From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
A THEBAN RACE MEETING
In the splendid pæan of the Book of Exodus over the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, the overthrow, not only of "Pharaoh's chariots," but of his "horsemen" also, is triumphantly celebrated. If, however, the word "horsemen" here means "knights" or "troopers," and not merely "charioteers," the passage of Scripture is surely the only testimony to the existence of a cavalry arm or even to the practice of the art of equitation among the early Egyptians that ancient records afford. No such evidence seems at any rate to be discoverable in their wall-paintings or mural sculpture. Any number of Egyptian kings may be seen portrayed in the act of shooting at their foes with bow and arrow from a chariot, and, possibly, one might find pictured examples of the employment of such vehicles for ceremonial purposes; but neither in battle, nor pageant, nor pastime, nor religious rite does one ever meet with any king of the first twenty dynasties or so, or any of his subjects, "outside a horse." There was no Theban race meeting while Thebes was. No enterprising citizen of the hundred-gated city ever started a hundred-and-first gate at which money might be taken for the privilege of witnessing from a favourable position a trial of speed between Egyptian horses. No Seti or Rameses ever gave a cup to be run for, or founded a "stakes" fund to be for ever named after him, and to constitute a surer passport than mummification to immortality. Never, therefore, under any of those monarchs can such an occasion have arisen as that which to-day seems to have brought the whole population of Luxor, permanent and temporary, thronging forth on foot, on donkey or camel back, to the outlying strip of grassland which serves the town for a racecourse.
The dwellers in this corner of the ruins of ancient Thebes—insignificant fraction as they are of its once vast population—have done their best, it must be owned, to make a good show. There are, perhaps, 4000 or so of native Egyptians, collected together from Luxor and its vicinity, traders of the town, local donkey-boys with their "allied industries," loafers from the neighbouring villages, and so forth; and, packed three or four deep along the rope that lines the half-mile of "straight" which constitutes the entire course, they present a curiously picturesque contrast to the race-going crowd that assembles on Epsom Downs or Ascot Heath. Blue and white, with an occasional splash of red from a fez, form a prettier arrangement of colour than those rows of black and grey wideawakes, surmounting grey and black masses of clothing, which together make up the general effect produced by an assembly of Englishmen. It is true you miss that sudden lightening-up—as of a windswept wheatfield—of the European multitude, when their white faces all turn in the same direction; but the loss of this one impressive touch of chiaroscuro is more than compensated by that incessant play of shifting hues which flickers along the forms and faces of any restless Oriental crowd.
And restless is scarcely the word for the throng assembled here, with their native excitability heightened tenfold by their intense eagerness to witness what is to most of them so unusual a scene. Indeed, were it not for the difference between English and Egyptian methods of police this crowd would, no doubt, be an uncontrollable one. As it is, and given that difference, the task of controlling it is as easy as that of keeping even the most good-humoured of English crowds within the prescribed bounds is difficult. Here the swarthy guardian of order guards it in the most elementary of fashions—mainly, that is to say, by the profuse and indiscriminate employment of the whip. When he desires to make the native public "dress up in line" he cheerfully hammers their bare toes with the handle of his kourbash. When they are straying carelessly over the course between races, as crowds will do, and he desires to clear it, he simply flogs them off it with the lash. The thong whistles merrily round their brown calves, and they fly like a flock of sheep, startled, but not angered, alike without resistance and without rancour. It seems as natural a thing to them that they should be drilled and marshalled by liberally lavished blows as that they themselves should direct the movements of their donkeys by the same means. And even if they were possessed of full Parliamentary institutions, it is extremely doubtful whether any one of them would care enough about the matter to move the member for his constituency to "ask a question" on the subject in an Egyptian House of Commons.
The Beshereens, who are to figure in the first event of the day, belong to a race which is only sparsely represented among the spectators; but it is doubtful whether the local methods of coercion could be very hopefully tried on them. There is hardly a greater difference between the hound and the hare than there is between this spirited son of the Nubian desert and the fellah of the Nile Valley. Lithe, shiny, jet black, nearly naked, his woolly hair twisted into unwilling plaits, bright-eyed, with teeth of dazzling whiteness, and an alert animated air which contrasts strongly with the dull, meek expression of the Egyptian and Egyptianised Arab, the Beshereen, as we view him side by side with the lighter-skinned and more heavily draped races around him, looks as if he might indeed have sat for that "Fuzzy Wuzzy" who earned name and benediction from Mr. Rudyard Kipling, as the only naked warrior who ever "bruk a British square." From his fantastic top-knot to the sole of his sable foot, every inch of him is of the stuff of which fighting men are made. You would like to see him figuring in an assault-of-arms with his native weapon, the spear, in his hands, instead of making what it must be owned, was very moderate time as a "sprinter" in the first event on the card, a copy of which is here subjoined:
THE LUXOR SPORTING CLUB.
Second Meeting.
Thursday, Jan. 4, 1894, commencing at three p.m.
Programme.
- Beshereen race.
- Donkey-boys' race, standing on donkeys.
- Buffalo race.
- Gentlemen's donkey race, facing donkey's tail.
- Camel race.
- Horse race. First and second heat. Best three of each to run in the final.
- Ladies' donkey race, dropping rings from palm-sticks into jars.
- Horse race. Final heat.
- Donkey-boys' race, without saddle or bridle.
- Thread and needle race, on donkeys, for ladies and gentlemen.
- Wrestling on donkeys, for donkey-boys.
Still, one must, no doubt, vary the programme as much as possible at a meeting of this sort, and the Beshereen foot-race serves well enough to whet our interest in what is to follow. The next event, a "donkey-boys' race, standing on donkeys," is vastly popular; and as the dozen or so of rival jackasses are seen coming up the straight at a pace generally pronounced to be good, and which, indeed, does in some instances border upon a gallop, a roar of Arabic ejaculations goes up from the side of the racecourse opposite the double row of awning-shaded seats which constitute the "grand stand." Many of the animals are completing the race alone—apparently as a matter of duty—their riders, like the guests in Omar Khayyam's convivial lines, "star-scattered on the grass;" but the struggle between the remaining four or five donkeys, whose backs are still tenanted, would offer almost unlimited scope for the operations of the bookmaker, if there were any "ring."
For up to the very last moment it is quite evidently anybody's race. Indeed, it is, if one may so put it, even more "anybody's race" than any horse-race could possibly be. To say that a horse-race is anybody's race means that any one horse seems as likely to outstrip its competitors as any other. To say that a donkey-race with riders standing on the animals' backs is anybody's race may mean—and in this instance does mean—not only that any one donkey seems as likely to outstrip its competitors as any other, but that any one rider seems as likely (or as unlikely) as any other to maintain his balance. And inasmuch as any increase in the speed of the donkey tends to enhance the insecurity of his rider's foothold, and therewith the risk of his disqualification through slipping off its back, it follows that the probability of any one donkey's first passing the post varies inversely as his chance of winning the stakes. His effective "expectation of success" under these circumstances could not perhaps be precisely measured without resort to algebraical formula; but it can be easily seen, and may be roughly said, that that expectation is vague enough to make the contest a very "open thing."
In the present case, the donkey who is leading at almost a dozen yards from home is followed by a rival whose rider seems to have, so to speak, a certain amount of equilibrium "in hand," while it is itself ridden by a youth whose inclination to the horizon is rapidly tending to exceed those angular limits to which man's enjoyment of his glorious privilege, the erect attitude, is restricted. The question, therefore, is whether the time during which a donkey moving at a given velocity—the product of a frequently and freely given stick—can cover so many yards of a racecourse is greater or less than the time which a human body of a fixed weight, but with an unfixed footing, will take to slip off that donkey's back to the ground. It is a pretty problem; but the pace is too good for the most expert mathematician to have tackled it. Before he could have said "x," the gallant little animal got its head past the post, at the very moment when the last toe of the tottering Arab reluctantly loosed hold of its "back hair;" and rider and stakes were at the same moment successfully landed.
The next event, the buffalo-race, might be simply disposed of by saying that it was won by a man seated astride of a buffalo. Such a description of the winner would not lead to any confusion, for there was no other competitor who answered to it at the finish. Nevertheless this contest would have had its interest for a zoologist; and, indeed, like the last, for a mathematician also, if only as showing the number of combinations, other than the ordinary equestrian one, which may be formed out of a man and a buffalo as the result of a buffalo-race. In the first place—and this, it must be admitted, was the most frequent combination, if such it can be called—the buffalo may arrive at the winning-post without the man, who in that case usually contemplates the close of the contest from a sitting position some fifty or a hundred yards in the rear. Or, secondly, the man may arrive without the buffalo, which occurs in those cases in which the buffalo, having rid himself of his rider at an early stage of the proceedings, makes at once for his desert home. Or, thirdly, the man may arrive at the winning-post dragging the buffalo after him, which occurs when a buffalo having thrown without disabling his rider shows a disposition to exchange the part of a competitor for that of a spectator. Or fourthly, the buffalo may arrive, dragging the man after him, a situation generally created by the endeavours of a dismounted rider to stop his runaway steed by seizing its tail. Or, lastly, the man and the buffalo may reach the post side by side, the former affectionately clasping the latter round the neck, and making desperate but unsuccessful efforts to remount him as he runs.
Something of the same elasticity of procedure was noticeable in the "gentlemen's donkey race, facing donkey's tail," where the animals who succeeded in dislodging their jockeys either retired promptly from the contest—the difficulties of remounting being in the circumstances insuperable—or made the pace gratuitously hot for those who were still in the race; while the donkeys who found themselves still bestridden, but in no degree controlled, naturally took a line of their own, which usually led them anywhere rather than to the goal which their respective and retrospective riders fondly imagined themselves to be approaching. It was almost a relief to turn from these fantastic and semi-jocular trials of speed and skill to the straightforward and almost appalling simplicity of the camel race. No one who has not seen the "ship of the desert" under a press of sail, so to speak, can have any idea of the number of knots an hour which it can make; while as to picturing to the imagination the appearance of a fully "extended" camel, the feat may be simply pronounced impossible. The finish in this race was magnificent. Three camels flew along neck-and-neck—and such necks!—for full a hundred yards to within a few lengths of the post, their ungainly heads erect, their splay, disjointed legs opening and shutting at each stride like a dozen jack-knives worked by machinery, and their riders literally waving fore and aft with the violence of the motion, as if a giant was about to hurl them from a sling. How they held on nobody could see, and Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, alone knew. Some knelt, grasping the brute's retorted neck; some sat or crouched on the saddle-seat; some frankly extended themselves almost at full length on the animal's mountainous dorsal ridge, and clung on to the hump as a shipwrecked sailor might cling to a rock. It was a sight to haunt the waking memory, and to ride the dyspeptic dreams.
After the camel race the humours of the Theban race meeting began, it must be admitted, to flag a little. The horse-race was very much like Western horse-races, with performers not of the first class, and the bare-backed donkey-race was commonplace. One of the ladies' events disappeared from the card altogether, and the other drew a very small field, and went but tamely off. Popular interest was evidently centred on the last event of the day—the "wrestling on donkeys for donkey-boys"—the boys being, of course, not as the wording of the programme might appear to suggest the prizes of the competition, but the competitors. Three or four pairs of them entered for the contest, and a struggle of longer duration, of more indomitable spirit, or of so many and such surprising vicissitudes no one need wish to see. The last of the bouts is the best contested of them all. One of the two wrestlers is a stumpy, thick-set little donkey-boy, the other leaner and lither, a little the less skilled performer of the two in attack, but almost impossible to dislodge. His legs seem everywhere. He uses them like a couple of additional straps attached to the animal's harness, and while you are wondering how it is that he holds on when every other part of his person seems detached from the donkey, you notice at last that one brown foot has been passed under the donkeys belly and between her hind legs, and is hooked firmly on to one of her hocks. There is as much manoeuvring for position and the players seem as fastidious about their "grip" as in a wrestling match in the Cornish and Devonshire style. Round and round they circle, catching at and again loosing each other, until, each satisfied, apparently, with his momentary position, they close. The shorter donkey-boy has the taller round the middle, and is exerting desperate efforts to dislodge him. To and fro they sway, and again and again he seems—but only seems—to have succeeded in his attempt. Now, surely, he has him—Ali is slipping over his donkey's haunches. No! he is up again, and well forward in his saddle. Stop! he is too much forward. Hassan, by that clever twist, has got him on his donkey's withers. He is off! He is down. No! he is on! He is up again! And now it is Hassan himself who is in difficulties. Thus swings the balance of Fortune, this way and that, and in the meantime the behaviour of the donkeys is the most exquisitely funny part of the whole proceedings. Side by side they stand while this battle is raging on their backs, motionless, absolutely impassive, and with an air of intense thoughtfulness on their expressive countenances.
On a sudden, and without the slightest previous warning, one of them lowers his pensive head and throws his heels wildly into the air. The kick of a donkey is in itself not a very common phenomenon; but this is not a single kick, but a volley. Not a few notes carelessly struck with the hoof, so to speak, but an elaborate fantasia—a passionate bravura of recalcitration. Its contrast with the previous inertia of the animal is so amazing that the spectator is confounded. To what, he asks himself, is this sudden and vehement participation in the contest to be attributed? To art or nature? To asinine impulse or to human suggestion? The latter seems more probable, for keen-eyed observers declare that at critical moments they have detected Ali in the act of kicking his opponent's donkey with his disengaged heel. The stratagem, however, if stratagem it be, is in any case a failure; for the tempest-tossed Hassan neither loses seat nor looses hold. After a few vain wrenches Ali is fain to fall back on the defensive. The crowd—which has long since broken through the barriers—presses closer and closer round the wrestlers, too deeply interested to shout or chatter. The police, themselves absorbed in the struggle, forget to flog them back behind the ropes, and for the moment bear the whip in vain. Nay, the very shins they were operating upon half an hour ago now press with impunity against their own sacred calves. Authority is human, and stares open-mouthed, as though made of common clay.
But now the sun is sinking, and the long contest draws to a close. Twice have the panting combatants released each other, paused to recover breath, and again buckled to; and this third round is the last. The grip of Ali's right leg round his donkey's neck has been gradually relaxing, and his adversary, disengaging him by a dexterous or fortunate twist from the saddle, lays him flat on his back upon the grass. The hard-fought battle, and with it the Luxor Second Meeting, is over; and remounting our donkeys, into whom the sight of their contending brethren seems to have breathed an unwonted spirit of emulation, we gallop back in a golden sunset-lighted cloud of dust to the town.