The number of stone and brick houses, from one to six stories high, was estimated in the year 1815 to be upwards of 12,000, and the mud houses above 16,000. I find by Shakespear's version of the Statistics of the North-Western Provinces[100] that the Hindoos of the city of Benares amounted to 147,082 persons, and the Mahomedans to 36,409, making a total of 183,491, giving 34,621 inhabitants to a square mile, which is the largest amount of population of any city. Benares, as I have already observed, is a very crowded city. In speaking of Kanoge, I stated that, according to Mr. Maurice,[101] it was supposed to have been a hundred miles in circumference, with a population of 2,500,000 or 3,000,000. Taking the former number to be correct, there would have been 4,000 souls to every square mile. A country is considered to be well peopled which has 100 inhabitants to every square mile. Certainly, neither London, nor any city in Europe, can have an amount of population equal to one-fourth of Benares. The late Mr. James Prinsep took the census, between the years 1824 and 1827, and it is not called in question now. Recollecting, also, that there are many six-storied houses, not only along the banks, but rising in tiers, closely behind one another, with only a few feet space between them, the European traveller will not be so much surprised at the immense mass of habitations thus congregated together. In 1815, Benares was computed to contain 8,000 houses, occupied by the families of the Brahmins, who receive charitable contributions, and subsist chiefly on the daily offerings of the wealthy inhabitants and pilgrims, although many of them possess private property of their own. In 1803, the supposed population of the city and suburbs of Benares amounted to 582,000, exclusive of the attendants of the three Mogul princes, who were reported to be 3,000, making an aggregate of 585,000 souls. At that time the Mahomedans were considered to be one to every ten Hindoos. The above return gives 36,409 Mahomedans to 147,082 Hindoos, or a total of 183,491 in the city of Benares, making the Hindoos to exceed the Mahomedans in the ratio of about four to one. Mr. Prinsep took a census in 1824, and gave the returns at 181,482. It is probably now 200,000. Mr. Prinsep's census gives six as the average number of inhabitants to a chowk (yard or court), whether in the city or in the rural outskirts, seven to a pucka (brick) house, and four and a half to a kucha (mud) house.