16 The Water Supply of Constantinople. 



or five months pass without any fall of rain that can be col- 

 lected. At such times of course water is sold at high prices 

 by those who have cisterns or who bring it from the peren- 

 nial springs of the Asiatic Bosphorus. 



When water runs low in the reservoirs, nine out of ten 

 of the public fountains will be closed by the water super- 

 intendent ; those left open will be surrounded by the public 

 water carriers, who almost monopolize the one faucet from 

 which the small stream can be drawn, while a crowd of men 

 and women press clamorously for a turn to draw it into 

 their own private vessels. 



At such times of drought, notwithstanding the interpreta- 

 tions usually given to the doctrines of the Mohammedans, as 

 if they were absolute fatalists, an interpretation we have 

 given on account chiefly of their former fatuity in the matter 

 of submission to the plague, yet when a drought becomes 

 serious the monarchs have issued proclamations calling 

 upon the faithful to assemble and pray for rain. And they 

 have been assembled in consequence by tens of thousands 

 on the open plains around the city, including all the child- 

 ren of the public schools, and there invoked the God of 

 heaven to send rain. 



On the summit of the Giant's mountain on the east shore 

 of the Bosphorus there is a convent of dervishes, where in 

 such times of drought a dervish watches the approaching 

 answer to prayer, looking across the waters of the Black 

 sea to the north, to see the first rising of the cloud big with 

 rain. And his report is quickly heralded to the anxious 

 citizens. 



In illustration of the remarks with which I commenced, 

 I must again allude to the admiration and love of the people 

 for pure, sweet water. If it is not the sole beverage, still, 

 its place is not supplanted by mingling it with spirituous 

 liquors, nor by using tea or coffee as a substitute for it. 

 Tea is drunk by not one in a thousand, and coffee, from 



