Navigations, Peregrinations, & Voyages

after they have well sweated, and have well bathed themselves in a great vessel of marble or porphiry, which standeth ready at hand, the servants, which there are in great number, require you to lay yourself along flat upon your belly, and then one of these great lubbers, after they have well pulled and stretched your arms, as well before as behind, in such sort that he will make your bones to crack, and well rubbed the soles of your feet, mounteth upon your back, and so with his feet slideth up and down upon you, and upon your reins (kidneys) as if he would bruise them in pieces; and then again maketh you to turn on your back, pulling and removing your joints, as before is said, and nevertheless without doing unto you any harm at all, but on the contrary doth so comfort your sinews, and strengtheneth your members, that ye shall be after it a great deal more fresh, lively, and better disposed: and being thus dressed, ye enter into a little chamber, temperately hot, where again this great fellow cometh to rub you; and after that he hath well soaped and rubbed your body and your members with a purse of stammin or chamblet, which he holdeth in his hand in manner of a glove (instead of the Strigil which the Romans used) he washeth you with very clear spring water out of two conduits or fountains, the one being hot and the other cold, both which do fall into a bason of marble, within which he tempereth it, pouring out the same with a fair copper bason damasked; and also with a pounced stone he rubbeth and cleanseth the plants of your feet, and then cutteth your beard, and the holes underneath your arm pits: but as touching the privy member, they give you a rasor, or rather a psilothre, ( which they call Rusma) which is a paste, which being laid upon the hairy places, doth forthwith cause the hair to fall off; and of this paste the Turks, both men and women, do often use, for that they abhor to wear hair in those places

running barefoot without any shoes, or any thing else on their feet, except that the soles of their feet were shod like unto horses, the skin under the soles of their feet being so hard, that easily they could bear the nails and irons, being but light; which was a matter so strange, that at the first I could scarcely believe it ... he caused me to see one in Adrianople, whose sole of his foot was so hard, that with a bodkin, how sharp soever it were, you could not easily pierce it. And, being thus shod, the better to counterfeit the horses, they did wear, in their mouths, a ball of silver, pierced and made with holes in divers places, like unto the bit of a bridle, and is for to keep their mouths fresh, and the longer to sustain their breath. Round about their girdle, which is very large, and well wrought of leather, they hang divers cymbals or bells, which by moving, and making in their running, makes a pleasant and delectable noise.