a
bucket, two or three basins, a bar of soap, a switch of birch boughs,
and a bunch of matting. If there are three apartments the second is
only an ante-room, not very warm and calculated to prepare you for the
last and hottest of all.

The chelavek begins by throwing a bucket of warm water over you. He
follows this with another, and then a third, fourth, and fifth, each a
little warmer than its predecessor. On one side of the room is a
series of benches like a terrace or flight of large steps. You are
placed horizontally on a bench, and with warm water, soap, and bunch
of matting the servant scrubs you from head to foot with a
manipulation more thorough than gentle. The temperature of the room is
usually about 110 deg. Fahrenheit, but it may be more or less. It induces
vigorous perspiration, and sets the blood glowing and tingling, but it
never melts the flesh nor breaks the smallest blood vessel. The
finishing touch is to ascend the platform near the ceiling and allow
the servant to throw water upon hot stones from the furnace. There is
always a cloud of steam filling the room and making objects
indistinct. You easily become accustomed to the ordinary heat, but
when water is dropped upon the stones there is a rush of blistering
steam. It catches you on the platform and you think how unfortunate is
a lobster when he goes to pot and exchanges his green for scarlet.

I declined this _coup de grace_ after a single experience. To my view
it is the objectionable feature of the Russian bath. I was always
content after that to retire before the last course, and only went
about half way up the terrace. The birchen switch is to whip the
patient during the washing process, but is not applied with unpleasant
force. To finish the bath you are drenched with several buckets of
water descending from hot to cold, but not, as some declare,
terminating with ice water. This little fiction is to amuse the
credulous, and would be 'important if true.' Men have sometimes rushed
from the bath into a snow bank, but the occurrence is unusual.
Sometimes the peasants leave the bath for a swim in the river, but
they only do so in mild weather. In all the cities there are public
bath rooms, where men are steamed, polished, and washed in large
numbers. In bathing the Russians are more gregarious than English or
Americans. A Russian would think no more of bathing with several
others than of dining at a hotel table. Nearly every private house has
i