Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker.

Date:
1885-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    36/628 page 16
    (9). Beggars. Bakshish. Most Orientals regard the European traveller as a Croesus, and sometimes too as a madman, — so unintelligible to them are the objects and pleasures of travelling. Poverty, they imagine, is unknown among us, whereas in reality we feel its privations far more keenly than they. That such erroneous notions prevail is to some extent the fault of travellers themselves. In a country where the requirements of the natives are few and simple, and money is scarce, a few piastres seem a fortune to many. Travellers are there- fore often tempted to give for the sake of affording temporary pleasure at a trifling cost, forgetting that the seeds of insatiable cupidity are thereby sown, to the infinite annoyance of their successors and the demoralisation of the recipients themselves. As a rule, bakshish should never be given except for services rendered, or to the sick and aged. Sir Gardner Wilkinson has justly observed that the cry of ‘Bak- shish, bakshish, yd khawageli (oh, sir! a gift 1), with which Euro- peans are invariably assailed, is an insulting substitute for the ‘good day’ of other countries. The Arab reserves his pious bene- dictions for his own countrymen, but never hesitates to take advan- tage of hat he considers the folly of foreign travellers. The best reply te such applications is ‘md fish, ma fish’ (I have nothing for you), which will generally have the effect of dispersing the assailants. Or a beggar may be silenced with the words ‘Allah ya'tilc (may God give thee!). The word bakshish, which resounds so perpetually in the traveller’s ears during his sojourn in the East, and haunts him long afterwards, simply means ‘a gift’; and, as everything is to be had in return for gifts, the word has many different applications. Thus with bakshish the tardy formalities of the custom-house officer are accelerated, bakshish supplies the place of a passport, bakshish is the alms bestowed on a beggar, bakshish means black mail, and lastly a large proportion of the public officials of the country are said to live by bakshish or bribery. (10). Public Safety. Weapons. Bogs. Public Safety. The authority of the Khedive is so well established throughout the whole of Egypt that travellers are very rarely exposed to predatory attacks, even on the Sinai journey, and travelling is indeed safer than in some parts of Europe. The pro- tection of an escort is therefore never necessary as it is in certain regions of Palestine and Syria. Travellers, however, who have scientific objects in view, and who require the co-operation of the natives or of the pasha or mudir of a district, or those who have reason to apprehend any difficulty or danger, may obtain through their consulates a viceregal recommendation (firman or teskirehj, which will often be found very useful.
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