Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/132

114 not a single kick, but a volley. Not a few notes carelessly struck with the hoof, so to speak, but an elaborate fantasia—a passionate bravura of recalcitration. Its contrast with the previous inertia of the animal is so amazing that the spectator is confounded. To what, he asks himself, is this sudden and vehement participation in the contest to be attributed? To art or nature? To asinine impulse or to human suggestion? The latter seems more probable, for keen-eyed observers declare that at critical moments they have detected Ali in the act of kicking his opponent's donkey with his disengaged heel. The stratagem, however, if stratagem it be, is in any case a failure; for the tempest-tossed Hassan neither loses seat nor looses hold. After a few vain wrenches Ali is fain to fall back on the defensive. The crowd—which has long since broken through the barriers—presses closer and closer round the wrestlers, too deeply interested to shout or chatter. The police, themselves absorbed in