The Water Supply of Constantinople. 15 



5. The Constantinopolitans by no means make as lavish 

 a use of water as is frequently represented by travelers. 

 Of course the amount that would be brought to any family 

 by a water carrier and paid for, must be very small when 

 compared with the quantity used where it runs freely in a 

 house from several and many faucets. And they do not 

 use nearly as much in baths or in religious ablutions as 

 would be supposed. While it is true that in every quarter 

 there are public baths which are greatly used, and private 

 baths of the same kind are not unfrequent, yet it must be 

 remembered that they are only hot vapor baths. The inner 

 room is occasionally highly heated and the air kept moist 

 by the evaporation of water at times thrown upon the hot 

 floor and walls, to make the heat agreeable and endurable. 

 One room serves for all the customers. After an abundant 

 perspiration, the person goes to a marble bowl and is 

 washed or washes himself in warm water. But the quan- 

 tity of water employed by any person taking a cold or warm 

 bath by immersion is probably three or four times as great 

 as would be used by a customer in a public bath in Turkey, 

 Besides, the baths are not used by the public generally dur- 

 ing more than eight hours in a day. 



Inthe case of ablutions before prayer five times a day. 

 it is purely ceremonial and very little water serves the pur- 

 pose. In the courts of the Grand mosques fifty faucets 

 in a row give out when opened a tiny thread of water, and 

 the intending worshipper, crouchiug before it, touches his 

 ears, arms and ankles with the fluid, not perhaps consum- 

 ing more than half a pint. 



6. A famine of water is not unfrequently experienced in 

 Constantinople ; a want of water is constantly feared. This 

 is in great measure owing to the neglect and disuse of the 

 public cisterns which were expressly designed to receive the 

 overplus of the water from the winter rains. In the sum- 

 mer and autumn months it is not unusual that three, four 



