and divine your mood that in a second they gave that
Weird, long-drawn donkey call, "Oh-h-ah-h!" and my companion's donkey
swung into a gentle trot, with her donkey-boy running behind, beating
him with a stick and pinching him in the legs.

At that McKinley, not to be outdone by any Democratic donkey, pricked
up his ears. I heard a terrific commotion behind me. The string of
bells around McKinley's neck deafened me, and I remember then and
there losing all confidence in the administration, for McKinley was a
Derby winner. He was a circus donkey. He broke into a crazy gallop,
then into a mad run. I shrieked but my donkey-boy thought it was a
sound of joy, and only prodded him the more. In less than two minutes
I had shot past every one of the party; and for the whole day McKinley
and I headed the procession. I only saw my companion at a distance
through a cloud of dust, and she does not trust me any more. Thus have
I to bear the sins of Mohammed Ali, my perfidious donkey-boy, who
forced me to lead the van on that dreadful first day at Sakhara.

Everywhere you go you hear the insistent, importunate cry for
backsheesh. Old men, women, children, dragomans, guides, merchants,
and street-venders--all sorts and conditions of men beg for it. They
teach even babies to take hold of your dress and cry for it. And to
toss backsheesh over to the crowd on the bank as the steamer moves
away is to see every one of them roll over in the dirt and fight and
scratch like cats over half a piaster. There is no such thing as
self-respect among the natives. They are governed by blows and curses,
and even the eyes of sheiks and native police glisten at the word
"backsheesh."

At Assiout one night we heard some one calling from the bank in
English: "Lady, lady, give me some English books. I am a Christian. I
can read English. Give me a Bible. I go to the American college. I
want to be a preacher." I leaned over the railing and discerned a very
black boy, whose name, he said, was Solomon. I was so surprised to
hear "Bible" instead of "backsheesh" that I investigated. He said his
mother and father were dead; that he had only been to college a year;
that he wanted to be a preacher, and that he would pray God for me if
I would give him a Bible. I was touched. He spelled America, and I
gave him backsheesh. He told me the population of the United States,
and I gave him more backsheesh. He sang "Upidee" with an accent which
threw me into such ecstas