AND LOWER EGYPT. I3 



!Joy a delicious repose, and cannot forbear yielding 

 to a kind of voluptuous languor. 



The little bag or rubber of the eastern nations 

 has succeeded to the curry-comb of the ancients, 

 and is far prcfer^^ble to it. Being formed of stuff, 

 it is far more soft, and draws from the pores all 

 those humours which obstruct them, much better 

 than the instrument of metal with which it was 

 customary to scrape the skin among the Romans. 

 But although the baths in Turkey, and particularly 

 those of Cairo, are extremely handsome buildings, 

 they are far inferior in grandeur and magnificence 

 to those which the Romans constructed under their 

 emperors. The ruins of them which remain, strike 

 us with wonder. Vitruvius has given the descrip- 

 tion of these superb buildings. They were of so 

 prodigious an extent, that Ammianiis Marcellinus 

 compared them to provinces *. All the most bril- 

 liant productions of luxury, all the voluptuousness 

 which was the offspring of effeminacy, were assem- 

 bled there. You could there enjoy at once all 

 those pleasing sensations which the air and the 

 water produce; moveable bathing-machines were 

 suspended, and to the pleasure of bathing was 

 added that of being gently swung in the air. 



More simple, and perhaps more agrees ble, the 

 baths of Turkey and of Egypt have many atlrac- 



* Pottus provinciarum imtar quam ullius edificii forma. 



tions 



A 



