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I02 Oriental Cairo<br />

The first thing to do when you go into a bazar is to<br />

saunter through it, and ask the price of everything you<br />

Hke, saying that you don't mean to buy anything until you<br />

have seen everything. The Oriental is perfectly agreeable<br />

to this : he is polite as well as wily ; it is to his interest for<br />

his stock to be examined. In the Tentmakers' Bazar the<br />

shopkeepers call out : " No sharge for looking," as you pass.<br />

The moment when you have said that you are not going<br />

to buy anything is rather a good time to buy. They put<br />

the prices down very low to tempt you. They don't mind<br />

if you do break your word—in this way. Price the same<br />

sort of thing at different stalls which are a long way from<br />

each other. It helps to give the real price and to show<br />

which stall is cheapest. Do not be afraid of giving<br />

trouble. Orientals do not mind how much trouble they take<br />

for a prospective customer, or how much trouble they give<br />

by asking three times what they mean to take. Leave<br />

your dragoman behind when you really mean to do your<br />

buying. Then they will do extra bargaining to the extent<br />

that his commission would come to. The ordinary dragoman<br />

expects commissions on all sales when he accompanies the<br />

tourist. In bargaining there are certain other conditions to<br />

remember besides leaving the dragoman behind. Upon new<br />

brooches and trinkets and photograph-frames they will not<br />

come down much, because they will have been afraid to put<br />

too much profit on an article which has a fairly regular<br />

price. But for second-hand lace and turquoises they may<br />

ask ten times the proper price, and are pretty certain to<br />

ask three times. It is on objects for which they ask,<br />

not the value, but whatever they think you will give, that<br />

you can beat them down most. They will often come<br />

down one half and nearly always one third on such things,<br />

if you are firm with them.<br />

But to return to bakshish. If no native is with you to<br />

demand his commission, and you know that the merchant<br />

is making you pay too much, demand a bakshish. If the<br />

merchant demurs, say :<br />

" If I had brought a dragoman with<br />

me you would have had to pay him bakshish." Thus

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