A common custom with both the Turks and the Greeks when they pass a caïque on the water laden with Jews, is to raise one hand, and with outstretched finger to count their number, which is supposed to bring some heavy misfortune on the last of the party. The Jews, who have firm faith in the effect of the spell, writhe with agony as they remark the action, and never fail collectively to yell forth: “May the curse fall back upon yourself!” After which the caïques dart onward, each upon its own errand; the one gay with the subdued mirth of the tormentors, and the other freighted with new and unnecessary bitterness. The Jews of the East, like their brethren of Europe, are the people of the country who spend their sabbath the most strictly; and who are the most conscientious in the exercise of their religious observances, and the most obedient to its professors. Even accustomed as they are to habits of chicane and extortion, the Jews are seldom guilty of wilful error in their contributions to the National Chest, for relieving the wants of the poorer portion of their people; which is supplied from a tax levied on the provisions consumed by each family, thus falling the most heavily on the wealthiest of their community. The Levantine Jews individually live in the hope, and with the intention, of terminating their lives at Jerusalem; and, as this speculation is an expensive one, their energies are quickened by the necessity it entails of making a gradual provision for so extensive an outlay; and instances have been frequent in which the father of a family, feeling that from his advanced age and his failing powers, he was no longer able to benefit his children by his personal exertions, has resigned to his sons all his worldly wealth, save the sum necessary to defray the charges of his pilgrimage; and sometimes alone, and, sometimes accompanied by his wife, has bidden a last adieu to his children, and departed to die in the chosen city. In order not to be ruined by any political convulsion, or beggared by any stretch of despotic power, the Jews have a law regulating the division of their property into three equal proportions. One consists of floating capital; another is secured in jewels; and the third is retained in the coin of the country; an arrangement which proved highly beneficial to that portion of their nation that was compelled from ecclesiastical persecution to evacuate Portugal and Spain, at the instigation of Torquemada and other influential members of the clergy: and to establish themselves in Constantinople; where, through the long series of years which has succeeded, they have retained the language of the countries whence they were banished, with such tenacity, that most of their women are altogether ignorant of the Turkish.