Mud bath

“ In the vapor and Russian bath the temperature is raised to 160°, and in the hot-air and the Turkish bath to 176°. The temperature of the body is so increased in these baths that the sudden transition to the cool shower bath and douche is soothing, and is followed under favorable conditions by copious perspiration. The mineral mud bath (85° to 100°) consists of mud taken from the marshy ground about the source of mineral springs. It is used chiefly in diseases of the skin, chronic rheumatism, and affections of the joints. ”

“ Close to the village are several mud-baths, where one may sit up to his neck in hot mud for hours, and then wash off the adhesive stuff in a neighboring pool. These solfataras, or mud-baths, are very numerous, and in many instances very dangerous. Where they are small the hot mud simply boils and bubbles, and slowly oozes out of the ground; and the chief danger lies in breaking through the crust near them and finding yourself plunged in the scalding mush. ”

“ At the edge of the dry mud lay a derelict fish-trunk around which a group of bare-legged boys had gathered—and all along the shore, on the faded grass, on the dry mud and wading in the soft slime, the human water-rats were to be seen, turning over drift-rubbish, prying under stranded boats or grubbing in the soft mud. ”

“ Particularly the people: they were as ugly as the areas of roof and stone, off which the soft white coating had slid; their contours were as painful to see. And the mud—oh, God, the mud! It spread itself over every inch of the way; the roads were rivers of filth, which spattered and splashed; at the sides of the streets, the slush was being swept into beds. ”

“ Silence reigned again—only the splash of the oars was heard and the beating of the water against the skins. Nothing broke the monotony; the river wound its way slowly in and out round mud banks; the country as far as one could see was unbroken, endless mud; the water one drank and washed in and floated on was diluted mud; the occasional village on the banks was built of mud, the inhabitants were mud colour; the very sky gave one a feeling of mud. ”

“ Easing her round sharp reefs, pushing through swift little passages where the current spurts deeply between larger stones, she may be pushed up to a huge tree trunk lying along the shore, surrounded by the deliciously soft and fluid mud loved by country urchins, the mud that schloops when one withdraws the sunken foot. ”

“ On either side of us, as the mouth is neared, there are dreary salt marshes, which are often flooded by the sea when the tides are high. On the banks, the fern-like attap-palm, that lover of the mud, bends over in graceful curves to dip the ends of its long fronds in the dirty water. ”

“ Immediately beyond the muddy shore there was, so far as we could tell, only a salt marsh overgrown with rank grass and scattered clumps of vegetation, which might conceal us after a fashion if we were willing to lie all day long in mud that probably swarmed with reptile life, but which would afford us no real security and would give us no opportunity to forage for fresh water and food. ”

“ If we transport ourselves in imagination to these ancient shores, we shall see that the animals left their hiding-places and were traversing the soft mud laid bare by the ebbing tide, in search of food. The heat of a tropical sun quickly hardens the mud, so that the returning tide, in bringing a fresh deposit of mud, does not wash away the impressions already made on the lower layer, but carefully covers them over. The imprints have, therefore, become a species of mould into which another muddy fluid is poured, and by hardening is made to copy the foot-mark like a plaster cast. ”

“ Towards the embouchure, the banks rise ten feet high, the river expands into a muddy sea, and a long swell rolls in, to the disquiet of our fresh-water boatmen. Low islands of sand and mud stretch along the horizon: which, together with the ships, distorted by extraordinary refraction, flicker as if seen through smoke. Mud is the all prevalent feature; and though the water is not salt, we do not observe in these broad deltas that amount of animal life (birds, fish, alligators, and porpoises) , that teems in the narrow creeks of the western Sunderbunds. ”

“ And with time, the beds of the rivers having fallen, these animals having the impression of the mud which has inclosed them and consumed their flesh and organs, the bones alone remaining—their organization being consumed—they have fallen to the bottom of the concavity of their impression; and in that concavity the mud, when it has been dried by its elevation above the course of the river from its aqueous moisture and then from its viscous moisture, becomes stone, inclosing within itself whatever it finds there and filling everything hollow with itself. ”

“ This delightful watering-place is filled with beauty and fashion, there being lots of large curls and small bonnets in every portion of the town and neighbourhood.
We understand it is in contemplation to convert the mud on the banks of the river into sand, in order that the idea of the sea-side may be realised as far as possible. Two donkey cart-loads have already been laid down by way of experiment, and the spot on which they were thrown was literally thronged with pedestrians. The only difficulty likely to arise is, that the tide washes the sand away, and leaves the mud just as usual. ”

“ This is humorously named by Kate the Rotomahana Hotel, and is the place where lunch is usually devoured.
Up a steep, muddy hill now, and at the top we emerge on the mud flat, where many boiling mudholes repeat the phenomena we have already seen, only substituting liquid boiling mud instead of water. We look down, and see a seething mass of molten mud in incessant motion. It rises up in great circling domes and plastic cupolas, which seethe, and expand, and swell, and then break with a lazy, hissing, escape of steam ”

“ Mud, mud everywhere—a whitish-clay silt, through which, at low tide, it is almost a physical impossibility to walk from a stranded bidarka up to the villages. Indeed, if you are unfortunate enough to reach a settlement here when coming down or going up the river as the tide is out, you are a wise man if you simply fold your arms, sit quietly in your cramped position until the rising, roaring flood returns and carries you forward and over to your destination. ”

“ The grub of this fly spends its whole life buried head downward in the mud at the bottom of some shallow pool—thick, black mud, which is largely made up of decaying leaves—and never comes out of it even to breathe. But at the end of its body it has a long tube, the tip of which rests just above the surface of the water, so that it can draw down as much air as it requires. ”

“ Men sitting by the roadside in the mud, gnawing at unsavoury food; men squatting by the ditches, examining their sores, washing their bleeding feet in the muddy water, replacing the muddy rags about their wounds.
A world without colour. No other colour to be seen beneath the sky but mud. The very buttons on the men’s coats painted to make them look like mud. ”

“ He was then making the best of his way home to lines again, expedited by William and the mallet.
So now we are messless; now we crouch shivering in tents and talk lovingly of the good old times beneath our good old tin roof-tree, of the wonderful view of the mud we used to get from our window, and of the homely tune our shell boxes used to perform as they jostled together of a stormy night.
And sometimes, as we crouch shivering in our tents, we hear a strange sound stealing uphill from the lines. It is the mules laughing. ”

“ It can breathe oxygen dissolved in water by its gills; it can also breathe dry air by means of its swim-bladder, which has become a lung. It is a _double-breather_, showing evolution in process. For seven months of the year, the dry season, it can remain inert in the mud, getting air through an open pipe to the surface. When water fills the pools it can use its gills again. Mud-nests or mud encasements with the lung-fish inside have often been brought to Britain and the fish when liberated were quite lively. ”

“ Hence every considerable shower lays bare its roods of rock, and the torrents sent down by the thaws of spring, and by occasional heavy discharges of the summer and autumnal rains, are seas of mud and rolling stones that sometimes lay waste and bury beneath them acres, and even miles, of pasture and field and vineyard. ”

“ By the time the Rhone has reached Arles all its gravel has been champed up and reduced to impalpable mud. That blue crystalline flood that gushed from the Lake of Leman, unsullied by a particle of earth, is now a river of brown mud—thick as pea-soup, and as nutritious. The stones that would have killed all vegetation have been pounded into a condition so attenuated, that they form rich alluvial matter. The river now seeks to deposit all this mud. ”

“ Here are women bringing up great round earthenware vases on their heads and little round brass bowls in their hands, going and coming from a muddy pool in the centre of a waste of dried mud. They go slowly, the walking is rough for bare feet, for the clay is hard and baked and pitted with cows' feet marks. They drink and wash their bowls in the dregs in the pond, the water already so dirty that a self-respecting duck would not swim in it, and wade about stirring up the mud, then fill their bowls and march away with it for domestic uses—this sounds bad, but it looks a great deal worse. ”

“ Wherever the mud had lain thick on broad leaf or grass, it had, as I have said, cracked and fallen off, or been washed away by the heavy rains and dews, and our grounds and the country round were as beautiful as ever—more beautiful, I ought to say, for everything was fresher and greener, and where the swamps had been muddy and parched, and overhung with dry growth, all was bright and glorious, with the pools full up, and the water-ways overhung with mossy drapery, glittering and flashing back the sun’s rays wherever the sun pierced the trees. ”

“ That of the meadows, if analyzed, proves to be compounded of very worthy entities—water, clay, sand, and leaf-mold. Why, because they are associated, should they be so studiously shunned? No chemical change has taken place resulting in the formation of a dangerous mixture. Mud is unlovable only when you are made its prisoner; but even a fool knows it is best to remain outside the bars when he comes to a lion’s cage. The lily loves the mud from which it springs, and who in the wide world loves not the lily? Let us accept her as an authority that this mud has merit. ”

“ Should the water dry up in which they have been living, the little animal encases itself in mud at the bottom of the pool. Should this be baked by the sun not the least injury arises, for at this stage it crumbles into dust, and is carried by the wind to long distances, but the first shower of rain calls it back to active life, and soon after it is seen to issue forth as a free swimming bud. ”

“ The hideous lanes, bordered by these dirty huts, are not paved; the least shower hollows out the ground and forms stinking puddles, which resemble reservoirs, destined to collect the liquid mud which the rain drives before it. ”

“ Plenty,” Ralph answered. “Mud is forced down into a well to cool the drill bit and to wash rock cuttings to the surface. You use mud if you have water, that is. In parts of this country, water’s so short, or so expensive to haul, that producers use compressed air for those purposes. We’re lucky. We can pipe plenty of water from the river.”
35
“Then you mix the water with all sorts of fancy chemicals to make something that’s called mud but really isn’t,” said Sandy, remembering tales of the oil country that his father had told him. ”

“ The bubbling mud in the bottom of the pan, as well as the hot water in many of the springs, makes it easy to imagine that we are standing upon the top of a great cooking stove in which a hot fire is burning. As the gas with which the water is impregnated comes up through the mud, it forms huge bubbles which finally break and settle down, only to rise again. In this way concentric mud rings, perfect in form, are made to cover the entire surface of the pool. ”

“ As long as the mud remains soft enough to allow the fish to rise slowly through it, they come to the surface every now and then to take in a good hearty gulp of air, exactly as gold-fish do in England when confined with thoughtless or ignorant cruelty in a glass globe too small to provide sufficient oxygen for their respiration. But when the mud hardens entirely they hibernate, or rather æstivate, in a dormant condition until the bursting of the monsoon fills the ponds once more with the welcome water. ”

“ Next the slackening speed makes even the sand too heavy a weight, and that in turn falls to line the river-bed, while the now broad and placid stream carries only the finer particles of mud suspended in its waters. Soon it reaches the ocean, and the flow being there checked by the incoming ocean-tide, even the mud can no longer be held up, and it also sinks slowly in the shallows near the shore, forming sometimes broad mud-banks dangerous to the mariner. ”

“ The sight of it brought fresh strength to their despairing energies. It gave new life to Tom and Phil. A few steps more, and the soft mud grew harder; and soon after they were all standing on the patch of marsh grass.
No sooner had they reached this place, than they all flung themselves down upon the mud, out of which the coarse grass grew. For some time not a word was spoken. All lay there breathing heavily. Looking back, they could see the wide extent of mud flats which they had traversed. The schooner was far away, and those on board could no longer be distinguished. ”