Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1914 — LAND OF BACKSHEESH. [ARTICLE]

LAND OF BACKSHEESH.

Baby Mwmmtee at f H Each ta Egypt —Mummy Scraps ia Proportion. Five hundred miles up the Nile, at Luxor, the thing which most impresses the average tourist is that there, hundreds of miles from the modern world, with the desert on one side and the mysterious river on the other there is a veritable Palm Beach of hotels , marking the foreign invasion of the last few years. All Egypt seems to be imbibed with the spirit of digging, says Leslie's Weekly. Everywhere one will see men and women, and even children poking about in the sand and among the rocks in search of secreted tombs> In Luxor the diggers are frequently rewarded wlthi finds of beads, coins and even mummies. Along the bank on the Luxor side of the river in the shop of Ahmed Abd-el-Rahin, there is an astounding bargain in mummified babies, and one in particular, which he pretends is 3,000 years old, is offered for the trifling sum of sl3. The circumstance is not without its pathetic side; nevertheless, the first impulse of the average man is t» laugh when the honorable Ahmed comes forth with the gay little case* covered hieroglyphics and tells you it is a baby and urges that it. be taken to America. The curious part of ittis thaVmany tourists do buy these tiny mummies, which to all appearances are genuine as to age. Tourists buy also the mummy clothes, tattered and torn and stained, although wonderful in color and design, that have been wrapped around the dead bodies of the ancient Egyptians. Also the venders of separate hands and feet seem to enjoy a good income during the season. It is in Luxor especially that mummies are sold, and tourists are frequently seen dickering with boy venders on the street for their store of djetached hands, feet or fingers. Selling dead things seems to be a mania in Luxor. While our party was returning from a visit to the tombs of the kings a veiled woman riding a donkey Offered for sale a beautiful green beetle which she had found on a palm tree and had impaled. A little further on a small girl carried. a dead sparrow, which from pure instinct she held out for sale., v Dealers in scarabs are in evidence everywhere on the streets and the traveler can buy these quaint ornaments by the hundred, by the dozen or by the piece and at all prices. It is seldom that the street dealers have anything genuine in the way of antiques aside from pieces of’ mummies, for when they do find them they sell them at good prices to shopkeepers, who know where to dispose of them in turn.

Tiny clay or mod statues of tbo great Ramoses 11. are tor sale at any price. It -would no doubt please the yreat Klng, who so desired to be remembered that he erected dozens of temples to his glorification, to know that a Ramoses bar in Luxor dlspenr ses whiskey and soda to weary travelers, and there is aßameaes antique shop and any number of donkeys are named after the ancient ruler. Donkey riding in Luxor is one of joys of the tourists, for the animals in all Egypt are to be found here, and a visit to the native shops, and later a gallop along the banks of the Nile by twilight Is a unique pleasure which remains long in the memory. Donkeys are hired by the day or by the hour, the price by the day being only two shillings, with a small backsheesh tor the donkey boy who runs constantly behind.