274 TURKISH BATHING. 
also their Alnie. These are girls of the second class, who try to imi- 
tate the former ; but they have neither their elegance, their graces, 
nor their knowledge. They are every where to be met with. The 
public places and the walks about Grand Cairo are full of them. As 
the populace require allusions still more strongly marked, decency 
will not permit the relation of the pitch to which these carry the 
licentiousness of their gestures and attitudes. 
Turkish Bathing. 
In modern Turkey, as well as among the ancients, bathing makes 
a part of their luxuries, so that in every town and even village there 
is a public bath. Indeed, the necessity of cleanliness, in a climate 
where one perspires so copiously, has rendered bathing indispensable ; 
the comfort it produces, preserves the use of it ; and Mahomet, who 
knew its utility, reduced it to a precept. Of these baths, and the 
manner of bathing, particularly at Cairo, the following account is given 
by M. Savary, in his letters on Egypt. 
*• The first apartment one finds on going to the bath, is a large hall, 
which rises in the form of a I’otunda. It is open at the top, to give 
a free circulation to the air. A spacious estrade, or raised floor, 
covered with a carpet, and divided into compartments, goes around 
it, on which one lays one’s clothes. In the middle of the building, a 
jet-d’eau spouts out from a bason, and agreeably entertains the eye. 
When you are undressed, you tie a napkin round your loins, take a 
pair of sandals, and enter into a narrow passage, where you begin to 
be sensible of the heat. The door shuts to, and, at twenty paces off, 
you open a second, and go along a passage, which forms a right 
angle with the former. Here the heat increases. They who are 
afraid of suddenly exposing themselves to a stronger degree of it, stop 
in a marble hall, in the way to the bath properly so called. The 
bath is a spacious and vaulted apartment, paved and lined with 
marble, along which there are four closets. The vapour, incessantly 
rising from a fountain and cistern of hot water, mixes itself with the 
burning perfumes ; these, however, are never burnt, except the per- 
sons who are in the bath desire it : they mix with the steam of the 
water, and produce a most agreeable effect. The bathers are not 
imprisoned here, as in Europe, in a tub, where one is never at one’s 
ease. Extended on a cloth spread out, the head supported by a 
small cushion, they stretch themselves freely in every posture, whilst 
they are lapped up in a cloud of odoriferous vapours, which penetrates 
into all their pores. After reposing there some time, until there is a 
gentle moisture over the whole body, a servant comes, presses you 
gently, turns you over, and when the limbs are become supple and 
flexible, he makes all the joints crack, without difficulty. He masses, 
i. e. touches delicately, and seems to knead the flesh, without making 
you feel the smallest pain. This operation finished, he puts on a 
stuflT glove, and rubs you a long time. During this operation he 
detaches from the body of the patient, which is running with sweat, 
a sort of small scales, and removes even the imperceptible dirt that 
stops the pores. The skin becomes soft and smooth like satin. He 
