I am glad now that I did not miss them, but I remember the Memphis donkeys with unkindness. The farther down the Nile the worse the donkeys. We thought they had been bad at Abydos, but the Abydos donkeys were without sin compared with those of Sakkara. Mine was named "Sunrise," and I picked him for his beauty, always a dangerous asset. He was thoroughly depraved and had a gait like a steam-drill. The boat landed us at Bedrashen and I managed to survive as far as the colossal statue of Rameses, a prostrate marvel, and the site of the ancient city of Menes--capital of Egypt a good deal more than six thousand years ago--that is, before the world began, by gospel calculation. I was perfectly willing to stay there among the cooling palms and watch the little children gather camel-dung and pat it into cakes to dry for fuel, and I would have done it if I had known what was going to happen to me. It is a weary way across the desert to the pyramids and the tombs of those sacred bulls, but I was not informed of that. When I realized, it was too late. The rest of the party were far ahead of me beyond some hills, and I was alone in the desert with that long-eared disaster and a donkey-boy who stopped to talk with the children, beset by a plague of flies that would have brought Pharaoh to terms. It was useless to kick and hammer that donkey or to denounce the donkey-boy. Sunrise had long ago formulated his notions of speed, and the donkey-boy was simply a criminal in disguise. When we passed a mud village, at last, and a new brigade of flies joined those I had with me, I would have given any reasonable sum to have been at Cairo with the Reprobates, in the cool quiet of Shepheard's marble halls. Beyond the village was just the sand waste, and not a soul of the party in sight. I didn't have the courage to go back, and hardly the courage to go on. I said I would lie down by the trail and die, and let them find me there and be sorry they had forsaken me in that pitiless way. Then for the sake of speed I got off and walked. It was heavy walking through the loose sand, with the sun blazing down. Presently I looked around for my escort. He was close at my heels--on the donkey's back. I said the most crushing things I could think of and displaced him. Then we settled down into the speed of a ram-headed sphinx again. Everything seemed utterly hopeless. It was useless to swear; I was too old to cry.