The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1874-05-01
BATHING IN TURKEY.

An American VOman's Experience OF
the Turkish Bath.
Olive Harper, writing from Constan-
tinople, thus lays bare the mysteries
of the bath in the far east:
I have read, certainly not less than
fifty times, elaborate descriptions of
genuine Turkish baths, by Bayard Tay-
Tor, Ross Browne and others, and have
always had my imagination filed with
the combined ecstacies of being scrubbed
with hot water and perfumed soap and
iced sherbet, and made up my mind
not to leave Turkey without having that
delightful experience. You know that
I belong to the softer sex, and that they
do not bathe promiscuOusly here as in
Baden, Long Branch and many other
fashionable places. This bath where I
went is for ladies alone, not even the
d" common herd" being admitted, for
the charge is very high.
Four of us went, together with two
women servants, who carried our tow
els, bathing dresses and lunch. 1t is
an all-day's job, and the ladies all take
lunch with them.
On entering we were conducted to a
large room, where we must undress and
leave our things. I think there were
nearly fifty women there in all stages
Oh uluIGSSa WlAO dll JduSO W ACsSdllNA I'D
with curiosity while we disrobed. Men
can pull of their most sacred garments,
toss them in a heap, and run about as
if nothing were amiss, but somehow Il
lett as eve did when she had made the
discovery that she was little too thin
lY clad for the time of the year.
A servant caught up our bathing
dresses and left the room, beckoning us
to follow. We ran the gauntlet of a hun
dred pair of eyes before we reached the
divan where I was laid, like a Gefunct.
The room was very warm and grew
warmer perceptibly, though how, 1
don't know, until I began to feel as if
I should suffocate, my heart beat pain
fully hard and 1 grew very faint, when
one of the women gave me some lemon
ade, of which I drank two glasses.
Then all of sudden, I began to per-
spire, and looked like pumpkin that
had laid out all night in a heavy dew.
felt as if was dissolving, and waited
patiently till the end should come,
and I should be but the transparent
essence of what was once a very sub
st ntial body but that time had not
come. was so sleepy that 1 felt like
calling very hard names, when the
woman came and made me get up, after
she had rubbed me down like race
horse with a pair of very scratchy
gloves, which left my skin as red as a
lobster.
Then, we all being in the same state,
were led into another great vaulted
marble fioored room, where the diYans
are made of marble, which is not at all
soft to lie on. This room was warmer
than the last, and more vapory, and the
vapor was more strongly perfumed with
sandal-wood. After lying a few mo-
ments, the marble grows soft, and a
! sense of most delicious repOse comes
over you. You feel a soft languor and
| a dreamy content, and your eyes close
and you lay with q smile OF exquisite
Iaziness on your lips, and your imagina-
ton flies off in every possible direc-
| tion, when the sweet repose is again
rudely broken and you have again to
''move on"
Now, indeed, opens the door of para
| disc. You are led, still without other
| covering than nature gives you, into a
| large circular room, with marble pillar,
supporting the blue dome that is
| spangled with stars. All round the
room are marble divans, and in the CEN
| Ter is an immense fountain, in the basin
| of which are sixty or seventy girls and
women playing In the warm, perfumed
water, or lying in all attitudes on the
marble edges Of the basin. The water
rises in one grand column over fifty
| feet, and falls back into an upper basin,
while the lower one is undisturbed ex-
! cept by the beautiful white forms that
it most delights to receive.
On ali the divans lay women of all
| ages and complexions, even to some
! negresses, who only served to make the
white bodies and polished limbs appear
more loyelier than ever. Smaller foun-
| tains we're placed at regular intervals
around the large room, and from these
| the attendants poured continuously over
! the bodies of those who lay on the
divans, warm water which was carried
/ off by the pipes One attendant stood
at the head, holding my gold embroid-
cred bathing apparatus, one lathered
me with perfumed soap till I began to
imagine myself a gigantic rose, and all
these beautiful beings laughing and
/ singing and gliding around me but 9TH
/ er specimens of flowers.
Another attendant rubbed me with
] gloves made of sponge, and another
j poured warm water over me incessantiy,
not dashed it, not let it triclzle, but Just
| emptied the beautifully chased silver
ever over me with the gentlest of mo-
| tdOns, till 1t seemed like a caress. Then
soap of bitter almonds was rubbed on
any face, and other OF another kind was
rubbed in my hair, all done IN that ten
der, caressing way that made it posi-
/ tive ecstacy; then more perfumed wa
/ ter till felt drowning in a sea of all
delights, in which could distinguish
| perfumes. flowers, sweet singing voices,
and forms of heavenly beauty.
/ Time and the outer world were lost
/ in the delightful trance, and I desired
nothing else In the world to make my
life content forever. To lie there on
the marble and dreamily watch the glo-
rious white of the living statues, with
/ the long black hair, and the rich dark
/ eyes to see the soft, undulating mo-
tions of them swimming in the warm,
delicious water to look at the love
/ fy forms stretched at full length on
the divans and on the edges OF the
fountain, and others laughing, sporting.
singing, mingling with affectionate
/ chances, and wrestling IN the water, or
| on the marble floor, dripping from ev-
ery limb the perfumed water that elis-
tened ON their bodies, and the trickling
of the fountain, and the rosy, subdued
| light that stole IN through the jealous
Iy-guarded windows, we're enough to