PRODUCE. 
791 
the country is not exactly known, he supposes “ it may date with 
the irruption of the gipseys from Germany in the fifteenth 
century.” They are mentioned in some archives found in the 
convents of Valachia, &c. and which were evidently written 
about that period. Being in a state of slavery, seems a pe¬ 
culiarity in these provinces attached to them ; and we find 
them described as consisting of two classes: one the property 
of government, the other of private individuals; but when 
they are sold from master to master, it is not in open market, 
but by contracts at home. Some are constantly employed 
in domestic, or other services, to their respective owners; and 
others are allowed to pick up their precarious bread, by wander¬ 
ing about the country, provided they bind themselves never to 
leave it. For this half-liberty, they pay annually forty piastres 
each man. With regard to the character they hold, it is even 
worse than with us; the name of gipsey being considered the 
most opprobrious epithet of contempt, something even more 
degrading than that of thief. 
The chief produce of the two provinces is grain, which the 
Turkish government will not allow to be exported on any pre¬ 
tence whatever, but absorbs as much as it pleases into the gra¬ 
naries of Constantinople. A Turkish measure of wheat is equal 
to our English bushel; and I am told that nearly two millions of 
measures are sent annually to the Porte, as part of the tribute 
due from the two principalities; also three hundred thousand 
head of sheep, with a proportionate number of oxen and horses. 
But being paid in lieu of money, they are rated by the receiver 
at only one-fourth of the value each commodity would bring in 
a public market. The capabilities in a commercial point of view, 
both with regard to situat ion and power of produce, which these 
