Above all things however

Correspond to the Italian Fuorus- riti, banditti, or to the Condotticri of some of the Spanish provinces. The consideration, that the rulers whoso administration they opposed were infidels, gave them a much stronger feeling of being in the right than the latter could have. The Ileyducs lay in ambush for such Turks as they knew would be passing the road, especially those sent with treasure to Constantinople.

Tins, however, did not prevent their claiming the reputation of honesty and fidelity. When two of them associated together, one was styled ArambasUa, captain or leader; and frequently they assembled in small bands. They had their Jatcitzi (concealers), who sheltered them, singly, in winter, and whom they served as day labourers or shepherds. With the spring they returned into the forests, and joined their bands’; and when one of them happened to be missing, they all in common considered themselves bound to avenge his death.

There is no doubt that the proceedings of these IIeyducs excited a certain ferment in the nation, awakening recollections of the past, and keeping alive the spirit of warfare. Up to this time, however, they had always been disregarded : frequently, also, the Christian population  who were not very conscientiously spared by them, and who always had to make good the losses they causedtook part against them.

Notwithstanding these disorders, the position of affairs first established  the supremacy of the followers of Islam and the subjection of the Christians was upon the whole maintained. The difference caused by religion was the more striking, as it was unconnected with difference of descent. The Spahis, at least,  though not in any way tracing their origin to the ancient nobility of the country  were mostly of Servian extraction and language.

However none regarded it as an act of arbitrary injustice, emanating from personal dislike, that the Christians should be held in exclusion from State affairs, from military command, and from public life. It had always been so: the system, as has been shown, was intimately connected with the principle of Islamism.

In the book of the “ Sultan’s Commands,” compiled by a chief magistrate of Bagdad, in the fifth century of the Hegira, the duties of the Giaours  that is, of those subjects who are not Moslems  are thus specified. “ They must be recognised by their dress; their dwellings must not be loftier than those of the Mussulmans ; the sound of their bells must not be heard; they must not ride either horses or dromedaries.” Even in the 18th century, a decree of Osmar was renewed, by which the “ Infidels ” are forbidden to study the learned Arabic, or to teach their children the Koran. Above all things, however, “they may not wear armsf;”

Mid this Avas so completely a matter of course, that it is scarcely ever mentioned afterwards. The Baja were considered a weaponless herd, whose duty was obedience and subjection. Such was in general the state of Scrvia in the latter half of the 18th century.