Entering the hummaum, I found myself suddenly in an apartment resembling a vaulted cellar, dimly lighted by small apertures, and glazed sky-lights in the dome. Stone and brick benches, covered with cloths and coarse carpets, were ranged along the walls, and there was a fireplace where coffee and chibouks were prepared, and cloths dried. Having been required to strip, and a cloth tied round my waist, I was led into a second apartment filled with steam, and of so high a temperature, that in one instant I lost my breath, and in the next was streaming from every pore. I anticipated a speedy dissolution of my "solid flesh;" but on reaching a third apartment, (all vaulted and lighted, or rather darkened alike,) I had become somewhat relieved. In this apartment were four cisterns nearly level with the floor, into which the hot water was drawn by cocks placed in the wall above. As soon as I had decided that the water was hot enough, I was placed by the side of one of the cisterns, and then the operation commenced. _Act_ 1.--Deluged with hot water from the hands of a stout Persian. _Act_ 2.--Conducted by said Persian to a stone ottoman in the centre of the room, and caused to sit down. _Act_ 3.--My whole body kneaded by the fists of the aforesaid; joints cracked, ears pulled, mustachoes dyed, limbs rubbed with a hair-cloth glove. _Act_ 4.--Enveloped in warm towels, and served with a pipe. _Act_ 5.--Wiped dry; led into the outer apartment dressed and--_Exit_. (Starting from Bussorah, the author is towed up the Euphrates as follows.) As soon as we had got out of the creek, we found both wind and tide had set against us. The _mallahs_, or trackers, immediately stripped, placing their clothes on their heads, and sprang on shore. A rope was passed from the mast-head to a girdle round their respective bodies, and off they set along the banks; sometimes, on reaching creeks, irrigating channels, or unequal projections, plunging up to their necks, and wading or swimming with their burthen, as the depth or shallowness of the water required. In this way all the communication up the Tigris and Euphrates is carried on when the wind blows down those rivers. The business of tracking as may be conceived, is extremely fatiguing and dangerous: in fact, so excellent a test does it furnish of the muscular powers and courage of man, that the heads of the Mallah tribes require that each Mallah should make three trips to Bagdad, as a tracker, before he can be qualified for the married state and the care of a family. (The plague rages at Bagdad, and he returns to Bussorah. On his way he escapes a storm on the Euphrates.)