Note 58 — III. HERE FOLLOWETH CONCERNING THE REALM OF PERSIA.

Sir John Chardin (356) says he may “truly reck’n” the population of Tauris to be 550,000 persons, and that several in the city would have it to be double that number! yet he had said just before that it contained 15,000 houses and 15,000 shops, so that 150,000 souls would be a liberal estimate. It appears now to contain from 30,000 to 50,000. Kinneir calls it one of the most wretched cities in Persia. Such estimates of city population are common enough still. Many books and many gentlemen in India will still tell us that Benares contains half a million, and that Lucknow before 1857 contained 700,000; the fact being, as regards Benares, that by census and including its suburbs it contains 171,668; whilst the estimate for Lucknow was probably five or six times the truth. I suspect the usual estimate of 900,000 in the city of Madras to be of equal value.