TO THE BISHOP OF DURHAM. 



187 



Your Lordship asks me about the respective numbers of the 

 different sects of Christians in the East. I cannot say that when I 

 was upon the spot I was able to obtain any information on the 

 subject upon which I could much rely, as each individual always 

 appeared to swell the number of his own community and to diminish 

 that of others, but it will not be difficult at Constantinople to ascer- 

 tain the question with tolerable accuracy. In European Turkey the 

 Latins and Armenians (except in the town of Constantinople alone, 

 where there are undoubtedly a very large quantity of Armenians,) 

 bear no proportion to the Greeks. The Latins I am informed by 

 the Vicar-General here, do not amount to more than 40,000. The 

 Greeks in Europe certainly out-number the Turks in a ratio of three 

 or four to one. The whole number of them according to the best 

 information I can procure, amounting to about three millions and an 

 half. In Asia, except upon the sea coasts and the islands, the number 

 of the Greeks is very considerable, but the Armenians are found in 

 every town from the confines of Tartary to Egypt, and in their 

 habits and modes of life approach so nearly to those of the Turks 

 that they are not easily at the first view distinguished from them. 

 In Syria there are few persons to be found of either the Latin or the 

 Greek communions, except those who are established in the neigh- 

 bourhood of some convent. The Armenians are much more widely 

 dispersed, and as I was informed by the Patriarch of that nation at 

 Jerusalem, (a most respectable person who died of the plague at 

 Jaffa, only ten days after I left that place,) constitute in Persia a very 

 large part of the inhabitants. The population of the city of 

 Jerusalem I believe I obtained pretty accurately ; it consists of 

 9,000 Mahomedans, 3,000 Jews, 2,000 Greeks, 600 Latins, 300 

 Armenians, 100 Jacobites or Syrians, and two or three families of 

 Copts and MarOnites. Your Lordship will be surprized at the 

 number of the Jews, and I could not gain any satisfactory account 

 how they existed in a place where they do not cultivate the ground, 

 and where they cannot have much commerce, as it requires a guard 

 to go in safety even half a mile from the walls of the town, and 



b b 2 



