BACKSHEESH.—THE GIRL OF BETHANY.
And who will say ’tis wrong?—J. BAILLIE.
One meets few travellers in Egypt who do not speak of the incessant
demands for backsheesh as an annoyance, and a nuisance. The word has
become as irritating to their temper as a mosquito-bite is to their skin;
and it is quite as inevitable. You engage a boat, a porter, a donkey:
in each case you pay two, or three times as much as you ought; and in
each case the hand that has received your overpayment is again instantly
held out for backsheesh. While on the Nile I gave one morning a cigar
to the reis of the boat. On walking away I heard his step behind me. I
turned back, and found that he was following me to ask for backsheesh.
I suppose what passed in his mind was, either that I had discovered in
him some merit that entitled him to backsheesh, or that one who was rich
enough, and weak enough, to give a cigar, without any provocation, would
give even money to one who asked for it. A friend of mine rode over a
little boy. The urchin, as he lay upon the ground writhing with pain,
and incapable of rising, held up his hand, crying out, “I die now, give
backsheesh!” An English surgeon sees a man fall, and break his arm. He
goes to his assistance, and sets the broken limb. The man asks for
backsheesh. If the wayfarer who, as he was journeying from Jerusalem to
Jericho, had fallen among thieves, had been an Egyptian, he would, while
the good Samaritan was taking leave of him, have addressed to him the
same request. An Arab helps you up to the top of the Pyramid. You pay him
handsomely, and he is satisfied. You enter into conversation with him,
and he tells you that he is the Hakem of his village; that he possesses
so many sheep, so many goats, so many asses, so many camels; that the
wife he married last, now two years ago, is thirteen years old. You look
upon him as a rich man, but, while the thought is forming itself in your
mind, he holds out his hand, and asks for backsheesh.
There is, however, nothing in such requests that need cause annoyance,
or irritation. These children—whether, or not, grown up, for they never
arrive at mental manhood—have nothing in their minds corresponding to
our ideas of pride, whether aristocratic, or republican, of a kind that
might dispose them to regard such petitions as humiliating. What pride
they have is that of race and of religion, which suggests to them the
thought that to get money in this way is only a justifiable spoiling of
the unbelieving stranger. They look, too, upon you as quite inexhaustibly
rich, while they are themselves, generally, very poor. And if you are
satisfied with their services—and they certainly always endeavour to do
their best; or if you have any good-will towards them, with which they
credit you; how is this satisfaction, or good-will, to be shown? It is
ridiculous to suppose that words will suffice. There is but one thing to
do, that is to give a little backsheesh. This rational way of settling
the matter is the way of the East. And of old, too, we know that “the
little present” figured largely in the manners and customs of that part
of the world.
In Egypt, then, to blaze up with indignation at the sight of a hand held
out towards you, is to misunderstand the people you are among. Moreover,
indignation, whatever may be the prompting cause, is very un-Egyptian.
I never met with one who had seen a native lose his temper, under any
circumstances, or under any amount of provocation. You may abuse him; you
may even beat him; but he still smiles, and is still ready to serve you.
In this way he soon makes you feel that you are in the wrong. One cannot
be angry with such people.
This ever-present idea of backsheesh may be turned to some account. I
found that the only way in which I could extract a smile, or a word, from
the native women was to hold out my hand to them, and ask for backsheesh.
That the Howaji, as he rode by, should turn the tables on them in this
way, and invert the natural order of things, by constituting himself
the petitioner, and elevating them to the position of the dispensers of
fortune, was enough to upset their gravity, and loosen their tongues.
I had gone from Jerusalem to Bethany with a young friend late from
Harrow, great in athletics, and full of fun and good spirits. We were on
foot—for who would care to go to, or return from, Bethany otherwise? and,
having arrived at the village, were inquiring for what is shown as the
tomb of Lazarus. The women of the place soon collected round us. One of
them, in the first bloom of youth, looked like a visitant to Earth, come
to enable hapless mortals to dream of the perfectness of Paradise. Her
figure would have given Praxiteles new ideas. Her face was slightly oval;
her features fine and regular; and her complexion such as must be rare
in an Arab girl, for her lips were of a rich, if of a dusky, coral, and
the rose envermeiled her nut-brown cheeks. Her eyes thought. Her beauty
was about her as a halo of light. To look upon her was fascination.
My admiration was speechless. Not so, however, my young friend’s;
for, turning to our dragoman, he said, ‘Ask that young lady if she is
married?’ My breath went from me at the sudden indignation with which she
fired up.
As she walked away, giving utterance, as she went, to some angry Arabic,
I looked into the faces of the women about us. It was evident that they
were impressed with, and approved of, the propriety of her conduct. It
will, I thought, be long remembered, and quoted, in the village as an
example of the promptitude, and decision, with which an Arab girl should
guard her reputation.
And now, I said to myself, we are in for it. She will go and fetch her
father, or a brother, or some relative assumed for the occasion, and
there will be a row. I suggested, therefore, to my young friend, ‘that
the tomb was a transparent imposture; that it could only be an excavation
in the rock, made by some mediæval monk; and that we should do better to
go on, and look at something else.’ And so we got away.
As we left the party of women, I gave them a little more backsheesh than
usual; and then told the dragoman that we would leave the place at once,
but not by the road by which we had come.
We had just cleared the village, and I was congratulating myself on our
having got off so speedily, when we encountered a flight of locusts.
I soon became absorbed in observing their ‘numbers numberless.’ They
gave me, I thought, a new idea of multitude. They blurred the sunlight
almost like a cloud. I began to capture some of them, which I now have
preserved in spirits.
While thus occupied, and with a feeling of wonder, at the infinitude of
living things around us, growing upon me, the apprehensions I had lately
felt, dropped entirely out of my mind. In this way we went on. When we
had got about three-quarters of a mile from the village we came to a turn
in the mountain path, far removed from any dwelling, and where all was
solitude and quiet. As we approached the corner, a young woman stepped
forward from behind a projecting rock, and with a gracious look, and most
engaging smile, presented my young friend with a carefully-arranged and
beautiful bouquet.
Could my eyes be deceiving me? No. It was no other than the exemplary
young creature, who, only half-an-hour back, had shown so much and such
becoming indignation.
My apprehensions, then, and precautions had been unnecessary. But,
in American phrase, ‘How dreffle smart’ to combine, in so prompt and
graceful a manner, the credit of being good with the pleasure of being
good-natured. Could anything have been better imagined in London, or
Paris?
So it seemed. But _honi soit qui mal y pense_. True, few can be as
beautiful, few as keen-witted as the girl of Bethany. But also true
that none could have been more free from thought of evil. ’Twas all for
backsheesh.
And where two rupees are a marriage portion—so much to them, and so
little to us—whose heart would condemn the bare-footed young tactician?
That day, as she returned to the village, her step, I can think, was
lighter than usual. Perhaps she did not observe the mischief the locusts
were doing to her father’s little plot of wheat.
A few days afterwards, we were riding across the hills from Bethlehem
to Solomon’s Pools. Our path lay by the side of the rude old aqueduct.
This is merely a trough of undressed stone, sunk to the level of the
surface of the ground, on the sides of the hills it winds its way among,
for about five miles, from the Pools to the town. The sinking of the
aqueduct just to the level of the surface, was a way of saving it from
the risks of being knocked over, or of falling to pieces, that was as
wise as it was simple. If it had been raised above the ground, or buried
in it, whenever it got out of order, the repair of damages would have
been difficult and costly. Originally it was carried on, five miles
further, to Jerusalem. We had, in our ride, reached the spot where the
large-hearted king (who, like Aristotle, Bacon, and Humboldt, had seen
that all knowledge was connected) had, probably, his Botanical Gardens,
in which he cultivated some of the plants he wrote about; and the _genius
loci_ had just brought into my mind, his request, suggested to him,
perhaps, by the interest he took in the fruit he was growing up here,
‘To be comforted with apples, for that he was sick of love,’ when we
came suddenly on a party of women washing clothes. If the daughters of
Bethlehem were as good-looking in Solomon’s time as they are in ours, it,
we can imagine, must have strengthened his favourable disposition towards
the place; and may go some way towards accounting for the aqueduct.
Though, indeed, this seems a little inconsistent with his preference for
apples. That, however, may have been only a temporary feeling, or, it may
have been the expression of his latest and more matured experience.
But, as to those daughters of Bethlehem now in the flesh, whom we had
come upon, while so usefully and creditably employed. They were much
amused, as it appeared, at having been caught in such an occupation, and
were laughing merrily. My young friend, as might have been expected of
him, endeavoured to increase the merriment; this he did by leaning over
his saddle, and saying, ‘Ateeni bosa.’ Had he spoken in English—though,
of course, nothing of the kind could ever have been said by him in our
downright tongue—the words would have been ‘Give me a kiss.’ The one,
to whom he appeared more particularly to address himself, blazed up
with instantaneous indignation, just like the girl of Bethany. With
angry glance, and fierce tone, she exclaimed, ‘May your lips be withered
first.’ But now I felt no apprehensions. My only thought was, that if
we came back the same way, and should, by accident, find her alone, she
would then, perhaps, hold out her hand, and say, ‘Your lips are a garden
of roses: give backsheesh.’