Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. IIEvliya Çelebi
History
Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. II
Evliya Çelebi
Caucasus, South -- Description and travel; Istanbul (Turkey) -- Description and travel; Turkey -- History
It is a small building, the spring is very hot and sulphurous; it
is principally used as a remedy for itch and scab, and the waiters
(Dellák) know how to treat people so affected. Those who can bear to
be rubbed by them in the private cabinets for half an hour, will see
within twenty-four hours a miraculous alteration; the skin peels off
in black scales, and the body appears white as silver. In short, the
suburb of old Kaplíjeh, where the above springs exist, consists of
three hundred houses with gardens and hot springs, some for men, some
for women, some for children, and some for old men. The inhabitants of
Brússa, who are acquainted with their qualities, come here to stay a
fortnight with their relations, and use the baths.
_Description of New Kaplíjeh._
It stands near the town on a rocky place, and all the buildings are
covered with lead, like those of old Kaplíjeh. It was formerly a small
building, but Sultán Súleimán having been cured of the gout here,
he ordered his Vezír, Sárí Rostem Páshá, to build a large bath. The
travellers of Múltán, Balkh and Bokhara, say, that they have no where
seen a bath so magnificent as this. Its dressing-room is a vast place
covered with cupolas, capable of holding a thousand men; on its walls
is written in Ta’lík letters, a Turkish verse, saying;
“In life on your apparel lay no stress
As every body must his body here undress.”
In the centre of this dressing-room is a basin, and in the middle of
the basin a fountain. There are more than a hundred inspectors walking
round in high pattens, besides clean waiters (Dellák). The interior
basin (the bath itself) has a cupola which some say is one hundred
cubits high, it is covered with lead, and pierced with six hundred
glass windows; the basin is like a sea into which you descend by six
marble steps; at its four corners are figures of lions and dragons,
which spout the water from their mouths. In the cooling place (Súklik)
is a fountain (jet d’eau) which reaches to the top of the house. On
the side of the basin are eight large vaults, underneath each of them
is a bathing trough of stone, where those who perform their ablutions
can see those who swim in the basin. The floor of the whole bath is
paved with variegated marble, as though enamelled by goldsmiths. It
has two private cabinets (Khalvetí), in that on the right is a small
basin, the water of which is extremely warm, but when mixed with that
of a cold spring which is adjacent, a proper temperature is obtained.
Though this hotbath is not in such good repute as the former, yet it is
a pleasant place, where lovers delight with their beloved, especially
in the long winter nights; when these baths are lighted with candles, a
thousand tricks are played by the bathers, some diving, some swimming,
some wrestling in the water, some swelling their aprons into sails,
others spouting water from their mouths, some lying dead flat on the
water, others joining hands and imitating the cries of boatmen, “Tírá
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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