reat.

When the grain is cut, it must be carried to a certain number of
authorized threshing-floors collected together, in order that the tax
farmer may take every possible care to secure his tenth. To these
threshing-floors the whole grain of a district must be transported from
the fields in the straw, though the straw may be wanted as fodder for
cattle at the very spot from which it is taken, and will require to be
carried back a very great distance. An immense loss of grain and labour
is sustained by this regulation; but it is a glorious season for the
donkeys;--long trains of these animals, lively under their heavy loads
of sheaves, may be seen galloping one after the other, each endeavouring
to seize a mouthful from his neighbour. The roads are strewed with grain
and the broken-hearted cultivators follow, cursing man and beast.

The grain is at last collected in immense stacks round the
threshing-floors--a cultivator perched on the top of each stack,
defending it from the attacks of man and beast; and a tax-gatherer,
seated with his pipe cross-legged in the middle of the circle, is
watching the manoeuvres of the cultivators. No person who has not
examined the subject with attention can imagine the scenes of fraud and
violence which a Greek harvest produces. The grain is usually kept piled
round the threshing-floors under various pretexts, for at least two
months, unless the cultivator pay the farmer an additional sum, to
facilitate the housing of his crops. Even in the vicinity of Athens, the
operations of the wheat and barley harvest generally occupy the
exclusive attention of the agricultural population for three months. The
grain is trodden out by cattle; and a Greek who bought a winnowing
machine at Athens, was not allowed to make use of it, as the farmers of
the revenue contended that the introduction of such instruments would
facilitate frauds.

The farmers of the tenths likewise increase the evils of this ruinous
system, by throwing every difficulty in the way of the cultivators, in
order to compel them to consent to pay for each facility they may
require. We have known regular contracts entered into with the
peasantry, by which they agreed to pay from 3 to 5 per cent more than
the legal tenth. We believe no honest man ever paid less than from 12 to
13 per cent on his crop, even in the neighbourhood of the capital. It
may be supposed that some redress can be obtained, in cases of gross
oppression, by appl