The Dunmehs are the richest people, on the whole, in Salonica. With their Hebrew instincts for business and their position as Mohamedans, they have a decided advantage over the other peoples. They fill largely the _rôle_ of Government contractors, and secure many of the plums in the gift of the administration, which it is impossible for non-Moslems to get, and for which the Turks are too indifferent to trouble themselves. The Dunmehs make a speciality of purchasing the rights to gather tithes, for which they often pay more than the legal value thereof. These rights they divide into small sections and dispose of at a profit to the actual collectors of taxes. The tithe is legally one-tenth of the crop, but as it is measured by the collectors, supported by a guard of Turkish soldiers, it generally assumes larger proportions, sometimes attaining to a quarter, and even a half, of the peasant’s harvest. And there is no resource for the peasant against this unjust confiscation, as the first law of the Turkish court is the Koran, which, as interpreted, provides that the word of a Christian shall not offset that of a Mohamedan. But army and other contracts, for which the payment is forthcoming from the Turkish Government, are not often sought by the Dunmehs. These are left to Turks with influence at the Palace; for influence at the Palace or at the Porte is necessary in order to secure any payment from the Turkish Government. Ismail Pasha, an Albanian in the high esteem of Abdul Hamid, and with many friends among the Palace clique, is the only man in Salonica with courage enough to undertake Government contracts. And his daring is proportionately rewarded. This man’s history is worthy of recital; it reads like that of a self-made millionaire. He was born of poor but dishonest parents, and educated himself--dispensing with the arts of reading and writing. He began life as a _khanji’s_ boy, learned there how to rob the wayfarer, and attained, at the age of eighteen, a competency in a brigand band. Step by step, as the men above him died off (sometimes by indigestible pills, and sometimes by falling backward on the knife of an ambitious subaltern), Ismail became a leader. In this capacity he did his work so well, striking terror to the heart of both Turk and Christian, that his ability was recognised by no less a person than Abdul Hamid, who saw in him a man of exceptional ability. This self-made man was invited by the Sultan to Constantinople, there decorated, given the title of Pasha, and sent to Salonica with the high commission of first-class spy, assigned to the task of reporting to his Padisha the doings of the governor of the vilayet.