"Such, sir, are these baths, the use of which was so strongly recommended by the ancients, and the pleasures of which the Egyptians still enjoy. Here they prevent or exterminate rheumatisms, catarrhs, and those diseases of the skin which the want of perspiration occasions. Here they rid themselves of those uncomfortable sensations so common among other nations, who have not the same regard to cleanliness."[13]
With the Turkish bath for our model, let us now inquire—What the bath has been doing in Britain? and, How a desire to restore it first came among us? That it is among us is a fact beyond question, and that it has spread through society with marvellous rapidity no longer admits of doubt. In the year 1850, Mr. Urquhart published an interesting work in two volumes, entitled "The Pillars of Hercules; or, a Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848." In the preface to this work occurs the following passage:—"I have no expectation that my suggestions will modify the lappet of a coat, or the leavening of a loaf; but there is one subject in which I am not without hope of having placed a profitable habit more within the chance of adoption than it has hitherto been—I mean the bath." In the second volume of this work there is a chapter (Chapter VIII.) devoted to the bath, and especially to a description of the Turkish and Moorish bath. It is from this source that I have drawn the description which I have just given; and the author refers to it in the conclusion of his seventh chapter in these words:—"A chapter," says he, "which, if the reader will peruse it with diligence and apply with care, may prolong his life, fortify his body, diminish his ailments, augment his enjoyments, and improve his temper; then, having found something beneficial to himself, he may be prompted to do something to secure the like for his fellow-creatures."
Six years after the publication of this work—namely, in 1856—Mr. Urquhart visited Ireland, and made the acquaintance of Dr. Richard Barter, the proprietor of a water-cure establishment at Blarney. Dr. Barter, struck with the conversation of Mr. Urquhart, and delighted with his description of the Turkish bath, which he subsequently read in the "Pillars of Hercules," wrote to him as follows:—"Your description of the Turkish bath has electrified me. If you will come down here and superintend the erection of one, men, money, and materials shall be at your disposal."
Mr. Urquhart, in his zeal for the cause, on which he has so ably and so eloquently written, accepted the invitation, and a month later, the foundation-stone of the Turkish Bath of St. Anne's Hill, Blarney—the parent of numerous baths which have since sprung into existence in Ireland—was laid.
The chiefs of the pioneers of the Bath in England, following the teachings of Mr. Urquhart, are, Mr. George Crawshay, Sir John Fife, Mr. George Witt, and Mr. Stewart Rolland. The first private bath erected in England was that of Mr. Crawshay, in 1857. In the same year, Mr. Urquhart constructed a small bath at his residence at Lytham, and the year following commenced his elegant bath at Riverside. Mr. Witt followed in 1858, and Mr. Rolland in 1859. It was in Mr. Witt's bath that I first took rank as a bather, and on that account, as well as for its comfort and simplicity, and the philanthropic character of its owner, Mr. Witt's bath will always occupy a first place both in my memory and in my heart. Let me describe it.
On the ground-floor of his house in Prince's Terrace, Hyde Park, is a room twenty feet long byten feet in breadth, and twelve feet high, with a window looking out upon a lead-flat. This room he divided by a partition into two compartments, two-thirds of the room being devoted to the purposes of a cool-room, and the remaining third to a hot-room. The outer room being the Mustaby or Frigidarium; the inner room being the hot-room of the Turkish Hamâm, the Calidarium and Sudatorium of the Romans; there was no space for a middle room, or Tepidarium.
Piercing the wall of the Calidarium near its floor is a furnace of simple construction, opening on the lead-flat outside, and projecting for some distance inside into the room, where it is covered with a casing of fire-brick; the furnace ends in a flue, and the flue, which is one foot square, runs around the room, close to the floor, and close also to the wall, being separated from both the one and the other by a space of a few inches. Having completed the circuit of the room, the flue ascends the angle of the apartment to the ceiling, and terminates by opening into a chimney-shaft. The room is heated by the radiation of caloric from the casing of the furnace, and from the flue; and the flue being thirty-five feet in length, presents a radiating surface of nearly fifty yards.
The other features in the construction of the Calidarium are, a wooden seat, which runs round the room, immediately over the flue; a platform which supports adureta, or couch of repose; asmall tank holding ten gallons of water, kept warm by its position against the chimney-shaft, and two pipes which project into the room, at an elevation of six feet and a half, for supplying warm water from the tank, and cold water from the ordinary house-service; add to this a double door of entrance, a small window, and five circular holes in the wall for ventilation, and the Calidarium is complete.
Let me now conduct the reader through the process of taking a bath.
We enter the Frigidarium; we divest ourselves of our clothing, which we hang on pegs fixed along the end of the room; this is the Vestiarium, or Apodyterium; and here we put off our shoes. We then dress ourselves for the bath: we wind a long strip of Turkish red twilled cotton around our hips, in the fashion of a cummerbund or kilt; it descends nearly to our knees; we fold another strip turban-wise around our head; and behold! we are ready to enter the region of heat. We need no wooden pattens, nocob cob; on the clean India matting of the Frigidarium, where shoe-leather never treads, there is no dust; on the floor of the Calidarium we shall find neither slop nor excessive heat; we may press our naked sole against Mother Earth as we would press palm to palm with our dearest friend.
The question of precedence being settled, the double door is opened, and we enter the Calidarium. How deliciously the warm air seems to fold us inits soft embrace; we look at the thermometer: it is 135°. How very nice! How very agreeable! are the expressions which we hear softly breathed around us, for we are not alone: we are one of five or six "Companions of the Bath." The air is clear—no vapoury mists; it is fresh, for there is a free circulation of air through the room; but how marvellously soothing! All care, all anxiety, all trouble, all memory of the external world and its miserable littleness, is chased from the mind; our thoughts are absorbed in rapturous contemplation of the delights of the New World—the Paradise into which we have just been admitted. The tyrantPain, even, loses his miscreant power here; the toothache, where is it gone? the headache, gone too; the spasm no longer bides; the grinding aches of craving appetite, the pang of neuralgia, of rheumatism, of gout—all are fled; for this is the region where the suffering find a soothing relief from all their torments; and over the door is it not written:—This is the Calidarium; pain enters not here.
Ten minutes slip away in an enjoyment that seems to last for a lifetime; and what is our condition now? The skin is warm, it is soft, it is moist, for sensible perspiration has commenced. Those parts perspire first which have been most exposed to the air—namely, the forehead, the head, the neck, the chest and shoulders, because these parts, from that very exposure, are in the mostnormal state. We are shortly, "like Niobe, all tears;" but our tears are tears of bliss. Tears of perspiration collect in beads at the apertures of the pores; tears glide down the surface, and fall from all the salient points of our frame, from our elbows, from our finger-ends; a sweet languor creeps over us, and we feel as though, like a heathen god of old, we were dissolving into a liquid stream.
"Here Fluvius wept; as now a stream declares."
We experience the truth of the saying of Sanctorius, "that melancholy is overcome by a free perspiration, and that cheerfulness, without any evident cause, proceeds from perspiration succeeding well."
It is a curious, but at the same time an obvious fact, with regard to perspiration, that it depends very materially on the habit and training of the skin. The beginner in the use of the bath perspires slowly, languidly, partially, incompletely, while the accustomed bather is known by the freedom of his perspiration. The apprentice-hand has no thirst in the bath, for a small portion only of the excess of watery fluid is abstracted from his tissues and from his blood. But the practised bather has no such excess, his blood yields its diluting water with great freedom, he thirsts in the bath, and he drinks freely. I know a gentleman who sometimes consumes a gallon of water in the bath, but none remains when he comes out: all hasbeen dissipated by perspiration. In a chemical analysis of the perspiration of a group of bathers, recently made, that fluid was found loaded with saline and organic matter in the recruits, but was almost pure in the veteran bather: his blood was washed as clean as that of the working man who eats the bread of labour—that sweetest of all bread, the bread that has been earned with the sweat of his brow.
I hardly know a more curious or more beautiful sight than that of the healthy skin of a practised bather, spangled over with limpid drops of perspiration like dew-drops on the petals of a rose, or like beads of crystal, as I heard a Doctor of Divinity once call them, in the bath. The Reverend Doctor, although a distinguished member of the Protestant Church, was, as a witty friend remarked, "devoutly counting his beads."
Among the labourers in hot rooms, or in proximity with hot furnaces, as in the manufacture of glass, enamel, porcelain, and gas, the working of engines, and the smelting of metals, perspiration is very profuse, and the lost fluid is replaced by the drinking of water, or more commonly of thin gruel; restoring the balance of fluids not by mere water, but actually by a nutritive drink. Look at these men, working in the open air, or in the midst of thorough draughts, with rivers of perspiration streaming down their athletic frames, and ask their history; they are healthy, long-lived and happy.In the copper-smelting works at Swansea, the heat between the furnaces at which the men work is 200° of Fahrenheit; they drink a gallon of thin gruel every hour, working four hours at a stretch, and the ground on which they stand is a pool of perspiration.
I have said that the temperature of Mr. Witt's bath is 135°, and a very agreeable temperature it is; but the temperature of the bath is a point upon which a few observations must be made. The temperature of the Calidarium in Mr. Urquhart's and Mr. Rolland's bath is 170°, and is equally agreeable, equally fresh, equally enjoyable. What then, it may be asked, is the difference between these baths, that renders such a wide range of temperature equally pleasant? It is one of construction. Mr. Witt's Calidarium is small, well ventilated for its size, but a higher temperature than 135° or 140° would be oppressive if more than two or three bathers were present. Moreover, in Mr. Witt's bath, there is an invisible vapour of water in suspension in the atmosphere. Mr. Rolland's bath is larger than Mr. Witt's, and the atmosphere perfectly dry. Size of apartment and dryness of atmosphere are therefore the opposites of restricted space and moist atmosphere. Mr. Urquhart's bath, with a higher temperature than Mr. Rolland's, is fresher than either, because he has been enabled to combine greater size, greater altitude, a fresher material, namely, marble, moisture, and partial heatingby means of the hypocaust. So the question of temperature must be regarded as relative, and not positive; a higher temperature will be fresher in a large and well-ventilated bath with few inmates, than a lower temperature in a small and less perfectly ventilated apartment. Whereas, the bath that may be fresh and agreeable in the morning when few bathers are present, may be insufferable in the after part of the day when a succession of bathers has rendered the atmosphere moist, or when many bathers are therein. The effect of many bathers being necessarily to curtail space, infuse moisture into the atmosphere, and deteriorate the ventilating medium. The temperature of a bath must therefore be specially adapted to the particular bath; it must rise or fall with its proportions or with its means of ventilation; it must rise or fall with its number of bathers; it must rise in the morning and fall in the evening. We may fix the temperature of a hot bath, but we cannot determine that of a Turkish bath.
One of the things which strikes the popular mind the most vividly in the British Turkish bath is thehigh temperature. When we call to mind that a hot bath is scalding at 110°, and a vapour bath at 120°, we are astonished to hear of a bath that is enjoyable at 20°, 30°, and even 50° above the temperature of scalding water. Nay, more, that can be borne without inconvenience atdoublethe temperature of scalding water. Mr. Witt, one evening at a dinner-party, explained the curious difference of action of heat on living and dead organic matter. A few days after, a baronet, who was one of the party, visited Mr. Witt in his bath, and wrote to an incredulous friend as follows:—"I have been at Mr. Witt's bath; all that he told us is true. I cooked a mutton-chop on my knee! and in eating it afterwards the only inconvenience that I experienced was in the matter of the bread—it became toast before I could get it to my mouth." Since I first published this anecdote, a very matter-of-fact gentleman has written to me to say: "Well! I can believe the mutton-chop, but is not the bread changing to toast in its way to the mouth a little too much for credit?" I can best answer my matter-of-fact friend by saying, that in Mr. Urquhart's bath at Riverside, I sat for at least ten minutes, and without the slightest inconvenience, in his Laconicum, at a temperature of 240°—namely, 28° degrees above the boiling-point of water. If I had had bread, or meat, or eggs with me, they must necessarily have been cooked at that heat. But in reality there is nothing wonderful in all this. I am informed that during the Indian mutiny, the heat in the tents was sometimes as high as 140°. Sir Charles Blagden remained for ten minutes in a room heated to 260°. Sir Francis Chantrey's oven, in which his moulds were dried, and which was constantly entered by his men, was heated to 350°. The ovens in the slate-enamelling works of Mr.Magnus, at Pimlico, also habitually entered by the workmen, have a temperature of 350°. And the oven in which Chabert, the so-called Fire King, exhibited in London some years back, was heated to 400° and 500°.
We may therefore pass over the bravery of the exceeding high temperatures as an established fact, and not worthy of a single further remark. Man, who would be scalded by water at a temperature of 110°, and vapour or steam at 120°, can bear for a short time dry air at a temperature of 500° of Fahrenheit, and upwards. But this does not so much concern us as the question—What is the best temperature of bath, for the purposes of health?My answer must be, a moderate temperature—a temperature ranging in medium limits between 120° and 140°. The Romans, who lost the bath, used very high temperatures; the Turks, who have preserved it, who use it to this day, have recourse, as I have already shown, to very moderate temperatures. For further corroboration of the argument, let us glance at the purpose of the bath—its intention is towarm, torelax, to induce agentle,continuous, andprolonged perspiration. It is obvious that a gentle temperature will effect this object more thoroughly and completely than a burning, parching temperature of 150° and upwards. Our purpose is not to dry up the tissues, to rob the blood of its diluent fluid, but to soften the callous scarf-skin that it may be peeled off, andto take away the excess of fluids pervading the economy, and with this excess any irritant and morbid matters which they may hold in solution.
But all this while I have been infringing one of the rules of the bath; I have been talking in the bath, and talking is of doubtful propriety; the demeanour of the bather while in the bath must be tranquil, composed, calm; he must give himself up to the dissolving process without exertion of muscle or mind; he may rub his skin gently; he may talk gently, sententiously, like a Turk, but he must not allow himself to become animated, and above all, he must not be vociferous. The bath is a practice intended for the body's health, and therefore deserves all our consideration and respect. The rule of Mr. Witt's bath cannot be too closely adhered to—only one talker at a time—and it has the further advantage that the talker knowing himself listened to, takes time to think before he speaks.
In my experience it has rarely happened that a novitiate has felt any inconvenience on his first entrance into the bath. The practised bather is never disturbed from the beginning to the end of the process. But the beginner may, after the first quarter of an hour, or when the perspiration is coming forth in abundance, feel a little oppression, sometimes a little faintness, and sometimes a little increased action of the heart.Whenever this is the case he should step out of the Calidarium; if there be a Tepidarium he will go into it, if not, hemay step into the Frigidarium. The uneasy feeling soon passes away, and then he should return to the Calidarium. He may do this as often as he likes, and with the most perfect safety; andwith this hintit will be his own fault if he suffer any inconvenience whatever. The remedy is not so simple when, as sometimes happens, the fount of perspiration is as yet unopened, when the bather has never perspired, or to a very imperfect and trifling extent. Here, of course, the relief which is afforded to the system by perspiration is absent, and the bather may be seriously incommoded. He must not persist; force is antagonistic to the animal economy; he must succumb, and essay to bring about perspiration by the steady use of the vapour bath,—by such a bath, in fact, as the middle room of the Turkish bath. I know many persons who have never perspired, to whom the luxury of the bath is consequently lost. I know others who cannot perspire in dry air, but can do so in vapour. How frequently we are brought to reflect on the wisdom of the Turks, who have added so much vapour to their bath since they received it as an inheritance from the Romans.
How long shall I continue in the bath, says Amicus?—As long, my friend, as may be agreeable to yourself. You do not ask me how long you shall eat, nor how long you should sit at table. The instinct that tells you to place your knife and fork across your plate, must also direct you in finishing yourbath. Something will depend, it is true, on the temperature, and the rapidity of the process of perspiration. If the temperature have been very agreeable, and perspiration slow, continuous, and efficient, you may pass the best part of an hour in the Calidarium. If it have been too hot, and the process untimely hurried, you must bring your enjoyment more speedily to an end.
We shall suppose that our friends have enjoyed their bath, and have agreeably spent three-quarters of an hour in the Calidarium:—the skin is now warm and moist, and the whole frame, its muscles and its joints, are softened and relaxed. This is the proper state and period, for those operations on the muscles and joints which are calledSHAMPOOING. But as the art of shampooing is unknown in this country, or, if attempted, is practised only in the public baths, we must be contented in our private bath to pass over that process, theSECONDof the bath, and betake ourselves to that which follows, therollingorpeelingof the scarf-skin.
We cannot, however, wholly pass by the process of shampooing without a cursory glance at the nature of the operation and the manner of its performance. In theinner roomof the Turkish bath, we have, following the description of Mr. Urquhart, seen the bather laid upon his back, on the marble platform under the centre of the dome, his mantle converted into a sheet to protect him from the heat of the marble, and his turban placedbeneath his head in the guise of a pillow. The shampooer, ortellakas he is termed—and to perform the operation properly there should be two,—"kneels at your side, and bending over, grips and presses your chest, arms, and legs, passing from part to part, like a bird shifting its place on a perch. He brings his whole weight on you with a jerk, follows the line of muscle with anatomical thumb, draws the open hand strongly over the surface, particularly round the shoulder, turning you half up in so doing; stands with his feet on the thighs and on the chest, and slips down the ribs; then up again three times; and, lastly, doubling your arms one after the other on the chest, pushes with both hands down, beginning at the elbow, and then, putting an arm under the back and applying his chest to your crossed elbows, rolls on you across till you crack. You are now turned on your face, and, in addition to the operation above described he works his elbow round the edges of your shoulder-blade, and with the heel plies hard the angle of the neck; he concludes by hauling the body half up by each arm successively, while he stands with one foot on the opposite thigh. You are then raised for a moment to a sitting posture, and a contortion given to the small of the back with the knee, and a jerk to the neck by the two hands holding the temples."
At Dar el Baida Mr. Urquhart enjoyed the opportunity of "examining a public bath of theMoors belonging to their good times. The disposition varies from that of the ancient Thermæ and the modern Hamâms. The grand and noble portion of the Turkish and the ancient bath was a dome, open to the heavens in the centre." Such a dome, without the opening in the centre, exists in the Moorish bath, but it is the inner and not the outer apartment. "The vault has deep ribs in the fashion of a clam shell, and is supported upon columns with horse-shoe arches spreading between. Instead of a system of flues through the walls, only one passed through the centre under the floor. To get at it, I had to break through the pavement of beaten mortar covering a slab of marble. It was nearly filled up with a deposit, partly of soot and partly of earthy matter, which I imagined to be the residuum of gazul." The examination of this bath awakened a desire to experience the process of the bath as practised among this ancient people. There was a bath in the house of the Governor of the province, but the Governor was away, and it was not until Mr. Urquhart had sustained a long religious argument with the Caid, that he was permitted to complete his experience. His bath attendant and shampooer was the sub-governor; and the occurrence was to be kept secret from the inhabitants of the town on religious grounds. This may explain, perhaps, the roughness of the receptions which Mr. Urquhart met with, and the absence ofthose refinements and comforts which commonly belong to the Eastern bath.
The bather, he says, "enters the Calidarium naked, he has no bath linen; the bath-room is single, and placed over an oven; while a caldron of water, heated on the fire below, throws its steam into the apartment. The floor is burning hot; he has no pattens; and boards are laid for him to tread upon; the glove operation commences at once. There was a dish of gazul for the shampooer to rub his hands in. I was seated on the board with my legs straight out before me; the shampooer seated himself on the same board behind me, stretching out his legs. He then made me close my fingers upon the toes of his feet, by which he got a purchase against me, and rubbing his hands in the gazul, commenced upon the middle of my back, with a sharp motion up and down, between beating and rubbing, his hands working in opposite directions. After rubbing in this way the back, he pulled my arms through his own and through each other, twisting me about in the most extraordinary manner, and drawing his fingers across the region of the diaphragm, so as to make me, a practised bather, shriek. After rubbing in this way the skin, and stretching at the same time the joints of my upper body, he came and placed himself at my feet, dealing with my legs in like manner. Then thrice taking each leg and lifting it up, he placed his headunder the calf, and raising himself, scraped the leg as with a rough brush, for his shaved head had the grain downwards. The operation concluded by his biting my heel."
The Moorish bath "certainly does clear off the epidermis, work the flesh, excite the skin, set at work the absorbent and exuding vessels, raise the temperature, apply moisture;—but the refinements and luxuries are wanting."
Captain Clark Kennedy and his friends met with no such difficulties as those experienced by Mr. Urquhart. After a fatiguing day's journey, they visited a public Moorish bath at Medeah, and Captain Kennedy records their experiences, which show a family resemblance to the Turkish Hamâm. Passing, he says, "through a narrow passage, we, entered a room with two sides, occupied by a sloping divan seven feet wide, and raised a couple of feet from the floor." "We took off our clothes, replaced them with a voluminous wrapper of white cotton, and thrusting our toes into leather loops tacked to a pair of wooden soles, shuffled along, led, by an attendant, to a small apartment, full of steam and tolerably warm, adjoining the bath-room. Here we changed our drapery for dark cotton handkerchiefs, fastened round the waist like kilts, and, passed on into a vaulted stone chamber, lit by a solitary lamp hanging from the roof, whose sickly, light, struggling with the clouds of steam and the darkness, just rendered visible the strange forms ofthe bath attendants, naked, like ourselves, to the waist, with a single lock of dark hair, dripping with, moisture, dangling from each uncovered shaven head.
"The pavement was flooded with hot water, and at first the heat was so oppressive I could hardly breathe; but the feeling went off after having been seated for a few minutes on a stone bench in the centre of the bath. We were now all laid out in a row on the pavement, each stretched on a blue cloth, with a rolled-up towel under the head, and an operator for each person. My attendant was a musical character, for when he commenced shampooing he accompanied his labours with a song, marking the chorus at the end of each verse by a punch of extra force. Being well soaked and softened, I was now scrubbed with a camel's-hair glove until I felt as if I had no skin at all. I then had my legs and arms pulled, my head screwed round with a jerk, was then doubled up like a boot-jack by his kneeling on my shoulders, my arms were brought behind me, and while his knee was forced into the hollow of my back, two or three dexterous twists put in motion each rib and vertebra; he then finished by endeavouring to crack, separately, every toe and finger. A large bowl of soap-suds was now brought, and, with a handful of the soft fibres of the aloe, he lathered me from head to foot. A plentiful supply of hot water was now poured over me, and, reconducted into the interior, I was enveloped in clean, white, warm linen, a long soft towel was wrapped round my head as a turban; and, lastly, taken into the outer room, I was laid upon the divan with three or four sheets over all." "The feeling of lightness and elasticity given to a fatigued and stiffened body by a Moorish bath cannot be imagined without being felt." "It was too much trouble at the time to analyse my own feelings, but I remember the predominant idea was that I felt exceedingly comfortable." The process lasted two hours.
And now a word as to the operation of shampooing. Any inhabitant of a Northern climate like our own must read these descriptions of the process with wonder not unmixed with dread. Who but a professed acrobat would venture to submit to an operation in which a man "stands with his feet on the thighs and on the chest, and slips (his feet) down the ribs, then up again three times?" or "putting an arm under the back, and applying his chest to your crossed elbows, rolls on you across till you crack?" I have already explained that the operation of shampooing requires that the skin and the whole body, especially the muscular system, should be thoroughly softened before this process is commenced; and it would appear that when the proper degree of softening is attained, the Eastern people, who are remarkable for the pliability and elasticity of their joints, can support the operation without inconvenience. But the Northern racesare built for strength and endurance; their quality is solidity, not pliability; their joints are too firmly knit, and the bones too strongly braced together, to permit of the application of such force as would make the skeleton crack, without serious inconvenience and, indeed, danger. We have but to see the Asiatic throw his foot over his shoulder, bend his finger upon the back of his hand, crack every joint of the fingers with the most moderate traction, or drop gracefully upon the ground, sitting on the side of the foot, with the sole upturned towards the skies, to be assured that there is something in the structure of the bones and joints of the Asiatic that does not exist amongst us. And if one of these people were to tie himself up in a knot, we should not be much surprised. We know, also, that this curious pliability of the frame is enjoyed by Europeans born and reared in the East; and, moreover, that where it exists in a most perfect degree while such persons are residing in the East, it is considerably diminished, and even lost, on their migration to a cold climate. There are, doubtless, many persons amongst us who could bear the Turkish process of shampooing, and particularly after a sojourn of some time in the East, where the climate alone would tend to soften their organism; and we can comprehend how a sailor, whose special education is pliability and ductility of body and limb, could go through the process creditably; but we cannot realize the same of the soldier or theploughman; and as little should we tolerate a similar penance ourselves. Turkish shampooing may continue to be practised in the Turkish Hamâm, but the process must be considerably modified before it can become popular in Britain.
There can be no doubt that a modified shampooing would form a valuable addition to the Anglo-Turkish bath; that the friction of the skin, the pressing and kneading of the muscles, the traction of the sinews, the playing of the joints, even a certain pressure of the viscera, would be attended with benefit; and when there existed stiffening or thickening from chronic disease, as of rheumatism and gout, of immense advantage. The British shampooer has all this to learn, and we commend to him two considerations—agility and moderation.
After the shampooing—the second operation of the bath, that which immediately follows the seasoning of the body by warmth and moisture—there comes theTHIRD OPERATION, the rolling and peeling of the outer layers of the scarf-skin; an operation in which the Turks are very expert. The scarf-skin has become softened and swollen by the warm moisture of the atmosphere and the exudation of perspiration from the skin, and is in a state ready for peeling and collecting into rolls and removing by the process of friction with the camel's-hair or goat-hair glove, thekheesahof India. In thisoperation there is no soap employed, the skin is as yet untouched with soap, and we rely for our success on simple friction. The Moors commence the process a little earlier, before the scarf-skin is thoroughly soaked, and usegazul. The Turks give a longer period to the softening of the albuminous layers of the epidermis, andgazulceases to be necessary. We have no grease well powdered with dust to require thestrigilof the Romans; we have nogazul; and we therefore follow in the footsteps of the Turk: we soak lengthily, lazily in our Tepidarium, or the cooler side of our Calidarium, and when we have artistically softened the epiderm, when we are done to a turn, we assume the glove, and we sweep with long strokes and firmly over the skin from the nuque to the podex, from the brow to the toe's end, until we have rolled and slid off the softened layers, and have developed the pure and satiny surface beneath. The old scarf is shed, we cast our exuviæ, and we are refulgent in the brightness and purity of our newest garment. After this, a warm flood of water, rushing upon us like a summer shower, or streaming over us like a waterfall from the regions of the sun; and all the foul scales that constitute the paved mosaic of the outward man are washed clean away.
In the public bath, this delicious operation is performed by the bath attendant, by the shampooer, the tellak, or in whatever other name he may delight. In the private bath, the host is socondescending as to give his guest a rub down, or an obliging and expert "companion of the bath" does the kind office for his fellow C.B., particularly if he be a callous, horny-skinned, and begrimed novitiate. We have seen Mr. Witt playing the camel's-hair glove, with the grace of an Apollo, by the hour; we have had our own epidermal integument groomed with most exquisite tenderness by a noble of the highest rank, for the time our "companion of the bath;" by those veteran pioneers of the bath, Mr. Witt and Mr. Rolland; and we have travelled in imagination to the ancient Phœnician city of Dar el Baida, nay, to the antediluvian Baalbec itself, gazing in admiration on the very features of the "giants that lived in those days," and on their marvellous achievements, and embarking with Noah and his sons in their vast and wonderful ship, while Mr. Urquhart has been sweeping adown our back and limbs with the camel's-hair pad filled with Mauritanian gazul, at his delightful Tusculum at Riverside.
The next operation, the fourth in order of proceeding, brings into play the soap and the wisp of the white fibre of the Mecca palm—thelyf. The bather stands before the operator, or sits on the margin of the sunken basin that serves as alavatrinaorlabrum; the operator draws towards him the wooden basin, half filled with warm water, or warm suds, or in the Turkish Hamâm with soft soap; he dips his white bunch of lyf in the snowylather, or rubs it well with Castile or ordinary soap, and he then gently, but thoroughly, glides over the entire surface of the bather, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet. How exquisite is the feeling of the cleansing operation to the sensorium of the skin; and how still more enjoyable is the warm cascade which bursts over him as soon as the soaping and its accompanying friction are at end; how difficult to bring the mind to the belief that we have had enough. Were not thankfulness in the ascendant at our recovered purity, we might be so sinful as to regret that so delicious an enjoyment had come to an end.
But if the sensation of the warm shower is agreeable, no less so is the process which immediately succeeds—namely, a douse, or douche, of the coldest water. The body is so thoroughly warmed by the preceding operations, that instead of striking a chill, as might be imagined by the inexperienced, the coldness is most grateful, and the feeling of freshness most exhilarating. Sometimes, an alternate douche of hot and cold water is repeated in rapid succession, and it is a little difficult for the bather to say which of the two is at the moment bursting over him.
The intention of the cold affusion is to produce contraction of the seven millions of pores which open on the surface of the skin. They have acted freely, they have performed the duty that was required of them: the key may now be turned, thelock closed; they may be sealed up for the present, to be ready for further service at a future time. The Romans often concluded their bath by plunging into a cold pool, to attain the same object—the closure of the pores; and the Turks, as we have already seen, omit the cold affusion, excepting to the feet, and rely upon the cool atmosphere of their great hall, open to the sky, and to the cooling influence of the current of air produced by a fan.
Where a middle room or Tepidarium exists, the process of washing, beginning with the inunction with soap and ending with the cold douche, is performed in that apartment. But where there is no Tepidarium, the process is gone through in some convenient part of the Calidarium. If the former, the bather returns to the Calidarium, and sits down for a few minutes, until the skin becomes warm, and any coldness is removed which may have been occasioned by the douche. Or, if the Calidarium have been the scene of the lavatory process, the bather, in like manner, takes his seat on a bench until all chill is dispelled.
With a skin perfectly warm, though no longer perspiring, the bather now steps out of the Calidarium, receiving either immediately before his exit, or as soon as he may have entered the Frigidarium, a warm, dry cotton mantle for his body, and a warm, dry napkin for his head; the wet hip-cloth is left behind in the Calidarium, or is dropped at the entrance of the Frigidarium. The head andface are rubbed dry by means of the napkin, and the mantle or sheet is wrapped around the body and limbs, and the bather seats himself, or reclines on the couch of repose, according to his taste; he remains passive, or calmly conversing, and awaits with patience the drying of his skin.
A good Frigidarium should be, as its name implies, as cool as possible; a breeze of air sweeping through the room is an advantage; the windows should be open, for the bather courts the cool air, and delights in feeling it play over his heated limbs. The Romans had an open terrace connected with the Frigidarium, in which the bathers could walk, enveloped in their mantle; and a walk in the open air, or in one of the charming garden walks described by Pliny, would be most enjoyable. No wiping, no friction is necessary to dry the skin; the mantle absorbs some, and the cool air dissipates the rest of the moisture. And after awhile the skin is left dry, satiny, and warm, without trace of moisture or clamminess, and in a state in which the usual dress may be resumed. This is the moment at which the description of Mr. Urquhart is properly applicable:—"The body has come forth shining like alabaster, fragrant as the cistus, sleek as satin, and soft as velvet."
The bather should now put on his clothing slowly and composedly; no haste should hurry his movements, for haste might re-excite the perspiration, the skin might again become moist, andthentherewould be danger of taking cold. But if the process be properly conducted, cold is impossible; even the sensation of cold is for the time lost. The bather feels renovated, restored, buoyant, good-tempered, strong, thebeau idéalof God's divinest creation—man.
Let me illustrate the action of the bath by a recent experience of my own, and at the same time draw attention to the proper use of the bath, and its singular power of effacing fatigue and painful sensation of every kind—among others, the imperious craving of hunger. A few weeks back, after a day of severe labour, prolonged from six in the morning until after seven at night, I arrived hungry and weary at the house of my friend, Mr. Stewart Rolland. I was expected, but was late; and, as I entered his library, dinner was being served. "Will you sit down with us," was my host's salutation, "or will you take a bath?" "The bath!" was my answer. "Ruat cœlum!"
I had only to step into the next apartment, after I had divested myself of my clothes, to find a temperature of 150°. I took my place on a couch covered with a soft Turkish sheet, and was soon covered with perspiration, first as a thick dew, and then as a dripping shower. The half-hour sand glass had nearly run out, when I entered the Lavatorium; I soaped myself thoroughly from crown to sole; I turned a tap, when a cascade of warm water poured over me, and rinsed away everyparticle of soap; a second tap, and I was in the midst of a sheet of cold water. The pores were now shut, and I returned to the Calidarium. A few minutes sufficed to warm the skin, and then, wrapped in a warm and dry mantle, I returned to the cooling room, and threw myself on a divan.
In twenty minutes I was dry and dressed, and in a state fitting to return to my friends, and eat with appetite and with the certainty of digestion, anything that might be set before me.
In the bath my fatigue had gone; the craving hunger which I suffered on entering had ceased; natural appetite had taken the place of morbid hunger; the tired stomach had regained its power, and was in a fitting state not only to receive whatever food was given to it, but, better still, to digest it. No wonder that the Arab of the desert prefers the bath to food, and even to sleep; it supplies the place of both.
I have portrayed Mr. Witt's bath; let me endeavour to draw a sketch of Mr. Urquhart's bath—a bath dear to the memory of all early bathers—the bath at Riverside. We arrive at the door of the Frigidarium, we loosen the latchets of our shoes, and we leave them behind the lintel; the portal opens, and we enter. The apartment is small, but it is sunny and bright; through the glass doors we see a balcony festooned with the tendrils of the rose, now leafless and out of bloom, for it is early winter; beyond the parapet of the balconyare terraces of which the rose is still the favoured ornament; further on, the rippled surface of a boisterous, noisy stream; then meadows with grazing herds and flocks, and the faithful horse; beyond, the wooded hill, arching like an eyebrow around the bright spot in which, as the apple of the eye, sparkles the bath. At our side is a dureta; over against us a reclining chair; and along the sides of the apartment a soft-cushioned divan; in mid space asofrasupporting a nargillé; while around are books, some Turkish ornaments and chibouques; we tread on the carpet of Persia and the clean, fresh, matting of India. Opposite the glass doors is an immense sheet of plate glass, through it we see marble steps, and in the depths to which these steps descend there is the reflection of the sun. Shades of Mecænas and Pliny, will ye not smile? Shade of Seneca, look not austere at the luxury of this Briton of ancient descent; who courts the rays of Phœbus, smiling through festoons of roses, to visit the deepest pool of his bath. Here he can swim, while the sun glistens in the crystal drops that linger on his skin, or makes mimic rainbows in the spray that he dashes before him in his plunging revel.
A door opens by the side of the immense barrier of glass; we enter; the door closes behind us. Then a second door; we pass through that, and we are greeted with a delightful atmosphere; experience tells us that no place of terrestrial existence canyield that soft, balmy, warm æther but one—that one, the bath. We descend two steps, and reach a platform, all of whitest marble; we become sensible of an increase of warmth to the soles of our feet as we descend, and we are glad to find soft napkins spread on the lower steps to catch our footfall. Two steps more, and then another platform: the apartment expands at this point into a large square lofty hall, and the marble platform stretches from side to side the whole breadth of the hall. We are sensible, as we stand on this platform, that we have reached the tropical line of the bath, and that at no great depth beneath our feet must be the Hypocaust. To our right is a small square tent, surrounded with scarlet hangings; this is thehottest of hots, the Spartan Laconicum; it is placed immediately over the furnace. We glance within the parting curtains of the entrance; we see a cushioned divan of tempting softness. At a later stage of our bath, we pass ten minutes in that fiery tent; its customary temperature is 240° or 250°.
On the left of our present station is another divan, not enclosed by curtains like the other, but admitting of being so if required. On this divan, at a later stage of the bath, I spent many minutes of genuine enjoyment; being farther from the furnace, but still over the meridian of the Hypocaust, it was less hot than the enclosed tent: its common temperature is 170°. "If you would like a breath of fresh air," said my host, "draw out that plug."I saw a plug just above my head, just near enough to reach by stretching out my hand. I withdrew it, not because I wanted air, but in a spirit of obedience, or, if you will, of lazy indolence. What a reward! what a delicious gush of ambrosial air! Heavens! what Sybaritic contrivance is here? I looked round for the shade of old Pliny, expecting to see him peering over my shoulder; but he was not there; the modest Roman shade was abashed, was vanquished by the modern Mecænas: the perfume was that of mignionette! Although the last of the season, enough remained to enable my fancy to judge how delicious that air must have been a month or two earlier. This was one of the ventilating-holes of the bath, and my host had brought the air that was to cool his bath from the perfumed atmosphere of a bed of mignionette. How I longed at that moment for one half-hour of summer, that I might test the other spiracles, that I might perchance inhale the breath of roses here, and violets or lilies there.
And now comes a deeper descent (four steps), and behold, I am on the floor of the bath. Still costly marble greets my tread. In the corner opposite the fiery tent is another divan; here, far removed from the torrid meridian, the temperature is still lower (about 150°), but the atmosphere is everywhere fresh: it is clear that ventilation is perfect, and there are no vapoury mists, no fleeting gauze of ghost-like moisture.
I am permitted to gaze about me for a while, when my host leads me to a small recess on the side corresponding with the couch of perfume. A curtain is withdrawn, and I perceive that the bottom of this recess is below the level of the floor, and that a marble step placed at one end breaks the descent to the bottom. The bottom, also, is peculiar: the marble slab slopes downwards to an opening, through which water finds its way into the drain. I am aware that this is the Lavaterina or Latrina—that here the novitiate is made to pass through the first ordeal of the bath. Before he entered the sacred precincts of the Apodyterium, he undid the latchets of his shoes: he left his shoes beyond the door; he brought with him none of the dust of the external world into the portals of the bath. In the Frigidarium, or rather in the Apodyterium, he left behind him his vestments, and assumed the simple garb of the inner bath. Now, and before he can claim to select his place on the divans, he pays a further tribute to the god of purity: the outer layers of his scarf-skin must be peeled away—he must yield up his skin to the ordeal of the glove, thegazul, or the soap; and then, semi-purified, he may range at will the apartment—he may explore at leisure the mysteries of the bath.
We seat ourselves on the clean marble at the edge of the Lavaterina; our host plays the soft pad ofgazulover the head, the back, the sides; we complete the operation on the limbs and feet ourselves;Basin after basin of warm water rinses thegazuland the loosened epidermis from the surface, and we rise from the Lavaterina to recommence our observations.
Immediately in front of the flight of steps already described, and occupying the centre of the remaining wall of the hall, is a square pool, between four and five feet in depth, and reached by several steps. In this pool are two feet of water, perfectly cold, with a tap from which as much may be obtained as may be required. This water is pumped up from the river, and filtered before it is admitted into the bath: it, like the bather, is made to leave its dusty shoes outside the door, and is thoroughly cleansed before it is permitted to invade the sanctuary. In this pool, thispiscina, the bather refreshes himself with a plunge in cold water—in the summer cooled down with ice—when he issues heated from the "hottest of hots," or when he completes the bath; and here he may take his dip or his plunge, his douche or his swim, with the sun shining in upon his polished skin.
Having received my freedom of the bath in the Lavaterina, I commenced a series of visits to all the soft, the warm, the perfumed, the hot, the cool, the cold nooks, that I could find. I rolled in enjoyment on the divan by the side of thepiscina, watching my "companions of the bath," and especially a little Antinous, or rather an infant Hercules, of five years of age, who one while crept into the fierytent, and another while disported himself like a young sea-god, with evident delight, in the coldpiscina. I then took my place in the higher temperature of the torrid zone, on the divan that was breathed over by the sweet expirations of the mignionette; and anon crept into the tent with the scarlet curtains serving as a door, and wondered that I could breathe an atmosphere heated to 240° without inconvenience.
It was now approaching the hour of breakfast, and however disinclined I might be to leave the warm world in which I had spent more than an hour, I was ready to acknowledge certain material warnings of the charms of breakfast. Before, however, I could quit the bath, it was necessary that the pores, which had been all this while filtering the waste fluids of the body through their numberless apertures, should be made to close; and with this intent I descended into the pool, to experience and enjoy a new sensation. I crouched under the tap, while a cold torrent poured over me, the little Hercules catching greedily on his head any waste jets that glanced aside, and then shaking his flaxen ringlets over his face and shoulders with a joyous laugh. But my last experience was to come. At the word "Hold firm!" a full pail of hot-water rushed upon me like an avalanche, and was instantly followed by the same quantity of cold; this was repeated in quick succession a number of times, and then, when my host's arms seemed tired of thefurther repetition, I arose from the pool, and shook my soused frame on the platform above, with a feeling of freshness and vigour that I shall long remember—remember when the bath and all its vagaries shall have become too familiar to suggest a note of their early impressions.
I was soon warm enough to quit the region of water, and ascend into that of air—to quit the region of fire, and mount into that of the sun, then smiling beamingly in at the window. My host gave my head a good rub with a warm, soft Turkish napkin, and threw a warm mantle over my shoulders; and it was with a feeling of "divided duty," the bath on one side and the breakfast on the other, that I ascended to the Frigidarium. Throwing myself on a softly-cushioned dureta, a half-hour was spent in suggestive and instructive conversation, and then "to breakfast with what appetite we may." Shades of immortal Shakespeare! Speaking for myself, I should say, with the appetite of a man. Need I say more. This is my memory of the delicious bath at Riverside.
My host placed before me a dish, or rather a basket, of that wonderful Moorish food, thekuscoussoo, and our conversation naturally drifted away to the mode of preparing food pursued by different nations, and particularly to the mode of its preparation in the countries where the particular food is indigenous. I was struck with my host's remark, that while we draw food from othercountries, we fail to learn the native manner of preparing that food; and that from our ignorance on this point we frequently deteriorate, and often destroy its properties altogether.
It is to be regretted that the very highest branch of the science of chemistry—that which has for its object thepreparation of the foodwhich God in his goodness has bestowed upon us, for the sustenance and preservation of His greatest work, man himself—should be so miserably neglected. How much happier man's state would be if this department of chemistry were more cultivated and better understood; how greatly would the nutritive power of food be developed, how much would be economized in its use! How much might even the life of man be prolonged! Of the many that die daily in their beds, surrounded by warm coverings, costly hangings, and sorrowing friends, there are many who die of absolute starvation—starved, because the modern science of culinary chemistry has no better nourishment to offer than abominable beef-tea, wretched mutton-broth, miserable arrowroot or sago, or detestable gruel. Tell me, ye sick who have so narrowly escaped death, whether what I am saying is not perfectly true; and that between nauseating physic on the one hand, and equally nauseating diet on the other, have you not "run the gauntlet" of destruction, from which your escape is indeed miraculous?
The plan of the bath at Riverside was not lost upon me in an undertaking on which I was then engaged—namely, building a bath for myself. My Apodyterium is at the back of my house; from this a Xystos, with a glazed roof, leads to the outer door of the Calidarium. Within the outer door is a vestibule, which upon occasion may serve as a Tepidarium. At the end of the vestibule is a second door, and this opened, we are in the Calidarium, an apartment more than ten feet high, fifteen feet long, and twelve wide. Along the side of the room runs a flue, with an area of four feet by nine inches; the flue crosses the end, and returns for a distance of two feet on the opposite side. At the point of return is the chimney. Two windows with thick glass let light into the room; and five circular openings, four inches in diameter, and closed by a telescopic lid (Looker's ventilator), supply an abundance of air; while a similar ventilator in the chimney-shaft secures its free circulation. The floor is a tesselated pavement of coloured octagonal tiles; and on the side corresponding with the door is a sunken Lavaterina, three feet six in length, two in breadth, and eighteen inches deep. Over the centre of the Lavaterina are two spouts, for cold and hot water; the latter being obtained from a galvanized iron tank, capable of holding twenty-five gallons, that stands on the returned flue, against the chimney-shaft. Inthis bath, as in Mr. Urquhart's, I expect to get various degrees of temperature, increasing in altitude from a temperate standard in the vestibule, to the highest temperature that can be required, immediately over the furnace, where I have established my Laconicum.