Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor: Series One and Series Two in one VolumeWalsh, R. (Robert)
History
Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor: Series One and Series Two in one Volume
Walsh, R. (Robert)
Istanbul (Turkey) -- History; Istanbul (Turkey) -- Pictorial works
The marble flooring is so hot, that he is now obliged to mount on
wooden pattens, as his bare feet could not endure to come in contact
with it. A dense vapour sometimes so fills this saloon, that he sees
nothing distinctly, but figures flit before him, like visions in a
mist. At the sides are ornamented fountains, whence issue pipes of hot
and cold water, which he mixes to his fancy, and bedews his person with
it from a large copper or iron spoon provided for the purpose. Having
walked or sat in this heated mist till a profuse perspiration bursts
out, the _tellah_ again approaches, and commences his operations. He
lays the bather on his back or face, and pins him to the ground by
kneeling heavily on him; and having thus secured him, he handles him
in the rudest and most painful manner: he twists and turns the limbs,
so as to seem to dislocate every joint. The sufferer feels as if the
very spine was separated, and the vertebræ of the back torn asunder.
It is in vain he complains of this treatment, screams out in anguish
and apprehension, and struggles to extricate himself. The incubus sits
grinning upon him, and torturing him till he becomes passive from very
exhaustion. When this horrid operation is over, the tormentor offers
to shave him; and if he make no resistance, he leaves but one small
lock of hair on the crown, by which the angel of death is to draw
him from his winding-sheet. It is remarkable, that while the bather
is burning with heat, the flesh of this fiend, though exposed to the
same temperature, is as cold and chilling as monumental marble. A
second tellah now attends, and uses him more gently than the first:
he envelopes his hands in gloves, or little bags of camlet, and, by a
gentle and dexterous pressure of the surface, he expresses, as it were,
all the deposit of insensible perspiration: it is surprising what a
quantity he peels from the surface of the skin, of this inspissated
fluid, resembling in colour and consistence rolls or flakes of dough.
When this substance ceases to exude, the operator rubs him with scented
soap, and drenches him almost to suffocation with deluges of hot
water. After this thorough ablution, he wipes him perfectly dry with
soft, warm, perfumed towels, and leads him to a divan, on which he
reposes some time,--still in a state of nudity, with the exception of a
shawl thrown over him. Here refreshments are brought, and partaken of
with an extraordinary increase of appetite; after which he rises and
dresses, perfectly refreshed. Before he goes forth, a looking-glass
set in mother-of-pearl is brought, to adjust his cravat, on the glass
of which he deposits the price of his bath. It was originally settled
at four aspers, which according to the present currency would be about
one-third of a farthing, and it still continues nearly the same in the
small towns and villages. In the capital, however, it is increased, in
the more sumptuous baths, to fifty paras, or four pence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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