The real agitation began when the Assembly finally adjourned to Boutzounaria, a tiny village at the edge of the plain of Canéa. Three thousand men were assembled on a little plateau overlooking the plain, and about three miles from the city. Here gushes out of the living rock the stream which supplies the city with water, by an aqueduct which dates from the Hellenic times. Metellus cut it when he laid siege to Cydonia, and the Cretans in the war of Greek independence repeated the offence, and though, in the latter case, the siege was raised by a fleet and army coming to the assistance of the Turks, the sufferings produced by cutting off the water were very great. From here the people had a safe retreat into their fastnesses above, and had nothing to fear from the Turkish forces. They came unarmed, but kept patrols at night on all the roads leading from the city to guard against surprise. By day they could observe the whole plain from Suda to Platania; and here, looking down on the orange groves of Murnies and Perivoglia, the wide expanse of olive orchards, and the fields where thousands of sheep, the property of Mussulmans mainly, feed while the herbage is green with the spring rains, they passed the time much after the old Greek fashion, games of agility and strength occupying the time of the young, while the old discussed the affairs of state; but no disorder occurred during the session of the Assembly proper. Sheep were roasted whole, the messengers came and went, deputations from the further districts came in slowly, others whose affairs demanded their presence at home went away, there being none of those professed politicians who live by attending conventions, and making the public harm their good, so that there could be no vicarious expression of opinion. Finally, all was done, the _ne plus ultra_ of democracy had said its say, and signed its name for the indignant regards of the most despotic of sovereigns. A solemn deputation of gray-headed captains of villages, the executive committee, brought to each of the consuls a copy of the petition, and consigned the original to the Governor for transmission to Constantinople. This functionary had been growing uneasy about the apparent unanimity and deliberateness of the Assembly, and, having cast his lead occasionally and found the water deeper than he thought, began to be anxious to see the Assembly dispersed. The moral force of the recognition by the consular corps of the peaceful and legal character of the meeting had dissuaded him from interrupting its labors; but, the petition once delivered, he peremptorily ordered the Cretans to go home and wait the answer, intending to repeat the trick he had so successfully tried before, namely, arresting the chiefs and calling a counter-assembly; and, further ordering the committee to disperse, it refused.