| Number of rainy days | 112 | 128.6 |
+------------------------+-----------------+--------------+

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.

Moslems 384,910
Greeks 152,741
Greek Latins 1,082
Armenians 149,590
Roman Catholics (native) 6,442
Protestants (native) 819
Bulgarians 4,377
Jews 44,361
Foreigners 129,243
--------
873,565

_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 Buyukdere. Since