the face, and
bearing on their heads Theban jars or copper vases; while the men,
squatting on the ground or on small carpets, their knees up to their
chins, forming an acute angle like the legs of locusts, in an attitude
which no European could assume, and recalling the judges of Amenti
ranged in rows one behind another on the papyri of funeral rituals,
preserve that dreamy immobility so dear to Orientals when they have
nothing to do; for to move about merely for exercise, as Christians do,
strikes them as utter folly.

Dromedaries, alone or grouped in circles, kneeling under their burdens,
stretch out their long legs on the sand, motionless in the burning sun.
Asses, some of which are daintily harnessed, with saddles of red morocco
rising in a boss on the withers, and with headstalls adorned with tufts,
and others with an old carpet for a saddle-cloth, were waiting for the
travellers who were to stop at Tantah to bear them from the station to
the town. The donkey drivers, clothed in short blue and white tunics,
bare-armed and bare-legged, their heads covered with a fez, a wand in
their hand, and resembling the slender figures of shepherds or youths
which are so exquisitely drawn on the bodies of Greek vases, stood near
their animals in an indolent attitude, which they abandoned as soon as a
chance customer came their way. Then they indulged in mad
gesticulations, guttural cries, and fought with each other until the
unfortunate tourist ran the risk of being torn to pieces or stripped of
the best part of his garments. Tawny, wandering dogs with jackal ears,
fallen indeed from their old position, and forgetting apparently that
they counted Anubis, the dog-headed _Anubis latrator_, among their
ancestors, passed in and out among the groups, but without taking the
least interest in what was going on.

The bonds which in Europe unite the dog to man do not exist in the East;
its social instinct has not been developed, its sympathies have not been
appealed to; it has no master, and lives in a savage state. No services
are asked of it, and it is not cared for; it has no home and dwells in
holes which it makes, unless it stays in some open tomb; no one feeds
it; it hunts for itself, gorging on dead bodies and unnamable debris.
There is a proverb which says that wolves do not eat each other; Eastern
dogs are less scrupulous; they readily devour their sick, wounded, or
dead companions. It seemed strange to me to see dogs which di