Year: 1874

| AN AMERICAN WOMANS EXPERIENCE OR THE
| TURKISH BATH.


Olive Harper, writing from Constan-
tinople, thus lays bare the mysteries of
the bath in the for east:


have read, certainly not less than
fifty times elaborate description of gen.
uine turkish baths, by Bayard Taylor,
Ross Browne and others, and I have
always had my imaginations filed with
the combined ecstasies of being scrubbed
with hot water and perfulned soap and
iced sherbet, and I made up my mind
lot to leave Turkey without having that
delightful experience. You know that
belong to the softer sex, and that they
do not bathe promiscuously here as in
Badan, Long Branch and many other
fashionable places. This bath where I
went is for ladies alone, not even the
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. It is
an all days job, and the ladies all take
lunch with them.


On entering we were conducted to O
large room, where we must undress and
leave our things. think there were
nearly fifty women there in all stages
of undress, who all paused to regard us
with curiosity while we disrobed. Men
can pull off their most sacred garments,
toss them in heap, and run about as
if nothing were amiss, but somehow l
| al xpla ln l.
covery that she was little too thinly
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
hundred pair of eyes before we reached
the divan where l was laid, like de-
funct. The room was very warm and
grew warmer perceptibly though how,
1 don't know, until began to fell as if
l should suffocate, my heart beat pain
fully hard and grew very faint, when
one of the women gave me some lemon
ade, of which I drank two glasses.
Then all of sudden, 1 began to per-
spire, and looked like pumpkin that
had laid out all night in the dew. 1
felt as if was dissolving, and waited
patiently till the end should come, and
l should be but the transparent essence
OF what was once very substantial
body, but the time had not come. l
was SO sleepy that 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 lobster.


Then, we all being in the same state,
were led into another great vaulted
marble-foored room, where the divans
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
moments, the marble grows soft, and a
sense of most delicious repose comes
over you. You feel soft languor and
a dreamy content, and your eyes close
and you lay with smile of exquisite
laziness on your lips, and your imagina-
ton flies off in every possible direction,
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, without covering
other than nature gives you into large
circular room, with marble pillars, sup
porting the blue dome that is spangled
with stars. All round the room are
marble divans, and in the center is an
immense fountain, in the basin of
which are sixty or seventy girls and
women playing in the warm perfumed
water, or laying in all attitudes on the
edges of the marble basin, while the
lower one is undisturbed except by the
beautiful white forms that it most de-
lights to receive.


On all the divans lay woman of all
ages and compilations, even to some
negresses, who only served to make the
white bodies and polished limbs ap-
pear moro lovelier than ever. Small
fountains were placed at regular inter-
walls around the large room, and from
these attendants poured continuously
over the bodies of those who lay on the
divans, warm water which was carried
off by the pipes. Our attendants stood
at the head, holding my gold embroid-
cred bathing apparatus, and deluged
me with perfumed soap till I began to
imagine myself gigantic rose, and all
these beautiful beings laughing and
singing, and gliding around me with
specimens of other flowers.


Another attendant rubbed me with
gloves made of sponge. and another
poured water over me necessarily, not
dashed it, not let it trickle, but Just
emptied the beautifully chased silver
ever over me with the gentlest of mo-
tians, till it seemed like a caress.
Then soap of bitter almonds was
rubbed on my face, and another kind
was rubbed in my hair, all done in that
tender, caressing way that made it a
positive ecstacy; than more perfumed
water till I felt drowning in sea Of all
delights, in which could distinguish