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Show 'BATH' SEEMS LOST WORD IN SERBIA; LOST ART, SAYS RED CROSS (By International News Service) VRAJNE. Serbia, Aug. 3 '1 here was a time In Vrujne when Ihe people Include. I whatever the Serblun word for buth may be in their everyday vocabularies find not Infrequently suited suit-ed tho action to the word, but that war hundreds of years ago Today It Is with difficulty that the anVOjrs of ihr American Red Crosn at Yrajne are teaching the people the practical meaning of the word. And yet. of all the towns In Serbia, V'rajtte is the one which should be nioHt famllim with bathe und bathing, bath-ing, for It la the home of the biggest a-id oldest Turkish bath establishment In the country The ancient baths vvc-re built In Ihe sixteenth century by the Turks themselves, who then ruled the country. They are housed in an ancient stone structure with u red tile loof. Th water, in the das when the t;.th were operating, flowed into huge vats above primitive underground under-ground furnaces from i spring whoso crystal stream, now released, still bubbles bub-bles through tho vaulted cellars of the ancient establishment. The steam from tho vats was led to the hot rooms above through channels cut In tho Bolld rock walls of the building, for In those day when tho Vrajne baths were constructed there was no such thing as an Iron or lead pipe In ;-'.l of Serbia Today tho Vrajne baths are desert-Sd desert-Sd Bathing Is a ritual of which the city's population has known nothing fo.- generations. Tho youth of the town are learning the art from tho Ked Cross workers feeding and carlnc for the children of the poor, but ihe elders still look on tho regular ablution ablu-tion of the body as a troublesome superfluity, su-perfluity, and tho ancient baths of rajne may crumble Into ruins ere the subterranean stream vats boll and bubble again. |