| Transcript |
WITH, THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR. 35
THE BATH.
It has been truly said of the Turks, that " they hold impurity of the body in greater
detestation than impurity of the mind." This feeling the precepts of the Koran have
caused or increased. They make frequent ablution so essential, that " without it prayer
will be of no value in the eyes of God." There is no point, therefore, of religious
discipline, for which the directions are so minute, or so often repeated. Two modes are
prescribed. The goul, which requires the ablution of the whole body, and the hodii,
which confines it to the head and arms as high as the elbow; and where water cannot
be procured in the desert, the ceremony must be performed by sand or dust, as its
symbol. These ablutions are enjoined to all at stated times, but besides there are
occasional circumstances which render them essential. The law enumerates eleven
occurrences after which the person must wash, some of which are exceedingly curious,
but not fit for the public eye. So important is this practice deemed, that it forms an
item in every marriage-contract The husband engages to allow his wife bath-money,
as we do pin-money; and if it be withheld, she has only to go before the cadi, and turn
her slipper upside down. If the complaint be not then redressed, it is a ground of
divorce.
The first objects which strike a stranger on entering a Turkish city are the mosques,
and the next certain edifices, roofed like them with domes, contiguous to each other.
These domes are perforated by a number of apertures, which are closed by hemispheres
of glass, resembling the globes by which our streets were lighted, inverted on the roof.
These edifices are the public hammams,* or baths, and the globes the means by which
the light is admitted. There is no town in the Turkish empire so obscure, or so destitute
of other comforts, that is not provided with a public bath, which is open from four o'clock
in the morning until eight in the evening. The bather enters a saloon, in the midst of
which is a fountain, where the linen of the establishment is usually washed; round this
is a divan, covered with mats or cushions, on which he sits smoking till the hammam-gee,
or master of the bath, directs him to undress. His clothes are carefully deposited in a
shawl tied up in the corners, and remain on his seat till his return. The tellah, or
bathing attendant, now approaches, with two aprons and a napkin: the first he ties
round his waist, and the latter round his head. He is then led into another saloon, more
heated than the first; but the heat is so regulated that he feels no difference, though
divested of his clothes; and when the body is thus prepared by this gradual increase of
temperature, he is led into a third, when the business of the bath commences. This, in
some baths, is very fine, supported on columns, and lined with marble.
* It is supposed the Hummums in Covent Garden, whose etymology has puzzled so many, were
so called from the warm-baths they contain, first introduced from Turkey. |
