| Constantinople. | Scutari. | |
| Mean temperature | 57° 7′ | 58° 1′ |
| Maximum | 99° 1′ | 103° 6′ |
| Minimum | 17° 2′ | 13° 0′ |
| Rain | 28.3 in. | 29.29 in. |
| 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 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 (in 1903 about 3,000,000 skins were exported, mostly to America), horns, hoofs, goat and horse hair, guts, bones, rags, bran, old iron, &c., and finally dogs’ excrements, called in trade ’pure,’ a Constantinople speciality, which is used in preparing leather for ladies’ gloves. From the hinterland comes mostly raw produce such as grain, drugs, wool, silk, ores and also carpets. The chief article is grain.”
The average value of the goods passing through the port of Constantinople at the opening of the 20th century was estimated at about £T 11,000,000. From the imperfect statistics available, the following tables of the class of goods imported and exported, and their respective values, were drawn up in 1901 by the late Mr Whittaker, The Times correspondent.
| Imports. | |
| Manufactured goods (cotton, woollen, silk, &c.) | £T[2] 3,500,000 |
| Haberdashery, ironmongery | 90,000 |
| Sugar | 500,000 |
| Petroleum | 400,000 |
| Flour | 400,000 |
| Coffee | 300,000 |
| Rice | 250,000 |
| Cattle | 100,000 |
| Various | 850,000 |
| ——— | |
| Total £T 7,000,000 | |
| Exports. | |
| Cereals | £T 1,000,000 |
| Mohair | 800,000 |
| Carpets | 700,000 |
| Silk and cocoons | 500,000 |
| Opium | 400,000 |
| Gum tragacanth | 150,000 |
| Wool | 100,000 |
| Hides | 100,000 |
| Various | 250,000 |
| ——— | |
| Total £T 4,100,000 | |
About 40% of the import trade of Constantinople is British. According to the trade report of the British consulate, the share of the United Kingdom in the value of £7,142,000 on the total imports to Constantinople during the year 1900-1901 was £1,811,000; while the share of the United Kingdom in the value of £2,669,000 on the total exports during the same year was £998,000. But it is worthy of note that while British commerce still led the way in Turkey, the trade of some other countries with Turkey, especially that of Germany, was increasing more rapidly. Comparing the average of the period 1896-1900 with the total for 1904, British trade showed an increase of 33%, Austro-Hungarian of nearly 60%, Germany of 130%, Italian of 98%, French of 8%, and Belgian of nearly 33%. The shipping visiting the port of Constantinople during the year 1905, excluding sailing and small coasting vessels, was 9796, representing a total of 14,785,080 tons. The percentage of steamers under the British flag was 37.1; of tonnage, 45.9.