A person (usually, but not always, a boy) who cares for and drives a donkey that carries a tourist or the luggage of a tourist.
He said, further, that, in the whole course of his experience, north and south, he had never fallen in with any to match the Cairo donkey-boys.1869, Howard Hopley, Under Egyptian Palms; or, Three Bachelors' Journeys On the Nile:
But the people upon the rock had no time to think of the cruel fate of the donkey-boys..1898, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Desert Drama:
1 more example
All our donkey-boys, except Joseph, seemed to be called Mohammed, and Joseph's name was not really Joseph—he had only adopted it for the convenience of English patrons.2013, Douglas Sladen, Queer Things About Egypt:
donkey-boy
verb
Etymology From donkey + boy.
1
Ambitransitive To work as a donkey-boy (for)
But no, she said, 'He be "donkey-boying" down on the sands at L—. Wonderful set on donkeys his mind has been ever since the time he was a boy; seems like they was fellow-beings for him.'1907, Horace Gordon Hutchinson, Nature's Moods and Tenses, page 282:
A new Mohammed Hassan, who donkey-boyed me, told me Botros had ten thousand feddans and Aboo Stayt eight thousand, figures varying much from the old Md. Hassan's, three years ago.1936, Charles Edwin Wilbour, Jean Capart, Travels in Egypt, page 378:
1 more example
Mohammed, when he was not donkey-boying, was the chief howling dervish of Luxor.2013, Douglas Sladen, Queer Things About Egypt: