"We found a picture of a donkey with a saddle on his back exactly like the one he wears to-day for carrying burdens. There are several representations of this patient little beast, not only at Beni-Hassan, but in the tomb of Tih, at Sakkara; in the latter whole droves are shown, so that the donkey must have been a common beast of burden in ancient, as he his in modern Egypt. If there were any doubt on the subject it could be settled by reference to the Old Testament, where the donkey, or ass, is frequently mentioned. "The conductor interrupted us in the middle of our studies of the sculptures, and said it was time to move on. We went to several tombs and found something interesting in all of them; we have not time to describe a tenth of what we saw, and, if you want to learn more about the place, we must refer you to the descriptions by Wilkinson and others. These gentlemen spent a long time here making sketches, and taking impressions by means of wet paper; as far as we know, their descriptions are accurate, though they do not always agree as to the exact meaning of the hieroglyphics which are above some of the pictures. [Illustration: A RESPECTABLE CITIZEN.] "When we came back to the boat we were annoyed by the natives begging for backsheesh; they were nearly as persistent as the Arabs at the pyramids, and if we had been a small party they might have been insolent. As soon as we were on board the steamer they gathered on the bank close to it, and kept up such a howl that one of the passengers threw a few copper coins for them to scramble after. "How they rolled over each other, and tossed the dust in the air! Every time a coin was thrown, there was a rush for it, and the rule seemed to be that might made right. The small children were pushed aside by the larger boys, and several times they would fight for the possession of a penny till both the combatants were exhausted, and had to stop to take breath. "Some coins were thrown into the shallow water at the stern of the boat, and instantly the boys flung off their scanty clothing and plunged in. They would not go far out from the bank, or, rather, they would not try to find coins in any depth where they could not wade; the water of the Nile is not at all transparent, and it was probably because they could not see to any depth that they refused to dive. We fastened a coin in a piece of wood and threw it far out into the river; half a dozen of the boys swum for it, and there was a very pretty race between them to get the prize. It was far better than the rough scramble on the bank, and we repeated the performance several times till the boat was ready to start from the landing-place.