As the country of Valachia abounded with sheep, cattle, honey, and salt, the merchants and rich men of Constantinople were in the habit of advancing sums of money to every new waivoda on the condition of collecting from the peasantry articles of the above description in return. This practice occasioned frequently great contention. It happened sometimes, when the waivodas did not fulfil their engagements, that those who had advanced them money in the way above described, went and abused and harassed the begs, and created much disturbance. Michael, mentioned at the head of this article, was one of these waivodas who failed to fulfil his promises, and who was therefore one day visited by more than four thousand of this sort of creditors, chiefly Janissaries and principal servants of great men, who profited by this rapacity. They assaulted the waivoda in his own palace, seized upon every thing which fell into their hands, and beat and abused as many of his domestics as chanced to come in their way. This circumstance of violence and mode of assault completely wrought on the mind of the hateful infidel, and led him to the following method of settling with his creditors. He called them together, and by way of giving them his advice, at the same time appearing very polite, said: “If you kill me, you will of course lose all the property that is due to you: that is evident. Come, then, follow my advice, and go along with persons duly appointed into the province, collect what property you can, and pay yourselves out of it.” Manifesting for some time, however, some degree of hesitation and unwillingness, they at last agreed; but it turned out that the quantity they had collected was not sufficient to liquidate the whole of his debt, and they therefore pressed him to furnish the remainder. “Let the cazí of Yerkok,” said they, “be called, and let him examine the accounts. If he is unwell, his deputy, Alí Ján Effendí, may come in his stead;” for it was customary when any law-suit happened between any of the Mussulmans living in Valachia, that an appeal was made to the cazí of the above place. The cazí, or rather his deputy, Alí Ján, arrived and decided in favour of the appellants, whose receipts amounted to sixty thousand dollars. The contention was long, and a thousand obstacles presented themselves in settling this affair; but at last the sum of the debt was reduced to six thousand akchas.