Ali Pacha | Page 5

desert enclosed by a wall.
But, all the same, the wants of a magnificent sultan, descendant of the
Prophet and distributor of crowns, must be supplied; and to do this, the
Sublime Porte needed money. Unconsciously imitating the Roman
Senate, the Turkish Divan put up the empire for sale by public auction.
All employments were sold to the highest bidder; pachas, beys, cadis,
ministers of every rank, and clerks of every class had to buy their posts
from their sovereign and get the money back out of his subjects. They
spent their money in the capital, and recuperated themselves in the
provinces. And as there was no other law than their master's pleasure,
so there, was no other guarantee than his caprice. They had therefore to
set quickly to work; the post might be lost before its cost had been
recovered. Thus all the science of administration resolved itself into
plundering as much and as quickly as possible. To this end, the
delegate of imperial power delegated in his turn, on similar conditions,
other agents to seize for him and for themselves all they could lay their
hands on; so that the inhabitants of the empire might be divided into
three classes--those who were striving to seize everything; those who

were trying to save a little; and those who, having nothing and hoping
for nothing, took no interest in affairs at all.
Albania was one of the most difficult provinces to manage. Its
inhabitants were poor, brave, and, the nature of the country was
mountainous and inaccessible. The pashas had great difficulty in
collecting tribute, because the people were given to fighting for their
bread. Whether Mahomedans or Christians, the Albanians were above
all soldiers. Descended on the one side from the unconquerable
Scythians, on the other from the ancient Macedonians, not long since
masters of the world; crossed with Norman adventurers brought
eastwards by the great movement of the Crusades; they felt the blood of
warriors flow in their veins, and that war was their element. Sometimes
at feud with one another, canton against canton, village against village,
often even house against house; sometimes rebelling against the
government their sanjaks; sometimes in league with these against the
sultan; they never rested from combat except in an armed peace. Each
tribe had its military organisation, each family its fortified stronghold,
each man his gun on his shoulder. When they had nothing better to do,
they tilled their fields, or mowed their neighbours', carrying off, it
should be noted, the crop; or pastured their, flocks, watching the
opportunity to trespass over pasture limits. This was the normal and
regular life of the population of Epirus, Thesprotia, Thessaly, and
Upper Albania. Lower Albania, less strong, was also less active and
bold; and there, as in many other parts of Turkey, the dalesman was
often the prey of the mountaineer. It was in the mountain districts
where were preserved the recollections of Scander Beg, and where the
manners of ancient Laconia prevailed; the deeds of the brave soldier
were sung on the lyre, and the skilful robber quoted as an example to
the children by the father of the family. Village feasts were held on the
booty taken from strangers; and the favourite dish was always a stolen
sheep. Every man was esteemed in proportion to his skill and courage,
and a man's chances of making a good match were greatly enhanced
when he acquired the reputation of being an agile mountaineer and a
good bandit.
The Albanians proudly called this anarchy liberty, and religiously

guarded a state of disorder bequeathed by their ancestors, which always
assured the first place to the most valiant.
It was amidst men and manners such as these that Ali Tepeleni was
born. He boasted that he belonged to the conquering race, and that he
descended from an ancient Anatolian family which had crossed into
Albania with the troops of Bajazet Ilderim. But it is made certain by the
learned researches of M. de Pouqueville that he sprang from a native
stock, and not an Asiatic one, as he pretended. His ancestors were
Christian Skipetars, who became Mussulmans after the Turkish
invasion, and his ancestry certainly cannot be traced farther back than
the end of the sixteenth century.
Mouktar Tepeleni, his grandfather, perished in the Turkish expedition
against Corfu, in 1716. Marshal Schullemburg, who defended the
island, having repulsed the enemy with loss, took Mouktar prisoner on
Mount San Salvador, where he was in charge of a signalling party, and
with a barbarity worthy of his adversaries, hung him without trial. It
must be admitted that the memory of this murder must have had the
effect of rendering Ali badly disposed towards Christians.
Mouktar left three sons, two of whom, Salik and Mahomet, were born
of the same mother, a