museum, the institution has become a rich storehouse of many other valuable relics of the past. The existence of a school of art, where painting and architecture are taught, is also a sign of new times. A school of handicrafts flourishes on the Sphendoné of the Hippodrome. The fine medical school between Scutari and Haidar Pasha, the Hamidieh hospital for children, and the asylum for the poor, tell of the advance of science and humanity in the place.

Considerable attention is now given to the subject of education throughout the empire, a result due in great measure to the influence of the American and French schools and colleges established in the provinces and at the capital. More than thirty foreign educational institutions flourish in Constantinople itself, and they are largely attended by the youth belonging to the native communities of the country. The Greek population is provided with excellent schools and gymnasia, and the Armenians also maintain schools of a high grade. The Turkish government itself became, moreover, impressed with the importance of education, and as a consequence the whole system of public instruction for the Moslem portion of the population was, during the reign of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II., more widely extended and improved. Beside the schools of the old type attached to the mosques, schools of a better class were established under the direct control of the minister of education, which, although open to improvement, certainly aimed at a higher standard than that reached in former days. The progress of education became noticeable even among Moslem girls. The social and political influence of this intellectual improvement among the various communities of the empire soon made itself felt, and had much to do with the startling success of the constitutional revolution carried out, under the direction of the Committee of Union and Progress, in the autumn of 1908.

Climate.—The climate of the city is healthy, but relaxing. It is damp and liable to sudden and great changes of temperature. The winds from the north and those from the south are at constant feud, and blow cold or hot in the most capricious manner, often in the course of the same day. “There are two climates at Constantinople, that of the north and that of the south wind.” The winters may be severe, but when mild they are wet and not invigorating. In summer the heat is tempered by the prevalence of a north-east wind that blows down the channel of the Bosporus. Observations at Constantinople and at Scutari give the following results, for a period of twenty years.

The sanitation of the city has been improved, although much remains to be done in that respect. No great epidemic has visited the city since the outbreak of cholera in 1866. Typhoid and pulmonary diseases are common.

Population.—The number of the population of the city is an uncertain figure, as no accurate statistics can be obtained. It is generally estimated between 800,000 and 1,000,000. The inhabitants present a remarkable conglomeration of different races, various nationalities, divers languages, distinctive costumes and conflicting faiths, giving, it is true, a singular interest to what may be termed the human scenery of the city, but rendering impossible any close social cohesion, or the development of a common civic life. Constantinople has well been described as “a city not of one nation but of many, and hardly more of one than of another.” The following figures are given as an approximate estimate of the size of the communities which compose the population.

Water-Supply.—Under the rule of the sultans, the water-supply of the city has been greatly extended. The reservoirs in the forest of Belgrade have been enlarged and increased in number, and new aqueducts have been added to those erected by the Byzantine emperors. The use of the old cisterns within the walls has been almost entirely abandoned, and the water is led to basins in vaulted chambers (Taxim), from which it is distributed by underground conduits to the fountains situated in the different quarters of the city. From these fountains the water is taken to a house by water-carriers, or, in the case of the humbler classes, by members of the household itself.

For the supply of Pera, Galata and Beshiktash, Sultan Mahmud I. constructed, in 1732, four bends in the forest of Belgrade, N.N.W. and N.E. of the village of Bagchekeui, and the fine aqueduct which spans the head of the valley of Buyukderé. Since 1885, a French company, La Compagnie des Eaux, has rendered a great service by bringing water to Stamboul, Pera, and the villages on the European side of the Bosporus, from Lake Dercos, which lies close to the shore of the Black Sea some 29 m. distant from the city. The Dercos water is laid on in many houses. Since 1893 a German company has supplied Scutari and Kadikeui with water from the valley of the Sweet Waters of Asia.

Trade.—The trade of the city has been unfavourably affected by the political events which have converted former provinces of the Turkish empire into autonomous states, by the development of business at other ports of the empire, owing to the opening up of the interior country through the construction of railroads, and by the difficulties which the government, with the view of preventing political agitation, has put in the way of easy intercourse by natives between the capital and the provinces. Most of the commerce of the city is in hands of foreigners and of Armenian and Greek merchants. Turks have little if anything to do with trade on a large scale. “The capital,” says a writer in the Konstantinopler Handelsblatt of November 1904, “produces very little for export, and its hinterland is small, extending on the European side only a few kilometres—the outlet for the fertile Eastern Rumelia is Dedeagach—and on the Asiatic side embracing the Sea of Marmora and the Anatolian railway district. Even part of this will be lost to Constantinople when the Anatolian railway is connected with the port of Mersina and with the Kassaba-Smyrna railway. Some 750 tons of the sweetmeat known as ’Turkish delight’ are annually exported to the United Kingdom, America and Rumelia; embroideries, &c., are sold in fair quantities to tourists. Otherwise the chief articles of Constantinople’s export trade consist of refuse and waste materials, sheep’s wool (called Kassab bashí) and skins from the slaughter-houses