Some said, that the missionaries bought people with money; that the price for common people was ten piastres, and that those ten piastres always remained with the man who received them, however much he might spend from them.

Others said, that the picture of professed converts was taken in a book, and that the missionaries would shoot the picture, should the man go back to his former religion, and he would of course die.

A Moslem, having heard that men were hired to worship the devil, asked if it were true, saying that he would come, and bring a hundred others with him.
"What," said his friend, "would you worship the devil ?" "Yes," said he, "if I was paid for it." The brethren were cordially received by their acquaintances at Jerusalem.

Two days afterwards, the pasha of Damascus sat down before the city, with three thousand soldiers, to collect his annual tribute.

The amount to be paid by each community was determined solely by his own caprice, and what he could not be induced to remit was extorted by arrest, imprisonment, and the bastinado.