good breeding. She was dressed in a riding habit; "yet there was not
one of them that showed the least surprise or impertinent curiosity,
but received me with all the obliging civility possible. I know no
European Court where the ladies would have behaved themselves in so
polite a manner to such a stranger. I believe, upon the whole, that
there were two hundred women, and yet none of those disdainful smiles
and satirical whispers that never fail in our assemblies when anybody
appears that is not dressed exactly in the fashion. They repeated over
and over to me, _Guzél, péc guzél_, which is nothing but _Charming,
very charming_."
"The first sofas"--that is, the lower platform--"were covered with
cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies; and on the second
their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their
dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English,
stark naked." There was as little to disturb them in that state as a
group of naked children in the nursery; they had practised the usage of
the bath from their infancy, and the idea of indelicacy would no more
have crossed their minds than it would that of Eve previously to her
temptation. "They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which
Milton describes our general mother with. There were many amongst them
as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil
of a Guido or Titian--and most of their skins shiningly white, only
adorned by their beautiful hair, divided into many tresses, hanging
on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or ribbon, perfectly
representing the figures of the Graces.
"I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I have often made,
_that if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly
observed_. I perceived that the ladies of the most delicate skins and
finest shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their
faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions."
The ladies were occupied "some in conversation, some working, others
drinking coffee or sherbet, and many negligently lying on their
cushions, while their slaves (generally pretty girls of seventeen
or eighteen) were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty
fancies.... They generally take this diversion once a week, and stay
there at least four or five hours, without getting cold by immediately
coming out of the hot bath into the cold room, which was very
surprising to me."
This latter remark probably explains Lady Mary's refusal to take a bath
with her companions. One of the ladies pressed her very hard, until she
was at last forced to open her shirt and show them her stays, which,
she says, "satisfied them very well; for, I saw, they believed I was
locked up in that machine, and that it was not in my own power to open
it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband."
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu also illustrates the extravagant decoration
and expenditure that were bestowed upon some of the private baths
even in Turkey, an extravagance that calls to mind the baths of Rome.
Speaking of a bath she visited at Calcedonia, she observes:--"The
baths, fountains, and pavements are all of white marble, the roofs
gilt, and the walls covered with Japan china. Adjoining to them are two
rooms, the uppermost of which is divided into a sofa, and in the four
corners are falls of water from the very roof, from shell to shell,
of white marble, to the lower end of the room, where it falls into a
large basin surrounded with pipes that throw up the water as high as
the roof. The walls are in the nature of lattices; and on the outside
of them there are vines and woodbines planted that form a sort of green
tapestry, and give an agreeable obscurity to those delightful chambers."
THE EGYPTIAN BATH is an offshoot of the Turkish bath; and the process,
although somewhat different, preserves the general characteristics of
its parent. Bayle St. John, in his "Village Life in Egypt,"[10] gives
us the following sketch of the Egyptian Bath:--
[10] 1852.
"We went to the bath to be sweated and scraped, and rubbed and
lathered and soused, in company with the respectabilities of
Siout--brown-skinned, hairy, rotund gentlemen, who submitted to
the operation with a gravity and sedateness at once admirable and
ludicrous. Our presence, perhaps, put them upon stilts; but it was
evident that, as they lay like porpoises about the slushed benches,
enjoying a gentle titillation from the horny palm of the bath servant,
or submitting head, back, and breast to the cunning razor, they felt
what important people they were--citizens of a place which possessed
a real bath, with _hararah_, _faskiyeh_, and, above all, a scalding
_makhtas_--the summum bonum of the Egyptian bather; for not all the
race of Pharaoh bathe, as not all Frenchmen go to cafés, nor all
Englishmen to clubs. From Cairo to Siout we had not found one of these
luxurious establishments. In the antechamber, whilst we were being
kneaded as if for dough by a coaxing lawingee, one old gentleman, who
had doubtless been soaking for hours, came and sat down, wrapped in a
sheet, opposite to us."
Mr. St. John fails to tell us to what extent he appreciated the bath;
but Thackeray,[11] after a similar bath at Cairo, observes:--"The
after-bath state is the most delightful condition of laziness I ever
knew, and I tried it wherever we went afterwards on our little tour.
At Smyrna the whole business was much inferior to the method employed
in the capital. At Cairo, after the soap, you are plunged into a sort
of stone coffin, full of water which is almost boiling.[12] This has
its charms, but I could not relish the Egyptian shampooing. A hideous
old blind man (but very dexterous in his art) tried to break my back
and dislocate my shoulders, but I could not see the pleasure of the
practice; and another fellow began tickling the soles of my feet."
[11] "Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo." 1846.
[12] Probably the scalding makhtas of Bayle St. John.
M. Savary, in his "Letters on Egypt," published nearly a century back,
gives a description of the bath which is nearly identical with that
of modern writers. The first apartment, he says, is "a great chamber
in the form of a rotunda, with an open roof," and a fountain in the
centre, which plays into a reservoir. "A spacious alcove, carpeted,
is carried round, and divided into compartments, in which the bathers
leave their clothes," and to which they return when the bath is over.
When undressed, "sandals are put on, and a narrow passage is entered,
where the heat first begins to be felt; the door shuts, and twenty
paces further a second opens, which is the entrance to a passage at
right angles with the first. Here the heat augments, and those who
fear to expose themselves too suddenly to its effects, stop some time
in a marble hall (middle chamber) before they enter. The bath itself
(inner chamber) is a spacious vaulted chamber, paved and lined with
marble; beside it are four small rooms: a vapour continually rises from
a fountain and cistern of hot water, with which the burnt perfumes
mingle."
His notice of the process of shampooing differs somewhat from that of
others:--"A gentle moisture diffuses itself over the body; a servant
comes, gently presses and turns the bather, and when the limbs are
flexible, makes the joints crack without trouble, then _masses_
(touches lightly), and seems to knead the body without giving the
slightest sensation of pain.
"This done, he puts on a stuff glove, and continues rubbing long,"
until the skin "becomes as smooth as satin; he then conducts the
bather into a cabinet, pours a lather of perfumed soap on the head,
and retires." "The room into which the bather retires has two
water-cocks--one for cold, the other for hot water; and he washes
himself."
"Being well washed and purified, the bather is wrapped up in hot linen.
Being come to the alcove, a bed is ready prepared, on which the person
no sooner lies down, than a boy comes, and begins to press with his
delicate hands all parts of the body, in order to dry them perfectly;
the linen is once more changed, and the boy gently rubs the callous
skin of the feet with pumice stone, then brings a pipe and Mocha
coffee."
M. Savary then draws the following picture of the sensations of the
bath:--"Coming from a bath filled with hot vapour, in which excessive
perspiration bedewed every limb, into a spacious apartment and the
open air, the lungs expand and respire at pleasure: well kneaded, and,
as it were, regenerated, the blood circulates freely, the body feels
a voluptuous ease, a flexibility till then unknown, a lightness as if
relieved from some enormous weight, and the man almost fancies himself
newly-born and beginning first to live. A glowing consciousness of
existence diffuses itself to the very extremities; and, while thus
yielding to the most delightful sensations, ideas of the most pleasing
kind pervade and fill the soul; the imagination wanders through worlds
which itself embellishes, everywhere drawing pictures of happiness
and delight. If life be only a succession of ideas, the vigour, the
rapidity with which the memory then retraces all the knowledge of the
man would lead us to believe that the two hours of delicious calm which
succeed bathing are an age.
"Such, sir, are these baths, the use of which was so strongly
recommended by the ancients, and the pleasures of which the Egyptians
still enjoy. Here they prevent or exterminate rheumatisms, catarrhs,
and those diseases of the skin which the want of perspiration
occasions. Here they rid themselves of those uncomfortable sensations
so common among other nations, who have not the same regard to
cleanliness."[13]
[13] "Tournefort, who had taken the vapour baths at Constantinople,
where they are much less careful than at Grand Cairo, thinks they
injure the lungs; but longer experience would have convinced him of
his error. There are no people who practise this bathing more than
the Egyptians, nor any to whom such diseases are less known. They are
almost wholly unacquainted with pulmonic complaints."
With the Turkish bath for our model, let us now inquire--What the bath
has been doing in Britain? and, How a desire to restore it first came
among us? That it is among us is a fact beyond question, and that it
has spread through society with marvellous rapidity no longer admits
of doubt. In the year 1850, Mr. Urquhart published an interesting work
in two volumes, entitled "The Pillars of Hercules; or, a Narrative
of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848." In the preface to this
work occurs the following passage:--"I have no expectation that my
suggestions will modify the lappet of a coat, or the leavening of
a loaf; but there is one subject in which I am not without hope of
having placed a profitable habit more within the chance of adoption
than it has hitherto been--I mean the bath." In the second volume of
this work there is a chapter (Chapter VIII.) devoted to the bath, and
especially to a description of the Turkish and Moorish bath. It is
from this source that I have drawn the description which I have just
given; and the author refers to it in the conclusion of his seventh
chapter in these words:--"A chapter," says he, "which, if the reader
will peruse it with diligence and apply with care, may prolong his
life, fortify his body, diminish his ailments, augment his enjoyments,
and improve his temper; then, having found something beneficial to
himself, he may be prompted to do something to secure the like for his
fellow-creatures."
Six years after the publication of this work--namely, in 1856--Mr.
Urquhart visited Ireland, and made the acquaintance of Dr. Richard
Barter, the proprietor of a water-cure establishment at Blarney. Dr.
Barter, struck with the conversation of Mr. Urquhart, and delighted
with his description of the Turkish bath, which he subsequently read in
the "Pillars of Hercules," wrote to him as follows:--"Your description
of the Turkish bath has electrified me. If you will come down here and
superintend the erection of one, men, money, and materials shall be at
your disposal."
Mr. Urquhart, in his zeal for the cause, on which he has so ably and
so eloquently written, accepted the invitation, and a month later, the
foundation-stone of the Turkish Bath of St. Anne's Hill, Blarney--the
parent of numerous baths which have since sprung into existence in
Ireland--was laid.
The chiefs of the pioneers of the Bath in England, following the
teachings of Mr. Urquhart, are, Mr. George Crawshay, Sir John Fife, Mr.
George Witt, and Mr. Stewart Rolland. The first private bath erected
in England was that of Mr. Crawshay, in 1857. In the same year, Mr.
Urquhart constructed a small bath at his residence at Lytham, and
the year following commenced his elegant bath at Riverside. Mr. Witt
followed in 1858, and Mr. Rolland in 1859. It was in Mr. Witt's bath
that I first took rank as a bather, and on that account, as well as
for its comfort and simplicity, and the philanthropic character of its
owner, Mr. Witt's bath will always occupy a first place both in my
memory and in my heart. Let me describe it.
On the ground-floor of his house in Prince's Terrace, Hyde Park, is a
room twenty feet long by ten feet in breadth, and twelve feet high,
with a window looking out upon a lead-flat. This room he divided by a
partition into two compartments, two-thirds of the room being devoted
to the purposes of a cool-room, and the remaining third to a hot-room.
The outer room being the Mustaby or Frigidarium; the inner room being
the hot-room of the Turkish Hamâm, the Calidarium and Sudatorium of the
Romans; there was no space for a middle room, or Tepidarium.
Piercing the wall of the Calidarium near its floor is a furnace of
simple construction, opening on the lead-flat outside, and projecting
for some distance inside into the room, where it is covered with a
casing of fire-brick; the furnace ends in a flue, and the flue, which
is one foot square, runs around the room, close to the floor, and close
also to the wall, being separated from both the one and the other by a
space of a few inches. Having completed the circuit of the room, the
flue ascends the angle of the apartment to the ceiling, and terminates
by opening into a chimney-shaft. The room is heated by the radiation
of caloric from the casing of the furnace, and from the flue; and the
flue being thirty-five feet in length, presents a radiating surface of
nearly fifty yards.
The other features in the construction of the Calidarium are, a wooden
seat, which runs round the room, immediately over the flue; a platform
which supports a _dureta_, or couch of repose; a small tank holding ten
gallons of water, kept warm by its position against the chimney-shaft,
and two pipes which project into the room, at an elevation of six feet
and a half, for supplying warm water from the tank, and cold water from
the ordinary house-service; add to this a double door of entrance, a
small window, and five circular holes in the wall for ventilation, and
the Calidarium is complete.
Let me now conduct the reader through the process of taking a bath.
We enter the Frigidarium; we divest ourselves of our clothing, which we
hang on pegs fixed along the end of the room; this is the Vestiarium,
or Apodyterium; and here we put off our shoes. We then dress ourselves
for the bath: we wind a long strip of Turkish red twilled cotton around
our hips, in the fashion of a cummerbund or kilt; it descends nearly
to our knees; we fold another strip turban-wise around our head; and
behold! we are ready to enter the region of heat. We need no wooden
pattens, no _cob cob_; on the clean India matting of the Frigidarium,
where shoe-leather never treads, there is no dust; on the floor of the
Calidarium we shall find neither slop nor excessive heat; we may press
our naked sole against Mother Earth as we would press palm to palm with
our dearest friend.
The question of precedence being settled, the double door is opened,
and we enter the Calidarium. How deliciously the warm air seems to
fold us in its soft embrace; we look at the thermometer: it is 135°.
How very nice! How very agreeable! are the expressions which we hear
softly breathed around us, for we are not alone: we are one of five
or six "Companions of the Bath." The air is clear--no vapoury mists;
it is fresh, for there is a free circulation of air through the room;
but how marvellously soothing! All care, all anxiety, all trouble, all
memory of the external world and its miserable littleness, is chased
from the mind; our thoughts are absorbed in rapturous contemplation of
the delights of the New World--the Paradise into which we have just
been admitted. The tyrant PAIN, even, loses his miscreant power here;
the toothache, where is it gone? the headache, gone too; the spasm
no longer bides; the grinding aches of craving appetite, the pang of
neuralgia, of rheumatism, of gout--all are fled; for this is the region
where the suffering find a soothing relief from all their torments; and
over the door is it not written:--THIS IS THE CALIDARIUM; PAIN ENTERS
NOT HERE.
Ten minutes slip away in an enjoyment that seems to last for a
lifetime; and what is our condition now? The skin is warm, it is soft,
it is moist, for sensible perspiration has commenced. Those parts
perspire first which have been most exposed to the air--namely, the
forehead, the head, the neck, the chest and shoulders, because these
parts, from that very exposure, are in the most normal state. We are
shortly, "like Niobe, all tears;" but our tears are tears of bliss.
Tears of perspiration collect in beads at the apertures of the pores;
tears glide down the surface, and fall from all the salient points
of our frame, from our elbows, from our finger-ends; a sweet languor
creeps over us, and we feel as though, like a heathen god of old, we
were dissolving into a liquid stream.
"Here Fluvius wept; as now a stream declares."
We experience the truth of the saying of Sanctorius, "that melancholy
is overcome by a free perspiration, and that cheerfulness, without any
evident cause, proceeds from perspiration succeeding well."
It is a curious, but at the same time an obvious fact, with regard to
perspiration, that it depends very materially on the habit and training
of the skin. The beginner in the use of the bath perspires slowly,
languidly, partially, incompletely, while the accustomed bather is
known by the freedom of his perspiration. The apprentice-hand has no
thirst in the bath, for a small portion only of the excess of watery
fluid is abstracted from his tissues and from his blood. But the
practised bather has no such excess, his blood yields its diluting
water with great freedom, he thirsts in the bath, and he drinks freely.
I know a gentleman who sometimes consumes a gallon of water in the
bath, but none remains when he comes out: all has been dissipated by
perspiration. In a chemical analysis of the perspiration of a group of
bathers, recently made, that fluid was found loaded with saline and
organic matter in the recruits, but was almost pure in the veteran
bather: his blood was washed as clean as that of the working man who
eats the bread of labour--that sweetest of all bread, the bread that
has been earned with the sweat of his brow.
I hardly know a more curious or more beautiful sight than that of the
healthy skin of a practised bather, spangled over with limpid drops of
perspiration like dew-drops on the petals of a rose, or like beads of
crystal, as I heard a Doctor of Divinity once call them, in the bath.
The Reverend Doctor, although a distinguished member of the Protestant
Church, was, as a witty friend remarked, "devoutly counting his beads."
Among the labourers in hot rooms, or in proximity with hot furnaces, as
in the manufacture of glass, enamel, porcelain, and gas, the working of
engines, and the smelting of metals, perspiration is very profuse, and
the lost fluid is replaced by the drinking of water, or more commonly
of thin gruel; restoring the balance of fluids not by mere water, but
actually by a nutritive drink. Look at these men, working in the open
air, or in the midst of thorough draughts, with rivers of perspiration
streaming down their athletic frames, and ask their history; they
are healthy, long-lived and happy. In the copper-smelting works at
Swansea, the heat between the furnaces at which the men work is 200° of
Fahrenheit; they drink a gallon of thin gruel every hour, working four
hours at a stretch, and the ground on which they stand is a pool of
perspiration.
I have said that the temperature of Mr. Witt's bath is 135°, and a
very agreeable temperature it is; but the temperature of the bath is a
point upon which a few observations must be made. The temperature of
the Calidarium in Mr. Urquhart's and Mr. Rolland's bath is 170°, and is
equally agreeable, equally fresh, equally enjoyable. What then, it may
be asked, is the difference between these baths, that renders such a
wide range of temperature equally pleasant? It is one of construction.
Mr. Witt's Calidarium is small, well ventilated for its size, but a
higher temperature than 135° or 140° would be oppressive if more than
two or three bathers were present. Moreover, in Mr. Witt's bath, there
is an invisible vapour of water in suspension in the atmosphere. Mr.
Rolland's bath is larger than Mr. Witt's, and the atmosphere perfectly
dry. Size of apartment and dryness of atmosphere are therefore the
opposites of restricted space and moist atmosphere. Mr. Urquhart's
bath, with a higher temperature than Mr. Rolland's, is fresher than
either, because he has been enabled to combine greater size, greater
altitude, a fresher material, namely, marble, moisture, and partial
heating by means of the hypocaust. So the question of temperature must
be regarded as relative, and not positive; a higher temperature will be
fresher in a large and well-ventilated bath with few inmates, than a
lower temperature in a small and less perfectly ventilated apartment.
Whereas, the bath that may be fresh and agreeable in the morning when
few bathers are present, may be insufferable in the after part of the
day when a succession of bathers has rendered the atmosphere moist,
or when many bathers are therein. The effect of many bathers being
necessarily to curtail space, infuse moisture into the atmosphere, and
deteriorate the ventilating medium. The temperature of a bath must
therefore be specially adapted to the particular bath; it must rise or
fall with its proportions or with its means of ventilation; it must
rise or fall with its number of bathers; it must rise in the morning
and fall in the evening. We may fix the temperature of a hot bath, but
we cannot determine that of a Turkish bath.
One of the things which strikes the popular mind the most vividly in
the British Turkish bath is the _high temperature_. When we call to
mind that a hot bath is scalding at 110°, and a vapour bath at 120°,
we are astonished to hear of a bath that is enjoyable at 20°, 30°, and
even 50° above the temperature of scalding water. Nay, more, that can
be borne without inconvenience at _double_ the temperature of scalding
water. Mr. Witt, one evening at a dinner-party, explained the curious
difference of action of heat on living and dead organic matter. A few
days after, a baronet, who was one of the party, visited Mr. Witt in
his bath, and wrote to an incredulous friend as follows:--"I have been
at Mr. Witt's bath; all that he told us is true. I cooked a mutton-chop
on my knee! and in eating it afterwards the only inconvenience that I
experienced was in the matter of the bread--it became toast before I
could get it to my mouth." Since I first published this anecdote, a
very matter-of-fact gentleman has written to me to say: "Well! I can
believe the mutton-chop, but is not the bread changing to toast in
its way to the mouth a little too much for credit?" I can best answer
my matter-of-fact friend by saying, that in Mr. Urquhart's bath at
Riverside, I sat for at least ten minutes, and without the slightest
inconvenience, in his Laconicum, at a temperature of 240°--namely, 28°
degrees above the boiling-point of water. If I had had bread, or meat,
or eggs with me, they must necessarily have been cooked at that heat.
But in reality there is nothing wonderful in all this. I am informed
that during the Indian mutiny, the heat in the tents was sometimes as
high as 140°. Sir Charles Blagden remained for ten minutes in a room
heated to 260°. Sir Francis Chantrey's oven, in which his moulds were
dried, and which was constantly entered by his men, was heated to 350°.
The ovens in the slate-enamelling works of Mr. Magnus, at Pimlico, also
habitually entered by the workmen, have a temperature of 350°. And the
oven in which Chabert, the so-called Fire King, exhibited in London
some years back, was heated to 400° and 500°.
We may therefore pass over the bravery of the exceeding high
temperatures as an established fact, and not worthy of a single
further remark. Man, who would be scalded by water at a temperature
of 110°, and vapour or steam at 120°, can bear for a short time dry
air at a temperature of 500° of Fahrenheit, and upwards. But this does
not so much concern us as the question--WHAT IS THE BEST TEMPERATURE
OF BATH, FOR THE PURPOSES OF HEALTH? My answer must be, a moderate
temperature--a temperature ranging in medium limits between 120° and
140°. The Romans, who lost the bath, used very high temperatures; the
Turks, who have preserved it, who use it to this day, have recourse,
as I have already shown, to very moderate temperatures. For further
corroboration of the argument, let us glance at the purpose of the
bath--its intention is to _warm_, to _relax_, to induce a _gentle_,
_continuous_, and _prolonged perspiration_. It is obvious that a gentle
temperature will effect this object more thoroughly and completely than
a burning, parching temperature of 150° and upwards. Our purpose is not
to dry up the tissues, to rob the blood of its diluent fluid, but to
soften the callous scarf-skin that it may be peeled off, and to take
away the excess of fluids pervading the economy, and with this excess
any irritant and morbid matters which they may hold in solution.
But all this while I have been infringing one of the rules of the bath;
I have been talking in the bath, and talking is of doubtful propriety;
the demeanour of the bather while in the bath must be tranquil,
composed, calm; he must give himself up to the dissolving process
without exertion of muscle or mind; he may rub his skin gently; he may
talk gently, sententiously, like a Turk, but he must not allow himself
to become animated, and above all, he must not be vociferous. The bath
is a practice intended for the body's health, and therefore deserves
all our consideration and respect. The rule of Mr. Witt's bath cannot
be too closely adhered to--_only one talker at a time_--and it has the
further advantage that the talker knowing himself listened to, takes
time to think before he speaks.
In my experience it has rarely happened that a novitiate has felt any
inconvenience on his first entrance into the bath. The practised bather
is never disturbed from the beginning to the end of the process. But
the beginner may, after the first quarter of an hour, or when the
perspiration is coming forth in abundance, feel a little oppression,
sometimes a little faintness, and sometimes a little increased action
of the heart. WHENEVER THIS IS THE CASE HE SHOULD STEP OUT OF THE
CALIDARIUM; if there be a Tepidarium he will go into it, if not, he may
step into the Frigidarium. The uneasy feeling soon passes away, and
then he should return to the Calidarium. He may do this as often as he
likes, and with the most perfect safety; and _with this hint_ it will
be his own fault if he suffer any inconvenience whatever. The remedy
is not so simple when, as sometimes happens, the fount of perspiration
is as yet unopened, when the bather has never perspired, or to a very
imperfect and trifling extent. Here, of course, the relief which is
afforded to the system by perspiration is absent, and the bather may be
seriously incommoded. He must not persist; force is antagonistic to the
animal economy; he must succumb, and essay to bring about perspiration
by the steady use of the vapour bath,--by such a bath, in fact, as the
middle room of the Turkish bath. I know many persons who have never
perspired, to whom the luxury of the bath is consequently lost. I know
others who cannot perspire in dry air, but can do so in vapour. How
frequently we are brought to reflect on the wisdom of the Turks, who
have added so much vapour to their bath since they received it as an
inheritance from the Romans.
How long shall I continue in the bath, says Amicus?--As long, my
friend, as may be agreeable to yourself. You do not ask me how long
you shall eat, nor how long you should sit at table. The instinct that
tells you to place your knife and fork across your plate, must also
direct you in finishing your bath. Something will depend, it is true,
on the temperature, and the rapidity of the process of perspiration.
If the temperature have been very agreeable, and perspiration slow,
continuous, and efficient, you may pass the best part of an hour in the
Calidarium. If it have been too hot, and the process untimely hurried,
you must bring your enjoyment more speedily to an end.
We shall suppose that our friends have enjoyed their bath, and have
agreeably spent three-quarters of an hour in the Calidarium:--the skin
is now warm and moist, and the whole frame, its muscles and its joints,
are softened and relaxed. This is the proper state and period, for
those operations on the muscles and joints which are called SHAMPOOING.
But as the art of shampooing is unknown in this country, or, if
attempted, is practised only in the public baths, we must be contented
in our private bath to pass over that process, the SECOND of the bath,
and betake ourselves to that which follows, the _rolling_ or _peeling_
of the scarf-skin.
We cannot, however, wholly pass by the process of shampooing without
a cursory glance at the nature of the operation and the manner of
its performance. In the _inner room_ of the Turkish bath, we have,
following the description of Mr. Urquhart, seen the bather laid upon
his back, on the marble platform under the centre of the dome, his
mantle converted into a sheet to protect him from the heat of the
marble, and his turban placed beneath his head in the guise of a
pillow. The shampooer, or _tellak_ as he is termed--and to perform the
operation properly there should be two,--"kneels at your side, and
bending over, grips and presses your chest, arms, and legs, passing
from part to part, like a bird shifting its place on a perch. He
brings his whole weight on you with a jerk, follows the line of muscle
with anatomical thumb, draws the open hand strongly over the surface,
particularly round the shoulder, turning you half up in so doing;
stands with his feet on the thighs and on the chest, and slips down the
ribs; then up again three times; and, lastly, doubling your arms one
after the other on the chest, pushes with both hands down, beginning
at the elbow, and then, putting an arm under the back and applying his
chest to your crossed elbows, rolls on you across till you crack. You
are now turned on your face, and, in addition to the operation above
described he works his elbow round the edges of your shoulder-blade,
and with the heel plies hard the angle of the neck; he concludes by
hauling the body half up by each arm successively, while he stands with
one foot on the opposite thigh. You are then raised for a moment to a
sitting posture, and a contortion given to the small of the back with
the knee, and a jerk to the neck by the two hands holding the temples."
At Dar el Baida Mr. Urquhart enjoyed the opportunity of "examining a
public bath of the Moors belonging to their good times. The disposition
varies from that of the ancient Thermæ and the modern Hamâms. The grand
and noble portion of the Turkish and the ancient bath was a dome, open
to the heavens in the centre." Such a dome, without the opening in the
centre, exists in the Moorish bath, but it is the inner and not the
outer apartment. "The vault has deep ribs in the fashion of a clam
shell, and is supported upon columns with horse-shoe arches spreading
between. Instead of a system of flues through the walls, only one
passed through the centre under the floor. To get at it, I had to break
through the pavement of beaten mortar covering a slab of marble. It was
nearly filled up with a deposit, partly of soot and partly of earthy
matter, which I imagined to be the residuum of gazul." The examination
of this bath awakened a desire to experience the process of the bath
as practised among this ancient people. There was a bath in the house
of the Governor of the province, but the Governor was away, and it was
not until Mr. Urquhart had sustained a long religious argument with
the Caid, that he was permitted to complete his experience. His bath
attendant and shampooer was the sub-governor; and the occurrence was to
be kept secret from the inhabitants of the town on religious grounds.
This may explain, perhaps, the roughness of the receptions which Mr.
Urquhart met with, and the absence of those refinements and comforts
which commonly belong to the Eastern bath.
The bather, he says, "enters the Calidarium naked, he has no bath
linen; the bath-room is single, and placed over an oven; while a
caldron of water, heated on the fire below, throws its steam into the
apartment. The floor is burning hot; he has no pattens; and boards are
laid for him to tread upon; the glove operation commences at once.
There was a dish of gazul for the shampooer to rub his hands in. I was
seated on the board with my legs straight out before me; the shampooer
seated himself on the same board behind me, stretching out his legs.
He then made me close my fingers upon the toes of his feet, by which
he got a purchase against me, and rubbing his hands in the gazul,
commenced upon the middle of my back, with a sharp motion up and down,
between beating and rubbing, his hands working in opposite directions.
After rubbing in this way the back, he pulled my arms through his own
and through each other, twisting me about in the most extraordinary
manner, and drawing his fingers across the region of the diaphragm, so
as to make me, a practised bather, shriek. After rubbing in this way
the skin, and stretching at the same time the joints of my upper body,
he came and placed himself at my feet, dealing with my legs in like
manner. Then thrice taking each leg and lifting it up, he placed his
head under the calf, and raising himself, scraped the leg as with a
rough brush, for his shaved head had the grain downwards. The operation
concluded by his biting my heel."
The Moorish bath "certainly does clear off the epidermis, work the
flesh, excite the skin, set at work the absorbent and exuding vessels,
raise the temperature, apply moisture;--but the refinements and
luxuries are wanting."
Captain Clark Kennedy and his friends met with no such difficulties as
those experienced by Mr. Urquhart. After a fatiguing day's journey,
they visited a public Moorish bath at Medeah, and Captain Kennedy
records their experiences, which show a family resemblance to the
Turkish Hamâm. Passing, he says, "through a narrow passage, we, entered
a room with two sides, occupied by a sloping divan seven feet wide,
and raised a couple of feet from the floor." "We took off our clothes,
replaced them with a voluminous wrapper of white cotton, and thrusting
our toes into leather loops tacked to a pair of wooden soles, shuffled
along, led, by an attendant, to a small apartment, full of steam and
tolerably warm, adjoining the bath-room. Here we changed our drapery
for dark cotton handkerchiefs, fastened round the waist like kilts,
and, passed on into a vaulted stone chamber, lit by a solitary lamp
hanging from the roof, whose sickly, light, struggling with the clouds
of steam and the darkness, just rendered visible the strange forms
of the bath attendants, naked, like ourselves, to the waist, with a
single lock of dark hair, dripping with, moisture, dangling from each
uncovered shaven head.
"The pavement was flooded with hot water, and at first the heat was
so oppressive I could hardly breathe; but the feeling went off after
having been seated for a few minutes on a stone bench in the centre
of the bath. We were now all laid out in a row on the pavement, each
stretched on a blue cloth, with a rolled-up towel under the head, and
an operator for each person. My attendant was a musical character, for
when he commenced shampooing he accompanied his labours with a song,
marking the chorus at the end of each verse by a punch of extra force.
Being well soaked and softened, I was now scrubbed with a camel's-hair
glove until I felt as if I had no skin at all. I then had my legs and
arms pulled, my head screwed round with a jerk, was then doubled up
like a boot-jack by his kneeling on my shoulders, my arms were brought
behind me, and while his knee was forced into the hollow of my back,
two or three dexterous twists put in motion each rib and vertebra;
he then finished by endeavouring to crack, separately, every toe and
finger. A large bowl of soap-suds was now brought, and, with a handful
of the soft fibres of the aloe, he lathered me from head to foot. A
plentiful supply of hot water was now poured over me, and, reconducted
into the interior, I was enveloped in clean, white, warm linen, a
long soft towel was wrapped round my head as a turban; and, lastly,
taken into the outer room, I was laid upon the divan with three or
four sheets over all." "The feeling of lightness and elasticity given
to a fatigued and stiffened body by a Moorish bath cannot be imagined
without being felt." "It was too much trouble at the time to analyse
my own feelings, but I remember the predominant idea was that I felt
exceedingly comfortable." The process lasted two hours.
And now a word as to the operation of shampooing. Any inhabitant of
a Northern climate like our own must read these descriptions of the
process with wonder not unmixed with dread. Who but a professed acrobat
would venture to submit to an operation in which a man "stands with
his feet on the thighs and on the chest, and slips (his feet) down
the ribs, then up again three times?" or "putting an arm under the
back, and applying his chest to your crossed elbows, rolls on you
across till you crack?" I have already explained that the operation
of shampooing requires that the skin and the whole body, especially
the muscular system, should be thoroughly softened before this process
is commenced; and it would appear that when the proper degree of
softening is attained, the Eastern people, who are remarkable for the
pliability and elasticity of their joints, can support the operation
without inconvenience. But the Northern races are built for strength
and endurance; their quality is solidity, not pliability; their joints
are too firmly knit, and the bones too strongly braced together, to
permit of the application of such force as would make the skeleton
crack, without serious inconvenience and, indeed, danger. We have but
to see the Asiatic throw his foot over his shoulder, bend his finger
upon the back of his hand, crack every joint of the fingers with the
most moderate traction, or drop gracefully upon the ground, sitting
on the side of the foot, with the sole upturned towards the skies, to
be assured that there is something in the structure of the bones and
joints of the Asiatic that does not exist amongst us. And if one of
these people were to tie himself up in a knot, we should not be much
surprised. We know, also, that this curious pliability of the frame
is enjoyed by Europeans born and reared in the East; and, moreover,
that where it exists in a most perfect degree while such persons are
residing in the East, it is considerably diminished, and even lost,
on their migration to a cold climate. There are, doubtless, many
persons amongst us who could bear the Turkish process of shampooing,
and particularly after a sojourn of some time in the East, where
the climate alone would tend to soften their organism; and we can
comprehend how a sailor, whose special education is pliability and
ductility of body and limb, could go through the process creditably;
but we cannot realize the same of the soldier or the ploughman; and
as little should we tolerate a similar penance ourselves. Turkish
shampooing may continue to be practised in the Turkish Hamâm, but the
process must be considerably modified before it can become popular in
Britain.
There can be no doubt that a modified shampooing would form a valuable
addition to the Anglo-Turkish bath; that the friction of the skin, the
pressing and kneading of the muscles, the traction of the sinews, the
playing of the joints, even a certain pressure of the viscera, would be
attended with benefit; and when there existed stiffening or thickening
from chronic disease, as of rheumatism and gout, of immense advantage.
The British shampooer has all this to learn, and we commend to him two
considerations--agility and moderation.
After the shampooing--the second operation of the bath, that
which immediately follows the seasoning of the body by warmth and
moisture--there comes the THIRD OPERATION, the rolling and peeling of
the outer layers of the scarf-skin; an operation in which the Turks
are very expert. The scarf-skin has become softened and swollen by
the warm moisture of the atmosphere and the exudation of perspiration
from the skin, and is in a state ready for peeling and collecting into
rolls and removing by the process of friction with the camel's-hair or
goat-hair glove, the _kheesah_ of India. In this operation there is no
soap employed, the skin is as yet untouched with soap, and we rely for
our success on simple friction. The Moors commence the process a little
earlier, before the scarf-skin is thoroughly soaked, and use _gazul_.
The Turks give a longer period to the softening of the albuminous
layers of the epidermis, and _gazul_ ceases to be necessary. We have no
grease well powdered with dust to require the _strigil_ of the Romans;
we have no _gazul_; and we therefore follow in the footsteps of the
Turk: we soak lengthily, lazily in our Tepidarium, or the cooler side
of our Calidarium, and when we have artistically softened the epiderm,
when we are done to a turn, we assume the glove, and we sweep with long
strokes and firmly over the skin from the nuque to the podex, from the
brow to the toe's end, until we have rolled and slid off the softened
layers, and have developed the pure and satiny surface beneath. The
old scarf is shed, we cast our exuviæ, and we are refulgent in the
brightness and purity of our newest garment. After this, a warm flood
of water, rushing upon us like a summer shower, or streaming over us
like a waterfall from the regions of the sun; and all the foul scales
that constitute the paved mosaic of the outward man are washed clean
away.
In the public bath, this delicious operation is performed by the bath
attendant, by the shampooer, the tellak, or in whatever other name
he may delight. In the private bath, the host is so condescending as
to give his guest a rub down, or an obliging and expert "companion
of the bath" does the kind office for his fellow C.B., particularly
if he be a callous, horny-skinned, and begrimed novitiate. We have
seen Mr. Witt playing the camel's-hair glove, with the grace of an
Apollo, by the hour; we have had our own epidermal integument groomed
with most exquisite tenderness by a noble of the highest rank, for
the time our "companion of the bath;" by those veteran pioneers
of the bath, Mr. Witt and Mr. Rolland; and we have travelled in
imagination to the ancient Phœnician city of Dar el Baida, nay, to the
antediluvian Baalbec itself, gazing in admiration on the very features
of the "giants that lived in those days," and on their marvellous
achievements, and embarking with Noah and his sons in their vast and
wonderful ship, while Mr. Urquhart has been sweeping adown our back and
limbs with the camel's-hair pad filled with Mauritanian gazul, at his
delightful Tusculum at Riverside.
The next operation, the fourth in order of proceeding, brings into
play the soap and the wisp of the white fibre of the Mecca palm--the
_lyf_. The bather stands before the operator, or sits on the margin
of the sunken basin that serves as a _lavatrina_ or _labrum_; the
operator draws towards him the wooden basin, half filled with warm
water, or warm suds, or in the Turkish Hamâm with soft soap; he dips
his white bunch of lyf in the snowy lather, or rubs it well with
Castile or ordinary soap, and he then gently, but thoroughly, glides
over the entire surface of the bather, from the crown of the head to
the soles of the feet. How exquisite is the feeling of the cleansing
operation to the sensorium of the skin; and how still more enjoyable
is the warm cascade which bursts over him as soon as the soaping and
its accompanying friction are at end; how difficult to bring the mind
to the belief that we have had enough. Were not thankfulness in the
ascendant at our recovered purity, we might be so sinful as to regret
that so delicious an enjoyment had come to an end.
But if the sensation of the warm shower is agreeable, no less so is
the process which immediately succeeds--namely, a douse, or douche, of
the coldest water. The body is so thoroughly warmed by the preceding
operations, that instead of striking a chill, as might be imagined by
the inexperienced, the coldness is most grateful, and the feeling of
freshness most exhilarating. Sometimes, an alternate douche of hot
and cold water is repeated in rapid succession, and it is a little
difficult for the bather to say which of the two is at the moment
bursting over him.
The intention of the cold affusion is to produce contraction of the
seven millions of pores which open on the surface of the skin. They
have acted freely, they have performed the duty that was required of
them: the key may now be turned, the lock closed; they may be sealed
up for the present, to be ready for further service at a future time.
The Romans often concluded their bath by plunging into a cold pool, to
attain the same object--the closure of the pores; and the Turks, as we
have already seen, omit the cold affusion, excepting to the feet, and
rely upon the cool atmosphere of their great hall, open to the sky, and
to the cooling influence of the current of air produced by a fan.
Where a middle room or Tepidarium exists, the process of washing,
beginning with the inunction with soap and ending with the cold douche,
is performed in that apartment. But where there is no Tepidarium, the
process is gone through in some convenient part of the Calidarium. If
the former, the bather returns to the Calidarium, and sits down for a
few minutes, until the skin becomes warm, and any coldness is removed
which may have been occasioned by the douche. Or, if the Calidarium
have been the scene of the lavatory process, the bather, in like
manner, takes his seat on a bench until all chill is dispelled.
With a skin perfectly warm, though no longer perspiring, the bather
now steps out of the Calidarium, receiving either immediately before
his exit, or as soon as he may have entered the Frigidarium, a warm,
dry cotton mantle for his body, and a warm, dry napkin for his head;
the wet hip-cloth is left behind in the Calidarium, or is dropped at
the entrance of the Frigidarium. The head and face are rubbed dry
by means of the napkin, and the mantle or sheet is wrapped around
the body and limbs, and the bather seats himself, or reclines on the
couch of repose, according to his taste; he remains passive, or calmly
conversing, and awaits with patience the drying of his skin.
A good Frigidarium should be, as its name implies, as cool as possible;
a breeze of air sweeping through the room is an advantage; the windows
should be open, for the bather courts the cool air, and delights in
feeling it play over his heated limbs. The Romans had an open terrace
connected with the Frigidarium, in which the bathers could walk,
enveloped in their mantle; and a walk in the open air, or in one of the
charming garden walks described by Pliny, would be most enjoyable. No
wiping, no friction is necessary to dry the skin; the mantle absorbs
some, and the cool air dissipates the rest of the moisture. And after
awhile the skin is left dry, satiny, and warm, without trace of
moisture or clamminess, and in a state in which the usual dress may be
resumed. This is the moment at which the description of Mr. Urquhart is
properly applicable:--"The body has come forth shining like alabaster,
fragrant as the cistus, sleek as satin, and soft as velvet."
The bather should now put on his clothing slowly and composedly;
no haste should hurry his movements, for haste might re-excite the
perspiration, the skin might again become moist, and _then_ there would
be danger of taking cold. But if the process be properly conducted,
cold is impossible; even the sensation of cold is for the time lost.
The bather feels renovated, restored, buoyant, good-tempered, strong,
the _beau idéal_ of God's divinest creation--man.
Let me illustrate the action of the bath by a recent experience of my
own, and at the same time draw attention to the proper use of the bath,
and its singular power of effacing fatigue and painful sensation of
every kind--among others, the imperious craving of hunger. A few weeks
back, after a day of severe labour, prolonged from six in the morning
until after seven at night, I arrived hungry and weary at the house of
my friend, Mr. Stewart Rolland. I was expected, but was late; and, as I
entered his library, dinner was being served. "Will you sit down with
us," was my host's salutation, "or will you take a bath?" "The bath!"
was my answer. "_Ruat cœlum!_"
I had only to step into the next apartment, after I had divested myself
of my clothes, to find a temperature of 150°. I took my place on a
couch covered with a soft Turkish sheet, and was soon covered with
perspiration, first as a thick dew, and then as a dripping shower. The
half-hour sand glass had nearly run out, when I entered the Lavatorium;
I soaped myself thoroughly from crown to sole; I turned a tap, when a
cascade of warm water poured over me, and rinsed away every particle of
soap; a second tap, and I was in the midst of a sheet of cold water.
The pores were now shut, and I returned to the Calidarium. A few
minutes sufficed to warm the skin, and then, wrapped in a warm and dry
mantle, I returned to the cooling room, and threw myself on a divan.
In twenty minutes I was dry and dressed, and in a state fitting to
return to my friends, and eat with appetite and with the certainty of
digestion, anything that might be set before me.
In the bath my fatigue had gone; the craving hunger which I suffered
on entering had ceased; natural appetite had taken the place of morbid
hunger; the tired stomach had regained its power, and was in a fitting
state not only to receive whatever food was given to it, but, better
still, to digest it. No wonder that the Arab of the desert prefers the
bath to food, and even to sleep; it supplies the place of both.
I have portrayed Mr. Witt's bath; let me endeavour to draw a
sketch of Mr. Urquhart's bath--a bath dear to the memory of all
early bathers--the bath at Riverside. We arrive at the door of the
Frigidarium, we loosen the latchets of our shoes, and we leave them
behind the lintel; the portal opens, and we enter. The apartment is
small, but it is sunny and bright; through the glass doors we see a
balcony festooned with the tendrils of the rose, now leafless and out
of bloom, for it is early winter; beyond the parapet of the balcony are
terraces of which the rose is still the favoured ornament; further on,
the rippled surface of a boisterous, noisy stream; then meadows with
grazing herds and flocks, and the faithful horse; beyond, the wooded
hill, arching like an eyebrow around the bright spot in which, as the
apple of the eye, sparkles the bath. At our side is a dureta; over
against us a reclining chair; and along the sides of the apartment a
soft-cushioned divan; in mid space a _sofra_ supporting a nargillé;
while around are books, some Turkish ornaments and chibouques; we
tread on the carpet of Persia and the clean, fresh, matting of India.
Opposite the glass doors is an immense sheet of plate glass, through
it we see marble steps, and in the depths to which these steps descend
there is the reflection of the sun. Shades of Mecænas and Pliny, will
ye not smile? Shade of Seneca, look not austere at the luxury of this
Briton of ancient descent; who courts the rays of Phœbus, smiling
through festoons of roses, to visit the deepest pool of his bath. Here
he can swim, while the sun glistens in the crystal drops that linger on
his skin, or makes mimic rainbows in the spray that he dashes before
him in his plunging revel.
A door opens by the side of the immense barrier of glass; we enter;
the door closes behind us. Then a second door; we pass through that,
and we are greeted with a delightful atmosphere; experience tells us
that no place of terrestrial existence can yield that soft, balmy, warm
æther but one--that one, the bath. We descend two steps, and reach a
platform, all of whitest marble; we become sensible of an increase
of warmth to the soles of our feet as we descend, and we are glad to
find soft napkins spread on the lower steps to catch our footfall. Two
steps more, and then another platform: the apartment expands at this
point into a large square lofty hall, and the marble platform stretches
from side to side the whole breadth of the hall. We are sensible, as
we stand on this platform, that we have reached the tropical line of
the bath, and that at no great depth beneath our feet must be the
Hypocaust. To our right is a small square tent, surrounded with scarlet
hangings; this is the _hottest of hots_, the Spartan Laconicum; it
is placed immediately over the furnace. We glance within the parting
curtains of the entrance; we see a cushioned divan of tempting
softness. At a later stage of our bath, we pass ten minutes in that
fiery tent; its customary temperature is 240° or 250°.
On the left of our present station is another divan, not enclosed by
curtains like the other, but admitting of being so if required. On this
divan, at a later stage of the bath, I spent many minutes of genuine
enjoyment; being farther from the furnace, but still over the meridian
of the Hypocaust, it was less hot than the enclosed tent: its common
temperature is 170°. "If you would like a breath of fresh air," said
my host, "draw out that plug." I saw a plug just above my head, just
near enough to reach by stretching out my hand. I withdrew it, not
because I wanted air, but in a spirit of obedience, or, if you will, of
lazy indolence. What a reward! what a delicious gush of ambrosial air!
Heavens! what Sybaritic contrivance is here? I looked round for the
shade of old Pliny, expecting to see him peering over my shoulder; but
he was not there; the modest Roman shade was abashed, was vanquished
by the modern Mecænas: the perfume was that of mignionette! Although
the last of the season, enough remained to enable my fancy to judge
how delicious that air must have been a month or two earlier. This was
one of the ventilating-holes of the bath, and my host had brought the
air that was to cool his bath from the perfumed atmosphere of a bed of
mignionette. How I longed at that moment for one half-hour of summer,
that I might test the other spiracles, that I might perchance inhale
the breath of roses here, and violets or lilies there.
And now comes a deeper descent (four steps), and behold, I am on
the floor of the bath. Still costly marble greets my tread. In the
corner opposite the fiery tent is another divan; here, far removed
from the torrid meridian, the temperature is still lower (about 150°),
but the atmosphere is everywhere fresh: it is clear that ventilation
is perfect, and there are no vapoury mists, no fleeting gauze of
ghost-like moisture.
I am permitted to gaze about me for a while, when my host leads me to
a small recess on the side corresponding with the couch of perfume. A
curtain is withdrawn, and I perceive that the bottom of this recess
is below the level of the floor, and that a marble step placed at one
end breaks the descent to the bottom. The bottom, also, is peculiar:
the marble slab slopes downwards to an opening, through which water
finds its way into the drain. I am aware that this is the Lavaterina
or Latrina--that here the novitiate is made to pass through the first
ordeal of the bath. Before he entered the sacred precincts of the
Apodyterium, he undid the latchets of his shoes: he left his shoes
beyond the door; he brought with him none of the dust of the external
world into the portals of the bath. In the Frigidarium, or rather in
the Apodyterium, he left behind him his vestments, and assumed the
simple garb of the inner bath. Now, and before he can claim to select
his place on the divans, he pays a further tribute to the god of
purity: the outer layers of his scarf-skin must be peeled away--he must
yield up his skin to the ordeal of the glove, the _gazul_, or the soap;
and then, semi-purified, he may range at will the apartment--he may
explore at leisure the mysteries of the bath.
We seat ourselves on the clean marble at the edge of the Lavaterina;
our host plays the soft pad of _gazul_ over the head, the back, the
sides; we complete the operation on the limbs and feet ourselves; Basin
after basin of warm water rinses the _gazul_ and the loosened epidermis
from the surface, and we rise from the Lavaterina to recommence our
observations.
Immediately in front of the flight of steps already described, and
occupying the centre of the remaining wall of the hall, is a square
pool, between four and five feet in depth, and reached by several
steps. In this pool are two feet of water, perfectly cold, with a tap
from which as much may be obtained as may be required. This water is
pumped up from the river, and filtered before it is admitted into the
bath: it, like the bather, is made to leave its dusty shoes outside the
door, and is thoroughly cleansed before it is permitted to invade the
sanctuary. In this pool, this _piscina_, the bather refreshes himself
with a plunge in cold water--in the summer cooled down with ice--when
he issues heated from the "hottest of hots," or when he completes the
bath; and here he may take his dip or his plunge, his douche or his
swim, with the sun shining in upon his polished skin.
Having received my freedom of the bath in the Lavaterina, I commenced
a series of visits to all the soft, the warm, the perfumed, the hot,
the cool, the cold nooks, that I could find. I rolled in enjoyment on
the divan by the side of the _piscina_, watching my "companions of the
bath," and especially a little Antinous, or rather an infant Hercules,
of five years of age, who one while crept into the fiery tent, and
another while disported himself like a young sea-god, with evident
delight, in the cold _piscina_. I then took my place in the higher
temperature of the torrid zone, on the divan that was breathed over by
the sweet expirations of the mignionette; and anon crept into the tent
with the scarlet curtains serving as a door, and wondered that I could
breathe an atmosphere heated to 240° without inconvenience.
It was now approaching the hour of breakfast, and however disinclined
I might be to leave the warm world in which I had spent more than an
hour, I was ready to acknowledge certain material warnings of the
charms of breakfast. Before, however, I could quit the bath, it was
necessary that the pores, which had been all this while filtering the
waste fluids of the body through their numberless apertures, should
be made to close; and with this intent I descended into the pool, to
experience and enjoy a new sensation. I crouched under the tap, while
a cold torrent poured over me, the little Hercules catching greedily
on his head any waste jets that glanced aside, and then shaking his
flaxen ringlets over his face and shoulders with a joyous laugh. But my
last experience was to come. At the word "Hold firm!" a full pail of
hot-water rushed upon me like an avalanche, and was instantly followed
by the same quantity of cold; this was repeated in quick succession
a number of times, and then, when my host's arms seemed tired of the
further repetition, I arose from the pool, and shook my soused frame on
the platform above, with a feeling of freshness and vigour that I shall
long remember--remember when the bath and all its vagaries shall have
become too familiar to suggest a note of their early impressions.
I was soon warm enough to quit the region of water, and ascend into
that of air--to quit the region of fire, and mount into that of the
sun, then smiling beamingly in at the window. My host gave my head a
good rub with a warm, soft Turkish napkin, and threw a warm mantle over
my shoulders; and it was with a feeling of "divided duty," the bath
on one side and the breakfast on the other, that I ascended to the
Frigidarium. Throwing myself on a softly-cushioned dureta, a half-hour
was spent in suggestive and instructive conversation, and then "to
breakfast with what appetite we may." Shades of immortal Shakespeare!
Speaking for myself, I should say, with the appetite of a man. Need I
say more. This is my memory of the delicious bath at Riverside.
My host placed before me a dish, or rather a basket, of that wonderful
Moorish food, the _kuscoussoo_, and our conversation naturally drifted
away to the mode of preparing food pursued by different nations, and
particularly to the mode of its preparation in the countries where the
particular food is indigenous. I was struck with my host's remark,
that while we draw food from other countries, we fail to learn the
native manner of preparing that food; and that from our ignorance on
this point we frequently deteriorate, and often destroy its properties
altogether.
It is to be regretted that the very highest branch of the science of
chemistry--that which has for its object the _preparation of the food_
which God in his goodness has bestowed upon us, for the sustenance and
preservation of His greatest work, man himself--should be so miserably
neglected. How much happier man's state would be if this department of
chemistry were more cultivated and better understood; how greatly would
the nutritive power of food be developed, how much would be economized
in its use! How much might even the life of man be prolonged! Of the
many that die daily in their beds, surrounded by warm coverings, costly
hangings, and sorrowing friends, there are many who die of absolute
starvation--starved, because the modern science of culinary chemistry
has no better nourishment to offer than abominable beef-tea, wretched
mutton-broth, miserable arrowroot or sago, or detestable gruel. Tell
me, ye sick who have so narrowly escaped death, whether what I am
saying is not perfectly true; and that between nauseating physic on
the one hand, and equally nauseating diet on the other, have you not
"run the gauntlet" of destruction, from which your escape is indeed
miraculous?
The plan of the bath at Riverside was not lost upon me in an
undertaking on which I was then engaged--namely, building a bath for
myself. My Apodyterium is at the back of my house; from this a Xystos,
with a glazed roof, leads to the outer door of the Calidarium. Within
the outer door is a vestibule, which upon occasion may serve as a
Tepidarium. At the end of the vestibule is a second door, and this
opened, we are in the Calidarium, an apartment more than ten feet high,
fifteen feet long, and twelve wide. Along the side of the room runs
a flue, with an area of four feet by nine inches; the flue crosses
the end, and returns for a distance of two feet on the opposite side.
At the point of return is the chimney. Two windows with thick glass
let light into the room; and five circular openings, four inches in
diameter, and closed by a telescopic lid (Looker's ventilator), supply
an abundance of air; while a similar ventilator in the chimney-shaft
secures its free circulation. The floor is a tesselated pavement of
coloured octagonal tiles; and on the side corresponding with the door
is a sunken Lavaterina, three feet six in length, two in breadth, and
eighteen inches deep. Over the centre of the Lavaterina are two spouts,
for cold and hot water; the latter being obtained from a galvanized
iron tank, capable of holding twenty-five gallons, that stands on the
returned flue, against the chimney-shaft. In this bath, as in Mr.
Urquhart's, I expect to get various degrees of temperature, increasing
in altitude from a temperate standard in the vestibule, to the highest
temperature that can be required, immediately over the furnace, where I
have established my Laconicum.