Suffering from this double disability, social and religious, the Christian ‘_kmet_,’ or tiller of the soil, is worse off than many a serf in our darkest ages, and lies as completely at the mercy of the Mahometan owner of the soil as if he were a slave. Legally, indeed, the Aga who owns all the land is bound to enter into a written agreement with his ‘_kmet_’ as to the dues and labours to be paid him; but as a matter of fact this petty potentate haughtily refuses to enter into any such compact; and since the Turkish government knows well enough that its tenure of the Herzegovina is not worth twenty-four hours’ purchase if it were seriously to act counter to the native Sclavonic Mahometans, the Beg or Aga can break the law with impunity. He is thus allowed to treat his ‘_kmet_’ as a mere chattel; ‘he uses a stick and strikes the “_kmet_” without pity, in a manner that no one else would use a beast.’ Any land that the rayah may acquire, any house he may have built, any patch of garden that his industry may have cleared among the rocks, the Aga seizes at his pleasure. The ordinary dues, as paid by the kmet to the landowner, as specified in the appeal of the Herzegovinian rayahs, are heavy enough. He has to pay, according to the custom of the various districts, a third or a fourth part of the produce of the ground, about Mostar and the Plain of Popovo as much as half;[291] to present him with one animal yearly, and a certain quantity of butter and cheese; to carry for him so many loads of wood; and if the Aga is building a house, to carry the materials for it; to work for him gratuitously whenever he pleases, and sometimes the Aga requisitions one of the kmet’s children, who must serve him for nothing; to make a separate plantation of tobacco, cultivate it, and finally warehouse the produce in his master’s store; and to plough and sow so many acres of land, the harvest of which he must also carry to his master’s barn. Finally, to lodge the Aga in his own house when required, and to provide for his horses and dogs. The insurrection in the Herzegovina has been directed more against the Mahometan landowners and the tax-farmers than against the immediate representatives of the Sultan. It is mainly an agrarian war. Add to the extortion of the tax-farmers and landlords, the forced labour which the government officials exact as well as the Agas, the impossibility of obtaining justice in the Medjliss, the atrocious conduct of the brigand-police or Zaptiehs, and, of course, the wolfish propensities of the shepherd of the herd—the Fanariote bishop of Mostar—and we have more than enough to account for the outbreak of the insurrection without going in quest of foreign agitators.