We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands at the head of our couch.  This is the course of passive gymnastics, which excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks.  It is only resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the process.  Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight.  He lifts us to a sitting posture, places himself behind us, and folds his arms around our body, alternately tightening and relaxing his clasp, as if to test the elasticity of the ribs.  Then seizing one arm, he draws it across the opposite shoulder, until the joint cracks like a percussion-cap.  The shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column.  Now he descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all to discharge a salvo de joie.  The slight languor left from the bath is gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, befitting the winged Mercury, takes its place.

The boy, kneeling, presents us with finjan of foamy coffee, followed by a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon.  He presently returns with a narghileh, which we smoke by the effortless inhalation of the lungs.  Thus we lie in perfect repose, soothed by the fragrant weed, and idly watching the silent Orientals, who are undressing for the bath or reposing like ourselves.  Through the arched entrance, we see a picture of the bazaars:  a shadowy painting of merchants seated amid their silks and spices, dotted here and there with golden drops and splashes of sunshine, which have trickled through the roof.  The scene paints itself upon our eyes, yet wakes no slightest stir of thought.  The brain is a becalmed sea, without a ripple on its shores.  Mind and body are drowned in delicious rest; and we no longer remember what we are.  We only know that there is an Existence somewhere in the air, and that wherever it is, and whatever it may be, it is happy.

More and more dim grows the picture.  The colors fade and blend into each other, and finally merge into a bed of rosy clouds, flooded with the radiance of some unseen sun.  Gentlier than “tired eyelids upon tired eyes,” sleep lies upon our senses:  a half-conscious sleep, wherein we know that we behold light and inhale fragrance.  As gently, the clouds dissipate into air, and we are born again into the world.  The Bath is at an end.  We arise and put on our garments, and walk forth into the sunny streets of Damascus.  But as we go homewards, we involuntarily look down to see whether we are really treading upon the earth, wondering, perhaps, that we should be content to do so, when it would be so easy to soar above the house-tops.