Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/124

106 effective "expectation of success" under these circumstances could not perhaps be precisely measured without resort to algebraical formula; but it can be easily seen, and may be roughly said, that that expectation is vague enough to make the contest a very "open thing."

In the present case, the donkey who is leading at almost a dozen yards from home is followed by a rival whose rider seems to have, so to speak, a certain amount of equilibrium "in hand," while it is itself ridden by a youth whose inclination to the horizon is rapidly tending to exceed those angular limits to which man's enjoyment of his glorious privilege, the erect attitude, is restricted. The question, therefore, is whether the time during which a donkey moving at a given velocity—the product of a frequently and freely given stick—can cover so many yards of a racecourse is greater or less than the time which a human body of a fixed weight, but with an unfixed footing, will take to slip off that donkey's back to the ground. It is a