ttling, and which had charmed all — from our great statesman, our polished lawyer, our young Oxonian, who sighed over certain passages that he feared were wicked, down to the writer of this, who, after perusing it with delight, laid it down with wonder, exclaiming, “Aut Diabolus aut”— a book which has since (greatest miracle of all) excited a feeling of warmth Marcelo Brozovic Jersey and admiration in the bosom of the god-like, impartial, stony Athenaeum. Misseri, the faithful and chivalrous Tartar, is transformed into the most quiet and Roma Drakt Barn gentlemanlike of landlords, a great deal more gentlemanlike in manner and appearance than most of us who sat at his table, and smoked cool pipes on his house-top, as we looked over the hill and the Russian palace to the water, and the Seraglio gardens shining in Francois Moubandje Jersey the blue. We confronted Misseri, “Eothen” in hand, and found, on examining him, that it WAS “aut Diabolus aut amicus”— but the name is a secret; I will never breathe it, though I am dying to tell it.
The last good description of a Turkish bath, I think, was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s — which voluptuous picture must have been painted at least a hundred and thirty years ago; so that another sketch may be attempted by a humbler artist in a different manner. The Turkish bath is certainly a novel sensation to an Englishman, and may be set down as a most queer and surprising event of his life. I made the valet-de-place or dragoman (it is rather a fine thing to have a dragoman in one’s service) conduct me forthwith to the best appointed hummums in the neighbourhood; and we walked to a house at Tophana, Luciano Narsingh Jersey and into a spacious hall lighted from above, which is the cooling-room of the bath.
The spacious hall has a large fountain in the midst, a painted gallery running Alexandre Pato Jersey round it; Jesus Manuel Corona Jersey and many Claudio Bravo Jersey ropes stretched from one gallery to another, ornamented with profuse draperies of towels and blue cloths, for the use of the frequenters of the place. All round the room and the galleries were matted inclosures, fitted with numerous neat beds an |
