LIII 



The Arab donkey -boys are not often cruel to their lit- 

 tle charges, or, at least, cruelty has been much checked. 

 There has been a considerable change for the better in 

 Egypt since the English have been in the land. The 

 sokliers of the English garrisons have been forbidden to 

 ride any donkey which shows signs of ill-treatment or 

 saddle-galls, and the effect has been astonishing. Even the 

 Arab can catch the true commercial idea up to a certain 

 point. They are wonderful barterers, these Arabs, but 

 they have not, as a rule, a very clear conception of what 

 commerce means. So with all semi-civijized peoples. In 

 Mexico, once, at Guadalajara, I think, where we could 

 buy a dozen oranges for about five cents, the caterer of 

 our dining-car was unable to buy two hundred dozen at 

 any reduction whatever ; the people did not understand 

 wholesale dealings, thougli oranges were rotting by the 

 cart-load. Nor would they sell him more than a certain 

 amount of mutton at a time, though they had flocks in 

 abundance, nor at any discount from the price demanded 

 by the pound. They failed to see the difference between 

 wholesale and retail. The Arab is much lili;e this. He 

 ^vill haggle over the price of a carpet for days, and beat 

 you out and out ; but he is a poor business-man, after all. 

 Still, he soon saw his profit in treating his donkey well, 

 when he could not let him if he looked neglected. The 

 city asses are in good condition (in Cairo there are many 

 fine ones), and it seems to me that the instinct of cruelty 



