Baksheesh

Algerian Arab gendarmes live from Baksheesh, they are nevertheless very well paid by the Algerian assassin power.

What an honour to think that I am to be elevated to the throne, and to bring the seat in Parliament as backsheesh to the sultan!

As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the horses' hoofs roused the stupid population, and they all came trooping out—old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled and scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct and education. […] [O]ut 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. As we paid the bucksheesh out to sore-eyed children and brown, buxom girls with repulsively tattooed lips and chins, we filed through the town […]

[…] the complex Oriental etiquette which under the name of “baksheesh” calls for lavish remuneration and bribes, rudely demanded but ever so graciously accepted by the natives in return for little or no services rendered.

We see the immense, massive granite sarcophagi which had contained the embalmed mummies of the worshipped animals, coming out of this labyrinth, we pay our backsheesh, remount our donkeys and return to the automobile.

Baksheesh (lubrication payment) is often the accepted manner of doing business in the Middle and Far East. However, one must be careful not to confuse ethics with the law.

In the tomb of Ramses III, one side chamber has beautiful pictures showing musicians playing for the pharoah^([sic]) and his fellow gods. […] In yet another are poignant scenes of everyday life in Egypt. They don't show people demanding backsheesh but I suspect it happened back then because it seems bred into the local psyche. The guards in the tombs want payment for offering unnecessary directions, for handing out pieces of cardboard able to be used as fans – and for just being there.

When we had made the boys as comfortable as possible and given them fags, of which our Padre seemed to have an inexhaustable^([sic]) supply, they were quite cheerful, and joked about “backsheesh” wounds.

Clearly the preferred wound, it ranked in seriousness between a 'buckshee' or 'baksheesh', a slight would that merely took a man out of the line for a short time, and a 'N.Z. smack', which meant being invalided back to New Zealand, usually disabled for life.

Some prayed for what was known as a 'blighty' wound or a 'backsheesh' wound, a wound that would be bad enough to have them sent home but not so bad that it would cripple them.