every application. At last they got me on the
flat step at the very top, with my nose nearly
touching the roof. There I lay in a dense body
of hot vapour, hot enough to scald me had my
body not been previously tempered for it. I did
not know when it was all to end.

I had observed on my admission to this den
of steam, several instruments of torture, of
the use of which I had a vague presentiment.
There were bundles of birch twigs about half
or three-quarters of a yard long, the leaves
still remaining on one end, but bare where
they were tied together, and about two inches
in diameter. My tormentors armed
themselves with these weapons, and made an
onslaught in no tender manner upon my
defenceless body, flagellating me back, front, and
on both sides, turning me round and round, to
get at every corner. More steam was raised
during the process, until I felt as if I were in a
steam-boiler without a safety-valve, with a
pressure of a hundred pounds to the square inch,
and ready to be blown out through the roof at
any moment. Still every few minutes a pail of
cold water streamed hissing from my poor scalded
flesh. My man with the mighty arms was, I
understood, undergoing the same process in
another place. There was no help for me but
in myself. All my lost energies had returned in
fresh vigour; I felt ready to grapple with a bear,
and was by this time as elastic and buoyant as
I had before been nerveless. Watching an
opportunity, as one of my executioners was fetching
a fresh pail of cold water as a prelude to
another flagellation, I discharged my foot at his
stomach. He rolled down the steps, taking the
legs from the other, and they both lay sprawling
together on the floor. This was my time.
Rolling myself carefully but speedily down the
steps, I jumped to my feet, and rushed into the
middle room. The men followed me, laughing.

"Ah! Heaven be thanked. Your honour is
strong now."

"And clean," I said.

"Yes; clean as new milk."

At any rate, I was as red as a boiled lobster.
I felt capable of beginning my whole journey
over again. A short time spent in drying with
towels, cooling, and dressing, in the outer room,
completed the performance. It had lasted one
hour, and I left the bath strong, fresh, and
vigorous, with a delightfully happy and soothing
sensation creeping over me, as the blood danced
and coursed with a pleasurable swiftness through
my veins.

The Russian bath is a great fact. The whole
people, rich and poor, are continually undergoing
a process more or less similar to what 1
have described. The Russian people are said to
be dirty and filthy, yet the bath is religiously
attended to. This is one of the great Russian
questions: How can people who plunge and
steam themselves in the bath, as they do, be
dirty? But "give a dog a bad name," &c. If
the Russians are so dirty as some books tell us
they are, it must be that their bodies contain
clay in the raw; so, the more they rub the dirtier
they are. But the truth is that the higher ranks
are scrupulously clean in clothes and person,
and the persons of the lower classes are cleaner
than those of the inhabitants of some favoured
lands, where baths are almost unknown. Yet
the Russian has too much of a good thing, or
rather spoils a good thing by his own way of
using it.

The constant broiling, steaming, and flagellating
gives a pale sickly yellow hue to the complexion
of the young, and ultimately enfeebles
the whole constitution. On the other hand,
considering the description of food used by the
great bulk of the Russian poor, but for these
baths the stench from their bodies would be as
unbearable as that from the African negro. As
it is, it is anything but pleasant (especially in
fasting-time). But for these baths, one could
not with a settled stomach sit behind a drosky-
driver. The great mass of the Russian poor
never touch soap nor water except at the bath.
Workmen, artisans, peasants, shopkeepers, and
even merchants, with their wives and families,
use very little intermediate cleansing. They eat,
work, and sleep, without washing hands or face
until the regular bath time. But, at this time,
you may see an entire population on the move,
going to bath with small bundles of clean
clothes, soap, towel, and birch-broom. Large
public and smaller private baths are in the cities
and towns. Every village—even the smallest
hamlet—has its bath for the people. The great
mass in towns are accommodated in monster
establishments erected by private individuals.
They have steam-engines for pumping water,
and a host of attendants. One large part is
devoted to the poor, and is separated for the
sexes. This part can accommodate three
hundred or four hundred at once in each
establishment, and the charge is a penny for each
person. Other parts are suitable for select
parties; and luxurious family or private rooms
can be had at proportionate prices, from eighteenpence
to six shillings. From these baths, where
they are born, thousands of illegitimate children
are transferred to the foundling hospitals. Other
infants are taken there by their mothers as soon
as possible after birth. On the evening before
marriage the bride is taken to the bath by a
band of her maiden companions, each armed
with such a birch as I have described, and there
she is forced to certain confessions under a
torrent of light blows. After a death, all the remaining
household must go to the bath. After and
before taking a journey, the bath. Before every
holiday festival and Sunday, the bath. For
rheumatisms, fevers, colds, and diseases of all
kinds, the bath. Take from a Russian his
children, his wife, anything, but leave him his
bath, and there is consolation. If Emperor
Alexander were to publish a ukase to shut up
the baths he would fall in a month. Paul's
crusade against beards was bad enough, but a
bath abolition bill would smash the empire.

THE HORSE THAT CAME IN WITH THE DESSERT.

After my bath I found a party assembled in