ON DONKEYS TO THE ASSOUAN DAM 135 



got worse, and after the donkeys had clambered up 

 some rocks and landed down others of the drop- 

 fence sort, with all the while an unpleasant possi- 

 bility of rolhng into the Nile far below, we were 

 presently fain to get off and lead for a short distance. 

 Then at last, after another village, with more goats, 

 sheep, dogs, babies, and children calling for the 

 eternal ' backsheesh,' we landed in an open plateau, 

 and got free and fair going to amble along all the 

 rest of the way to where the Rameses the Great had 

 been shifted from her moorings to lower down the 

 river, so as to be over the shoals preliminary to 

 her start at five next morning. Mr. Gubbins had 

 also had an equally good view of the dam, and so 

 we were all well satisfied, although a pernicious 

 Western States American, away from home for 

 the first time, is on board this boat and contrives, 

 so far as is humanly possible, to rub people up 

 the wrong way. 



" This sort of blatant stars- and- stripes idiocy is, 

 however, soon forgotten if you have a chat with 

 Mohammed, who is, above all things, a man of 

 the world, and, what is more, he has been engaged 

 in every Nile Expedition, from the Wolseley one of 

 1884 downwards. For his services on that first- 

 named occasion the late Mr. John M. Cook gave 

 him a gratuity of £100 over and above his salary, 

 and, writing of him on February 20, 1886, Mr. Cook 



