With respect to the common arts of everyday life, I think general opinion is somewhat in error, in the direction of being unduly disparaging, as to the state in which they were throughout the East, and on the northern shores of the Mediterranean, at the period which precedes the first glimmerings of history. I believe that the knowledge of these arts was throughout that large area spread very generally. Man has no real tradition of the discovery of these arts any more than he has of the acquisition of the domestic animals, and of the most useful of the kinds of grain[3] and of fruits he cultivates. What is to the credit of the Egyptians is, that they carried the practice of them to a high degree of perfection, and rendered them singularly fruitful, and that they added to them much which circumstances made it impossible they could have borrowed from any other people. Everything done in Egypt was invested with an Egyptian, just as everything done in Japan has been with a Japanese, character. CHAPTER V. 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