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
Where warm-springs are found, they are immediately diverted into
reservoirs, and edifices erected over them. Those of Kaplizza, near
Brusa, already mentioned, are perhaps the finest in the world. In the
centre saloon, under a noble dome, supported by marble pillars, is a
basin of fifteen yards in circumference, also of polished marble, and
five feet deep, filled with hot and limpid water. At its source, whence
it first issues into day, it is at a boiling heat, and blisters the
finger that incautiously feels it. In the baths, however, the heat is
reduced to a tolerable temperature−-in summer to 102°, and in winter to
90°. The process of bathing, substituting water for steam, is the same
as that described. The salutary effects of it are highly extolled, and
perhaps with reason−-opening the pores, and emulging, as the hakims
say, the perspiratory glands; but strangers who first submit to the
rude and suffocating process, complain that it is as debilitating
as it is painful, under the coarse and awkward manipulation of such
an operator; and to natives who constantly use it, it is one of the
enervating causes which is justly supposed to exhaust the strength and
prostrate the energies of a modern Turk.
The mysteries of a female bath, it is not permitted to see, no more
than those of Eleusis: all that could be known, Lady Mary Wortley
Montague has told a century ago. Their bath is the great coffee-house,
where they assemble, and enjoy a freedom they can nowhere else indulge.
If a stranger enter this sacred place by mistake, even his mistake
is punished with death. Not long since a Frank stumbled into one,
supposing it to be for his own sex; he was instantly seized, and
dragged before the cadi. On his way, some friendly passenger suggested
to him to feign madness, as his only chance of escape: he took the
hint, and did so with such success, that the cadi, instead of ordering
him to execution, dismissed him with that tenderness and respect the
Turks show to the foolish or insane, whom they fancy to be chosen
vessels inspired by Allah with a better gift than reason. Another
Frank, presuming on the impunity thus acquired, entered a female bath
by design. He was seized; but not counterfeiting insanity with such
success, he was suspected−-and disappearing soon after, was supposed to
have been strangled.
[Illustration: T. Allom. P. Lightfoot.
THE AURUT BAZAAR, OR SLAVE MARKET.]
The Aurut Bazaar, or Female Slave Market, stands in the quarter of the
city near the burnt column. It consists of a quadrangular edifice,
including a square area of about two hundred feet, surrounded with
apartments. In the front are platforms raised four or five feet from
the ground, and ascended by steps, forming a kind of colonnade, and
in the rear are latticed windows. In the one, blacks and slaves of
an inferior kind are kept and disposed of; in the other, those of a
choicer quality, who are guarded with a more jealous vigilance, and
secluded from the public eye.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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