murmur that avails nor the disposition to antagonize the centralizing authority of the ruler. Even the east-Jordan country appears to be growing tame. Within a few years a firmer hold on the village situation has been taken by the establishment of extra mudîr-ships, so that instead of governing the village districts from Jerusalem and other large centers by a squad of soldiers sent out occasionally to do police duty or to bring in taxes, now a local official called a mudîr is placed in the most important village of a small district. He is a subordinate of the governor, _muteṣarrif_, of Jerusalem. By the appointment of such as he a closer observation and administration are secured. At Râm Allâh in 1903 a mudîr was appointed to have charge in that and a score of other villages in a district thereabouts. Jerusalem is still the head of those villages, but a compacter administration is effected. ----- ----- To the country peasant the chief functions of the government seem to be those of restriction and oppression. The fear of imprisonment, fines and confiscations keeps the peasants down. The imprisonment of a peasant leaves no taint of dishonor, having as purely unfortunate an aspect as confinement in a hospital. There is no such thing as successful complaint unless it can assume such influence as would procure the removal of the official involved. The peasants look suspiciously on every movement of every officer, refusing to believe that any government representative can have good intentions or do worthy actions. Government provisions or improvements are looked upon as gloves for the hand that is stretched out for more of the means of the villager. The taxes are farmed out to tax-collectors whose approach is dreaded extremely.[206] Every dozen years or so a new schedule of valuation is made by the assessors, who travel about the country revaluing businesses and properties. Their progress from village to village is the signal for feasting, treating and bribing. The cost of the many attempts to persuade these assessors to reduce valuations or readjust them in favor of the briber must be considerable. There is a possibility that all such attempts may be defeated by the revision of the entire list at headquarters. The visits of the soldiers to a village are always occasions of dread, and much relief is felt when they leave. On the frontiers and in out-of-the-way places, where the task of the government is less easy, a more conciliatory spirit is shown. In the Ghôr, for instance, the tax may be paid in kind, and this always makes it easier than the practise into which the collectors have fallen with the villages. They drop in upon the villagers at odd times through the year, long after the crop is out of the way, and demand money payment in cash. This helps to make the fortunes of the local money lenders, but it causes a double damage to the peasants, who are forced to sacrifice their stores for low prices in ready money, or to mortgage their crop