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Arab Hammam—A Classical Turkish Bath 275
attendant of the liivdn. When the bather has undressed and
put on his towels the lawingi opens the door of the harara
for him.
The beyt-oivwal is paved and panelled with marble, and
has marble benches, but it is small and has no architec-
tural pretensions. The harara, on the other hand, in the
best baths which I examined was sometimes quite a noble
chamber, beautiful enough to be the baptistery of an antique
basilica, from which probably the idea of it was taken. It
is at any rate similar in ground plan to the Hall-of-Fetes
in a harem or a Kait Bey mosque, with the addition of a
fountain. For it is a large square chamber, with a marblepaved
square depression in the centre, surrounded by four
marble-cased liwdns. And in the centre of the sunken pavement
is a beautiful octagonal fountain of white marble with
a high jet of very hot water. At the edges of the liwdns
round the fountain are graceful pointed Moorish arches to
carry the central dome, and there are other domes over the
liwdns, generally of marble, with small glazed holes in them.
One of these baths, from above, looks very like a Coptic
church, owing to the number of its small domes. Lane
speaks of the white marble of the harara being diversified
with black marble and pieces of red tile. But 1 did not
strike any baths with this additional decoration. They were
beautiful enough without. The effect of the low-roofed hall,
with its glistening white marble walls and floor and graceful
arches surrounding the pretty fountain with its jet of steaming
water under white marble domes, was at once delightful and
full of the appearance of antiquity. I used to feel as if I
were back in Pompeii in the days before its destruction, but in
baths of marble sumptuousness to which the Fompeian did
not aspire.
In another respect the place was full of the seeming of the
ancient world, for the dark-skinned bathers sat about or lay
about like slightly draped statues, and the attendants were all
in native dress of classical simplicity.
Neither the attendants nor the bathers ever raised any
objection to my wandering about the hammam taking notes.