AT THE ASSOUAN RACES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 July 1927, Page 24

AT THE ASSOUAN RACES

They’re off! Camels, Buffaloes, Donkeys, aid all!

(Written ior THE SUN by E. S. HARSTON.)

ACES,” said the notice in the l"C hotel lobby-—“ Camel races, * donkey , races, dragomans’ races, and gamoosahs!” A line of fuming Fords stood outside the entrance, the black chauffeurs revving up their engines fiercely to show their eagerness. In topees and sun-glasses, silks, cotton drill and green veils the punters’ dusty procession moved off.

Rounfi the ramshackle grandstand that cut off the sun’s rays, a colourful crowd of Cepts, Nubians, and Bisharin stood in rapt silence, or, holding their robes in their teeth, scampered excitedly for a better view. In the second enclosure near the totalisator were the dragomans, full of dignity, and clad in highly-coloured galabeahs of silk.

The tote? A desk, two clerks, a board with little batches of numbered tickets pinned on it, a each box, and a junk of scrap iron. The junk of scrap iron, when hit, gave back the answering signal to the starter. The whole was sheltered by a hi- umbrella.

The Starter? The lighting an, sating engineer. The hotel manager changed his morning coat and striped trousers for breeches and a sombrero, and became clerk of-the course. The senior guest stopped stroking his dundreary moustache and took up a mallet, threatening his pendant scrap iron. For he was the judge. It is ore thing t ride a donkey. It is another thing co ride him in a chosen direction. It is still another thing to make him race. And “Nubia,** the famous small gray donkey with three pyramids and a cobra embossed on his hind quarters, won, as usual, in an amble, and nobody could see the “diwy” because it was so small. The dragomans went out to show how it should be done, and Abdulla, who was the fattest, came las laughing all the way. The further he fell behind the harder he laughed. And when he finished he ran to the “tote” and collected on the winner,, which was why he couldn’t help laughing. Wall-eyed Mahmoud, who haunted the gates of the hotel, saying in a gentle voice, “My card,

arm-beat the bandmaster held them to it. Out of the mists of half-forgotten childhood came—“ Daisy, or a Bicycle Built for Two.” The stout police, erect on their glistsimilar circumstances, and was murdered soon after his wife, Calpurnia, dreamed that her husband’s “guiding star” would shortly appear to spell his doom.

Shakespeare makes Calpurnia say: die, there are no comets The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

The fall of the Old Empire was, in the minds of the Romans, foretold by a sword-shaped comet that shone over Italy for four months before Alaric and his savage horde of Visigoths battered down the gates of the city and indulged in a wild orgy of murder and plunder.

ening Arabs, carried out a Victoria Cross race to the popping of blank cartridges, while on the outskirts of sir,” didn’t finish. His donk ran off the course. With a latent hint of savagery in the tom-tom sounding drum the tarbooshed band struck up. There was a bar and part of the verse missing somewhere, but it was “Yip-I-Addy” all the same. Undeterred by this hiatus they changed to the old masters. With a combination squat and the flowing crowd moans, grunts, and:

chattering heralded something unusual.

The last dummy had hardly been safely carried to the lines when a scattering burst heralded the camels at the gallop, black-haired Bisharin swaying gracefully in the saddles. The riders pinned on their numbers. The clamouring crowd round the “tote” threatened to carry it away. At length Dundreary banged the gong. The “tote” banged back defiantly. The chattering was hushed.

The six camels, grumbling, kneel in line. The starting flag falls, they pitch to their feet, and in accelerat-

ing stride gallop down the straight At the bend two refuse the turn fnd through SP S ’ JeerillE ' to let them Fiery-eyed Ahmed with the buttered The records of Arabic show that the storming of Jerusalem and the bloody massacre of Mohammedans in the first Crusade in 1099 was preceded by a comet that was visMe for six weeks. All the great plagues of history more particularly the “Black Death ” a terrible pestilence that sweit Europe and Asia m 1347 and sent forty million people to horrible death-were fore !? ld these burning wanderers of the sk>, according to historians and star-gazers. a

The superstitious belief that comets were always the omens of evil things

locks, carries the crowd’s inom. They che'er him as his ungainly beashoots out his soft-hoofed limbs j telescopic strides and gradually gj : , ahead. Ahmed grins, and the era,; cheers him on until he shoots ha arms up triumphantly and they mi to collect. Dundreary bangs his gou and the stewards chase the plaea winners. A skirling wail brings the bant back to the limelight. A confidents group put their heads together ati blow something. lan Hay U«i across to his wife and explains tits; they are the bagpipes. So they an And jolly good too. In the meantime the gray Ami blocked out by his hostile competitor has got through the rails (the ropei slack) cut the course unnoticed, ar; come home first. The tote begina t pay on him in all innocence Was the judge can get the protest trait lated. Faced with an unforeseen did culty the tote refunds on all ticket; as far as the balance permits, ail only the arrival of the gamoosak breaks up the bewildered argumaffl in which even the dignified occupant! ,n the stand take part. For they sj»

pathise with the fluid-carrying waitffl whom duty has withheld from the & fund. . . .

The gamoosahs, shaggy and dirty, had come from the sakiehs which ttfi pulled round all day bringing up wate from the wells for the parched fields Their ridiculous blue eyes looked out benevolently from their shaggy half dog heads, and the numbers and strip* of cloth round their necks made th® look more absurd.

Waterwheels they understood Standing in a line they did not. Hit grew impatient. They broke B>d were brought back and broke again The starter dropped his flag in def peration. One turned round aid gaped at the crowd. One shed Its rider and fled for home, pursued t! the shouting owner and his friiflds The rest, boring and crossing, mad* for the goal at an alarming gait H? roars of laughter which had begffl with the start, and had swelled the bolt, became titanic as the leads gave an inimitable wriggle and laid fih rider in the dust, from which he adpidly rose to run in the wrong direction. He turned at last to see Jd* riderless buffalo finish an easy first The ghaffirs, or night guards, stood up to face the day police, who had been practising with a rope tied to ‘ tree and a conductor to give them tlk time. The .police wore a sort of Pi" jama and the ghaflirs wore nigWshirts. The ensuing tug-of-war ac most eliminated the stout contrast dant through apoplexy. At length lat® hours told their tale and the trift’ birds were slowly but surely hanisc past the mark. • The heavily-veiled wives of th* local notabilities left their special enclosure for a discreet carriage and th* tourists scrambled for the bus and tie taxis. With swinging strides laughing mob strode back to Assosr and one wondered what Ascot * Flemington, Epsom or Ellerslie wo®** have thought of it. Assuan. Egvnt. ijjjjLJ

to happen persisted even in modetimes, and more than a few pers'believed that the San Francisco quake of 1906 was portended W comet that was observed through> telescope at Lick Observatory, fornia, just a month before the S l6 ” catastrophe. Astronomers tell us we have reason to feel no qualms at the c approach of the Doomsday Comet ; on two other occasions the earth Passed through the tail of a come.' no ill effects, and on July 1* j, Lexell’s Comet tore by us a million and a-half miles away. " unusual happened.