revenge; practical jokes, unexpected encounters, and scrapes which give rise to any amount of gossip and idle talk. The place to hear all these things is the bath-house: here every rumor and fresh bit of scandal is discussed and commented upon and remodelled ready to be served up afresh. The bath is, in fact, the great rendezvous of the Turkish women, taking, to some extent, the place of the theatre in their lives: they go there in couples or parties, accompanied by their slaves carrying rugs and cushions, toilet articles, sweetmeats, and sometimes even their luncheon when they propose remaining the entire day. As many as two hundred women are sometimes assembled in those dimly-lighted rooms lined with marbles and musical with running fountains. The picture made by these nymph-like forms flitting about in the airiest of costumes is, according to those European ladies who have seen it, enough to paralyze the fingers of an artist. There are _hanums_ whose dazzling skin contrasts strikingly with that of their ebony-colored slaves; handsome matronly figures, which fulfil an old-fashioned Turk’s ideal of feminine loveliness; slim young wives with their short hair turned up, looking like little girls; Circassians whose tresses fall like a golden shower below their knees; Turkish women with jet-black hair divided into a hundred or more locks hanging over the breast and shoulders, while others have theirs arranged in any quantity of wavy little tufts, like an enormous wig. One wears an amulet around her neck, another a bit of garlic bound to her head to avert the evil eye; there are savages with tattooed arms, and little ladies of fashion whose tender skin betrays the stays and shoes of modern civilization; while the shoulders of more than one poor slave bear witness to the existence of a eunuch’s whip. Everywhere groups are to be seen in an endless variety of graceful abandonment. Some lie stretched out full length upon rugs smoking, others are having their hair combed out by slaves; some are embroidering, some singing, laughing, chasing one another and throwing water about like children; shrill screams come from the shower-baths; here a party of friends are seated in a circle having a little feast together; towels fly through the air, pitched from one group to another. The less covering they have on their bodies, the more they seem to reveal the childishness of their natures. They are very fond of comparing their good points, measuring their feet, weighing their comparative attractions. One observes, candidly, “I am beautiful;” another, “I am passable.” A third wishes she had not such and such a defect, while a fourth says to her friend, “Why, do you know, you are prettier than I?” or one is heard saying to another reproachfully, “Just see how terribly fat Madame Ferideh has gotten; and you telling her to eat rice-balls, when you know she ought to live on dried crabs!” When an amiable _cocona_ is present they all