The donkey-boys were lively young Egyptian rascals who could follow a donkey and keep him in a canter half a day without tiring.

We had plenty of spectators when we mounted, for the hotel was full of English people bound overland to India and officers getting ready for the African campaign against the Abyssinian King Theodorus.
We were not a very large party, but as we charged through the streets of the great metropolis, we made noise for five hundred, and displayed activity and created excitement in proportion.

Nobody can steer a donkey, and some collided with camels, dervishes, effendis, asses, beggars and every thing else that offered to the donkeys a reasonable chance for a collision.

When we turned into the broad avenue that leads out of the city toward Old Cairo, there was plenty of room.

The walls of stately date-palms that fenced the gardens and bordered the way, threw their shadows down and made the air cool and bracing.