and shovels among the ruins would dislodge showers of ashes and cinders upon the close, silent, awe-stricken crowds collected from all parts of Stambul, above whose heads would appear groups of consuls and ambassadors, drawn up at the corners of the streets and gazing in pale-faced consternation at the surrounding ruin. And yet, overpowering as this disaster appeared at the time, as is always the case in Oriental countries, not many months had elapsed before it was completely forgotten. When I visited Constantinople four years later no traces of it were to be seen except certain tracts of bare ground at the far end of Pera, below the heights of Tataola, and the fire was referred to by the inhabitants as something which had occurred in the remote past. For some little time--that is, as long as the ruins were still warm--the papers were filled with demands that the government should be made to take some precautions against a recurrence of the same thing. They suggested the reorganization of the fire department, the purchase of new pumps, increase of the water-supply, and that regulations should be enacted controlling the manner in which houses were to be built in the future; but, finding that the government turned a deaf ear to these proposals, the Europeans soon ceased to make them, and continued to live in the Turkish fashion; that is, trusting a little to the good God and a little to good luck. And so, as nothing or next to nothing has been done to improve the conditions, we may assume pretty confidently that the fire of 1870 was not the last of those great conflagrations which, “it is written,” are in the course of every few years or so to devastate the City of the Sultans. It is true that many of the houses in Pera are now built of masonry, but most of these are wretchedly constructed by architects without either knowledge or experience, sometimes by any one who happens to come along; and, the authorities not attempting to exercise any sort of supervision in the matter, it is not unusual for them to fall down before being completed, while those which remain standing are not in any way fitted to resist fire. Water, too, is always scarce, especially in Pera, and is everywhere subjected to the most shameful monopoly, and, being mainly derived from the reservoirs built by the Romans in the village of Belgrâd, the supply fails altogether unless abundant rains fall in both spring and autumn; then the rich pay its weight in gold to get it, while the poor people drink mud. The fire-brigade might be likened more to an army of malefactors than an organized corps of employés: it is composed of men of every nationality, accountable, more in name than in actual fact, to the Seraskerat, from which they receive nothing but a ration of bread--untaught, undisciplined, dishonest, feared and dreaded by the people quite as much as the flames which they do not know how to extinguish, and suspected, not without cause, of hoping for fires