OBEISANCES. 139 



Two Arabs of the desert meeting, shake hands more than ten 

 times. Each kisses his own hand, and still repeats the question, 

 How art thou ? . . . In Yemen, each docs as if he wished the 

 other s hand, and draws back his own to avoid receiving the same 

 honour. At length, to end the contest, the eldest of the two suffers 

 the other to kiss his fingers.&quot; 



Have we not here, then, the origin of shaking hands? If 

 of two persons each wishes to make an obeisance to the other 

 by kissing his hand, and each out of compliment refuses to 

 have his own hand kissed, what will happen? Jnst as when 

 leaving a room, each of two persons, proposing to give the 

 other precedence, will refuse to go first, and there will re 

 sult at the doorway some conflict of movements, preventing 

 either from advancing; so, if each of two tries to kiss the 

 other s hand, and refuses to have his own kissed, there will 

 result a raising of the hand of each by the other towards 

 his own lips, and by the other a drawing of it down again, 

 and so on alternately. Though at first such an action will 

 be irregular, yet as fast as the usage spreads, and the failure 

 of either to kiss the other s hand becomes a recognized issue, 

 the motions may be expected to grow regular and rhyth 

 mical. Clearly the difference between the simple squeeze, 

 to which this salute is now often abridged, and the old-fash 

 ioned hearty shake, exceeds the difference between the 

 hearty shake and the movement that would result from the 

 effort of each to kiss the hand of the other. 



Even in the absence of this clue yielded by the Arab 

 custom, we should be obliged to infer some such genesis. 

 After all that has been shown, no one can suppose that hand 

 shaking was ever deliberately fixed upon as a complimentary 

 observance; and if it had a natural origin in some act 

 which, like the rest, expressed subjection, the act of kissing 

 the hand must be assumed, as alone capable of leading to it. 



391. Whatever its kind, then, the obeisance has the 

 same root with the trophy and the mutilation. At the mercy 

 of his conqueror, who, cutting off part of his body as a me- 



