Bath al-Misk: Caldarium

 

 We sat down on a marble bench in the last room of all, the atmosphere of which was very hot and oppressive at first. This, however, soon goes off, when a profuse perspiration breaks out and trickles down from every pore; coffee was brought in and handed round to us, and then pipes. It is usual to rest about half an hour or longer, according to fancy, to allow a thorough perspiration to break out.

After talking and sipping our coffee for some time, the different attendants we had chosen came up and made overtures to us to come and be scrubbed, which we successively yielded to, as our pipes were finished and our coffee drunk; and we were each one of us successively conducted to some quarter of this or the adjoining room, under a cock of hot water. The following is a description of the process: 

The attendant puts on a mohair glove and commences rubbing every part of your limbs and body, which are moistened with perspiration, until he brings off more dirt than you conceive ever to have defiled your person; this operation lasts about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. The attendant constantly dips the glove into hot water, and almost brings away the skin by the hardness of the rubbing. When he can get no more dirt off your body, he draws a long breath, uttering an ejaculation of  "طيّب طيّب"  (good!  good !) expressive of satisfaction, and then pushes you down on your back, extending you at full length on the marble floor. He now pinches, and squeezes your shoulders, arms, and all your limbs, then pulling your fingers, he makes the joints crack with a startling loudness; he then applies himself to your arms and legs, moving the bone about in the socket in an alarming manner. You call on him to stop, but he does not understand, or not thinking that he has executed his duties satisfactorily, he again applies himself with renewed vigour, swearing at the obstinate limb, and although frightened, you cannot refrain laughing at your companion, on the other side of the room writhing and resisting the infliction of the same process upon himself. Now seizing your shoulders, he pulls you up, and putting his knee into the small of your back, gives you a twist, and a crack, that makes you jump, and then clapping his hands, shouts طيّب طيّب طيّب كتير  meaning to say that the whole thing has been capitally done.  He then places you in a sitting posture close under a cock of hot water.

A large bowl, with a bit of soap at the bottom, and a long wisp of tow are now brought, hot water is spouted upon it, and in a few seconds a fine thick lather of soapsuds is formed, which in an instant is spread all over your eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, and for five minutes you are soaped and lathered in style; you cram your fingers into your eyes, which  smart terribly; then come buckets of almost boiling hot water, laded out of a large marble basin, in such rapid succession, that you are almost suffocated, and at last get up, nearer drowned probably than ever you were before. An attendant now appears and binds a dry towel round your waist and your head, and another over your shoulders, as at the commencement, and you are led out scarcely able to stand, if it is your first bath, through the heated rooms, into the cold external hall, where the transition is just as great as that of a man going out of a warm room naked, on a winter’s night, into the external air when the thermometer is ten degrees below freezing point; the temperature of these baths being from 100° to 105°, and the external hall at the time we visited it 65° to 70°. The effect, however, is very different; cold is said never to be taken, and we never experienced aught but the most pleasant and agreeable feelings. You are immediately led to your couches, cups of coffee are brought, then pipes or nargillas, with which you smoke through water, and an hour is usually spent in the most delightful manner.

Charles Greenstreet Addison: Damascus and Palmyra 

Bain al-Misk en 1940

Bath al-Misk: Earliest Reference 

Bath al-Misk: Second Sighting

Bath al-Misk in 1835: Apodyterium 

Bath al-Misk: Tepidarium