Vol. 20, No. 565.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1832. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
[Illustration: PERSIAN BATH.]
* * * * *
The luxurious indulgence of baths in the East is generally known
to the reader of travels, so as to render acceptable the following
details. They are extracted from Mr. Buckingham's Travels,[1] and bear
all the graphic minuteness of his entertaining pen.
[1] Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia. H. Colburn, 4to.,
1829.
The Bath is one of the principal ones of Kermanshah, an important
frontier town of Persia. "It was entered by a porch, extremely clean,
and neatly ornamented by painting and other devices on its ceiling and
walls. This remarkable contrast to the low, dark, and foul passages
which generally lead to Turkish baths, was a presage, upon the very
threshold, of greater comfort and accommodation within.
"When we reached the undressing-room, this prepossession was still
further strengthened. Here we found a square hall, well lighted
from above, having on three of its sides elevated recesses for the
visiters, and on the fourth, the passage from the outer porch to the
hall, and from this to the inner bath. At the angles of these raised
recesses, and dividing their lower roof, which they supported, from
the higher one of the central square, were, four good marble pillars,
with spirally fluted shafts, and moulded capitals, perfectly uniform
in size and design, and producing the best effect. In the centre of
the square space, which these marked out, and on a lower floor, was a
large marble cistern of cold water; and at each end of this, on wooden
stands, like those used in our arbours and breakfast rooms, were
arranged coloured glass jars, with flowers of various kinds in them,
well watered and perfectly fresh.
"The walls of this outer hall were ornamented all around by designs of
trees, birds, and beasts, in fanciful forms, executed in white upon a
blue ground. We undressed here, and were led from hence into the inner
bath, where all was still free from everything offensive, either to
the sight or smell. This inner room was originally an oblong space
of about fifty feet by twenty-five, but had been since made into two
square divisions. The first, or outer one, was a plain paved hall,
exactly like the undressing-room, except that it had no side recesses,
but its floor was level, close to the walls. There were here also four
pillars; and in the square space which they enclosed in the centre of
the room, was a cistern of water as in the outer one. It was on the
floor of this that the visiters lay, to be washed by the attendants;
for there were no raised seats for this purpose as in Turkish baths,
and the great octagonal one, with its cold fountain, the sides and
tops of which are ornamented with mosaic work of marble in Turkey, was
here replaced by the cistern described.
"The second division to which this room led, consisted of three parts;
the central one was a large and deep bath, filled with warm water,
its bottom being level with the lower floor of the building, and the
ascent to it being by three or four steep steps.
"As few pleasures are entirely perfect, so here, with all its general
apparent superiority to the baths of Turkey, this was inferior to them
in the most essential points. The attendants seemed quite ignorant
of the art of twisting the limbs, moulding the muscles, cracking the
joints, opening the chest, and all that delicious train of operations
in which the Turks are so skilful. The visitors were merely well
though roughly scrubbed, and their impurities then rinsed off in the
large cistern above, from which there was neither a running stream
to carry off the foul water, nor cocks of hot and cold to renew and
temper it at pleasure, as in Turkey.
"In place of the luxurious moulding of the muscles, the use of the
hair-bag, or glove, for removing the dirt, and the profusion of
perfumed soap, with which the Turks end a course of treatment full
of delight, the Persians are occupied in staining the beard and hair
black, the nails of the toes and fingers of a deep red, and the whole
of the feet and hands of a yellow colour, by different preparations of
henna. This operation is the most unpleasant that can be imagined. The
Persians do not shave the whole of the head, as is usual with most of
the Turks and Arabs, but, taking of all the hair from the forehead,
over the crown, and down the neck, for about a hand's breadth,
they leave on each side two large bushy masses depending over their
shoulders. This, then, with a very long and full beard, in which all
the people here take pride, is plastered with a thick paste, of the
consistence of hog's lard, and not less than two pounds weight
of which is sometimes used on one person. It possesses a strongly
astringent and penetrating quality, and requires great skill in the
use of it, to avoid doing considerable mischief. As the eye-brows are
plastered with it, as well as the rest of the hair, and as it softens
by the heat of the room and of the body, it frequently steals into the
eyes, and produces great pain.
"When all is finished, and the visiter leaves the inner bath, he is
furnished with two cloths only, one for the waist, and the other to
throw loosely over the head and shoulders: he then goes into the outer
room into a colder air, thus thinly clad, and without slippers or
pattens; no bed is prepared for him, nor is he again attended to by
any one, unless he demands a nargeel to smoke; but, most generally, he
dresses himself in haste, and departs."