“A chorus of ‘baksheesh!’ with all sorts of variations on the same theme, was now raised about my ears. I asked them through Philip on what pretence they wanted a baksheesh, begging at the same time that they would withdraw. Their answer was to this effect: ‘The land and the well belong to us, and no foreigner has any right to come here without paying us a baksheesh. Would you like to go down into the well? Here is a rope that we have brought with that view. We will let you safely down; you can see the well from within, and on coming up again pay us a baksheesh.’ “‘But what makes you suppose that I want to examine your well? I know quite the appearance of the well from within, and thus have no need to go down into it. Be, then, so good as to take your rope home again, and leave me alone.’ “I had almost added, ‘then I will give you a baksheesh;’ but I thought if these rogues see that a baksheesh is earned by merely allowing a stranger to be left alone at the well, then there is every chance that, as soon as they are gone, another similar party will come down to me, and give me still more molestation than these. “‘If the Chawadja will not go down into the well, then will we go down instead of him, and tell him how it looks on our return; but anyhow, we must have a baksheesh.’” A sore trial to the righteous soul of our traveller is at all times this demand for “baksheesh;” and he complains feelingly of the extravagant example of former travellers who have encouraged the Arab, only too willing to be encouraged, in his shameless exactions. No small grievance this for the pilgrim of duty or science who must economise; but, from railway porters to Bedouin chiefs, human nature is the same. We suspect the London cabman, compelled to take his legal fare, would turn out as troublesome as Abu Dahuk, if it were not for the terror of the police magistrate; and where there is no such heaven-appointed institution—no guardian angel in blue coat and leaden buttons—no Mr Commissioner Mayne—it is scarcely to be expected that your master of conveyances in the desert—your grand representative of railway and public roads for the district of the Dead Sea—should content himself with the polite information of what “a real gentleman” would offer, as your cabman must be content to do.