I now learnt that the proprietor of the house in which I was living was a shoemaker. The Pacha had hired from him the apartments which I occupied, and which were generally given to travellers. Mohammed, when he gave me this piece of information, suggested that it would be a good opportunity for me to buy him a pair of boots.
"Such beautiful boots as there are downstairs," he continued, "the Effendi could get both his feet into one of them. They will keep out the cold. If I do not have something over my slippers I shall be frost-bitten before we reach Kars!"
The proprietor brought the boots for my inspection. He had a very Jewish type of countenance, and at once commenced driving a bargain with Mohammed.
"But you told me downstairs that the boots were 125 piastres, and now you ask 165!" observed the Turkish servant indignantly.
"They are my boots, and not yours!" said the Armenian, "and I shall charge what I like for them!"
It appeared that the difference of opinion between Mohammed and the shoemaker had arisen owing to the Armenian thinking that he would be paid in caime, or bank notes, and not in silver. Caime in Sivas had fallen to 165 piastres the lira. It was formerly 125; so by the depreciation of the paper currency the shoemaker would lose 40 piastres on every pair of boots he sold, if purchased from him at the present rate of exchange. Many of the Turks were alarmed at the constant fall in the value of their paper currency. They objected very strongly to being paid any large sums in Turkish bank-notes. According to the son of Crispin, only ten years previous the Government had issued an immense quantity of caime, and had said that in the following month of March this paper would be accepted in payment of the taxes.
"March arrived," continued the shoemaker, "we took our caime to the tax-collectors. They would not receive it. A vast number of the notes then issued are still in the possession of merchants in this town, and are valueless."
When I was in Yuzgat Mr. Vankovitch had asked me to intercede with Issek Pacha for an Italian lady, the widow of a Pole who had died a few months previously in Sivas. The Pole had been the chief engineer in the district, and at the time of his death was owed about 120l. by the Turkish authorities. His widow had applied to the Pacha for this sum, but was refused payment on the ground that she had a son, and that her late husband's father was still living.
"You must write to your husband's Ambassador," said the Pacha, "and ask him to inform us how the law of succession is applied in his country, we will then pay you everything to which you are entitled."
In the meantime an inhabitant took pity upon the Italian lady, and had received her into his harem. Here she was now living, and anxiously awaiting a reply from Constantinople to her letter. Months passed away, no answer came. The poor woman had exhausted the small resources which she possessed at the time of her husband's death.