Manners and Customs.
Reading edition
EARLY INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN.
(To the Editor.)
With regard to the statement of the Druids being "ever foremost in the battle strife," as your Correspondent has quoted Cæsar, I am surprised that he has overlooked this passage: "The Druids were exempt from all military payment, and excused from serving in the wars;" indeed, one of the main objects of Bardism was to maintain peace, and the use of arms was therefore prohibited to its members; though in later times it was one of the duties of the king's domestic bard, on the day of battle, to sing in front of the army the national song of "Unbennaeth Prydain" (the Monarchy of Britain,) for the purpose of animating the soldiers.
Llundain.
CYMMRO.
BATHING—ANCIENT AND MODERN BATHS.
Perhaps neither of the exercises that are indispensable to the health and comfort of man has so kept pace with his progressive improvement as bathing; and though of late years this effectual promoter of cleanliness has not in some parts of the world been sufficiently attended to, yet the custom is by no means on the decrease; nor can any fear be entertained, with propriety, that so excellent and so natural an expedient should ever be suffered to decline, from want of consideration of its benefits and advantages. But it must be owned, that while bathing in many countries is resorted to as a matter-of-course affair among all classes, in England it is in a great measure disregarded by most of the middle classes, and almost entirely so by those in the lower station of life, who perhaps require this exercise more than their richer neighbours.
Before they commenced bathing in the Thermæ, the Romans anointed themselves with oil, in a room especially appropriated to the purpose; and oil was again applied, with the addition of perfumes, on quitting the bath. In a painting which has been engraved from one of the walls in the baths of Titus, the room is represented filled with a number of vases, and somewhat resembles an apothecary's shop. These vases contained a variety of balsamic and oleaceous compositions for the anointment, which, when ultimately performed, prepared the bathers for the sphæristerium, in which various amusements and exercises were enjoyed. The subsequent operation of scraping the body with the strigil has given way to a mode of freeing the body from perspiration and all extraneous matter, by a sort of bag or glove of camel's hair, which is used in Turkey; while flannel and brushes are substituted in other parts.
The vapour-baths now used in Russia resemble very much those among the ancient Romans. These are generally rudely built of wood, over an oven, and the bathers receive the vapour at the requisite heat, reclining on wooden benches,—while, more powerfully to excite perspiration, they whip their bodies with birch boughs, and also use powerful friction. They then wash themselves; and, as these vapour-baths are often constructed on the banks of a river, throw themselves from the land into the water; or sometimes, by way of variety, plunge into snow, and roll themselves therein. This violent exercise and sudden transition of temperature is almost overpowering to persons unhabituated to the custom, and will oftentimes produce fainting,—though the patient, on recovering, finds himself refreshed, and experiences a delightful sense of mental, as well as bodily, vigour and energy. The enervating effects of the extreme luxury and refinement practised in the Greek and Roman baths are obviated in the Russian mode: to which may partly be ascribed the power which the latter people have in undergoing fatigue and the various hardships of their rigorous climate. Tooke says that without doubt the Russians owe their longevity, robust health, their little disposition to fatal complaints, and, above all, their happy and cheerful temper, mostly to these vapour-baths. Lewis and Clarke, in their voyage up the Missouri, have noticed the use of the vapour-bath in a somewhat similar contrivance to the Russians among the savage tribes of America;—so it appears that this effectual promoter of cleanliness is one of the most simple, original, and natural, that can be employed for that paramount duty.