The eastern or Turkish bath

by Sir Erasmus Wilson

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 by ten 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 a dureta, or couch of repose; a small 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, no cob 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 in its 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 tyrant Pain, 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.