The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-04-03
The Oriental Bath.

A correspondent who has been taking
n bath in Damascus describes the opera
ton as follows: Push aside this gay
curtain on the street, and you descend
to room whose ceiling in part is q
dome and beneath it the omnipresent
waters of the ALBANIA, flowing into mar
BILE basin. The floor is of marble. The
dome is encircled by demi- domes, under
which are corresponding inches with di-
vans on floors elevated two feet above
the main marble floor. These divans
are luxuriously cushioned and pillowed.
The draperies are oriental in color and
fabric, and the ever present stripes of
blue, yellow and red, of which Moslems
are so fond, girdle the walls. The slip
pcred attendants move monotonously
about in sillen robes and rich turbans.
delicate, patriarchial faces which look as
if all forms of dirt refused to stick to
them. One immerscs himself, so to
speak, in these soft divans, and the pa
triarch fetches him a pipe, the nargileh
and deposits on the Persian tobacco a
coal. This is the luxury of living, and
who wonders that rccumbent in such a
place, the Oriental is ready to let the
NOllu WaE VI NllAOuI uluSell interior
ing2
This luxurious place into which we
are introduced is Damascus bath, and
is the best production now possible Of
that age when the bath was the bourse.
the social exchange, the lettering place
of the lcisurely classes, as was the case
in ancient Rome and Athens. Here the
Damascene for song gossips and smok es
and battles.
You do not undress yourself, but the
patriarch in silk disrobes you, girds q
towel around your loins as in the days OF
Paul, gets you into those ridiculous
wood clogs which lift you four inches
above the damp floor. You are now i
the hands of the turbaned priest of the
place, who ushers you over marble floors
into an interior apartment whose light is
sifted down through a dome punctured
with bullseyes of divers colored glass.
The place is full of the genii of the
streams, who are dashing water on the
bathers, which they dip from the dripping
fountains, whose overflow runs down he
floor and out through conduits.
The sensation of being ducked re.
peatcdly with buckets Of almost scalding
water is, first that you are being perse-
cuted for being Christian even in a
mild way; and the patriarch seems to en-
JOY your dilemma; for there is sort of
Koordish malice in his semi barbarous
eyes. The room is steamy and very hot,
but in the absence even of fig leaves, the
heat is paradisacial. Then comes scrub
bling with hair mittens and arbarous
Arab cutlery; then lathering; then an
other dousing with buckets of water,
and finally, not as lamb to the slaugh-
ter, but like pig to his cauldron, one is
submerged in tank of water hot enough
to blister. This is oriental luxury, and
l suppose there is nothing like getting
used to it, and really the last hall. hour
is luxury, when toweled and covered
with clothes you are left on one of the
divans of the cafe, with coffee, pipe
and quiet of heaven about the place
When one is cooled he is assisted into
his clothing by the curious Arab, to
whom trousers and coat are never end
ing source of curiosity.