The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-05-23
WOMEN IN A TURKISH BATH.
m interesting Description by One Of
the Fair Bathers.
From the Ne,c York Sun.

The ladies' favoTte hour for bathing in
Nav Works Turkish baths is in the morn
~, before the grand prominade on the ave-
,ue the drive in the park, the matinee, or
tha fashionable calling dress parade of the
.ftarnoon, and between the hourse of 10 and
% thew NAV be seen trooping into the baths,
rbich are sacred to their use at this time.
All sorts of women may be found there.
IT, women go to get thin. Plain women go
,';tb an indefinite hope that it may make
thon baautiful, and beautiful women go in
ordar TO preserve their beauty; sick women
w 70 get well, old women go to look young,
eired women to feel rested, and nissan
thronic. bilious, sallow, malarial women to
rst their compilations and dispositions
Scared I'D, stylish women go because it is
faehionable, dainty women because it is
iuVurious. and sweet, wholesome, ordinary
-,-onen 90 from a laudable ambition to be
Loan in the fullest sense of the word. They
come in carriages and on foot. they come
With their maids in attendance, they come
cbattering along in pairs, and they come
srinping in alone, they come in the daintiest
~ tnilets-all simmer and dazzle and per-
anne with stylish coiffures and picturesque
engagements of gauze and flowers framing
tbair pretty faces, and they disappear in the
snall red-curtained rooms or stalls, and
rresently reappear clothed only in dia-
4+ronds and sheets, with their hair, be it
snarse or heavy, hung over their shoulders.
There is little display of womanly vanity
ond taste even in the arrangement of the
long white wrappings that enveop them,
for while some women muffie themselves up
awkwardly and clumsily and trip over the
trailing corners others throw the white
6r,Deries in classic folds about their forms,
Gathering them up IN one hand away from
The bare white ankles.
The attendants present the most pictur-
esoue appearance, clothed only in a short
tunic of white cotton, caught on one
shoulder, falling away from the other down
under one arm, and reaching to the knee.
These girls are very beautiful in form, their
round, shapely limbs cleaning white, like
marble. and soft to the touch as a baby's
skin. Not an ounce of shperfiuous flesh en-
cumberS them, not an outline of bone or
Joint mars the fair roundness of shoulders
and limbs. They seldom know disease of
any kind, and are splendid specimens of
physical strength aud symmetry. On first
engaging in work of this kind they lose
flesh rapidly, and become very much ex-
hausted each day, but when accustomed to
the work they regain their normal weight
and experience only a feeling of lassitude,
from their long exposure to the heat, which
passes away after an hours rest. Their
hands are never exposed to any other Kind
Of work, and are as soft as velvet, supple
firm and exquisite in touch. In the Russian
bath the chief attendant, 1.-the, vigorous
girl, with crop of kinky brown hair that
Cnrled all the tighter in the steam and heat,
wore a very unique and original costume of
Turkish towels. The towels were knotted
bythe fringe at the corners on one shoulder
passed underneath the other arm, and were
again tied by the corners on one hip, two
more towels knotted by the corners on each
hip formed the abbreviated shirt of this
striking regalia.
These scantily clad apparitions fit along
the dusky corridors leading to the bath
rooms and after them scurry the white and
muffled white figures of the bathers, who
seat themselves about the heated rooms in
constrained silence, like the first arrivals at
wedding feast. There is the nervous
woman who comes flying in with a little
bottle of smelling salts and sits anxiously on
the edge of the chair, exclaming that she
knows she never can stand the baths; that
the doctor has ordered them, and she knows
she hasn't strength to endure them, and
she calls for an attendant to tell her about
it, and interrogates her neighbor to know if
she isn't getting pale-as though even a
corpse could be pale i'll room at that tenn
perature-and then all at once she does Just
what she expected to do, and would have
been disappointed if she hadn't have done,
collapses, and is helped out with her
head done up in cold towel by the atten-
dant.
Then there is the talkative woman. who
has little bit of rheumatism or neuralgia
IN such peculiar place, under her shoulder
or somewhere and she tells all the other
women all about it, entering into the min
uteSt details with delighted eagerness, just
what the doctor said, and what her nus
band said, and what all the old ladies said,
etc, etc, ETC., ad infinitum.
Then there is the fusSy woman who ex-
claims about the heat, and says she is all
burning up, and is sure something is wrong,
and wants a drink, and wants her head
cooler, asks half a hundred questions and
finally fidgets herself into fever. The shy
little newcomer over in the corner, demure-
~ wrapped up to her chin, even her hands
tucked under out of sight, smiles softly at
the scene, and wonders if the freckles
across her nose will melt off. The habitues
OF the place lean back, leisurely dreaming
OF their conquestS, their last souvenir
nights triumphs and floral ovations, or
their latest and dearest lovers, while their
bangs slowly straighten out and the perSpi-
ration meditatively drips off their noses.
One slender, handsome woman with heavy
mass OF dark hair tossed over the back of
the chair, one fair white arm outlined
against its shadow above her head, the sheet
falling from her fautless shoulder and bust,
Slts with her beautiful dreamy eyes full of
sou Splendor, all unconscious of the perfect
picture she is making in the white drapery
through which her form is outlined.
heavy bath blankets are thrown about
Them as they hurry down through the cor
Tdor to the Russian baths and taken away
again at the door of the steam bath, where
oh the marble seats about the plunge, the
pretty bathers sit in various graceful atti-
tudes, with bare arms and shoulders One
OF Them flies up suddenly and goes to the
plunge. She puts one white foot in and
grows 1t back with a little shiver and
screams, then she tries the other foot, an
other little squel, the stout attendant
catches her suddenly about the waist and
away they go laughing and screaming to-
getner. The girl comes up choking and
frightened, but plucky, and they Try it once
more, the attendant endeavoring to teach
OF the stroke in swimming. After count
ieas attempts, which inevitably end in fail
9re, she abandons the idea, and only tries to
neat, but even this is in vain, for as soon as
sne experiences the sensation incident to
noatlng, down goes her head, because she
opens her mouth to give the funny scream
mat Is the voice Of most womens' sensa-
Ions Other girls catch the inspiration, and
inc tank is full of white forms with waving,
curvlng white arms.
suddenly mammoth woman is filed
WIN ambition, and she plunges her gener
GUS proportions into the tank. The water
hal