Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/323

Rh The harbour is much exposed to the north, and is still, as in the time of the ancients, statio malefida carinis; but I was assured that a good harbour might be made by running out a mole on the N.W., at a cost of rather more than £2,000. It is calculated that such a harbour would contain about fifty ships not exceeding 400 tons burthen, and would probably give considerable impetus to the wine trade.

The population of Tenedos is reckoned at about 4,000, of which one-third are Turks. The island only produces sufficient wheat to support the inhabitants during three months of the year. The whole of the taxes of the island amount to 300,000 piasters (equal to £2,542), of which the tithe of the grapes produces 48,000, and the Palto 155,000.

The Palto is an assessment tax on the value of the wine. The community of Tenedos engage to pay the Porte 200,000 piasters annually, which they raise by the tithe and the Palto. After the latter tax has been paid on the wine, it is exported duty free to Constantinople. The remainder of the revenue is made up by the Haratch, or capitation tax, which varies from seventeen shillings to a dollar annually, according to the means of each person, and the Salgun, or, an assessment tax on all the real property in the island. The joint annual produce of these two taxes is about 100,000 piasters (equal to £847).

Besides these regular taxes, the Sultan, from time to time, levies extraordinary subsidies. This year he took 11,000 piasters.

There is a Greek school at Tenedos, on which the