tax from hands which could no longer pay it.
I will not speak of the awful amount of
misery I had witnessed but yesterday in the
Greek Islands. It is I know a fashionable
philosophy to say that public works is one of
the best remedies for all this, and that the
profusion of the wealthy is the hope of the
poor. I do not care to discuss the point;
but I think that even for the poor, money
may be spent much more wisely than in
unproductive splendour, and on the useless and
tasteless trappings of royalty.

A TURKISH BATH.

PASSING through a pleasant paved court
ornamented with flowers enough, and with a
merry little talkative fountain in the centre,
I was soon inducted into the bath toilet,
which consisted merely of a particoloured
garment, rather rough, bound round my
loins, and a towel tied turban-form about my
head. Thus equipped, I was mounted upon
a most rickety pair of wooden clogs, and
led gingerly into the first or outward
chamber of the bath. It had once been a
noble apartment, with a lofty roof and
fretted marble walls and cornices. It now
shared the fate of all tilings Turkish, and
had tumbled into a dreary state of ruin and
decay. A large fat, black rat dashed
gamesomely by us as the door opened, and he
sprinkled some water over my leg with his
frolicsome tail. I had not thought a rat
was such a playful thing.

A strong smell of boiled Turk now made
itself so outrageously demonstrative that a
pipe became a necessity; and while
engaged in its discussion, I found myself
introduced into a Mohammedan company
rather more numerous than I had anticipated,
or, indeed, than appeared convenient
for the purposes of ablution. I soon
perceived that the bath is a regular house of
call for scandal and gossiping; and I
witnessed the pulling to pieces of many persons
in authority, an operation which I am
bound to say was performed with the same
liveliness and spirit, the same racy appetite
for forbidden things which I have so
often observed amongst the western nation of
which I am a native.

Turks of various shapes and sizes, and in
divers stages of their interminable washing,
stalked from chamber to chamber, or stood
together conversing in groups while the bathmen
shaved the hair from their armpits. But
persons of overwhelming dignity shut
themselves and their pipes up in little private
dens, and kept the vulgar off by means of
towels spread carefully over the doorways.
The bathmen I noticed seemed to be all
characters—licensed jesters, like the one-eyed
boots of sporting inns. They seemed to
know everybody's seerets and sly places: it
was refreshing to observe the use they made
of these acquisitions. It is my belief that
many a lordly old Effendi went to that bath
to obtain treasonable matter for the ensuing
week's coffee-house conversation. For the
rest, the general and distinctive character of
the Turks was here completely lost, as far as
their appearance goes to outward eyes. Many
a man who half an hour before seemed to be
possessed of muscular power enough to rouse
the envy of a British Grenadier, peeled but
poorly. I do not ever remember seeing such
a remarkable collection of arms and legs.
A straggling assemblage of very gnarled
and knotty broomsticks will by no means
convey to the mind's eye an adequate idea
of their very singular leanness and crookedness.

From what may be called the talk and
perspiration-room, I was now led hobbling
into another, much hotter. It had a dome-like
roof, with little round windows to let in
the light. They would have looked like
holes, but for the dense steam which collected
on them. I remember that a condensed
drop fell upon my nose. I did not like it. I
could not divest my imagination of an idea
that there was a greasiness about the water.
In fact, an impression began to make itself
generally felt about me that one would want
rather more good wholesome washing after
a Turkish bath than before it.

I smiled feebly as my attendant led
me, skating awkwardly, over the marble
floor till we came to a little brass tap
and a marble basin. Here he bade me
sit down; and I did so. I was unwilling
to hurt his feelings by expressing my
opinion that the whole affair, as far as
cleanliness might be concerned, was a
delusion and a snare; beside, resistance was
impossible. I closed my eyes, therefore, upon
the filthy puddles round about, and meekly
resigned myself to my fate, whatever it
might be.

Now, if anybody was to interrupt an
English and, still more, an Irish gentleman
taking a bath, according to the custom of his
country, the bather might, could, should, or
would, in all probability, knock the intruder
down; but, in the East, such an achievement
would be fairly impossible. I began, therefore,
for the first time, to understand how
attacking a tyrant in his bath has always
been such a very favourite and convenient
way of getting rid of him. An eastern bather,
six feet by four, is as helpless as a child. He
hobbles or skates, as the case may be, in
wooden clogs, three inches high, attached to
the instep by a single narrow strap. He is
laid down on a block which looks like a
sarcophagus turned topsyturvy. He is
swathed up like a mummy, and, a pipe being
put into his lips, he is left till he feels
drowsy. Then there looms through the mist,
gigantic, a man with a wonderfully serious
face, who affords himself a very curious
entertainment at the expense of his prostrate victim.
His open hands press, and punch, and poke
the bather in all possible and impossible