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[Page 26]
faster than the other two, and so I left them and beat everything down the hill, coming down at a great gallop. The scene on the road leading to the Pyramids is I think one of the most interesting sights out there. The road is a steep ascent leading up between fairly high walls and at the bottom is the tram terminus. When you alight you are immediately met by a crowd of natives in their flowing robes, all babbling and gestulating at the same time, and endeavouring to hire their donkeys or camels. You leave the shady terminus with its palm trees and green crops to step out into the dazzling desert, the edge of which stands those ancient monuments. The road is a veritable kaledioscope of colours with the bright trappings of the animals and the clothes of the natives, intermingled with the more sober khaki of the soldiers. Trudging slowly up the hill side by side and with no eyes for anyone else are a wounded officer and a red cross nurse in her prim dress of grey. Just behind, joking and laughing come a group of convalescent boys in their hospital suits of bright blue flannel, and which look like gaudy pyjamas, whilst just round the bend ambles a little donkey struggling underneath a big broad shouldered Australian, whose sunburnt face is as usual lit up with the everlasting smile, prompted by that everlasting joke; probably cracked about something which to any ordinary citizen would be a terrible hardship or a great grievance. Glancing ahead of us we see the old ungainly camel ambling down the hill throwing his legs about as if they did not belong to him, his ugly body moving up and down like a ship in a heavy sea and pumping all sorts of strange noises out of his throat. Clinging to the wooden saddle on the top of this animated bundle of awkwardness is a young lady looking almost longingly at terra firma. But something more exciting catches our eye for down the hill rushes a number of boys having a donkey race, the little animals going for all their worth under the stimulus of a whack from a big bronze country lad whose long legs almost touch the ground. Down they come laughing and joking, all the time waving their arms and legs about, with the poor little donks nodding their heads, their great ears flapping about, almost as much as the men's arms as they whack each other's mules. The whole effect seems like a human whirlwing, with