Notwithstanding all these expensive works, it sometimes happens, after long droughts, that the supply becomes scanty in the suburbs and ;

during my residence here, I have known water to be sold at Pera and Galata at from two to six cents a pail-ful. This, however, never occurs in the city itself, which is abundantly supplied at all seasons of the year. " Where a be crossed, the Turks have resorted to an valley of great extent is to

ingenious contrivance, which I have nowhere seen clearly described, but which, from its simplicity and value, merits a more particular notice. From the want of sufficient mechanical skill to manufacture water-pipes strong enough to bear the weight of a large column of water, they adopted the following plan in the direction of the proposed :

water-channel, a number of square pillars are erected at certain short intervals they ;

are about five feet square, constructed of stone, and, slightly resembling pyramids, taper to the summit. They vary in height, according to the necessities of the case, from ten to fifty feet, and in some instances are even higher. " They form a striking peculiarity in Turkish scenery, and it was some time before the principle upon which they were constructed was apparent. The water leaves the brow of a hill, and descending in earthen pipes rises in leaden or earthen ones, up one side of this pillar, to its former level, which must be, of course, the summit of the pillar, or sooteray, as it called by the Turks.* The water is here discharged into a stone basin as large as the top of the sooteray, and is discharged by another pipe, which descends