Under the unjust terms of the edict they were forced to abandon most of the property which they had spent their lives in gaining. It was impossible to sell their effects in the brief time given, in a market glutted with similar commodities, for more than a tithe of their value. As a result their hard-won wealth was frightfully sacrificed. One chronicler relates that he saw a house exchanged for an ass and a vineyard for a suit of clothes. In Aragon the property of the Jews was confiscated for the benefit of their creditors, with little regard to its value. As for the bills of exchange which they were to take instead of gold and silver, it was impossible to obtain them to the amount required in that age of limited commerce, and here again they were mercilessly robbed. The migration was one of the most pitiable known in history. As the time fixed for their departure approached the roads of the country swarmed with emigrants, young and old, strong and feeble, sick and well, some on horses or mules, but the great multitude on foot. The largest division, some eighty thousand in number, passed through Portugal, whose monarch taxed them for a free passage through his dominions, but, wiser than Ferdinand, permitted certain skilful artisans among them to settle in his kingdom. Those who reached Africa and marched towards Fez, where many of their race resided, were attacked by the desert tribes, robbed, slain, and treated with the most shameful barbarity. Many of them, half-dead with famine and in utter despair, returned to the coast, where they consented to be baptized with the hope that they might be permitted to return to their native land. Those who sought Italy contracted an infectious disease in the crowded and filthy vessels which they were obliged to take; a disorder so malignant that it carried off twenty thousand of the people of Naples during the year, and spread far over the remainder of Italy. As for the Jews, hosts of them perished of hunger and disease, and of the whole number expelled, estimated at one hundred and sixty thousand, only a miserable fragment found homes at length in foreign lands, some seeking Turkey, others gaining refuge and protection in France and England. As for the effect of the migration on Spain it must suffice here to quote the remark of a monarch of that day: "Do they call this Ferdinand a politic prince, who can thus impoverish his own kingdom and enrich ours?"