The following description of a public bath will convey a sufficient notion of those in private houses, which are on a smaller scale, and generally consist of only two or three chambers. The public bath comprises several apartments, with mosaic or tesselated pavements, composed of white and black marble, and pieces of fine red tile, and sometimes other materials. The inner apartments are covered with domes, having a number of small, round, glazed apertures, for the admission of light. The first apartment is the meslakh, or disrobing room, which has, in the centre, a fountain of cold water, and, next the walls, wide benches or platforms, encased with marble. These are furnished with mattresses and cushions for the higher and middle classes, and with mats for the poorer sort. The inner division of the building, in the more regularly planned baths, occupies nearly a square: the central and chief portion of it is the principal apartment, or ḥarárah, which generally has the form of a cross. In its centre is a fountain of hot water, rising from a base encased with marble, which serves as a seat. One of the angles of the square is occupied by the beyt-owwal, or antechamber of the ḥarárah: in another, is the fire over which is the boiler; and each of the other two angles is generally occupied by two small chambers: in one of these is a tank filled with warm water, which pours down from a spout in the dome: in the other are two taps, side by side; one of hot, and the other of cold water, with a small trough beneath, before which is a seat. The inner apartments are heated by the steam which rises from the fountain and tanks, and by the contiguity of the fire; but the beyt-owwal is not so hot as the ḥarárah, being separated from it by a door. In cold weather, the bather undresses in the former, which has two or three raised seats, like those of the meslakh.