Then commenced the negotiation for a reconciliation
with the parents, which was generally successful; as in many instances
the female had been the secret lover of the young man, and the other
villagers used to add their persuasion, in order to bring about a
pacific solution. But if the relations of the girl mode a legal affair
of it, the young woman was asked if it was by her own will that she
was taken away; and if she made the admission then a reconciliation
took place: if not, those concerned in the abduction were fined, Kara
Georg put a stop to this by proclamation, punishing the author of an
abduction with death, the priest with dismissal, and the assistants
with the bastinado.
The Haiducks, or outlawed robbers, who during the first quarter of the
present century infested the woods of Servia, resembled the Caterans
of the Highlands of Scotland, being as much rebels as robbers, and
imagined that in setting authority at defiance they were not acting
dishonourably, but combating for a principle of independence. They
robbed only the rich Moslems, and were often generous to the poor.
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