Last year a similar number were as usual gathered at Hammam Ali, when one evening a lighted match was carelessly thrown down, with the result that in a few minutes many of these booths were a mass of flames. Several children were burnt to death and two women.
The next day the exodus from the place was universal. We were staying then at a house midway between Mosul and Hammam Ali, and watched the procession of people returning, a steady stream from morning till night. After a day or two, however, the sad episode was forgotten, and visitors began to flock back again.
We once saw this celebrated place. It was on our way to Mosul, and we arrived late one night at Hammam Ali, minus our tent. The villagers kindly offered us the use of the Hammam (bath) for the night, so we made a tour of inspection, but decided to decline their offer with thanks.
The place was damp, dirty, and malodorous. We preferred to pass the night in a stable, which looked a trifle more inviting, although full of rat-holes. In the morning I paid a visit to the Hammam, as it was a ladies’ bathing day, and found the bath crowded with women and children, packed in like sardines in a box! The water was very hot, and I wondered the women could stand so long in it. Some of them looked rather as if they had been boiled. Here were women and children, apparently healthy, bathing in the same water as others suffering from all manner of skin diseases and other horrible things. However, they all looked perfectly happy and contented; and I would not grudge these poor creatures any little pleasure which might help to brighten their lives.
We shall see in the following chapters how little brightness they possess, and, on the other hand, how much of sadness and sorrow.
[1] Extract from “The Literary History of the Arabs,” by R. A. Nicholson, M.A.