I will quote a single instance of these practices, communicated by the Princess Julia of Servia to the author of ‘Servia and the Servians.’ ‘A poor woman, frantic with agony, burst into the palace of the Princess at Belgrade. She had been assessed by the Turkish authorities of a village in Bosnia of a sum which she had no means of paying.... _She was smoked._ This failed of extracting the gold. She begged for a remission, and stated her inability to pay. In answer she was tossed into the river Drina, and after her were thrown her two infant children—one of four years old, the other of two. Before her eyes, notwithstanding her frantic efforts to save them, her children perished. Half drowned and insensible, she was dragged to land by a Serbian peasant. She made her way to Belgrade, believing, from the character of the Princess for humanity, that she would aid her. Of course to do so was out of the question.’[250] Gustav Thoemmel, who was attached to the Austrian Consulate here, relates how the application of such tortures drove many Bosnian rayahs to desperation in 1865. No less than five hundred families took refuge across the borders from these inquisitors in the spring of that year. They were, however, turned back and forced to return to their homes in Bosnia in a most deplorable state. ‘Complaint,’ says Thoemmel, ‘about outrages of this kind are scarcely ever brought forward, since the rayah seldom obtains evidence or even hearing, and his complaining only brings down on him increased persecution. So it happens that the higher officials often remain in entire ignorance of the barbarities perpetrated by their underlings.’ It must not be supposed that the higher authorities here are altogether blind as to the evils attendant on the tithe-farming. It will hardly be believed that the present Governor-General, and his predecessor Osman Pashà, have been doing their best to remove this abuse, but were thwarted by the authorities at Stamboul, who have in recent years taken away much of the independent power of the provincial Vali, the better to suck everything into that sink of corruption. Our Consul has for years directed his energies with the same object, and acting on his representations, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe used all his influence to support the appeal of Osman Pashà. But neither our most influential ambassador nor the Turkish Governor-General of Bosnia could induce the Porte to remove the abuse. The pretext by which these representations were always eluded was that the tithe was a religious institution. The present Vali,[251] a man of more subtle genius, had, however, succeeded in drawing a distinction between this and the religious tithe, and was confident that he would be shortly permitted to abolish it, and substitute for it a land tax not farmed by middle-men. But it was already too late. The present revolts, both in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, are mainly due to the extortion of the ‘dime.’