390 RIDING AND HUNTING ABROAD. 



my ride, I resigned all further activity in the proceed- 

 ings, and submitted to having the speed of my mount 

 regulated by the stick from behind. When pursued, 

 Mrs. Langtry would go off with a rush, pausing ai 

 intervals to listen for footsteps behind, and assure 

 herself that the stick man was well out of reach. 

 Once she relapsed into a dreamy reverie, and so far 

 forgot herself as to allow her owner to wake her up 

 with a tremendous whack, which sent her flying with 

 such force that I was nearly jerked out of the saddle. 

 Our destination was the First Castle, and I was glad 

 to turn homewards. Motee did not appear to have 

 enjoyed his share of the joke, for he looked very 

 angrily at the donkey man as he removed my saddle, 

 and said : " Dis no good ponies, Mem Sahib, plenty 

 tamasha.^ 



That evening when I was recounting my adventures 

 at dinner, Count Carlo Sanminiatelli, who was staying 

 at the same hotel, "asked me in French if I was fond of 

 riding. - On hearing my reply, he at once placed at my 

 disposal nearly three hundred remounts which were to 

 be shipped later on to Massowah. These horses 

 belonged to the Italian Government, which was ex- 

 pecting a row with King John of Abyssinia. After 

 that, Motee and I used to disappear for hours in the 

 desert every day, and we wended our way back to the 

 hotel, only when the pangs of hunger forced us to do 

 so. We would try sometimes as many as fifteen 

 animals in a day, and I took the numbers of those 

 which were nice to ride. In a very short time I had 



