d it about the waist, as soon as we
regain our primitive form. Another attendant throws a napkin over our
shoulders and wraps a third around our head, turban-wise. He then thrusts
a pair of wooden clogs upon our feet, and, taking us by the arm, steadies
our tottering and clattering steps, as we pass through a low door and a
warm ante-chamber into the first hall of the bath. The light, falling
dimly through a cluster of bull's-eyes in the domed ceiling, shows, first,
a silver thread of water, playing in a steamy atmosphere; next, some dark
motionless objects, stretched out on a low central platform of marble. The
attendant spreads a linen sheet in one of the vacant places, places a
pillow at one end, takes off our clogs, deposits us gently on our back,
and leaves us. The pavement is warm beneath us, and the first breath we
draw gives us a sense of suffocation. But a bit of burning aloe-wood has
just been carried through the hall, and the steam is permeated with
fragrance. The dark-eyed boy appears with a narghileh, which he places
beside us, offering the amber mouth-piece to our submissive lips. The
smoke we inhale has an odor of roses; and as the pipe bubbles with our
breathing, we feel that the dews of sweat gather heavily upon us. The
attendant now reappears, kneels beside us, and gently kneads us with
dexterous hands. Although no anatomist, he knows every muscle and sinew
whose suppleness gives ease to the body, and so moulds and manipulates
them that we lose the rigidity of our mechanism, and become plastic in his
hands. He turns us upon our face, repeats the same process upon the back,
and leaves us a little longer to lie there passively, glistening in our
own dew.

We are aroused from a reverie about nothing by a dark-brown shape, who
replaces the clogs, puts his arm around our waist and leads us into an
inner hall, with a steaming tank in the centre. Here he slips us off the
brink, and we collapse over head and ears in the fiery fluid.
Once--twice--we dip into the delicious heat, and then are led into a
marble alcove, and seated flat upon the floor. The attendant stands behind
us, and we now perceive that his hands are encased in dark hair-gloves. He
pounces upon an arm, which he rubs until, like a serpent, we slough the
worn-out skin, and resume our infantile smoothness and fairness. No man
can be called clean until he has bathed in the East. Let him walk directly
from his accustomed bath and self-friction with t