indecorum. The baths belonging to the private houses are very neat. They too are common to males and females, who are separated by a partition. In this partition, however, there are low windows, through which they can see and converse with, and touch each other, and also drink together; all which circumstances are matters of common occurrence. Above the baths are a kind of galleries, on which the people stand who wish to see and converse with the bathers; for every one has free access to all the baths, to see the company, to talk and joke with them. As the ladies go in and out of the water, they expose to view a considerable portion of their persons; yet there are no door-keepers, or even doors, nor do they entertain the least idea of any thing approaching to indelicacy. Many of the baths have a common passage for the two sexes, which circumstance very frequently occasions very curious rencounters. The men wear only a pair of drawers. The women are clad in linen vests, which are however slashed in the sides, so that they neither cover the neck, the breast, nor the arms of the wearer. The ladies frequently give public dinners in the baths, on a table which floats on the water; and the men often partake of these entertainments. Our party received several invitations. I paid my share of the reckoning; but though I was frequently requested to favour them with my company, I never accepted the summons; not through modesty—which would, on these occasions, be mistaken for rudeness, and want of good breeding, but on account of my ignorance of the language. For it seemed to me an act of folly in an Italian, who could not take any part in conversation, to spend all the day in the water, employed in nothing but eating and drinking. But two of my companions were not so scrupulous. They visited the ladies in the baths, and assisted at their entertainments. They conversed with them, by the medium of an interpreter; and when their fair hostesses were incommoded by the heat, they had the honour of fanning them. On their return they spoke with great pleasure of the kind reception which they had experienced. When they thus visited the ladies, they were clothed in linen gowns. From the gallery which I have mentioned above, I was a witness of this scene; and I was astonished to behold, with what unsuspecting simplicity they conducted themselves, and with what full confidence the husbands suffered their wives to be handed about in their dishabille by strangers. They were not uneasy; they did not even attend to the circumstance, but saw every transaction in the most favourable light. They are well prepared to embrace the doctrine of Plato, who would have all things in common; for without instruction, they are already in a great measure converts to his principles. In some of the private baths, the men mix promiscuously with their female relatives and friends. They go into the water three or four times in a day; and they spend the greater part of their time in the