Donovan Pasha and Some People of Egypt

But Fielding, as he rode on Selamlik Pasha's gorgeous black donkey from Assiout, with its crimson trappings, knew what proportion of improvement this "hankypanky," as Dicky called it, bore to the condition of things at the last inspection. He had spoken little all day, and Dicky had noticed that his eye was constantly turning here and there, as though looking for an unwelcome something or somebody.

At last the thing was over, and they were just crossing the canal, the old Bahr-el-Yusef, which cuts the town in twain as the river Abana does Damascus, when Dicky saw nearing them a heavily-laden boat, a cross between a Thames house-boat and an Italian gondola, being drawn by one poor raw-bone--raw-bone in truth, for there was on each shoulder a round red place, made raw by the unsheathed ropes used as harness. The beast's sides were scraped as a tree is barked