Here (in Larissa), as in other parts of Turkey, the Jews are less oppressed, unless perhaps when by some imprudence they allow it to be suspected that they are wealthy, and thus excite extortion. The preference of the Turks for the Jews does not arise from any respect for this people, whom they hold in extreme contempt, but because they have no fears from the Jews, while the consider the Christians as the natural allies of their European enemies, by whom the Ottoman Empire is destined to the overthrown, and the Musulman faith to be destroyed. The Jews moreover recommend themselves to the Turks as being ardent haters of the Greeks. At Larissa they speak Spanish, in common with those of the rest of Greece, whose ancestors migrated to this country in great numbers, when expelled from Spain by Ferolinand and Isabella. Benjamin of Tudela, in his journey through Greece, three centuries earlier, did not pass through Larissa, so that we remain unimformed whether any Jews then inhabited this city.
