Note 4 — Chapter VI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN EUROPE UNDER THE TURKS.
Reading edition
A traveller who visited Cyprus in 1508 draws the following picture of the tyranny of the Venetians in their foreign possessions: “All the inhabitants of Cyprus are slaves to the Venetians, being obliged to pay to the state a third part of all their increase or income, whether the product of their ground or corn, wine, oil, or of their cattle, or any other thing. Besides, every man of them is bound to work for the state two days of the week wherever they shall please to appoint him: and if any shall fail, by reason of some other business of their own, or for indisposition of body, then they are made to pay a fine for as many days as they are absent from their work: and which is more, there is yearly some tax or other imposed on them, with which the poor common people are so flead and pillaged that they hardly have wherewithal to keep soul and body together.” (The Travels of Martin Baumgarten, p. 373.) See also the passages quoted by Hackett, History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, p. 183. ↑