CHAPTER XXXI. 
BATHS OF DAMASCUS. 
We arrived at the Hotel de Palmyre , as already stated, 
after eight days’ wandering over the mountains of Lebanon, 
and among the ruins of Baalbek, covered with the dust of 
travel and the filth and vermin of Turkish khans. The first 
consideration next morning was a Damascus bath. My En¬ 
glish friend had been in Syria before, and knew all about the 
native baths. He said they were “ stunning,” a word signi¬ 
fying every thing wonderful, in an Englishman’s mouth. 
“ Stunning” baths are supposed to be baths that knock into 
a cocked hat all a man’s preconceived ideas of the luxuries of 
bathing, and it is an expressive word, as I soon discovered. 
The tall Southerner preferred enjoying his nap, so we left him 
in his glory. An Arab youth accompanied us from the hotel, 
with special injunctions from the padrone to show us to the 
baths patronized by his late master, Lord Bath. I don’t know 
how often his lordship went there, but it is to be hoped that 
he went often enough to be cleansed of the impurities of rather 
a prolonged sojourn in Damascus. We followed our guide 
through a confusing maze of narrow and dirty streets, till he 
disappeared in a most forbidding doorway; and it was not 
until he re-appeared and had repeatedly urged us to enter, 
that we could consent to patronize such an unpromising place. 
He assured us, however, that we would find the baths tahib , 
mucha tahib —very good; a great deal better, we hoped, than 
they looked from the outside. Passing through an open court¬ 
yard, in which were countless Arabs, half-naked, up to their 
elbows in dirty clothes and soap-suds, we entered a large cir¬ 
cular hall, the public dressing and undressing saloon, where 
