Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1890-09-11
GENUINE TURKISH BATHS.
Bathing an All-Day Diversion With
the Women in Constantinople.

Just outside the limits of CONSTANT
nople, Turkey, up in the Golden Horn,
is Aga Hammam, bath frequented by
many ladies of the highest position, not
because they have no baths of their own,
but because they are sure to meet their
friends there without restriction and
have good time. 1t has always been a
great place for mothers to take their
marriageable daughters, and for other
mothers to go to choose a bride for their
sons, and, as wives are not chosen for
their mental but physical beauties alone,
certainly this is the place to choose,
where beauty is quite unadorned, and,
therefore, of the bath we will speak.
The ladies arrive each one attended
by her own personal servant and another
who bears very substantial lunch basket
and handsome gold bordered bathing
wrap. The eunuchs remain outside or
go away and come back at the hour the
bath is ended, as it occupies several
hours.
First, the ladies are divested of their
clothing and receive crepe sheet, which
they drape about them while they sit the
regulation time in the first room. During
this time they chat with each other,
though not very familiarly, until they
reach and pass the next room, after
which, with their abundant hair stream
ing loose and unconfincd, they walk
erect into the last room. There they
stretch themselves out upon the marble
slabs, while two attendants rub them and
lather them and pour hot water over
them until it seems as if they would be
boiled. Each lady is laid on a marble
slab, which is slightly inclined, and two
attendants begin their labors, one at the
feet and the other at the head. They use
a sort of clay called pilo, which raises a
thick, white lather, which sometimes
grows several inches thick. The attend
ants use nothing but this soapy clay and
their hands to cleanse their subjects with,
aud they rub and knead and punch until
it seems they would reduce the flesh to
pulp, all the while leaving this lather to
accumulate until the bather looks like
snow ball. Another kind of soap is
used for the hair, and another again for
the face, but the lather is always left to
gather thick, as the worker rubs and
tolls, the perspiration rolling in streams
down her own glistening body.
A little silver basin stands at hand and
after the ladies have soaked in soap long
enough they take quite hot water, en-
tirely too hot for anybody but Turkish
woman who is used to it, and pour it
gently over them, not dashing the water,
but softly emptying it, SO that it soon
washes off the lather, leaving the flesh
rosy and fresh. This pouring of water
is continued sometimes half an hour and
the rubbing, rolling and kneading of the
body, after which the lady is at liberty
to plunge into the basin, if she wishes,
among the other laughing and frolicking
women, black and white mingling indis-
criminately.
Words cannot depict the utter aban-
donment to fun and sport that takes pos
session of these women, and children,
too, for after girl is nine years old she
is admitted to women's society unrcstrain-
edly. The young girls are all plumpcr
than our young girls, and they have in
the main fine figures Their skin is very
white and pure, in spite of their un-
wholesome diet and indolent habits.