A man may fancy himself entering a place of penance, and take the people, if not for victims of persecution, as they seem willing sufferers, at least for martyrs to some fixed idea, or some fanatical extravagance. But Avhat will a stranger think when he questions the men, and hears them all protest they are delighted with their discipline, and as comfortable as fisli in water ?
Any one, however, who can overcome the first impression, who can accustom his lungs to swallow fire, and will place himself upon a bench, and yield to the languor inevitably resulting from inordinate perspiration, will soon be enabled to solve the enigma. In the baths I am describing, I did not experience this enjoyment, tor they were too disgusting to tempt me to join in the delights of the place ; but in the more elegant establishments of which there are many in St. Petersburg, and where every thing, antechamber, dressing-rooms, and baths are perfect in their kind, I have often experienced it. The pleasurable sensation is felt when the first disagreeable effect of the heat is overcome, and the transpiration commences in full activity. Then the beneficent spirit of warmth pervades the whole frame, a divine sense of pleasure is all that remains to us of our existence, our whole being seems dissolved in fleeting vapour; all pain, all stiffness vanishes from the limbs, we feel light and buoyant as featliers. The rubbing and flogging with birchen twigs increases the transpiration, and consequently the enjoyment. All bodily pain, be it what it may, disappears in these baths ; of headach, toothach, cramps, convulsion in the limbs or face, gout and rheumatism, not a trace remains. It is an extraordinary excitement, a kind of intoxication of the whole nervous system. Of course it is not asserted that the Russian baths are a radical cure for all these disorders, for many pains return with increased violence afterwards ; but it is certain, that while in the bath, and for some hom-s afterwards, every person feels himself totally free from suffering, and hence we may easily comprehend the extraordinary fondness of the Russians for this kind of intoxication. By one of these baths a man is washed out like a sponge ; not only the skin is washed, but the heart, stomach, liver and lungs, seem cleansed by the torrent of evaporation. For a sensual people, I can imagine no higher enjoyment. The Russians of all ranks and ages are so accustomed to the use of these baths, that they feel unwell when obliged to dispense with them for any length of time ; and the poor soldier, fettered by the severity of discipline, will complain that he has not )een able to enjoy the bath for a month, with as compassion asking an air, as if he had undergone the pangs of hunger for as long a period.
A RUSSIAN OPINION OF THE ITALIAN WINTER.
How much the Russians love their vigorous, hearty, characterestic winter, has been already shown in the fact, that even in their Paradise they have not forgotten snow. I once saw a letter from a Russian servant who had accompanied his master's family to Italy, and wrote to his brother from Rome, thus : " My dear Ivan, I am writing to you from Rome, which we have reached in the middle of the winter. But what a winter ! Nobody thinks of sledges. I don't know when or how the poor people are to bring their com and brandy into the city. It is not so cold here as with us, but I feel a great deal colder ; for the people have the most miserable little stoves, and no double doors and windows. Ah, my dear Ivan, how I envy you your comfortable stoves, and your furs. I have done a very stupid thing in leaving my furs behind me. I could have shown these people, who know nothing about it, how to dress for the winter ! January is almost over, and they have brought in no ice yet, and they say they have no ice-cellars ; but I can't believe it, for then every thing must spoil in summer. Ah how I long for our winter and our stoves. Dear Ivan, put up a wax-candle to St. Vladimir, and pray to him to send these poor people snow and good stoves, and sledges, and aU the comfortable things we have in Russia. They may have a good summer but their winter is horrible."