Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/57

swaying on his ungainly beast; past the group of chattering loungers outside the cross-legged, gravely-smoking slipper-seller's stall: and what is that apparition which has just turned the corner from the main street, and is now advancing slowly towards you along that narrow strip of blinding sunlight in the middle of the road? What is that figure, which completes the scheme of colour with one vivid blot of scarlet and another of white, and puts the last dramatic touch to the contrast of East and West? The scarlet blot is the uniform coat of the British linesman; the white blot is the pith pickelhaube of the same; and the whole apparition is that of Private Thomas Atkins, of the 115th, or South-West Wurzelshire Regiment, sedately taking the air on a donkey! To see him jigging rhythmically towards you, the sole visible representative of Western civilisation, the one bright "Occidental Star"—to borrow the description of Queen Elizabeth from the Preface to the Prayer Book—amid