Before leaving Alexandria, it may be interesting to glance at the
process and luxury of oriental bathing, so often described by travelers
in Turkey and Egypt. The narrative is from Taylor, who, though deceived
by his dragoman as to the excellence of the bath compared with others
which he might have visited, gives us a vivid picture of the process the
bather undergoes, and the full comfort that follows it. He says, “The
bath to which he conducted us, he declared was the finest in Alexandria,
the most superb in all the orient, but it did not at all accord with our
ideas of eastern luxury. Moreover, the bath-keeper was his intimate
friend, and would bathe us as no Christians were ever bathed before. One
fact Ibrahim kept to himself, which was, that his intimate friend and he
shared the spoils of our inexperience. We were conducted to a one-story
building, of very unprepossessing exterior. As we entered the low,
vaulted entrance, my ears were saluted with a dolorous, groaning sound,
which I at first conjectured to proceed from the persons undergoing the
operation, but which I afterward ascertained was made by a wheel turned
by a buffalo, employed in raising water from the well. In a sort of
basement hall, smelling of soap-suds, and with a large tank of dirty
water in the center, we were received by the bath-keeper, who showed us
into a room containing three low divans with pillows. Here we disrobed,
and Ibrahim, who had procured a quantity of napkins, enveloped our heads
in turbans and swathed our loins in a simple Adamite garment. Heavy
wooden clogs were attached to our feet, and an animated bronze statue
led the way through gloomy passages, sometimes hot and steamy, sometimes
cold and soapy, and redolent of anything but the spicy odors of Araby
the blest, to a small vaulted chamber, lighted by a few apertures in the
ceiling. The moist heat was almost suffocating; hot water flowed over
the stone floor, and the stone benches we sat upon were somewhat cooler
than kitchen stoves. The bronze individual left us, and very soon,
sweating at every pore, we began to think of the three Hebrews in the
furnace. Our comfort was not increased by the groaning sound which we
still heard, and by seeing, through a hole in the door, five or six
naked figures lying motionless along the edge of a steaming vat, in the
outer room. Presently our statue returned with a pair of coarse
hair-gloves on his hands. He snatched off our turbans, and then, seizing
one of my friends by the shoulder as if he had been a sheep, began a
sort of rasping operation upon his back. This process, varied
occasionally by a dash of scalding water, was extended to each of our
three bodies, and we were then suffered to rest awhile. A course of
soap-suds followed, which was softer and more pleasant in its effect,
except when he took us by the hair, and holding back our heads, scrubbed
our faces most lustily, as if there were no such things as eyes, noses
and mouths. By this time we had reached such a salamandrine temperature
that the final operation of a dozen pailfuls of hot water poured over
the head, was really delightful. After a plunge in a seething tank, we
were led back to our chamber and enveloped in loose muslin robes.
Turbans were bound on our heads and we lay on the divans to recover from
the languor of the bath. The change produced by our new costume was
astonishing. The stout German became a Turkish mollah, the young
Smyrniote a picturesque Persian, and I—I scarcely know what, but, as my
friends assured me, a much better Moslem than Frank. Cups of black
coffee and pipes of inferior tobacco completed the process, and in spite
of the lack of cleanliness and superabundance of fleas, we went forth
lighter in body, and filled with a calm content which nothing seemed
able to disturb.”