Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/751

Rh wrench, and "al hamdo lil lah," we were full around. A straight run down the wind, during which we held our lead, and—we were first in Luxor by thirty minutes! Two years later the poor old Tih, oversparred and cranky, capsized in a night squall, and nearly drowned her passengers.

Assuan has, socially, two phases: as a resort for the pleasure-loving winter tourist who wants to be comfortably amused, and as a last resort in many a case of lungs and kidneys, where gymkhanas are remote from the struggle for existence. And so it is only the first phase that comes out in the Assuan sports; they are certainly amusing,—consisting, as a rule, solely of donkey events, and are warmly patronized by the youths and maidens of the place, who, clad in hopelessly new riding-togs, or the fluffiest and most unsuitable muslins, enter in the affinity races and other mixed events with an ardor only bred of much and temporary flirtation.

At Luxor there is none of this; only the small circle of dahabeah people who live there for science or for love, and the weekly influx off the tourist-boats; and the difference is bound to show, and does, in the sports. There are two presiding genii of the Luxor sports, to wit, the parson, who is clerk of the course, and Yusuf, a native dragoman, who collects and manages all the native entries. Tor Luxor is the only place on the river where the gymkhana has an indigenous, as well as a European, character.

There is no funnier sight anywhere than the camel-race, as the great unmanageable brutes come zigzagging down the course, with their legs flying in every direction, and the native rider perched on each beast bounding aloft at such a rate that he only hits the saddle about every thirty feet. There is the three-legged Bishareen-race, genuine Kipling fuzzy-wuzzies on a broad grin, and the race of the water-buffaloes, who puff and blow along like ill-tempered caricatures, the incarnation of "wallowing" and ugliness; now and again a frantic chorus of shrieks shows where one has thrown his male jockey and charged off the course into the terror-stricken crowd, till perchance some wee girl who has been tending him day after day in the fields leads the great brute meekly back again into the straight and narrow way. The horse-race is a joy to see—the wild Arab horses hurtling neck and neck down the course, their bareback riders sitting like centaurs all of a piece with their steeds, free and fearless as their own desert winds. Not that the tourist side is dull either,—"contrariwise," indeed,—and the donkey-races, donkey tandems, goolah-pegging, and so forth, lead one up to a fitting climax in the mad rush back to the river after the sports are over—a whirling chaos of dust and shrieks along the narrow dike, where carriages, donkeys, pedestrians, horses, and camels, all at full speed, push and plunge past till one's brain reels, and one is merely a distracted item in the motley living kaleidoscope which proves that another Luxor race-meeting is of the past.

The law and order consequent to Western ideas of progress are not always as patent, however, as at Luxor and Assuan; and, in fact, there are some places on the river where it is still deemed unsafe to tie up.

Some time since we stopped on a bank in order to visit some little-known tombs back in the mountains. Up in the hills an English artist whom we knew and a very good tiffin awaited us, and the fine frescos at our journey's end more than repaid us for the long ride on bridleless donkeys. When we reached our boat, early in the afternoon, a crowd of about two hundred or so were grouped close round, examining it with the greatest interest. We had decided earlier in the day to stop for the night, so steam was down and the fires banked. The noise and jabbering of the curious throng on the bank became finally so unbearable that the laundry-"boy"—six feet four or thereabouts—took it into his head to disperse them. This he proceeded to do after an approved method of his own, which consisted—after his turban had been knocked off by some wit of the village—in hurling sun-dried bricks at the crowd with great force and accuracy.

The mob laughingly melted under this vigorous treatment, when an unfortunately aimed missile caught a small boy in the side of the head, and cut a long deep gash in his scalp. We carried the poor little chap on board, did up his head with iodoform, gave him a new cap and some