Whilst I was thus philosophizing, like Diogenes in my tub, the thought came across my mind that I would have a dive in the sable mixture. I knew that the sun and winds had so tanned my complexion, that IT would not suffer by immersion; and if my hair should get dyed black, the change would certainly be for the better. I therefore disappeared like an eel in the mud; but, on emerging from the bog, I thought I should have been suffocated before I cleared my face from the tenacious cataplasm. I had now been nearly half an hour in the Schlammbad, and prepared to quit, as the mixture was fast cooling down, and the heat could not be kept up, as in the water-bath. On raising myself slowly and perpendicularly, with at least twenty pounds of mud on my surface, I caught a full length portrait of myself in the glass, and I think the view would have sickened Narcissus of self-contemplation for ever!! I was really shocked at my sudden metamorphosis into the Œthiopian, and began to doubt whether I should ever “change my hue” again. The warm water-bath was close at hand, but I had the presence of mind not to jump into it at once, as I should, in that case, render it a black wash-tub; but by clearing away with both hands, some sixteen or eighteen pounds of peat varnish from my body, I rolled into the clear fluid, where it required half an hour’s rubbing and scrubbing to purify myself from the “Bain de Boue.” Both on this, and on subsequent occasions, at Marienbad, Carlsbad, and Teplitz, I experienced a degree of exhilaration, strength, and elasticity from the mud-bath, which I had never done from any other. The iron in these baths, instead of corrugating the skin, as I expected, imparts to it a glossy or sattiny feel and softness quite peculiar—and much more in degree than the waters of Schlangenbad. The bog-earth is well picked, and in some places sifted, so as to remove all the fibrous and woody parts, leaving the fat unctuous substance to be mixed with the mineral water of the place. In general these baths produce a pricking sensation, and sometimes an eruption on the skin, an effect which I did not experience.[62] They are therefore much used in old and obstinate cutaneous complaints, as well as in glandular swellings, sequences of gout, rheumatism, &c. They are very exciting to the nervous system, and should not be used where there are any local inflammations, or much general excitability of the constitution. They do not lose their heat so rapidly as the water-baths, and consequently they maintain the volatile and penetrating principles longer than the latter. They are much employed in paralysis, chronic ulcers, and cutaneous affections.