Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/63

Rh 700 years agone; but perhaps his recollections of Plantagenet knights and crossbowmen would hardly assist him to recognise their successors in the persons of Tommy Atkins and his officers. Nor would he be aided in this recognition by an observation of the particular form of activity in which, as we drive under the massive archway of the Citadel and enter the barrack-square, surrounded by a crowd of blue-gowned, grinning, gesticulating Arabs, who are probably not much altered in appearance from the Cairene donkey-boys of the days of the last Fatimite Caliphs, a row of broad-faced, bullet-headed British soldiers, each one of them planted firmly on the back of an unwillingly participating steed, is contending for the prize of victory. It is the second event in the day's programme—the "tug-of-war on donkeys"—and a long and indecisive event it proves. It might be war on the old system, with both of the armies withdrawn into winter quarters, so immovable are the