Bargaining

The difficulty lies in the fact that we are strangers, that we must have our luggage carried, and that we won´t give way extortion. One man came and calmly asked two pesos and toston (seven shillings) for a bag and two small cameras. We offered him one peso (three shillings), and he took a dollar (four shillings), and no doubt even now considers himself well paid. But all day this matter has been hanging in the balance. Continually Pepi has been coming to me as I sit writing in Don Sebastian’s room, each time with a fresh proposition. It would have been much easier to have given what was asked at once than to have haggled over it; but, learning that the sum was extortionate, it did not seem right, in the interests of future travelers, to “spoil the market”.

The people themselves expect you to dispute what they ask. Bargaining is a great amusement and occupation to them, and they would be immensely surprised if you gave them their demands. It simply becomes a matter of how much they can be beaten down, and one is pretty safe in offering exactly half of the sum first asked. All this is eminently uncomfortable; it is a worry, in fact, that I don’t appreciate; and it is difficult to take it philosophically and look upon it as being as much part of the day’s routine as getting up in the morning. The two principal islands are decidedly the worst in this matter, and between them Canaria carries off the palm, for in out-of-the-way places, where the foot of a stranger has never been before, extortion is attempted.

Olivia Stone, Tenerife and its six satellites (1887)