Year: 1874

vaultel 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 yapory, and the va
por was more strongly perfumed
with sandal,wood. After lying q
few moments, the marble grows
soft. and s. 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 a smile of exquisite laziness on
your lips, and imagination 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
paradise. You are led, still without
other covering than nature gives
You. into large circular room. with
marble pillar, supporting the blue
dome that is spangled with stars
All around the room are marble
divans, and in the centre is an i'm
mcnse fountain, IN the basin of
which are sixty OF seventy girls and
women playing in the warm, per
fumed water, or lying in all atti-
tudcs on the marble edges of the
basin. The water rises in one grand
column fifty feet, and falls back in
to an upper basin, while the lower
one is undisturbed except by the
beautiful white forms that it most
delights to receive.


On all 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 lovelier than ev-
Ell. Smaller fountains were 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 embroidered bath,
ing apparatus, one lathered me with
perfumed soap till I began to ina
gine myself gigantic rose, and all
these beautiful beings laughing and
singing and gliding around me but
other specimens of flowers.


Another attendant rubbed me with
gloves made of sponge, and another
poured warm water over me inces-
sanity, not dashed it, not let it
trickle, but just emptied, the beau
tifllly chased silver ever over me
with the gentlest of motions, till it
seemed like caress. Then soap
of bitter almonds was rubbed on
my face, and other of another kind
was rubbed in my hair, all done in
that careSsing way that made it a
positive ecstacy; then more perfumed
water till I felt drowning in a
sea Of all delightsrin which l could
distinguish perfumes, flowers, sweet
singing voices, and forms ofheaven-
ly 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 glorious white
Of the living statues. with the long
black hair, and the rich dark eyes
to see the soft, undulating motions
of them swimming in the warm,
delicious water; to look at the love
ly forms stretched at full length on
the divans and on the edges of the
fountain. and others laughing,
sporting, singing, mingling with
atfectionate glances, and wrestling
in the water, or on the marble floor,
dripping from every limb the per-
fumod water that glistened on their
bodies, and the trickling of the
fountain, and the rosy, subdued
light that stole in through the
jealously.guarded windows: were
enough to send one Of an imagina,
ton like mine off into the realms OF
fancy and make one believe it the
promised land, and cause the whole
soul to be satisfied with the picture,
which needed no imagination to
embellish.


Ny attendant reused me from
my dreams Of perfect peace by
pointing to the fountain and signi.
flying that | WAS also to get in. My
four friends then made their ap.
pearance with the servants and ou1
luncheon, and nobody can tell oi
the comical look Of us five sitting
round the basket eating, and with
out any clothes on. I have seer
many sights in my life, but we wo
men around those baskets, with
chicken legs in our hands anG
glasses Of wine, and other things
were too perfectly ludicrous for any
thing, and I laughed Ill I couldn't