It required a little effort of courage, when fully arrayed in the long white bathing-gown and mounted on the tall pattens, to issue forth from our recess; but we pushed aside the curtains and appeared, feeling very much, as we essayed to walk on the slippery marble floor, as an unhappy cat must do who, with walnut shells on her feet, is forced to perform a promenade on the ice. Two ancient bath-women speedily came to our assistance. They had been slowly boiling so many years that they were shrivelled and parched out of the semblance even of "wo-manity," if such a word may be permitted. Strange to say they had but few wrinkles, but their skin seemed tightly drawn over their faces, as over the bones of a skull, and hung loosely in great folds under their chins and around their throats. They told us afterwards that they had been attendants to the bath for upwards of thirty years, and had grown so much accustomed to the heated and sulphureous atmosphere in which they pass the greater portion of their days, that a purer and fresher air is quite painful to them. By their aid, with much trepidation, we stumbled across the hall, and in a few seconds found ourselves in a sort of pandemonium next door. In an instant I felt as a shrimp, if he feels at all, must feel in hot water--I was boiled. I looked at my companion; her face was a gorgeous scarlet. In our best Turkish, and with faint and imploring accents, we gasped out, "Take us away!" All in vain. For those who enter here there is no retreat-- "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate." We had come to be boiled and rubbed, and boiled and rubbed we must be. We speedily found ourselves seated close to a small stream of what, at first, seemed like boiling water, of which large bowlfuls were rapidly thrown over us. When we had a little recovered from this shock, and our eyes became more accustomed to the clouds of sulphureous vapours that were rolling around, we began to look with interest on the singular scene in which we found ourselves. There were upwards of a hundred women in the bath, the bathers seated in groups of two or three by each little stream of hot water. Each woman was attended by one or two slaves, who were assiduously rubbing their mistress with perfumed soap, or pouring the steaming bowls of boiling water over her.