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2 baths daily; and sometimes took one even during those in-
3 tensely hot nights, which so often deprive the European of
4 sleep. The wealthy can afford to employ servants day and
5 night in fanning and otherwise administering to their com-
6 fort in these hot climates, but the poorer classes must per-
7 form the ventilating or cooling processes for themselves as
8 they can. But besides the inconveniences arising from the
9 heat of an Indian summer, there are other annoyances to
10 be experienced or prevented ; such as the prickly heat (as
11 it is called), the attacks of mosquitoes, and those troublesome
12 dust storms which occur regularly in the Punjab about the
13 middle of June. These dust-storms are sometimes so thick
14 that, in broad daylight, they will occasionally, for a few minutes,
15 produce as great a darkness as that of night. Another dis-
16 agreeable Indian visitor is the simoom (hot winds), which
17 ordinarily continue for six weeks, during which the inhabit"
18 ants of India, native and European, are compelled to pass
19 their time during the day in cellars beneath the ground,
20 or else they must cover every aperture to their dwell-
21 ings with tattis (mats made from the root of the andro-
22 pogon muriaticum ), which they keep constantly sprinkled
23 with water. The douche-baths I used were produced by causing
24 a goat-skin to be filled with fresh well-water, and poured over
25 my head. Besides the cleanliness and cooling effect which these
26 baths afford, they exercise a beneficial influence on the skin and
27 nervous system, as also on the lungs, stomach, kidneys, and even
28 on the remotest parts of the body, by stimulating their action.
29 It is necessary, however, to be careful in the use of the cold bath,
30 and to avoid taking one when the body is in a perspiration,
31 which in India, I need scarcely say, is often the case. The same
32 rule also holds good as regards warm bathing in winter ; and it
33 is highly dangerous to leave the bath too suddenly, and expose
34 the body to the influence of the cold air. The natives, both
35 Moslems and Hindoos — male or female — whether winter or
36 summer — hot or cold — whether in the Ravee or the Ganges —
37 by drenching themselves at the wells, or washing in their own