"Being well washed and purified, the bather is wrapped up in hot linen. Being come to the alcove, a bed is ready prepared, on which the person no sooner lies down, than a boy comes, and begins to press with his delicate hands all parts of the body, in order to dry them perfectly; the linen is once more changed, and the boy gently rubs the callous skin of the feet with pumice stone, then brings a pipe and Mocha coffee." M. Savary then draws the following picture of the sensations of the bath:--"Coming from a bath filled with hot vapour, in which excessive perspiration bedewed every limb, into a spacious apartment and the open air, the lungs expand and respire at pleasure: well kneaded, and, as it were, regenerated, the blood circulates freely, the body feels a voluptuous ease, a flexibility till then unknown, a lightness as if relieved from some enormous weight, and the man almost fancies himself newly-born and beginning first to live. A glowing consciousness of existence diffuses itself to the very extremities; and, while thus yielding to the most delightful sensations, ideas of the most pleasing kind pervade and fill the soul; the imagination wanders through worlds which itself embellishes, everywhere drawing pictures of happiness and delight. If life be only a succession of ideas, the vigour, the rapidity with which the memory then retraces all the knowledge of the man would lead us to believe that the two hours of delicious calm which succeed bathing are an age. "Such, sir, are these baths, the use of which was so strongly recommended by the ancients, and the pleasures of which the Egyptians still enjoy. Here they prevent or exterminate rheumatisms, catarrhs, and those diseases of the skin which the want of perspiration occasions. Here they rid themselves of those uncomfortable sensations so common among other nations, who have not the same regard to cleanliness."[13] [13] "Tournefort, who had taken the vapour baths at Constantinople, where they are much less careful than at Grand Cairo, thinks they injure the lungs; but longer experience would have convinced him of his error. There are no people who practise this bathing more than the Egyptians, nor any to whom such diseases are less known. They are almost wholly unacquainted with pulmonic complaints."