Some people may tell you that the Romans discovered Bath, but the old story gives the honour to a British Prince, Bladud, who is, variously, said to have been the father of King Lear, and the eldest son of King Lud. Like these two illustrious monarchs, Bladud came in time to be king of Britain. But that was after he had passed through a very sad experience.
Prince Bladud, as was becoming the eldest son of a king, spent many years in Athens studying the liberal arts and sciences. But, alas! while in Greece he became a leper, and on his return to Britain he had to be shut away from his fellow-men, for fear that he should infect them with the dreaded disease.
The Prince bore his confinement patiently for a time, but at last it became unendurable, and he escaped in disguise, and went out into the world to forget his royal birth and to earn his living as best he could. His wanderings brought him to the hamlet of Swainswick, a few miles from where Bath now stands, and there he found the only occupation given to one afflicted as he was, that of a swineherd.
Here for some time he carried on his lowly duties, content to be a free man, no matter how humble his station in life. And they say that early one winter’s morning when he was out in the neighbouring woods with his pigs, the animals suddenly became restive. Before he could stop them a large part of the herd had taken panic and rushed furiously down a hill-side into a swamp, at the foot where they began to wallow in the mud.
Bladud pursued them, wondering that pigs should seek to roll in cold muddy water on a winter’s day. But when he reached them, he found, to his surprise, that the water and slime in which they rolled was hot, and that steam arose from the marsh. This explained the problem to the Prince, though he marvelled greatly at the existence of such springs.
But there was another surprise in store for him. He noticed that those pigs that habitually went to the hot swamp were in ill-health and afflicted, somewhat like himself, with skin diseases. After a short time they became fat and well, their coats as clean and glossy as any in the herd.
“If this marvel can come to base animals,” Bladud mused, “why should it not come to me?” So he determined to try the effect of the hot springs upon his own complaint, and after a few weeks’ bathing in them, to his intense joy, he found his leprosy leaving him. By summer he was cured completely of his affliction, and he returned to the king, his father, to announce his good fortune.
King Lud, who had mourned him as dead, was over-joyed to see his eldest son again; more joyful still to find him cured. So Bladud resumed his duties at Court, and in due time, when Lud died, he became King of Britain. Then it was, as a token of gratitude, and that others might benefit from the miraculous waters he had found, that he built a great city on the scene of his cure, and that city we know to-day as Bath.
Of course, when the Romans came, they were delighted to find this wonderful “spa” as we call it. They put up great buildings, and their chief men visited Aquæ Sulis, as they called it, to be cured of gout and rheumatism, and a score of other complaints. And because of the wonderful buildings they left behind them—and many of them remain to this day—people, who do not know the old story, say that they founded the city.
But no matter who really did found it, we know that for nearly 2,000 years people have been visiting Bath and finding a cure there which they have sought elsewhere in vain.
Bath is a wonderful city set in glorious surroundings, and you need not be an invalid to enjoy a visit there. With its memories and relics of Beau Nash, and the spacious days of the eighteenth century; its wonderful old Abbey Church, its Roman remains and its sunny sheltered walks, Bath is an amazingly attractive place in which to spend a holiday. The country round about is full of interest, the town possesses every attraction a holiday resort should possess.
Of its waters, let the doctors speak. They will speak of them as enthusiastically as Bladud must have done, and tell you that, in Bath, you may find all the benefits that so many people travel hundreds of miles to Continental spas to seek.
