Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/105

Rh device is practised in order to obtain one. The dragomans and other persons in the service of a Consiil are exempted by the Porte from certain taxes, and in all matters where their civil rights are concerned are generally allowed by the local authority the same advantages as Ionian subjects.

A Consul has consequently no difficulty in finding any number of Greek dragomans ready to serve him for nothing, or even to pay him for the privilege of being his employés. Hence some of the unpaid Consular agents in the Levant have a tail of six or seven of these retainers, whose functions are of course purely nominal; but as there is a limit to this abuse, protection is obtained by other devices; sometimes a Rayah makes a voyage to the Ionian islands and comes back with a British passport, obtained by some mystification of the local authorities there; sometimes the same result is obtained by bribing the Consular clerk at home. Sometimes an Ionian from a distant village presents himself before his Consul, accompanied by a young man, whom he introduces as his son, just about to start on a journey to Constantinople and therefore in want of a passport, which he claims by virtue of his birthright. In proof of his nationality, a baptismal certificate duly signed by the priest of his village is produced, and the Consul issues the passport; unconsciously depriving the Porte of a subject who has been converted into an Ionian by means of a false certificate.

Some check to this practice might be given if the Consul were always to insist that the signature of