Note 79 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
The word bakhshýsh is so often in the mouths of the Syrians and Egyptians, that the reader will be anxious to know its precise meaning. The verb bakhshesh means “to give gratuitously:” and the native of these countries, after every thing he does for you, generally says—Please to give me a bakhshýsh, or please to bakhshýsh me. It is the first word that a stranger learns and the last that he hears: so that it is not astonishing if very soon it becomes familiar to his ear.