On both sides arose a determined resistance, different in method, similar in result.

In the case of the peasants labour came to a stand-still; in that of the hill folk open war broke out.

The grasping exactions of the tyrant dominant body produced nothing from waste lands and armed mountaineers; destitution and revolt were equally beyond their power to cope with; and all that was left for tyranny to govern was a 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.