3 86 



esthoniaV bates. 



with a bucket of warm water for the purpofes of the 

 laft ablution. 



While thefe are pouring water on themfelves, others 

 are wiping themfelves with towels. Some recline upon 

 the benches fixed about the yard, others on the bare 

 ground lie balking in the fun. Some frolic about 

 apparently in extatic tranfports, while others feem en- 

 joying their new vegetation in a ftate of voluptuous 

 languor. In fhort, employment and reft, exertion and 

 drowzinefs give fuch an appearance to the whole, that 

 this infinite dive rlificat ion of attitudes and portions of 

 the human body muft intereft the delineator of nature 

 tis well as the philofophical phyflognomift, from their 

 novelty and their variety. A man muft be an ocular 

 witnefs of this extraordinary concourfe of his fellow 

 creatures for forming any clear and perfpicuous notion 

 of it. — Baflifulnefs and its concomitant confufion of 

 face, are here quite ftrange and unknown. That 

 which in our way of life would be equivocal, danger- 

 ous, or difreputable, is here, from immemorial cuf- 

 tom, nothing like it. Where all are alike immodeft, 

 immodefty is not immoral. So great is the afcendant 

 acquired by habit, when men have been familiar with it 

 from their very infancy ! An ample and not unfruitful 

 field of {peculation for the natural! ft and the pfycholo- 

 gift. I repeat it again : However commonly dangerous, 

 to chaftity public baths may at firft fight appear ; yet 

 nothing can be lefs dangerous than thefe. They ftifle 

 to a certain degree that delicate fentiment of modefty 

 met with in more poliflied nations: but bodily fen-' 

 fliality has no place in the bath. If abftinence was- 

 founded on the delicate fentiment of modefty, then 

 , 3 indeed 



