The whole operation takes about four hours. It is often
said by the ignorant that people can get as good a hammam in London
or Paris as in the East. I have tried all, and they bear about as
much relation to one another as a puddle of dirty water does to a
pellucid lake. And the pellucid lake is in the East.
Then the harims. I often spent an evening in them, and I found them
very pleasant; only at first the women used to ask me such a lot of
inconvenient questions that I became quite confused. They were always
puzzled because I had no children. One cannot generalize on the subject
of harims; they differ in degree just as much as families in London. A
first-class harim at Constantinople is one thing, at Damascus one of the
same rank is another, while those of the middle and lower classes are
different still. As a rule I met with nothing but courtesy in the
harims, and much hospitality, cordiality, and refinement. I only
twice met with bad manners, and that was in a middle-class harim.
Twice only the conversation displeased me, and that was amongst the
lower class. One of the first harims I visited in Damascus was that
of the famous Abd el Kadir (of whom more anon), which of course was
one of the best class. He had five wives: one of them was very pretty.
I asked them how they could bear to live together and pet each other's
children. I told them that in England, if a woman thought her husband
had another wife or mistress, she would be ready to kill her and strangle
the children if they were not her own.
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