CAIRO. | 255 
his dingy lord and master. Jackasses and turbanned Arabs 
throng the streets so densely that you are glad of your Dragoman, 
who precedes you with a short cane, in the use of which he is by 
no means scrupulous. But the great Dromedaries, though fewer 
in number, are far more troublesome than the people; they carry 
huge packages on their sides, stride along irrespective of man or 
beast, poking their heads out before them, like geese going under 
a barn door, grunting dissatisfaction at their load, yet bearing it 
very patiently all the while. The hoofs are the most curious part of 
these animals, being great orbicular elastic pads, which collapse, as 
it were, when the foot presses the ground, much as an accordion 
does, but without the music. However, I must hurry on to the bath, 
to reach which we wound through many nasty lanes and streets 
of shops, which are called bazaars, but which I should rather 
yclep ** Vennels,” if you remember the Glasgow holes of that name. 
After all, a Cairo bazaar is very like a Greenock street, without the 
windows. 
Arrived at the bath, we were ushered into a marble-paved 
quadrangle (none of the cleanest), open above, with seats all 
round, upon which many of the faithful were distributed, in 
all stages of preparation. "Though these are the best baths in 
Cairo, they seemed anything but select, either as to their 
attendants or cleanliness. To undress, we mounted a sort of 
stage, or dresser, covered with dirty sacking beds of questionable 
character. A man, or rather the spectre of a man, worn to skin 
and bone by the enervating influence of the bath, then took us, 
one by one, clothed in airy garments, and shod in sabots, through 
many dark passages to the bath-room, a dark, dirty, domed chamber, 
with a bath of muddy water at 94° in one corner, the stone-work 
of which abounded in cockroaches. In the middle was a stone 
fountain of hot water at 128°. All assembled, one by one, in the 
bath-room, and were unceremoniously popped in, four at once, and 
splashed, then taken out and flayed with small hair-brushes ; 
anon scrubbed with black soap, some of which I have still in my 
eyes. After a sort of drying I thought all was concluded, when the 
Spectre came up to me carrying a basin of scalding water, which 
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