ldings to keep the rooms cool.

"Peace on Abraham" reads an elaborate inscription, quoted from the Koran,
but applying in this case, Sirkar Agha's son tells me, to the founder of
the institution. There are other inscriptions on the towers and
ventilating shafts.

At the time of my visit the number of pupils was two hundred. The
adjoining Hammam belonging to the College was, to our astonishment, also
shown us. Such baths are underground and are reached by steps or by a
slippery incline. These particular ones were very superior and had a
beautifully tiled entrance, but the door itself was small and always kept
closed. The first room was domed with a fountain playing in the centre
and platforms, three feet high all round, on the matting of which lay
spread a great many cotton towels, red and blue. The only light came from
a centre aperture in the dome. High earthen jugs stood artistically
resting against one another, and a few people were dressing or undressing
preparatory to taking or after having taken a bath. This was all that was
done in this room.

Through a narrow slippery passage we entered another room, where the
steamy heat was considerable. There were small sections round the room
divided by a wall, like the cells of a monastery, and in each cell was a
tap of cold water. Then we ascended through a small aperture into another
and warmer room, spacious enough, but stifling with a sickening acid
odour of perspiration and fumes of over-heated human skins. The steam
heat was so great that one saw everything in a haze, and one felt one's
own pores expand and one's clothes get quite wet with the absorbed damp
in the atmosphere over-saturated with moisture.

There were two or three men, stripped and only with a loin cloth, lying
down flat on their backs,--one undergoing massage, being thumped all
over; another having the hair of his head and beard dyed jet-black. The
reason that the Persian hair-dyes are so permanent is principally because
the dyeing is done at such a high temperature and in such moist
atmosphere which allows the dye to get well into the hair. When the same
dyes are used at a normal temperature the results are never so
successful. Further, a third man was being cleansed by violent rubbing.
He needed it badly; at least, judging by the amount of black stuff that
rolled from his skin under the operator's fingers. The attendants, too,
barring a loin-cloth, were naked.

With perspiration streaming down m