ejaculation, which leaves the lips of the True Believer on all
occasions of concluding actions.
[FN#10] "Bakhshish," says a modern writer, "is a fee or present which
the Arabs (he here means the Egyptians, who got the word from the
Persians through the Turks,) claim on all occasions for services you
render them, as well as for services they have rendered you. A doctor
visits a patient gratis-the patient or his servant will ask for a
bakhshish (largesse); you employ, pay, clothe, and feed a child-the
father will demand his bakhshish; you may save the life of an Arab, at
the risk of your own, and he will certainly claim a bakhshish. This
bakhshish, in fact, is a sort of alms or tribute, which the poor Arab
believes himself entitled to claim from every respectable-looking
person."
[FN#11] Mafish, "there is none," equivalent to, "I have left my purse
at home." Nothing takes the Oriental mind so much as a retort
alliterative or jingling. An officer in the Bombay army (Colonel
Hamerton) once saved himself from assault and battery by informing a
furious band of natives, that under British rule "harakat na hui,
barakat hui," "blessing hath there been to you; bane there hath been
none."
[FN#12] In a coarser sense "kayf" is app1ied to all manner of
intoxication. Sonnini is not wrong when he says, "the Arabs give the
name of Kayf to the voluptuous relaxation, the delicious stupor,
produced by the smoking of hemp."
[FN#13] Cleopatra's Needle is called by the native Ciceroni "Masallat
Firaun," Pharaoh's packing needle. What Solomon, and the Jinnis and
Sikandar zu'l karnain (Alexander of Macedon), are to other Moslem
lands, such is Pharaoh to Egypt, the "Caesar aut Diabolus" of the Nile.
The ichneumon becomes "Pharaoh's cat,"-even the French were bitten and
named it, le rat de Pharaon; the prickly pear, "Pharaoh's fig;" the