European and Asiatic Turkey. 263 



had performed on you a number of successive dislocations and 

 reductions, following each other with surprising rapidity. In 

 chronic diseases of the skin, gout and rheumatism, these baths 

 are invaluable. 



I'he public baths are very handsome, capacious buildings, 

 of which there are several in each town. The bather undresses 

 in a large and spacious hall, provided with benches, and having 

 a fountain playing in the centre. He ties a silken girdle round 

 his loins, and puts on a pair of wooden sandals, and is then 

 introduced into the first chamber ; which like the rest is lighted 

 from above, and is flagged with marble. Its heat is moderate, 

 and is intended to prepare the bather for the higher tempera- 

 ture (99°i) of the second chamber, which is arclied, and has 

 the flags all heated from below. In the centre of the second 

 chamber, is an extensive platform of marble, elevated about a 

 foot above the floor, on which you stretch yourself at full length, 

 while the attendant goes through the various manipulations on 

 your body already spoken of. This finished, you proceed to 

 one of the numerous alcoves or recesses with which this chani- 

 ber is provided, and here the process of bathing, properly so 

 called, begins ; warm water flows from a pipe into a marble 

 basin, the bather sits down naked on the warm floor, and his 

 attendant, with a piece of cloth made of camel's or horse's hair, 

 which he dips frequently into the water, forms a lather of a 

 sweet-scented soap, and with this rubs every part of the body, 

 and finally, pouring warm water over the bather, completes his 

 purification. He is then covered with warm cotton cloths, and 

 conducted into the outer hall, when he lies down for half an 

 hour on a bench, takes a cup of coff*ee or a glass of sherbet, and 

 then dresses himself. . ;, ^ 



The expense of such a bath, is so trifling, that it is in the 

 power of even the poorest Turks to make use of them. Every 

 where the baths for the different sexes are in different parts of 

 the town. To the women they afford not merely the luxury of 

 bathing, but the opportunity of meeting their friends and ac- 

 quaintances. They have been described by Lady Wortley 

 Montague, in colours more glowing than might appear seemly 

 in the pages of a scientific Journal, and, therefore, it may be 

 prudent to omit the subject altogether, merely observing, that. 



