istinguished from the men by the manner of dressing the
hair. Each wore a loose woolen gown. Each had a little table floating
before him or her, which he or she pushed about at pleasure. One wore
a hideous mask; another kept diving in the opaque pool and coming up to
blow, like the hippopotamus in the Zoological Gardens; some were taking
a lunch from their tables, others playing chess; some sitting on the
benches round the edges, with only heads out of water, as doleful as
owls, while others roamed about, engaged in the game of spattering with
their comrades, and sang and shouted at the top of their voices. The
people in this bath were said to be second class; but they looked as
well and behaved better than those of the first class, whom we saw in
the establishment at our hotel afterward.

It may be a valuable scientific fact, that the water in these vats, in
which people of all sexes, all diseases, and all nations spend so many
hours of the twenty-four, is changed once a day. The temperature at
which the bath is given is ninety-eight. The water is let in at night,
and allowed to cool. At five in the morning, the bathers enter it, and
remain until ten o'clock,--five hours, having breakfast served to them
on the floating tables, "as they sail, as they sail." They then have a
respite till two, and go in till five. Eight hours in hot water! Nothing
can be more disgusting than the sight of these baths. Gustave Dore
must have learned here how to make those ghostly pictures of the
lost floating about in the Stygian pools, in his illustrations of the
Inferno; and the rocks and cavernous precipices may have enabled him
to complete the picture. On what principle cures are effected in these
filthy vats, I could not learn. I have a theory, that, where so many
diseases meet and mingle in one swashing fluid, they neutralize each
other. It may be that the action is that happily explained by one of
the Hibernian bathmen in an American water-cure establishment. "You see,
sir," said he, "that the shock of the water unites with the electricity
of the system, and explodes the disease." I should think that the shock
to one's feeling of decency and cleanliness, at these baths, would
explode any disease in Europe. But, whatever the result may be, I am not
sorry to see so many French and Italians soak themselves once a year.

Out of the bath these people seem to enjoy life. There is a long
promenade, shaded and picturesque, which they take at