Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/122

104 1. Thread and needle race, on donkeys, for ladies and gentlemen.

2. Wrestling on donkeys, for donkey-boys.

Still, one must, no doubt, vary the programme as much as possible at a meeting of this sort, and the Beshereen foot-race serves well enough to whet our interest in what is to follow. The next event, a "donkey-boys' race, standing on donkeys," is vastly popular; and as the dozen or so of rival jackasses are seen coming up the straight at a pace generally pronounced to be good, and which, indeed, does in some instances border upon a gallop, a roar of Arabic ejaculations goes up from the side of the racecourse opposite the double row of awning-shaded seats which constitute the "grand stand." Many of the animals are completing the race alone—apparently as a matter of duty—their riders, like the guests in Omar Khayyam's convivial lines, "star-scattered on the grass;" but the struggle between the remaining four or five donkeys, whose backs are still tenanted, would offer