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Updated: May 23, 2025
Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand, and they know but one word of but one language apparently the eternal "bucksheesh."
I saw heiresses there worth, in their own right worth, well, I suppose I might venture to say, as much as nine dollars and a half. But such cases are rare. When you come across one of these, she naturally puts on airs. She will not ask for bucksheesh. She will not even permit of undue familiarity.
Of course we contracted with them, paid them, were delivered into the hands of the draggers, dragged up the Pyramids, and harried and be-deviled for bucksheesh from the foundation clear to the summit. We paid it, too, for we were purposely spread very far apart over the vast side of the Pyramid.
I make no apology for detailing the above information. It will be news to some of my readers, at any rate. Noah's tomb is built of stone, and is covered with a long stone building. Bucksheesh let us in. The building had to be long, because the grave of the honored old navigator is two hundred and ten feet long itself! It is only about four feet high, though.
But the water was not good, and there was no comfort or peace any where, on account of the regiment of boys and girls and beggars that persecuted us all the time for bucksheesh.
We got away from the noisy wretches, finally, dropping them in squads and couples as we filed over the hills the aged first, the infants next, the young girls further on; the strong men ran beside us a mile, and only left when they had secured the last possible piastre in the way of bucksheesh. In an hour, we reached Nain, where Christ raised the widow's son to life.
But the prohibition has been removed, and we entered freely for bucksheesh. I need not speak of the wonderful beauty and the exquisite grace and symmetry that have made this Mosque so celebrated because I did not see them.
They hung to the horses's tails, clung to their manes and the stirrups, closed in on every aide in scorn of dangerous hoofs and out of their infidel throats, with one accord, burst an agonizing and most infernal chorus: "Howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! bucksheesh! bucksheesh!" I never was in a storm like that before.
Carefully preserved among the sacred archives of this curious community is a MSS. copy of the ancient Jewish law, which is said to be the oldest document on earth. It is written on vellum, and is some four or five thousand years old. Nothing but bucksheesh can purchase a sight.
But the prohibition has been removed, and we entered freely for bucksheesh. I need not speak of the wonderful beauty and the exquisite grace and symmetry that have made this Mosque so celebrated because I did not see them.
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