Our statistics do not enable us to classify the 600,000 inhabitants of Constantinople and its suburbs according to race.[27] One of the principal sources of error in estimates of this kind consists in our confounding Mussulmans with Turks. In the provinces it is generally possible to avoid this error, for Bosnians, Bulgarians, and Albanians recognise each other as members of the same race, whatever religious differences may exist between them. But in the turmoil of a great city this distinction is no longer made, and, in the end, all those who frequent the mosques are lumped together as if they were members of the same race. Of the supposed Osmanli of Constantinople a third, perhaps, consists of Turks, whilst the remaining two-thirds are made up of Arnauts, Bulgarians, Asiatics, and Africans of various races. Amongst the boatmen there are many Lesghians from the Caucasus. The Mohammedans, if not in the minority already, will be so very soon, for they lose ground almost visibly. In old Stamboul, in which a Frank hardly dared to enter some twenty years ago, they still enjoy a numerical preponderance, but in the “agglomeration of cities” known as Constantinople, and extending from Prinkipo to Therapia, they are outnumbered by Greeks, Armenians, and Franks, and certain quarters of the town have been given up to the Christians altogether. The Greeks are the most influential, and perhaps most numerous, element amongst the rayas. Their head-quarters, like those of the Turks, are at Stamboul, where they occupy a quarter of the town called Phanar, from an old lighthouse. The Greek patriarch and the wealthiest Greek families reside there. These Phanariotes, in former times, almost monopolized the government of the Christian provinces of Turkey, but they fell into disfavour after the Greek war of liberation. The religious influence, too, which they exercised until quite recently, has been destroyed in consequence of the separation of the Servian, Rumanian, and Bulgarian Churches from the orthodox Greek Church—a separation brought about almost entirely through the rapacity of the Greek patriarch and his satellites. If the Greeks would continue to preserve their pre-eminence amongst the races of Constantinople, they must trust, in the future, to their superior intelligence, their commercial habits, education, patriotism, and unanimity. To the Turks the members of the orthodox Church are known as the “Roman nation,” and they enjoy a certain amount of self-government, exercised through their bishops, which extends to marriages, schools, hospitals, and a few other matters.