264 
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 
payments were made, and coffee and chiboucks handed round. 
A fountain of cold water stood in the middle, into which dark 
unshirted men of the establishment plunged their arms and 
heads to cool themselves, and out of which they now and then 
dipped up water for thirsty customers. Around the saloon 
was an elevated platform, upon which stood a circular row 
of low bedsteads, most of which appeared to he occupied. It 
was a strange sight altogether; on every side extraordinary 
apparitions of dusky bearded men rising up out of the sheets, 
wild-looking Arabs with bald heads running about screaming 
horribly, gray and grizzled old Turks falling on their faces 
toward Mecca; a mist of cold steam rising from the sloppy 
marble floor ; and the whole space overhead filled with 
dangling clothes hung up on lines to dry in the reeking atmo¬ 
sphere. In a retired part of the room, behind a huge pile of 
smoking towels, sat the master of the establishment—a ven¬ 
erable Arab, with a beard reaching to his middle. He also 
was smoking calmly amid all the turmoil, and only stopped 
at long intervals to note down something on a pile of paper 
which he held on his lap. I believe that man was writing a 
book—probably a learned work on hydropathy, showing the 
absurdities of Preisnitz and his followers in chilling the blood 
with cold water, when they might comfortably boil it up to 
the proper temperature in hot water. To this venerable man 
of letters we made known our wants as best we could in a 
broken mixture of It alian and French, through our guide, who 
understood something over a dozen words of each, stating that 
we had come a long way, and hearing in Damascus of the 
famous repute of his baths, had determined to try them. The 
old man raised his head, looked at us solemnly for some time, 
as if he suspected that we might be tinctured with the her¬ 
esies of Preisnitz, and then waved his hand gravely toward a 
subordinate functionary who stood near. The subordinate 
was covered up high over the head in a pyramid of towels. 
“ Friend,” said we, “ can’t you show us into a private dress¬ 
ing room ? We Franks don’t like to make models of ourselves 
in public.” “ Impossible,” said he (through our guide, of 
course), “ every body undresses here.” “ But we are howadji 
