-five to thirty miles an hour, and keep up
that rate for five or six hours at a stretch. But the Ana generally, on
reaching middle age, are not fond of rapid movements requiring violent
exercise. Perhaps for this reason, as they hold a doctrine which our
own physicians will doubtless approve--viz., that regular transpiration
through the pores of the skin is essential to health, they habitually
use the sweating-baths to which we give the name Turkish or Roman,
succeeded by douches of perfumed waters. They have great faith in the
salubrious virtue of certain perfumes.

It is their custom also, at stated but rare periods, perhaps four times
a-year when in health, to use a bath charged with vril.*

* I once tried the effect of the vril bath. It was very similar in its
invigorating powers to that of the baths at Gastein, the virtues
of which are ascribed by many physicians to electricity; but though
similar, the effect of the vril bath was more lasting.

They consider that this fluid, sparingly used, is a great sustainer of
life; but used in excess, when in the normal state of health, rather
tends to reaction and exhausted vitality. For nearly all their diseases,
however, they resort to it as the chief assistant to nature in throwing
off their complaint.

In their own way they are the most luxurious of people, but all their
luxuries are innocent. They may be said to dwell in an atmosphere of
music and fragrance. Every room has its mechanical contrivances for
melodious sounds, usually tuned down to soft-murmured notes, which seem
like sweet whispers from invisible spirits. They are too accustomed to
these gentle sounds to find them a hindrance to conversation, nor, when
alone, to reflection. But they have a notion that to breathe an air
filled with continuous melody and perfume has necessarily an effect
at once soothing and elevating upon the formation of character and the
habits of thought. Though so temperate, and with total abstinence from
other animal food than milk, and from all intoxicating drinks, they are
delicate and dainty to an extreme in food and beverage; and in all their
sports even the old exhibit a childlike gaiety. Happiness is the end at
which they aim, not as the excitement of a moment, but as the prevailing
condition of the entire existence; and regard for the happiness of each
other is evinced by the exquisite amenity of their manners.

Their conformation of skull has marked differences from that of a