VISIT TO THE HAREMS.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

Expedition of Discovery among the Harems.- Mysteries and Miseries of a Turkish Bath. - Propensity of Egyptian Ladies for its Pleasures.- Baths of the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; and of the Scythians and Finlanders.

OUR English friends having returned from the petrified forest, Mrs. C. was notified that the ladies, including Mrs. Wrinklebottom (who had nearly recovered from her late injuries), had planned a new enterprise; and she was invited to share with them in its expenses and pleasures.

They proposed to visit the harems of Cairo; and the arrangements for this adventure were already completed. Accordingly, at an appointed hour, there was a great commotion in the street; and the party, preceded by four armed janizaries and the interpreter of the English consulate, accompanied by the usual number of out-runners, drew up in front of our abode. With one exception, no accident occurred to mar the opening scene of this expedition.

Mrs. Wrinklebottom, still weak from the effects of her late disaster at the museum, rode a headstrong VOL. I.-54

creature, which took a notion to run through a low, narrow gate, scarcely large enough to admit his body disencumbered of every thing else. Go he would, and go he did, in spite of the most vigorous efforts of Mrs. W. and the muleteer to prevent him. The consequence was, a clean sweep of every thing on his back; and Mrs. Wrinklebottom was most uncomfortably plunged into the sand. She was fortunately more agitated than injured; and, being mounted on a more tractable animal, the procession set off again with no little noise and parade. The Egyptians gathered around, anxious to discover their destination.

As no gentlemen were to be of this party, and the doctor having an engagement with Mr. Lieder, the worthy missionary at Cairo, I was left alone. Though not quite so far gone as poor Burns represented his case to be, when he hesitated "whether to get drunk or to hang himself;" I had nevertheless recourse to an amusement which was far more exhausting than the former, and, for a time, I was not without my fears of its resulting as fatally as the latter. I took a Turkish bath.

Entering the vestibule of the establishment, I stood in a large circular room, with concave ceiling, lighted by small apertures in the dome. Placing myself in the hands of one of the "knights of the bath," I was conducted into a side room of small dimensions, similar in form and finish to the entrance-hall, though of much higher temperature. The marble floor was spread with mats, and the light was admitted through the roof. Here my clothes were placed in the hands

BATHING AMUSEMENTS.

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of an Arab for safe keeping; and being swathed from head to foot in coarse towels, with high wooden clogs on my feet, I launched off, preceded by my conductor, for a more deep investigation into the mysteries of the bath. Descending two or three steps, I entered a large apartment crowned with a dome, and lighted and constructed in a similar manner to the last. It was very warm, and filled with steam.

Several Arabs lay about the room like panting dogs in a kamsin. One man was having his head shaved -another his beard relieved from its vermin.

This process being neither new nor pleasing, I had a strong desire to proceed. But in stepping from this room into the next, I "jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire." Where I had only scorched, I now burned and blistered. From a moderate simmering, I found myself on the point of boiling over in the steam and hot air of the room. It was even worse than the baths of Nero at Baiæ; and, as one of Squire Thornhill's fashionable ladies chastely expressed herself while dancing at the Vicar of Wakefield's, I " was all of a muck of sweat."

Fountains of boiling water were playing in different parts of the room, and rushing down upon the marble floor. I stumbled over one or two half-inanimate Egyptians, who had hauled themselves out of the water, and lay upon the floor more dead than alive. As the steam occasionally broke away, I could perceive, in the apartments that opened still more deeply into the bosom of these "infernal regions," other dusky sons of the Prophet indulging in all the

delights of the boiling luxury. I had no disposition, however, to penetrate the steaming ocean any further. And when the guide, who had conducted me thus far, handed me over to the real Vulcan of the place, 1 began to feel alarmed for my safety.

The old salamander, into whose hands I had at last fallen, was a tall, gaunt figure, in a state of perfect nudity. He had a cadaverous, parboiled visage, shaved head, and sepulchral voice. He kept up a constant jabbering in Arabic, which was as intelligible to me as my language was to him. He at once proceeded to unfold the mysteries of his art. Seizing me round the waist with a determined grip, he prostrated me upon the side of a large marble tub, into which the water was pouring at a high temperature. He pulled my legs and arms until every joint cracked like the whip of a French postillion; then clasping my head with both hands, he wrenched it back and forth till my neck-bone uttered a nimble sound. My ears were the next object of his attack. These he pulled and mashed in his fingers till they snapped like parched peas. Then my fingers and toes came in detail under his dislocating inspection. Every joint in them audibly testified to their peril, and the danger they were in of being torn out by the This done, he made a painful attempt upon my back-bone. To prevent this stem of my body from being broken, I resisted the executioner by main strength. Being foiled in his wrenching operations upon my back, he poached the flesh on every part of my body till it was ready to drop from my bones.

roots.

HOSTILE DEMONSTRATIONS.

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Having exhausted his strength in this department of his art, he caught up a coarse, raspy stone, and began to rub the soles of my feet. They were at length on the point of blistering; he nevertheless continued to rasp away, nor could I prevail upon him to desist, until, vexed with his pertinacity, and stung with pain, gave him a kick, and tumbled him into a boiling fountain.

I

I had now, as I supposed, come to an open rupture with him, and was determined to fight my way out once more to the light of day. But the fellow, on picking himself out of the water, smiled so good-naturedly, that I suffered him to approach again, and he continued the process in a modified style. He took a woollen bag, dipped it frequently in boiling water, and rubbed me for some minutes, and then introduced my feet into the tub at my side. I thought it would be impossible for me to endure the intensity of the heat of this water. But he proceeded in a manner so gentle, dipping me in little by little, that he finally succeeded in plunging me all over into the scalding bath. This produced a strange sensation. I soon began to like it; and remained in so long, that when I was fished out, I could scarcely stand alone. I was now conducted into an adjoining room, and seated beside a bubbling fountain. A basin of sweet water being brought, the Arab, with soap in one hand and palm shavings in the other, lathered me from head to foot. He then brought me an old razor, and proposed to shave my head. This honour I declined. The soap being washed off, and having