But, be the Sultan’s motives what they may, his action is certain, and highly creditable to his humanity. He welcomed the immigrants into his dominions, where they throve as long as the Ottoman Empire. In the golden age of the Osmanli the Jews of the Levant eclipsed their Greek fellow-subjects in wealth and rivalled their Turkish masters in display. ♦1566♦ All the physicians of Constantinople were Jews. A Jew became Duke of Naxos and lord of other islands in the Aegean, while another Jew was sent as envoy extraordinary to Venice. ♦1574♦ So great was Jewish influence over the Sultans Solyman and Selim II. that the Christian ambassadors were compelled to disguise their mortification, to court the favour and to solicit the mediation of the Jews of Stamboul. Under the circumstances the light of Zion, which had shone so bright through the clouds of adversity, was dimmed by the glare of prosperity. But the harmonic curve of the woes of Israel was not to be broken. The Osmanli, who had filled Europe with the fame and the terror of their arms a few generations before, began to decay as soon as they ceased to conquer. An essentially nomad race, the Turkish found a sedentary life pernicious to its vigour. The Sultans sank into the soft dissipations of the harem, leaving women and eunuchs to rule the Empire and Janissaries to defend it. The Jews had reason to lament the decline of their lords. The yoke of tyranny began to weigh heavily upon their necks. Their opulence attracted the rapacity of the Pashas, and their impotence encouraged it. Fanaticism followed greed, and the Jews, among other forms of oppression to which they were subjected, were marked off from the true believers by a black turban--a badge which may still be seen in Turkey, as a survival of a necessity that exists no longer.