This was followed up, for the better terrifying of the seditious, by a raid on the village of Foligniaco, near Murnies, and on the edge of the plain of Canéa, in which they took the whole population prisoners asleep, burned the village, hanged twelve of the primates, ripped open three or four pregnant women, wives of the principal people, put to death and exiled the whole population remaining, except five or six who escaped. The Provveditore then called on all the Greeks of the lately revolted district to come in and surrender themselves, but, as they naturally declined, they were put under a ban which is perhaps the most horrible sentence ever given by a _civilized_ community. No inhabitant of the proscribed district could secure his life except on condition of bringing in the "head of his father, brother, cousin, or nephew." "At length a priest of the family of the Pateri-Zapa entered the city, accompanied by his two sons and by two of his brothers, each of the mournful party carrying in his hand a human head. (Of the five heads, the first belonged to the son of the priest, the second to one of his brothers, the third to his son-in-law, and the fourth and fifth to sons of one of his brothers.) The wretched men placed their bleeding offerings before the Signor Cavalli and the other representatives of Venice, and with the bitterest tears stated whose heads they were. The facts were duly established by witnesses; even the governor who had been sent to Crete to extirpate the seditious Greeks was moved, and the law was at length abolished." This was under the auspices of Christianity. Under the Crescent, things were at first better, but finally such as to cause wonder how there is still a Cretan people, considering that even Dante could say: "Nel mezzo 'l mar siede un paese guasto Diss' egli allora, che s'appella Creta." The Venetian rule had reduced the population of the island to about 160,000, the tenth of its probable number under the Byzantine emperors. The anticipations of Garzoni were to the full realized, for the Cretan, favoring the Turkish conquest, made it possible, and avenged himself in the way of the weak. The Turks, in recompense for the important assistance rendered them by the Cretans, exempted them from conscription or military tax, but learned no lesson from their conquered enemies, and, until the cession of the island to Egypt in 1830, Crete was the scene of the most unbridled license of individuals and fanaticism of sects.