It Was The Laughter Of The Followers Of Mahound,
Rollicking And Taking Their Pleasure In The Public Bath.
I could
not go into that place:
I swore I would not; they promised me a
private room, and the dragoman left me. My agony at parting from
that Christian cannot be described.
When you get into the sudarium, or hot room, your first sensations
only occur about half a minute after entrance, when you feel that
you are choking. I found myself in that state, seated on a marble
slab; the bath man was gone; he had taken away the cotton turban
and shoulder shawl: I saw I was in a narrow room of marble, with a
vaulted roof, and a fountain of warm and cold water; the atmosphere
was in a steam, the choking sensation went off, and I felt a sort
of pleasure presently in a soft boiling simmer, which, no doubt,
potatoes feel when they are steaming. You are left in this state
for about ten minutes: it is warm certainly, but odd and pleasant,
and disposes the mind to reverie.
But let any delicate mind in Baker Street fancy my horror when, on
looking up out of this reverie, I saw a great brown wretch extended
before me, only half dressed, standing on pattens, and exaggerated
by them and the steam until he looked like an ogre, grinning in the
most horrible way, and waving his arm, on which was a horsehair
glove. He spoke, in his unknown nasal jargon, words which echoed
through the arched room; his eyes seemed astonishingly large and
bright, his ears stuck out, and his head was all shaved, except a
bristling top-knot, which gave it a demoniac fierceness.
This description, I feel, is growing too frightful; ladies who read
it will be going into hysterics, or saying, "Well, upon my word,
this is the most singular, the most extraordinary kind of language.
Jane, my love, you will not read that odious book - " and so I will
be brief. This grinning man belabours the patient violently with
the horse-brush. When he has completed the horsehair part, and you
lie expiring under a squirting fountain of warm water, and fancying
all is done, he reappears with a large brass basin, containing a
quantity of lather, in the midst of which is something like old
Miss MacWhirter's flaxen wig that she is so proud of, and that we
have all laughed at. Just as you are going to remonstrate, the
thing like the wig is dashed into your face and eyes, covered over
with soap, and for five minutes you are drowned in lather: you
can't see, the suds are frothing over your eye-balls; you can't
hear, the soap is whizzing into your ears; can't gasp for breath,
Miss MacWhirter's wig is down your throat with half a pailful of
suds in an instant - you are all soap. Wicked children in former
days have jeered you, exclaiming, "How are you off for soap?" You
little knew what saponacity was till you entered a Turkish bath.
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