The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments
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The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
With a pair of wooden clogs to his feet, and having a large napkin round
his loins, and generally a second wound round his head like a turban, a
third over his chest, and a fourth covering his back, he enters the
ḥarárah, the heat of which causes him immediately to perspire profusely.
An attendant of the bath removes from him all the napkins excepting the
first; and proceeds to crack the joints of his fingers and toes, &c.,
and several of the vertebræ of the back and neck; kneads his flesh; and
rubs the soles of his feet with a coarse earthen rasp, and his limbs and
body with a woollen bag which covers his hand as a glove; after which,
the bather, if he please, plunges into one of the tanks. He is then
thoroughly washed with soap and water, and fibres of the palm-tree, and
shaved, if he wish it, in one of the small chambers which contain the
taps of hot and cold water; and returns to the beyt-owwal. Here he
generally reclines upon a mattress, and takes some light refreshment,
while one of the attendants rubs the soles of his feet, and kneads the
flesh of his body and limbs, previously to his resuming his dress. It is
a common custom, now, to take a pipe and a cup of coffee during this
period of rest.
The women are especially fond of the bath, and often have entertainments
there; taking with them fruits, sweetmeats, &c., and sometimes hiring
female singers to accompany them. An hour or more is occupied by the
process of plaiting the hair, and applying the depilatory, &c.; and,
generally, an equal time is passed in the enjoyment of rest, or
recreation, or refreshment. All necessary decorum is observed on these
occasions by most females; but women of the lower orders are often seen
in the bath without any covering. Some baths are appropriated solely to
men; others, only to women; and others, again, to men during the
forenoon, and in the afternoon to women. When the bath is appropriated
to women, a napkin, or some other piece of drapery, is suspended over
the door, to warn men from entering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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