I next heard that Angora had not recovered from the effects of the famine which had devastated the neighbourhood in 1873-74, the amount of taxes owing by the inhabitants to the Government amounting to more than a million and a half Turkish pounds. The arrears of taxes owing previous to 1872 had been cancelled, some being as much as ten, twelve, and twenty years due. Previous to cancelling the arrears, the Government had put up to auction the right of collecting the entire sum; but, as many of the inhabitants had emigrated, no one ventured to bid. There were 18,000 deaths in the neighbourhood of the town during the famine, and 25,000 people died subsequently in consequence of its effect. The chief trade of the district is in goats' hair, 60 per cent. of the goats, sheep, and cattle had perished. Children had been deserted and left in the streets; some instances of babies being eaten by their parents were brought to light. The following morning I received a visit from a relative of my host, Hadji Taifik Effendi. It is said that he will one day be the head of the Mussulman faith. I found this Mohammedan divine excessively bellicose in his ideas; he eagerly desired war. "Why so?" I inquired. "Because an open enemy is better than a poisoner in your house. Because war must come some day, and it is better to get rid of a cancer by sacrificing a limb.[10] Russian agents have been doing their best to sow discord amongst the inhabitants of our provinces; this they did during peace time and whilst a Russian ambassador was at Constantinople." "Yes," said my host, "and an ambassador who is himself a prime mover in the secret societies which are agitating Europe. The Russian Government pretends to be alarmed at the secret societies, but it is the hot-bed of all the secret societies in the world.[11] You may depend upon it," he continued, "that the massacres which occurred in Bulgaria had been planned long before the outbreak. Our regular troops had been purposely sent to other parts of the empire. The Russian authorities were well aware of what was about to take place, and were delighted at the effect which it had upon public opinion in England. One thing, however, I cannot understand, and this is why your newspapers always published the accounts of the Bulgarian women and children who were slaughtered, and never went into any particulars about the Turkish women who were massacred by the Bulgarians, or about our soldiers whose noses were cut off, and who were mutilated by the insurgents in the Herzegovina. A Turk values his nose quite as much as a Christian," he added. I now learned that Hadji Taifik Effendi had five wives, but that Suleiman Effendi only possessed one. She was the widow of a rich inhabitant of the town, and one day seeing Suleiman pass her windows, was struck by his appearance. She sent an old woman, as intermediary, to him. The marriage was arranged; the lady bringing all her late husband's fortune to her new spouse.