158 A HUMMAM IN SRINUGGUR. 



for Srinuggur, intending shortly to return to Wurdwan, as I 

 concluded that a few of the sportsmen who had hitherto 

 occupied some of the best hunting localities there would then, 

 perhaps, have vacated them, thereby giving us a more un- 

 limited choice of ground. 



One of my first excursions on arrival was with a view to 

 getting thoroughly cleansed at a hunimam, kept by a queer 

 character then well known in Srinuggur, as barber to the 

 European visitors, and dentist, chiropodist, and general prac- 

 titioner as well, among the citizens. As may be supposed, 

 old Mirza's establishment was not fitted up with that luxu- 

 rious elegance one finds in Jermyn Street. Indeed, on first 

 entering the hot dusky hole of a place, which reeked with 

 the vapour of stale warm water, it required only a slight 

 stretch of imagination to fancy one's self in some dungeon of 

 old, and that Mirza and his assistant as they stood there in 

 the dim steaming atmosphere, stripped naked, save a dirty 

 rag round their loins, their swarthy skins streaming with 

 perspiration were the executioners ready to seize their vic- 

 tim for torture. To further this idea, they both pounced 

 upon me, laid me flat along the hot flagstones of the floor, 

 and commenced what seemed to be vigorous attempts at dis- 

 locating my joints and flaying me, accompanying their exer- 

 tions with sundry grunts and startling exclamations that 

 sounded quite fiendish as they rang through the stone- vaulted 

 chamber. The only intermission in their labours was when 

 old Mirza, whose ideas were inclined to be socialistic, would 

 sometimes, by way of taking a short rest, begin breathlessly 

 abusing the ruling authorities in rather unparliamentary 

 language. After thus giving vent to his political opinions, 

 he would resume the peeling process with renewed energy. 

 Thus far I quietly submitted to their operations ; but when 

 the principal torturer, with a demoniacal grin, proposed im- 

 mersing me in a dirty stone cistern full of scalding -hot 

 greasy-looking water, I objected to further proceedings. After 



