28 
with jets for needle and douche. The attendant half fills the 
bath, turns on the needle, and says he will come in 12 minutes, 
but forgets. The needle hits you on chest, back, and everywhere. 
You weary of it, and at last call in desperation through the outer 
door for towels, which then come piping hot. Into your flannels 
and clogs again, and enter a ‘‘ chaise 4 porteurs,’” like a white 
coffin on end with two side shafts. Two porteurs in blue blouses 
and trousers, black caps and sabots, close the door, carry you at 
a trot down the staircase, give you half a glass of water, and 
rush across the sqnare and up the other stairs to the respiration 
rooms. In the first, all but a singlet trousers and clogs are 
left. Then you enter the first of the steam rooms through an 
iron door ; volumes of steam ascend from vapourisers at either 
end. Common wooden chairs are about. At first the novelty 
of the scene interests you. Round the rooms with measured 
tread move the bathers. All sorts of faces and constitutions ; 
some very old, others children, others apparently finely built 
young men, all bent on securing greater ease in respiration. 
Some look almost hopeless, as after a wretched night they hang 
over the backs of chairs gasping for breath, that even now 
comes more easily in the hot steamy atmosphere. Some, the 
new comers, walk with a firm step, but most slouch along with 
head bent and shoulders rounded. Nearly all have a towel with 
which they seek to dry their persons from time to time. Some 
try to read, but like chairs and everything else, the windows are 
covered with steam, and admit but a dim light. The chairs are 
constantly used by those whose treatment has lasted some days 
and who consequently feel the lassitude which follows. As a very 
similar costume is worn by all, slowly pacing round the rooms 
in comparative silence, with gloomy looks, downcast heads, and 
confined by the iron doors, you fancy you look like a gang of con- 
victs taking exercise. The first few visits to these steam rooms last 
only 40 minutes, soon to be increased to one hour. When your 
time is up, you dress, enter a “chaise”? and are carried down 
the stairs to the Source for another half glass en route to your 
hotel; where your bed is quickly warmed with a bassinoire by the 
bonne, and in youjump. The doctors insist on your going to 
bed to ensure your gradually cooling after the baths. Café com- 
plet is soon served, and after a rest, up and dress for the ‘“ gar- 
garisme’’ in the portico at 10a.m. An old woman fills a glass 
at the stone basin of the Spring of César water, with a long- 
handled ladle, and passes it to you. You join two others at a 
basin fixed to the wall. Then having filled the mouth with 
water and thrown the head back, gargle, gargle, gargle, till the 
ridiculousness of the position of all three suddenly strikes you ; 
when you burst into a laugh, choke with half the water, and 
splutter the rest out into the floor. When the whole glass is 
