360 QUEER BACKSHEESH 



He may or may not have got the translation correctly ; 

 at all events he faintly smiled as if the exchange of verse 

 for verse had been an unfair one ; but he was generously 

 inclined for the moment and did not claim the balance in 

 backsheesh. Next day, however, he did so. That verse 

 of his cost me many shekels. And it was apparently with 

 a clear conscience that the old sheik took his " present." 

 He evidently felt that he had given me a vast deal of 

 horse-lore, which in my own country would stand me in 

 good stead. 



The Oriental is not necessarily a beggar. If you get 

 out into the interior you see little of it not enough at 

 least to be annoying. The cry for backsheesh was created 

 and is generally stimulated by the European tourists ; the 

 new-comers like to see the native's excitement, as they 

 elbow each other to reach the backsheesh - distributing 

 "personally conducted" Cookie or Gazer. While the 

 Bedouin by no means objects to a " present," he does not 

 naturally ask for it by annoying means. But short con- 

 tact with the average globe-trotter will spoil any people 

 among whom coin is rare. 



One of my friends told me an amusing case of back- 

 sheesh to which he fell a victim in Constantinople. He 

 went into a tobacco -bazaar to get a package of tobacco 

 for smoking. Its value was ten piasters (a piaster is five 

 cents or a "nickel"). As he entered he found a solemn 

 conclave of Turks sitting cross-legged in a semicircle 

 enjoying their coffee and water-pipes. He had been in 

 the bazaar before, and thinking he recognized the owner, 

 strode up to him and handing him a half-medjidji piece, 

 uttered the mystic word which conveyed the idea of the 

 article he sought, which, not being a Turk or a smoker, I 

 cannot quote. The Moslem calmly received the piece, 

 which summarily disappeared in the folds of his volumi- 



