APPEKDIX. 355 



tl-otting througli the streets bearing a six-foot specimen of hu- 

 manity, who to alight has only to put his legs down their full 

 length and the donkey trots out from under him. Their braying 

 resounds through the city at all hours of the day and night, and 

 is about as musical as the filing of a saw-mill saw, and not very 

 unlike it, although a friend of mine remarked when I made the 

 comparison, that he thought it was an insult to the saw. 



I had serious misgivings about bestriding one of these diminu- 

 tive specimens of the animal kingdom, but in justice to the don- 

 key species I must say that 1 never travelled more expeditiously 

 and comfortably for the money. You extend your right foot over 

 the little beast and draw up your legs, putting your feet into 

 a pair of miniature stirrups ; a driver (each donkey has its 

 driver) trots after him on foot, and by dint of switching and 

 punching keeps him up to the requisite degree of speed. One 

 of these little animals will get over an astonishing amount of 

 ground in a day, and, barring an occasional tendency to rub 

 your legs against a wall or a passing camel, or to stumble and 

 pitch you into a mud-puddle, this is by no means a bad method 

 of locomotion. Indeed, it is far better and easier than riding 

 upon either camels or elephants, which are much more pretentious 

 members of the animal kingdom, and whose performances in this 

 line have occasionally been greatly lauded. In Cairo, a common 

 name for donkeys is " Bismarck," and upon inquiring the origin 

 of this singular name, I found that during the Franco-Prussian 

 war the many French residents of Cairo revenged themselves 

 tipon the German statesman by ordering a " Bismarck " whenever 

 a donkey was required, and the Arab drivers, believing that this 

 was a French name for the animal, finally came to adopt it as a 

 common name. "Whenever they saw a foreigner wanting a don- 

 key they would greet him with the inquiry, " "Want a Bismarck, 

 master ? ^wmarck ? " Some German officers, however, who were 

 on a visit to the Pyramids about a year ago, thrashed some of the 

 drivers, and since that time it is said that many of them have 

 studied the law of nations, and now have an idea of the meaning 

 of the word, and are cautious how they use it — particularly with 

 persons having a German type of countenance. 



Of coiirse we went to see the Pyramids, for every one who 



