BOILED IN A BATH.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2113, 12 October 1875, Page 3

BOILED IN A BATH.

,At Japan there would be much suprise felt if the traveller did not ask for a bath. There were no preparations required, no rushing chambermaids, no turning on this and off-that—everything was quite ready, and I was at once conducted to a huge wooden bath, with a small earthen furnace let in at the foot, and a lid enclosing the whole of the top with the exception of a space just big enough for the head of the bather to emerge through. In one of these contrivances, with a small furnace burning gaily, a Japanese, after his day's work is over, will sit calmly boiling himself with the lid on, and the water bubbling about him at boiling heat. He seems, however, to like it uncommonly, to judge from the pleased expression on his face fast deepening under the process into beetroot-like tints ; and when he has. at last, had enough—about an hour of it—he takes off the lid and emerges as much like a boiled lobster as a human can become. My bath was quity ready ; the small furnace glowed with live pieces of charcoal; the water bubbled merrily, and my companion of the bath, taking off the lid, invited me to entef. Not being, however, either a Japanese, a blue lobster, or a potato, I did not see any particular object in being boiled, and so had the fuel raked out of the' furnace and a few buckets of cold water added before I got in k When I did get in, though, after these alterations in the arrangements,' 11 found it most grateful, and, as I lay reposing my aching limbs, I heard Burton in the back yard going through the more invigorating process of having buckets full of cold water, just drawn from the well, dashed over him by his betta. — Temple Bar.