambitions, and, therefore, until he found that one was not to be bought or worried into indifference to the injustice perpetrated around him, he treated him as an enemy.  I always liked a good fight in a good cause, and I had no hesitation in taking up the glove that Ismael threw down, and my defiance of all his petty hostile manoeuvres was immediately observed by the acute islanders and put down to my credit and exaltation in the popular opinion.  The discontent against his measures 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.

Having no occupation but archaeological research and photography, I decided to make a series of expeditions into the mountain district, and to begin with a visit to the famous strongholds of Sphakia.  The pasha protested, but as I had a right to go where I pleased, I paid no attention to his protests, and he then went to the other extreme, and offered to provide me with horses, which offer I unfortunately accepted.  The horse I rode and the groom the pasha sent with