We must be forgiven, if we pick a plum or two from the description, and hand them round to our readers, there are plenty more on the tree which they may cull for themselves (Note 1). At the door of the Frigidarium or cool room, the would-be bather loosens the latchets of his shoes, and leaves them behind the lintel; the portal opens and he enters. This apartment though not large is sunny and bright. It is a morning in early summer, and, through the glass doors, can be seen a balcony festooned with roses; beyond the parapet of the balcony are terraces of which the rose is still the favoured flower, while further on can be seen the rippling surface of a noisy stream, then meadows with grazing herds and flocks, and beyond these the wooded hill arching like an eyebrow around the bright spot in which as the apple of the eye, sparkles the bath. By his side is a dureta over against him a reclining chair, around the sides of the apartment are cushioned divans; books, and chibouques, and many a Turkish ornament are around, and the floor is spread with carpets of Persia, and the clean fresh mattings of India.
Opposite the glass doors is an immense sheet of plate glass; through it are seen marble steps, and in the aqueous depths to which these steps descend, is the reflection of the morning sun. Here he may court the rays of Phoebus, 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.
The author passes on through a door by the side of the immense barrier of glass. This door closes behind him, then onwards through a second door to be greeted by a delightful atmosphere, and experience tells him that no place of terrestrial existence save the bath can yield that warm, soft and balmy aether. Two steps down and then a platform. Two steps more, the heat increases, and he has reached the tropical line of the bath. But the hottest room was enveloped in scarlet hangings, a fiery tent, where the temperature stood at from 240 to 250 degrees.
On a divan at a later stage of the hath, under a less degree of heat, he spends many minutes of genuine enjoyment. Just overhead is a plug to withdraw in order to admit a breath of fresh air if desired, and this delicious gush of ambrosial air comes to him, perfumed with the sweet breath of flowers over which it has been contrived that it shall pass.
Then comes a deeper descent of four steps, with a still warm but lower temperature, where on the clear marble edge of the Lavatorina he seats himself, while his host plies the soft pad of gazul over his head and back and sides. Then basin after basin of warm water, rinses the gazul and the loosened epidermis from the surface, and he rises from the bath to recommence his observations, visiting in turn all the soft, the warm, the perfumed, the hot, the cool and the cold nooks he can find, and thus the time flies by and the breakfast hour draws near; but before he can quit the bath, it is necessary that the pores of the body, which all this time have been filtering the waste fluids of the body through their numberless apertures, should be made to close, and with this intent he descends into the marble pool or piscina, whose waters in summer are cooled with ice, and crouches under the tap, and lets the cold current encircle him, then a pail of hot water rushes on him like an avalanche, followed immediately by one of cold, and this is many times repeated.
Upward now, to the Frigidarium, with a mantle round his shoulders after being rubbed down with soft Turkish towels, therein, reclined on a softly cushioned sofa, to enjoy half-an-hour’s suggestive and instructive conversation, before going to breakfast with an appetite like—like a man.
Sir Erasmus does not tell us how much he enjoyed that breakfast, but we can easily fancy that part of the performance. We can easily believe, that his manly onslaught upon the viands set before him, would have been highly appreciated by Christopher North himself, with Tickler and the Shepherd “settling down to serious eating.”
But it is not merely as a luxury that, in this little work of ours, we venture to recommend the Anglo-Turkish bath to our readers although taken simply for the sake of enjoyment, a man never fails to cherish the memory of his first bath, as does a maiden that of her first ball. But our recommendation has a far wider scope than this. We look upon the bath as the best means mankind has:—
One.—For maintaining the body in a state of perfect health.
Two.—For averting the many ailments incidental to life and—