Juan Van Halen y Sarti, Memoirs of Don Juan van Halen (1828) - Part 4

Juan Van Halen y Sarti (1788 – 1864) was a Spanish military officer and adventurer who had a rather colorful life. During the Peninsular War (1808-1813) he initially supported the French and served King Joseph Bonaparte of Spain, helping him escape to France in 1813. He then defected to the Spanish side but was investigated for his role during the war and sentenced to death. In 1817, he avoided death by escaping from prison and fleeing to Russia, where he was accepted into the military service and appointed a colonel in the Kavkazskii Dragoon Regiment deployed in Georgia. In 1819, Van Halen traveled to Georgia where he stayed for over a year and served under the leadership of General Alexey Yermolov. In 1821 Van Halen returned to Spain to support the revolutionaries who rebelled against King Ferdinand VII. After the revolution failed, Van Halen had to flee once again, traveling to the Caribbean. In 1830, he returned to Europe supporting the Belgian revolutionaries against the Dutch monarchy. After the new kingdom of Belgium was established, he moved to the Iberian Peninsula where he first supported Portuguese Liberals against King Miguel I and then fought against the Carlists during the First Carlist Wars in Spain. 

Van Halen died in El Puerto de Santa María (Cadiz, Spain), at the age of 76, in 1864.

In the late 1820s, Van Halen wrote (in Spanish) an interesting memoir describing his imprisonment in Spain in 1817-1818 and later service in the Caucasus in 1819-1821. The memoir was later translated into English and published in London in 1830.

The baths of Tiflis are situated at the eastern extremity of the city, at the foot of hill, and on the road leading to the southern provinces. The hot springs pour through the rocks into the baths, and are considered an excellent specific for rheumatic complaints, and for certain kinds of wounds. They serve likewise for the continual ablutions to which the Georgians, like all the Asiatics, are accustomed. The heat of these baths is from 12 to 50 degrees of Reaumur. The sulphureous smells which those from 30° to 40° emit, render them very unpleasant, those used for common purposes being from 12° upwards. They are open to the public night and day, through the whole week, except on Saturdays, when they are generally engaged by the Georgian women.

The basins for bathing are cut near the rock, and underneath the pipes through which the water flows. The baths are divided into three or four grottoes, each of a different temperature, and only one of which admits a little light through a small sky-light in the vault, which is constructed of brick, in the Arabian manner. The baths for the men are exclusively served by Tartars, who are accustomed to this kind of service.

When a person arrives at the bath, one of the Tartars conducts him to a platform covered with carpet, where he undresses previous to his entering the bath. At the door of the second grotto he is met by another Tartar, who, like all those employed in the interior of these dark vaults, which are scarcely lighted by the feeble glimmerings of a few lamps, is in a state of nature. Here he may be said to receive a vapour-bath, produced by the steam issuing from the hot springs. On his arriving at the entrance of the bathing grotto, a stranger is obliged to carry on his conversation by signs, as very few can make themselves understood by these men. The repeated process of compressing the body, twisting the limbs, making the joints play, and handling one like a sponge, &c. which then commences, has been so frequently described, that I will pass it over in silence, remarking only, that two hours after these ablutions, one feels an extraordinary improvement in the whole frame.

The women, especially those of the higher class, were formerly in the habit of spending four-and-twenty hours in these vaults; but now they only remain here during a few hours, though the whole of Saturday the baths are exclusively engaged for them. Besides bathing, the Georgian women make here their toilet, seated on Carpets brought by their attendants. Both old and young make use of a pomatum prepared by themselves, by means of which they preserve the colour of their hair, especially those of an advanced age. They also paint and varnish their faces with red and white, and their nails with yellow, whilst they tease themselves with endeavouring to make their eyebrows meet, which, in this country, is considered as essential to beauty.

When their toilet is ended, they lie down to sleep; and, on awakening, are served with various refreshments, chiefly consisting of fruits and preserves. Formerly, they never uncovered their faces before a stranger ; but at present that custom is so far abolished, that, though they still shew some shyness, they only veil whilst travelling, when they invariably ride astride on horse back, entirely dressed in white, and preceded by a running footman, who is armed with a stick.

On Sundays, the families assemble in the evening, which they chiefly spend in dancing, the ladies always by themselves, and in couples, the various attitudes they use being too wanton to permit the men to take a part in the dances, without, in some measure, transgressing the rules prescribed by decorum. There is some resemblance between these and the national dances of Andalusia, although the music of the former chiefly consists of timbrels and tambourines, and sometimes of a harp.

With respect to the beauty of the Georgian women, it differs according to the various provinces ; but those who are best entitled to the celebrity they enjoy for personal attractions, inhabit the country about the Caucasus. According to the opinion of persons who have had the opportunity of estimating their mental qualities, the Georgian women are endowed with lively imaginations, generous feelings, and vehement passions ; and, as most of the defects in their character arise more from habit and want of education than from nature, the improvement which they are daily making in the former will quickly cause them to disappear.

In Georgia, prostitution and adultery are almost unknown, though there still exists a custom among the lower class for the parents to give their daughters, for a small sum of money, to those who wish to live with them ; but, as this is done through the intervention of the police, this sort of commerce becomes, in some measure, legal, and prevents the children born under these circumstances from being abandoned.

The women, during the time they are thus united, observe the utmost fidelity, and are as careful and economical in their household concerns, as if they were linked to their companions by more binding ties. From the moment the parents have resigned their daughters, they have no further control over them, nor can they see them but with the permission of the temporary husband, or when they are called to take them back. As the man who forms this kind of connection must give a pecuniary guarantee to the police, if he wishes his children to be placed in the asylum for orphans rather than take charge of them, they become, from the moment of their birth, children of the government, who not only educate, but afterwards give them a profession analogous to their dispositions.

The Georgians of the lower class do not scruple to marry women who may have been thus living with other men ; and when they possess them and their dowry, their jealousy is such, that it surpasses all that is said of the ancient Spaniards. Generally speaking, the Georgian women, whether mistresses or wives, have such a strong attachment for the object of their affection, no matter what his age or personal appearance may be, that they look upon infidelity with the greatest horror.