SIWA

THE WALLS OF SIWA

SIWA
THE OASIS OF JUPITER AMMON

BY C. DALRYMPLE BELGRAVE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
GENERAL SIR REGINALD WINGATE
BART., G.C.B., ETC. ETC. ILLUSTRATED
WITH SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THE AUTHOR

JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD.
LONDON: VIGO STREET, W. 1

First Published in 1923

Printed in Great Britain at
The Mayflower Press, Plymouth. William Brendon & Son, Ltd.

TO
MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

[CONCLUSION]

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

[INDEX]

ILLUSTRATIONS

COL. THE HONBLE. M. G. TALBOT, C.B.; SHEIKH IDRIS EL SENUSSI; AND THE IDRISI OF LUXOR

FOREWORD

Knockenhair,

Dunbar,

2nd November, 1922.

Dear Mr. Belgrave,

When you begged me to write a “Foreword” for your first book on Siwa, you asked me if I remembered you as a Junior Officer in the British Camel Company at Khartoum in the early days of the Great War—and later in the Camel Corps of the Frontier Districts Administration of Egypt. My answer is that I remember you well in both capacities, and I have a very happy recollection of the excellent services rendered by both the units in which you served. The appearance of British soldiers patrolling on camels up the White and Blue Niles had the best possible effect in cementing and consolidating the good relations existing between the Sudanese populations and our troops and confirming that spirit of loyalty and goodwill which, throughout the war, characterized the once fanatical Dervishes of Mahdist times—a truly marvellous transformation which had changed them from a fierce and ruthless enemy into loyal and brave soldiers and peaceful inhabitants, who were enabled to render the British cause wholehearted and ready support at a most critical period of our history.

Your transfer to the Frontier Districts Administration of Egypt also interests me, for it may not be known to you that one of the first reforms I instituted on my own transfer from the Governor-Generalship of the Sudan to the High Commissionership of Egypt at the end of 1916 was the organization of the new Administration to which you were appointed.

Before our reconquest of the Sudan I had, as Director of Military Intelligence in Egypt, some connection with the oases of the Libyan Desert and the activities of the Senussi, as well as with the government of the Sinai Peninsula. In those early days of the British occupation of Egypt, Turkish rule prevailed in Tripoli, and the actual frontier between that province and Egypt was often in dispute—whilst a somewhat similar condition existed on Egypt’s eastern frontier in Sinai. It was thought politically desirable at that time to maintain the status quo and to avoid trouble with the Turkish authorities to whom Egypt still owed a nominal Suzerainty—that this was not always feasible is evidenced by the celebrated “Akaba incident” which at one time threatened to disturb the peace between the two countries. The preservation of the status quo to which I refer, meant the maintenance on the extreme eastern and western frontiers of Egypt of the purely Egyptian administrative control which, owing to the almost total absence of supervision, was of the lightest and could hardly be designated as efficient. The necessity of inaugurating some improvement in both directions had frequently been mooted, but it was not until the advent of the Great War and the military operations against the Turks in Sinai, on the one hand, and against the Senussi invasion of Egypt, on the other, that the long-postponed reorganization became possible. By that time Italian had given place to Turkish control in Tripoli, whilst it was also evident that Palestine and Arabia were no longer to remain an integral portion of the Turkish Empire.

These facts made it very desirable to establish a closer Administrative Control in both directions, and it is to me a matter of great satisfaction that an organization known as the Frontiers District Administration materialized, under the able direction of Colonel G. G. Hunter and his efficient staff of British and Egyptian officers and officials, with its well-equipped Camel Corps, its patrolling system, and its more intimate and sympathetic government of the oases and of the somewhat unruly nomad tribes on both western and eastern frontiers.

The mere fact that you, as one of these District Officers, have been resident for nearly two years in the important, though remote and little-known, Oasis of Siwa, and have been able to write a very interesting and useful account of your experiences—together with an admirable survey of its ancient, mediæval and recent history—its customs, superstitions and its social life, is but one proof amongst many others of the value of this new organization which, in spite of the various political changes in Egypt, has, I hope, come to stay.

As an ex-officer and one who was lately in Egypt, you are wise to avoid in your book all reference to recent political events and the complicated situations to which they have given rise. In this letter I shall observe a similar reticence, and the more so having regard to the positions I have held in Egypt and the Sudan. Remarks on so controversial a subject must be complete and detailed if they are to assist the general public in forming a true estimate of the “tangled skein” which the political situation now represents—a situation in which truth and fiction are almost inextricably involved.

The perusal of the proof sheets you have sent me, together with your excellent series of illustrations (and here may I congratulate you on the artistic skill of the charming sketches displayed in the coloured reproductions?), recall that “lure of the desert” which is so fascinating to all of us whose lot has been cast in those countries bordering on the Great Nile waterway and the illimitable stretches of sandy desert beyond. Your apt quotations at the beginning of each chapter show that the “lure” has seized you also, and I can well understand your desire to undertake further service in those regions which so evidently attract you, and in which you have won the sympathy and respect of the nomad Arab and sedentary Berber tribes of the Western Desert.

The title of your book is well explained in Part I, Chapter III, and you are wise to add a bibliography of the various works you have consulted, for there is no subject more debatable than the origin of the Berber tribes of whom you write. “This crossing to Africa by the Northern Mediterranean peoples,” says Professor Breasted in his History of Egypt, “is but one of the many such ventures which in prehistoric ages brought over the white race whom we know as Libyans.” His remarks refer to events in the thirteenth century B.C., when people known as the Tehenu lived on the western borders of the Delta of Egypt, beyond them were the Libyans, and still further to the west were the Meshwesh or Maxyes of Herodotus—all of them doubtless ancestors of the great Berber tribes of North Africa.

In the reign of the Pharaoh Mereneptah, the successor of Rameses the Great, it appears that one Meryey, King of the Libyans, forced the Tehenu to join him, and supported by roving bands of maritime adventurers from the coast (the Sherden or Sardinians, the Sikeli, natives of early Sicily, the Lysians and the Etruscans), invaded Egypt. It is with these wandering marauders that the peoples of Europe emerge for the first time upon the arena of history.

It is probable that not long before this invasion a great Canaanite migration into Libya had taken place, for it is recorded by the historian Procopius, a native of Cæsarea (565 B.C.), how the Hebrews, after quitting Egypt, attacked Palestine from beyond Jordan under Joshua. After the capture of Jericho they advanced westwards, drove out the Gergazites, Jebusites and other tribes inhabiting the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and forced them to flee into Egypt, where they were not allowed to settle, but were obliged to move westwards along the North African coast and into the oases. There is also evidence that some of these emigrants, under Roman pressure, were forced further westwards to Morocco and were called Moors. Later on they, in their turn, were followed by a similar migration of Jews from Palestine.

Thus it would appear that as far back as the thirteenth century B.C. the original Libyans, a warlike race, became co-mingled with maritime adventurers from Southern Europe, with Canaanites, Jews and Egyptians—a truly wonderful admixture of Asiatics, Africans and Europeans, and it is with the ancestors of this international potpourri that you deal so interestingly when you trace onwards, through the ages down to the present day, the history of those desert nomads and those sedentary dwellers of the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. Surely your story will stimulate interest not only in the archæologist, but in all who desire to trace the manners, customs and characteristics of present-day peoples to their original sources. Those Siwans of whom you make a special study are of all people perhaps the most interesting, for, living, as it were, on an island, in a sea of desert, they—like the Abyssinians on the east—have been less affected by the world-changes than those who inhabit the main highways of the great African continent. The cult of Ammon and the seat of the Great Oracle, it is true, brought countless hordes of strangers to that mystic depression lying some seventy feet below the level of the Mediterranean, but the leading characteristics of the inhabitants have probably altered little, and religion—from Ammon worship to Islam, with an occasional admixture of Christian, Jewish and Pagan rites (the last brought by countless slaves from Central Africa)—has remained the all-absorbing interest of these oases dwellers.

As you truly say, the origin of the branching-horned ram as the fleshly symbol of the great God Ammon, “the King of the Gods,” “the unrevealed,” “the hidden one,” still remains a mystery. We know that the solar god Ra, whose supremacy in the “Old Kingdom” was so marked, from the Fifth Dynasty onwards and was at its zenith in the Twelfth Dynasty, became linked in the religion of the “Middle Kingdom” with Ammon, hitherto an obscure local god of Thebes who attained some prominence in the political rise of the city and was called by the priests Ammon-Ra. His cult gradually spread over the civilized world, and in the Roman period he was worshipped as Jupiter Ammon. He was essentially the god of Oracles, but how he came to have his special sanctuary in the Western Desert is still a mystery, though your account of this in the legends of the Arabic history of Siwa (Chapter III) throws an interesting light on the subject. Herodotus, we know, gave to Siwa the name of Oasis (probably derived from the Coptic word Ouahe, to dwell, from which the Arabic Wa is derived)—that is to say a fertile spot surrounded by desert, and thus from Siwa all other oases have derived their names.

To Siwa then came kings and wise men of the East, merchants and pilgrims, all bringing offerings to the temple of the god and soliciting the advice of the Oracle on their mundane affairs. For a thousand years and more these treasures were accumulating, but where are they now? As Egyptian research has yielded up unexpected buried treasure, may not the ancient god still have something in reserve for the archæologist and treasure-seeker who is bold enough to undertake excavation work in the little village of Aghourmi, some two miles east of Siwa, where the ruins of the Temple of Ammon still exist? Your interesting account of these ruins and the legends you have so sedulously culled from the Siwans, cannot fail again to create interest in the hidden treasures of the desert. One who has had some terrible experiences at the hands of the Senussi Arabs during the war—I refer to the gallant and gifted author of that thrilling story, Prisoners of the Red Desert, Captain Gwatkin-Williams, R.N.—writes, “It may be that this twentieth century of ours, this era of fish and bird men, may see lifted the mystery which shrouds the hidden treasure of Ammon, the ‘Unrevealed,’ for, so far as our limited modern information goes, those treasures have never yet been discovered.”

Your interesting account of the visit of Alexander the Great (331 B.C.) to the Oracle, when, marching along the coast to Matruh, he turned south and underwent great hardships before reaching his destination, recalls a very different journey I made to Sollum in 1917. Leaving Alexandria by train for Behig, I there found a fleet of armoured motorcars awaiting me, and the journey to and from Sollum, then garrisoned by British troops, was comfortably accomplished in four days. To my great regret I was too pressed for time to be able to visit Siwa, where, “on all hands springs of water gushed forth . . . that human ants’ nest, fabricated for the most part of rock-salt, mud and palm trunks . . . to which the Great War surging round the world had brought the drone of aeroplanes, the hum of armoured cars and rattle of machine guns.”

Your reference in Chapter V to the wonderful work carried on by Miss Nina Baird amongst the bedouin women and children rendered destitute in consequence of the Senussi invasion, recalls several visits Lady Wingate and I made to Amria—the village in the desert west of Alexandria and not far from Lake Mariut, where, as you say, this courageous lady worked practically singlehanded in teaching these desert waifs and strays to make carpets—thus starting an industry and giving the women and children a means of livelihood and a form of protection which for ever will be remembered with gratitude by the Western Arabs. A daughter of that well-known and greatly respected Scotsman, Sir Alexander Baird, an excellent horsewoman, a good Arabic scholar, and one who performed important services in the Egyptian troubles in the spring of 1919, Miss Baird’s energetic efforts throughout the war utterly exhausted her strength, and she fell an easy victim to typhoid soon after—to be followed a few months later by her talented father, and thus was the British community in Egypt deprived of two valuable lives who had endeared themselves to Europeans and natives alike and whose loss is deplored by all. On my last visit the carpet-making industry was about to be removed from Amria to an imposing structure built by Captain Jennings Bramley at Behig, the headquarters of the Eastern District of the Western Desert. Here this energetic official had also constructed, out of the ruins of an old building, a mediæval-looking stronghold, where we spent a few days and visited the ruined church of St. Menas, to which you make a passing reference in Chapter I. This buried Christian city is locally known as Abu Menas, and for long defied discovery, as it had not occurred to those in search of it to connect it with the Arab name of Abumna, until the German explorer, Kauffmann, and his companion lighted on the historic spot, which lies from fifty to fifty-five miles south-west of Alexandria. Your readers may be interested to know that Menas was an Egyptian in the Roman army who became a Christian and took the opportunity of a great public function to make an avowal of his faith which was proscribed under the Emperor Diocletian. He was tortured and eventually beheaded. His friends begged or stole his body, tied it on a camel and determined to found a settlement wherever the camel should lie down. Menas before death had expressed a wish to be buried near Lake Mariut, and here surely enough the camel insisted on lying down, and could not be induced to go further—so his followers buried the body on the spot. Many miracles were reported of his tomb, the settlement became a large Christian city with a magnificent cathedral built of granite from Assuan and marble from Italy. For some centuries the place became a resort for pilgrimage from all parts of the near East, but soon after the Arab conquest it was despoiled to provide material for the mosques in Alexandria and Cairo. Gradually the ruins were silted up with the ever-shifting sand, becoming mere mounds, and it was the chance discovery of a small terra-cotta plaque imprinted with the figure of Menas, standing erect with arms outstretched between two kneeling camels and a rough inscription, that led Herr Kauffmann and his friend to unearth the great basilica which had contained the tomb. The walls of the cathedral appear to have been lined with marble, whilst small pieces of mosaic on the floor give the impression that the dome was probably adorned in the same way. Some of the bases and capitals of the pillars are decorated after the Greek style with acanthus leaf ornaments, others in the stricter Roman method of straight panels. The dwelling-houses are small and constructed in blocks separated by narrow streets. Not far distant, on the coast, stand the ruins of Abusir (the Taposiris Magna of the Romans) which was evidently used as a port of arrival and departure by the thousands of pilgrims who came across the sea to pay their vows in this hallowed sanctuary. When I visited this place it was garrisoned by the very efficient Indian Camel Corps which the Maharajah of Bikaner had sent as his contribution to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.

Your interesting sketch of the rise of the great Senussi, the establishment of his now widespread confraternity and his invasion, at the instigation of German and Turkish officers and officials, of Egypt in 1915; his hostile occupation of the oases and the successful campaign so ably directed by General Sir W. Peyton, which finally drove his forces across the frontier and re-established Egyptian domination in the Western Desert, merits careful perusal if the reader wishes to understand the last of that series of invasions from the West which began in the days of the Pharaoh Mereneptah, nearly three thousand five hundred years ago, and which, given favourable conditions, may yet be repeated.

All you so interestingly describe recalls my long connection with the doings of the Confraternity when Sayed Mohammed el Mahdi, the son of Sayed Ben Ali, the virtual founder of the order, was its titular head. To him, in 1883, the Sudan Mahdi wrote, offering the position of third Khalifa in his new hierarchy. Had Sayed Mohammed accepted, it is possible that, in addition to the Sudan revolt, the whole of North Africa might have been ablaze; but the Senussi Mahdi aimed at peaceful penetration rather than military occupation: his zawias (religious rest-houses) had gradually been extended to Central and West Africa, they “were neutral meeting-places where difficulties, tribal, commercial, legal or religious, could be settled by an unbiassed authority. His akhwan were judges as well as missionaries. They defined tribal areas, settled water and grazing rights as well as meting out the justice of the Koran to those who infringed the code of Islam.”

The interest of the Turkish Government in this great movement dates back many years, and I well remember when the late Ghazi Mukhtar Pasha (then Turkish High Commissioner in Egypt) procured the original manuscript Senussi prayer-book, had one thousand copies lithographed in a private printing press in Cairo, and dispatched them as a present to the Senussi with a request in the title-page for the great religious leader’s “help in prayer.”

Sayed Mohammed died on the 1st June, 1902. I had full knowledge of the dispatch to Kufara—the then headquarters of the Order—of his tombstone which had been secretly cut and engraved in Cairo by an expert native stonemason; but if I digress in this manner I shall soon exceed the limits of a “Foreword,” and so must rapidly pass over these early experiences which, nevertheless, proved useful when the Great War let loose all the hidden forces of hostility and revealed the immense influence of Islamic teaching for good or ill as applied in the interests of the various opponents. That, on the one hand, Sayed Ahmed, the uncle and successor of Sayed Mohammed, should have espoused the Turco-German cause and harboured Enver Pasha and other notable Turkish officers who had crossed to the north coast of Africa in submarines, to organize the Senussi campaigns against Egypt and the Sudan; whilst, on the other hand, British influence and British officers were enabled to assist the Sherif of Mecca—the Guardian of the Holy Places of Islam—in his successful revolt against Turkish rule in Arabia, are interesting and little-understood features in the history of the great world upheaval from which we have but recently emerged, and no doubt they will be chronicled in due course by those concerned in these “side-shows,” as they are somewhat inadequately described. It must not, however, be forgotten that—insignificant as they may appear in comparison with the terrific clash of arms in Western Europe—they have resulted in giving Egypt tranquillity on its western frontier, in restoring to the Sudan the great lost province of Darfur, and in freeing the Arabian Peninsula—results which in pre-war days would have been characterized as epoch-making events, but which have passed almost unnoticed in the great changes which have taken place in the territorial redistributions of the Treaty of Versailles.

To touch on but one little-known detail, you refer to the Talbot Mission. This has not attracted the attention it deserves, but I venture to think history will credit Colonel Milo Talbot with no mean achievement when it is realized that his mission effected the triangular treaties between Great Britain, Italy and the present head of the Senussi Confraternity, Sayed Mohammed el Idrisi, whereby both Egypt and Tripoli have secured, let us hope, a trusted ally.

Incidentally—through the good offices of Colonel Talbot’s able Egyptian coadjutor, Hassanein Bey— that intrepid lady, Rosita Forbes, accompanied by the Bey, was enabled to penetrate to the Oasis of Kufara in 1921. Another member of the Talbot Mission—Mr. Francis Rodd—is also utilizing his experiences of the Senussi Confraternity and the Western Desert by making a prolonged and important journey with Mr. Buchanan from West Africa, which should throw much new and interesting light on many still obscure localities.

In these days of improved communications—when the two ends of the great iron road destined to connect South with North Africa are gradually approaching one another, and when other railways are either under construction or projected to connect the Atlantic with the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea—the time may not be far distant when the great Sahara and Libyan Deserts, too, will be traversed from north to south and east to west, and the undoubted mineral wealth and raw products of Central Africa will be brought to the nearest ports for shipment to all parts of the world. Your remarks, therefore, on mining, industries, trade and the means of communication southwards from the Mediterranean through the oases which you and others have visited, will doubtless prove of value and merit careful consideration.

Meanwhile, much good work remains to be done by officers and officials like yourself who take a keen interest in the welfare of the sparse nomad and sedentary populations of these still remote districts, fostering amongst them those feelings of confidence and goodwill which will go far towards preparing them for the advent of the amenities of civilization which must come with the inevitable development of the no longer Dark Continent. Now, however, that the clash of arms is past and, let us hope, a new era of peaceful development set in, I might well have prefaced my remarks with this quotation:

“God’s benison go with you, and with those

That would make good of bad and friends of foes.”

The immortal poet’s words seem to me not only to synchronize with the pleasantly conversational style of your own narrative which has induced the somewhat novel method I have adopted of writing you a letter by way of an introduction—but they also express the spirit which will, I trust, animate us in our present and future relations with those nations and peoples of the Near East who unfortunately for themselves espoused our enemies’ cause in the Great War, but whose best interests lie—now and henceforth—in the friendship and goodwill of the Allies.

Your chapters on the customs, superstitions and “fantasias” of the Siwans recall much that is similar amongst the Sudan tribes and peoples—especially those of the Moslem Faith—and your account of the “zikr” is particularly interesting. In the words of an Islamic writer, by means of this religious exercise “the whole world and all its attractions disappears from the vision of the faithful worshipper, and he is enabled to behold the excellence of the Most High. Nothing must be allowed to distract his attention from its performance, and ultimately he attains by its medium a proper conception of the Tauhid, or unity of God. . . . To enter Paradise one must say after every prayer ‘God is Holy’ ten times, ‘Praised be God’ ten times, and ‘God is great’ ten times.”

If the age of miracles has not gone for ever then these Moslem devotees—the descendants of the ancient warriors of the Libyan Desert, side by side with their courageous and resourceful British helpers—may yet cause the great Oracle of Jupiter Ammon to reveal the secrets of that old-time sanctuary with which your book deals so interestingly.

Yours sincerely
Reginald Wingate.

“On grassy slopes the twining vine boughs grew

And hoary olives ’twixt far mountains blue,

And many a green-necked bird sung to his mate

Within the slim-leaved thorny pomegranate

That flung its unstrung rubies on the grass.”

“But a desert stretched and stricken left and right, left and right,

Where the piled mirages thicken under white-hot light—

A skull beneath a sandhill and a viper coiled inside—

And a red wind out of Libya roaring ‘Run and hide.’”

SIWA

SIWA
THE OASIS OF JUPITER AMMON

CHAPTER I

THE COAST

“. . . Some strip of herbage strown

That just divides the desert from the sown.”

SIWA—pronounced “Seewah”—is a little-known oasis in the Libyan Desert on the borders of Egypt and Tripoli. It lies 200 miles south of Sollum, the Egypt-Tripoli frontier port on the Mediterranean coast, and almost 400 miles west of the Nile Valley. Siwa is the northernmost oasis of a string of oases which stretch from Egypt into the middle of Tripoli. These “Islands of the Blessed”—as they were called by the ancients—are natural depressions in the great Libyan table-land which are preserved from the inroads of shifting sand by the high limestone cliffs that surround them, and are made fertile and habitable by numbers of sweet water springs. Siwa consists of a little group of oases in a depression about 30 miles long and 6 miles wide, lying 72 feet below the level of the sea, surrounded by a vast barren table-land, parched and featureless, where rain rarely falls, which can only be crossed if one carries sufficient water for the whole journey.

Siwa is one of the least known and most interesting places in North Africa, but owing to its inaccessibility very few Europeans had visited it prior to the outbreak of the Great War. It has a population of between three and four thousand inhabitants, who are not Arabs but the remains of an older race, of Berber origin. They have a language of their own, which is only spoken, not written, and has survived among the dwellers of the oasis from many centuries before the Arab invasion, owing to the remoteness of the country and the slight communication between Siwa and the outer world. At present the birth-rate is considerably lower than the death-rate, so it appears likely that in course of time the Siwan race will become extinct.

It was my fortune, after spending a year or so on the coast, to be stationed at Siwa, during 1920-21, in command of a section of the Frontier Districts Administration Camel Corps, and for some time as the District Officer of the oasis. Under the present regime there has been one British officer, seconded from the Army for service under the Egyptian Government, posted alone in the Siwa oasis. While I was there I spent my spare time in discovering as much as possible about the history of the place, and the manners and customs of this desert community, which differ very considerably from those of the Arabs or the people of Egypt. No history, from its earliest times to the present day, has ever been written of this strange place, and it appears probable that now, when British officials are being withdrawn from Egypt, Siwa will once more sink back into obscurity.

THE AUTHOR

The oasis is most easily reached from Sollum, or from Matruh, another port on the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria. The journey can be done in two days by car, when the rough desert track that is called a road is in good order; it takes six days on a trotting camel, and about ten days with a bedouin caravan of slow walking camels. The Arab covers the whole distance on foot, living on a surprisingly small quantity of dates, water and camel milk. The desert is quite waterless, except for the first few miles, where there are occasional rock cisterns which fill during the rains and provide a little water during the first few months of the hot weather.

The coastal belt of Western Egypt was comparatively unknown country before the war, though by no means as remote as the inland oases. Strangely enough, excepting the few officials of the Egyptian Coastguards Administration, the Europeans who seemed to know most about this country before the war were Germans, who were encouraged by Abbas Helmi, the ex-Khedive, in their attempts to exploit the commercial and agricultural possibilities of the coast. In 1913 Herr Ewart Falls published a book called Three Years in the Libyan Desert which was an account of some archæological works carried out by him and his colleagues—Germans—on the site of the ancient city of St. Menas, south-west of Alexandria. In this book he describes how he accompanied the Khedive on his visit to Siwa in 1905. He gives a flamboyant description of the Royal progress. The party consisted of the Khedive, four Europeans, twenty soldiers, a number of servants, 62 riding camels, horses, and 288 baggage camels, which seem an incredibly large number. The Khedive drove the whole way—200 miles—in a carriage, a species of phaeton, constantly changing horses. Herr Falls mentions the intense enthusiasm of the natives on the occasion of the Kaiser’s birthday, and discusses the possibilities of a Pan-islamic rising against the much hated English who “curtail the Khedive’s political activities.” He gives statistics on the fighting forces of the Arabs, and considers that the time is ripe for stirring up sedition. One of his theories is that the Arab tribe “Senagra” originate from a German boy, called Singer, who was wrecked on the coast. There is a photograph in his book of one of the main streets in the old town of Siwa which he calls “Interior of an ancient tomb”! It is really a very remarkable book and gives one a good insight into German ideas in Egypt before the war.

In ancient days the coast west of Alexandria was inhabited by various Libyan tribes, the most famous being the Nasamonians, who lived by the plunder of wrecks, and the Lotophagi, who are immortalized in Tennyson’s famous poem “The Lotus-Eaters,” dwellers of a land “In which it seemed always afternoon.” These two tribes lived on the coast that lies west of the present frontier. The coast which lies between the present frontier and Alexandria was thinly populated by wandering tribes of Libyans, a nomadic people, who depended, as the bedouins do now, on the rains to feed their flocks. The inland country was a land of mystery vaguely described as being the haunt of strange wild beasts, although nowadays this waterless tract nourishes few wild creatures of any description. In later times Persians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines established some centres of civilization on the coast, but this strip immediately west of Alexandria was never thickly populated, and one finds few signs of any former civilization. The Arabs, after planting Mohammedanism in Egypt, continued their victorious course westward along the coast, forcing their religion on the people at the point of the sword, or driving the natives inland to the oases, which remained unconquered till a later date. Thus, the Arabs of the desert have always considered themselves to be the conquerors, and the oasis dwellers to be the conquered.

The coastal belt from Alexandria to the sea slopes gently upwards in strips of undulating country till it reaches the foot of the ledge of the great Libyan plateau. This narrow strip of fairly fertile country between the desert and the Mediterranean gradually diminishes in width, from east to west, till at Sollum the cliffs of the Libyan plateau reach the sea. At its widest part, near Alexandria, the coastal belt stretches inland for nearly 40 miles before merging into the desert. The coast is inhabited by Arabs of the Awlad Ali tribe, who move about with their flocks and camels from well to well, having only a transitory interest in the soil, which they sow with a little barley in the places where it will grow, and depending on the rains, which are very heavy on the coast, to fill their wells and cisterns, and to water the wild vegetation that feeds their herds. The land is most fertile close to the sea, but for the first 10 or 20 miles on the high desert plateau above the cliffs there is flat scrub-covered country that makes a good grazing-ground for sheep and camels. Farther south one sees less vegetation, and very soon the real desert begins, which stretches hard and dry under the blazing sun for 200 miles down to Siwa, and beyond Siwa over unexplored country till it reaches the distant Sudan.

As one goes farther west from Alexandria the country becomes wilder and one sees fewer people, but there are several little towns, or settlements, along the coast. The ex-Khedive had a project of opening up this district and, aided by German enterprise, he built a railway which was destined to connect Alexandria with his western frontier at Sollum, and shorten the sea journey from Europe to Egypt. But the line only got as far as Bir Fuca, about 100 miles west of Alexandria. The Khedive found that his agricultural experiments in the Western Desert were not a success and, realizing this, he tried to sell the railway to a German firm, but Lord Kitchener, who was then High Commissioner, stepped in and secured it for Egypt. There is a motor road, known as the Khedival Road, from Alexandria to beyond Matruh, and another road, of very inferior quality, from Matruh to Sollum.

Mersa Matruh—Mersa means a harbour—a small town on the coast about 200 miles west of Alexandria, is where the Governor of the Western Desert has his headquarters. Matruh is the ancient Parætonium, sometimes called Ammonia, and was the port for Siwa in the days when that place was known as the oasis of Ammon. Matruh consists of a few dozen little one-storied stone houses, plastered and painted white, with gay shutters, yellow, green and blue, inhabited by Greek colonists who do a thriving business by trading with the Arabs, and exporting barley and sheep to Alexandria. There is a picturesque mosque on the cliffs above the bay, whose minaret forms a landmark for many miles, a hospital, police barracks, the Governor’s house, and a number of Government offices and houses of Government officials. There are large numbers of resident Arabs in the neighbourhood who remain near Matruh, as it is the commercial centre of the desert. At most times, especially in the summer, Matruh is a singularly attractive little place, but when it is visited by a “khamsin” wind, which blows up the fine white sand—and this is not unfrequent—it becomes a more detestable spot than anywhere else on the desert. The cliffs at Matruh suddenly cease and are carried on by a reef of partly submerged jagged rocks which protect the large harbour. The entrance—between two rocks—is so narrow that only ships of moderate size can pass, and when a heavy sea is running outside the entrance is impassable. The bay is 1½ miles long and half a mile wide, but in places where there are shoals the water is only 2 fathoms deep. To the east and west of the harbour there are a series of lagoons separated from the sea by a line of low cliffs, and divided from each other by narrow spits of sand. On the cliff above the bay, commanding the entrance, there is an old ruined Turkish fort, a yellow castellated building, which was occupied during the war by a detachment of Royal Artillery. The houses are on the southern shore, behind them there is a low rocky ridge crowned with some little forts which were built during the Senussi rising in 1916, when Matruh was for some time the British base. The bay is surrounded by firm white sands sloping gently down to the brilliantly coloured water. It is well sheltered and, consequently, never very rough; the varying depths of the water cause it to assume different colours—in some cases almost as brilliant as those of the kingfishers who fly up and down the shore; at times it is incredibly blue, so blue that the open sea outside looks black in comparison, and at other times it is vividly green, with long streaks of purple where the dark seaweed shows through the water. Matruh is a pleasant place in summer-time, the bathing is ideal, and the climate is cooler than Alexandria, which is the summer resort of all Egypt. But the great disadvantage is the lack of water; there are several wells, but the water in them is of an indifferent quality, so at present it is brought by boat from Alexandria, at great expense, and pumped into tanks on the shore.

Some signs of former civilization are still visible, and it is evident that the Romans, with their usual appreciation of beautiful places, realized the attraction of this smooth, brilliant bay. There are ruins of several villas on the banks of the lagoons, and in places flights of steps have been cut through the rock leading down to the water. The Governor’s bungalow is built on the site of a villa that was once inhabited by Cleopatra. According to tradition, Antony retired there after his defeat at Actium and found solace in the embraces of Cleopatra. One can scarcely imagine a more ideal spot than this for the site of the villa. It stood among low sand-hills a few feet above the harbour, right on the edge of the bay, so near that the rippling water must have sounded through the marble halls of the villa. From the windows of the present building one looks over the gorgeously blue bay to a line of sharp black rocks where the white waves break, and beyond to the deep blue open sea. At night, when the water shines silver in the moonlight, and the little waves creep up the white shore and break with phosphorescent splashes on the sands, one can easily picture Antony and Cleopatra gliding smoothly in a boat through the lagoons, which were connected by channels in those days, or feasting superbly to the sound of

“Some Egyptian royal love-lilt

Some Sidonian refrain,”

in the villa above the bay. In the summer quantities of “Mex Lilies” (Amaryllis) grow on the hills and scent the air with their heavy perfume. A short time before the war an American archæologist made some valuable finds among the foundations of Cleopatra’s villa, and on several occasions coins have been unearthed in the neighbourhood.

The present-day Greek colonists of Matruh are not very attractive people. They are very clever at their trade and seem to become prosperous in a remarkably short time. They make their money by squeezing the Arabs, who are forced to deal with them, as there is nobody else from whom they can buy necessities such as tea, sugar, rice, etc. The Greeks have the monopoly of trade and sell their goods at a prohibitive price, quite out of proportion to their worth, even considering the cost of transport. Their favourite system is to buy whole crops of barley from the Arabs before it is ripe, when the owner is particularly hard up. The Administration, to a certain extent, is able to check excessive profiteering, but there are innumerable ways in which the Greek is able to “do” the Arab. It seems a pity, because, in my estimation, the Arab is a much better man than the Greek trader. Not unnaturally, Greeks are very unpopular. Farther along the coast, in Tunis and Algeria, their place is taken by the Jews, but on the Western Desert there are no Jews—so the Greeks have it all their own way.

There are generally two or three English officials at Matruh, and possibly their wives, so there is usually more going on there than at any other place on the coast; in fact, Matruh is a sort of metropolis of the desert, but at the same time it is very much a desert station. Lately, when I was staying there, there arrived one evening an enormous new American car containing two English officers on leave, and a very smartly dressed lady, wife of one of them. By amazing good luck they had managed to get through from Alexandria without mishap, stopping a night en route. On arrival at Matruh they asked to be directed to the “Hotel,” which they had heard was “small, but very clean and comfortable.” They looked exceedingly blank when we told them there was no hotel—and never had been—but they were conducted to the rest house, where they settled down. Next day they complained that the rest house was neither clean nor comfortable. The greatest disadvantage, to my mind, in all the rest houses on the Western Desert is the multitude of fleas which nothing that one can do is able to destroy or even keep under. This car was not the kind used by the Administration on the desert; the party had brought no spare parts for it, no servant, no provisions except some biscuits and a tin or two of peaches, only a few glass bottles of water, which were naturally almost boiling after some hours in the heat of an August day, and none of them could speak any Arabic. At dinner that night they all appeared in full evening dress which they had brought with them, and, to everybody’s horror, they announced their intention of “running down to Siwa” on the next day. We explained carefully that to reach Siwa they would have to cross 200 miles of waterless desert, and no car ever attempted the trip alone. But nothing seemed to daunt them. Finally, however, the Governor heard of their plan and forbade it forthwith; they started off to Alexandria on the following day, with an escort of two cars, and as they went they murmured indignantly about “red tape and absurd restrictions.” It is amazing what a strange idea of the desert some people seem to have.

Matruh is the centre of the sponge fishing industry which is carried on during certain months of the year along the coast. The sponge fishers are mostly Italians, and a fine-looking lot of men. They have a little fleet of sailing-boats, and one steam-tug. The boats put out for several days at a time, working up and down the coast. They use no diving-bells, but when a man dives he holds on to a heavy stone, which sinks rapidly; he makes a jab at the sponges, cutting off one, and then lets go of the stone and rises to the surface. Sometimes the men seem to bound out of the water when they rise to the top. They are able to remain submerged for several minutes. But the work tells on their health; they are highly paid, but they say themselves that they usually die at about forty, and there is always the horrid possibility of being attacked by sharks, which are more plentiful in the Mediterranean than they used to be before the war. At Sollum there are several graves of sponge fishers who were killed in this way. I never bought a single sponge myself during the whole time I was on the Western Desert. When I was at Sollum I used to ride out along the shore with a syce carrying a bag after every heavy storm and we would usually pick up about a dozen first-class sponges worth about half a guinea each at home. Fortunately, the Arabs had no use for such things as sponges. One found pumice stone lying about the shore also. During the war an enormous amount of wreckage was swept ashore and collected by patrols of Camel Corps for building purposes and firewood. Sometimes the whole coast would be littered with cotton from a wrecked ship carrying cotton to Europe; another time we collected stacks of good brown paper, which is still being used on the Western Desert, and another time a number of casks of wine and rum were picked up.

Between Matruh and Sollum there is a little place called Sidi Barrani, which consists of a police barracks and a high gaunt building which is a rest house and office, and about half a dozen white bungalows belonging to Greek traders. Each of these places has either a British officer or, if it is not sufficiently important, an Egyptian mamur who is responsible for keeping order, etc. Barrani is a desolate place, but very beautiful in springtime when the country is ablaze with flowers and green budding corn. Rest houses in Egypt and the Sudan correspond to the Dak Bungalows in India. Those on the Western Desert are quite comfortably furnished and well provided with plate and linen. An old Sudanese soldier looks after each rest house. It is a relief after trekking along the coast by car or camel to arrive at a place where everything is ready and, in winter-time, to get a roof over one’s head, though probably a leaky one.

Two roads run from Barrani to Sollum; one goes along the coast among the strangely white sand-hills which are a feature of the district, and the other, which is less liable to be flooded in winter, is higher and farther inland. The country that one passes on the upper road between Barrani and Sollum, between the blue Mediterranean and the high rocky Scarp that runs parallel to the sea, is very attractive, especially in the soft evening light. In the heat of the day it looks dry and parched, except during a month or two immediately after the rains. One meets very few travellers on the narrow road that winds up and down, round low hills which are covered with heathery undergrowth, and often topped with rough stone cairns. Some places are very like a Scotch moor, or a stretch of Dartmoor. There is a certain plant which is the colour of purple heather, and another that looks from a distance like withered bracken. In summer-time, especially on the lower road, one is constantly deceived by the vivid mirage that hovers above some salt swamps close to the white sand-hills on the shore.

Occasionally, one passes a party of Arabs, with their skirts tucked high above the knees, stalking along behind their woolly shuffling camels, or perhaps one meets a patrol of Camel Corps, black Sudanese, in khaki uniforms, trotting briskly along on fast riding camels; then an old bedouin sheikh, wrapped in his long silk shawl, ambles past on his Arab pony. Farther on, one smells the sharp sweet scent of burning brushwood that comes from the fires outside the low black tents where some Arabs are camping, and one can see them squatting round the flame in the tent doors, with their white woollen cloaks pulled over them, while in the distance a boy drives the camels and sheep close up to the camp for the night. On the lower road, near the shore, between Barrani and Sollum, there is a lonely little hill crowned by a rough block-house where there used to be a detachment of the Camel Corps. This place is called Bagbag and was used as a frontier post before the war in Tripoli between the Italians and the Turks. As one approaches Sollum the escarpment on the left comes nearer, the foot-hills cease, and the road runs across a mile or two of flat country within sound and sight of the sea right at the foot of the towering cliffs. Before arriving at the camp the road crosses several deep water-courses which come “from thymy hills down to the sea-beat shore” through rocky ravines in the Scarp; they are dry and sandy in summer, but during the rains they become rushing torrents, quite impossible to cross in a car. Riding home in the evening, one sees a number of twinkling fires in the bedouin camp, and above them, sharply outlined against the primrose-coloured sky, is the top of the great rocky Scarp, like a dark wall that one has to ascend before reaching the desert.

Sollum consists of about a score of little buildings, and a large bedouin encampment, situated on the shore of a bay in an angle made by the sea and the Scarp which rises to a height of over 600 feet immediately behind the camp, and juts out into the sea in a rocky promontory. There are several wells at Sollum and one little orchard of fig-trees which breaks the monotony of the brown-coloured soil. Most of the buildings, including a large Camel Corps barracks, were erected since the war. There are one or two little shops, owned by Greeks, and a rough native café presided over by an evil-looking, one-eyed Egyptian, who is also the barber of the place. For a long time there was a British garrison, but this was recently withdrawn, leaving a force of Camel Corps and a small detachment of Light Cars in the old Turkish fort on the top of the cliffs above the bay. At one time there were about a dozen officers quartered here, and five or six of them had their wives with them. Sollum became quite like an Indian hill station—perhaps even worse, and when a certain elderly general, well known as a misogynist, inspected the place, he stated in his report that there were six officers’ wives and six different sets, the result being that they were very shortly moved and replaced by unmarried officers.

One gets to feel hemmed in at Sollum. On the north lies the sea, and on the south and west rise the rocky cliffs of the Scarp. The only open country is along the coast towards the east. A steep twisting motor road, like a Swiss mountain pass, leads up the face of the cliff on the track of an old Roman road, and several very precipitous paths ascend the Scarp behind the camp to the high table-land above. But once one has climbed the Scarp and reached the top there is a great flat plain stretching out into the distance, which is good country for riding, and full of hares and gazelle. This is the bedouins’ grazing ground, and every few miles one comes across great herds of camel and sheep, and large camps of Arabs. There are a few rock cisterns on the northern edge of the plateau and from these the Arabs get their water. They often camp 10 or 15 miles away from a well and send in a party of women and boys to fill the water-skins every other day. Arabs seldom bathe, even when they are camped close to the sea, but fortunately the sun is a wonderful purifier.

The nomad Arabs of the Western Desert are a hardy, picturesque race, very different from the fellahin of Egypt. Their active open-air life makes them strong and healthy. Patriarchalism is a dominant system among them; they are divided into a number of tribes and sub-tribes, each under its own sheikh who is responsible to the Government for the good behaviour of his people.

These tribal divisions breed factions, enmities and lifelong feuds, which result in occasional raids and forays on neighbouring tribes, and the carrying off of camels. Another source of dispute are the rights and ownerships of wells, which cause frequent fights, so a District Officer on the coast needs to be well acquainted with the tribal politics of the Arabs in his area. One of the greatest grievances of the Arabs on the Egyptian side of the frontier is the fact that, since the Senussi rebellion in 1916, they are not allowed to be in possession of fire-arms, but their neighbours, over the border in Tripoli, are under no such restrictions. The Arabs on the Egyptian desert argue, quite rightly, that they are liable to suffer from raids by the western Arabs who can dash across the frontier, drive off a herd of camels, and retire again into Tripoli where they will be safe from pursuit, as the Italians have very little influence outside their coastal towns, and of course if anybody belonging to the Egyptian Administration ventured across the frontier without an invitation, and was caught, it might almost lead to international complications. But the Egyptian Government considers that the forces of the Administration are sufficient to keep order on the frontier and protect the Arabs. (The situation is not dissimilar to that in Ireland during 1920.)

The Arabs are a pastoral people. As the Siwans depend almost entirely upon their date palms, so do the Arabs depend on their camels and sheep, and to a lesser extent on the barley crop. Their tents, called “kreish,” in which they live, are made of camel wool, woven into long strips and fastened together, supported in the middle by two poles about 6 feet high, sloping down to about 3 feet above the ground, with a movable fringe hung round the sides from the bottom of the roof-piece. These tents are very comfortable, especially in summer-time when the sides are kept open, propped up with short poles. There is no furniture inside them, but the floor is covered with matting and bedouin carpets, which are made of finely spun wool, white sheep’s wool—sometimes dyed scarlet, brown, grey—yellow camel’s wool, and black goat’s hair. They are woven in stripes and geometrical designs, and ornamented with black and red tassels. The largest tents are often 20 or 30 feet long and 10 feet wide, sometimes divided into two parts by a striped Tripoli blanket which is hung across the middle. One can be very comfortable in one of these tents, with no furniture except a heap of carpets and rugs.

Each bedouin has two sets of tents, a thin summer one, and a thicker one which is used during the winter; the latter is lined with a wonderful patchwork made from pieces of coloured cotton and linen, like an old-fashioned patchwork quilt. When it rains the wool of the roof swells and tightens, and the water slides off the steep sides of the tent as it does from the proverbial duck’s back. Being so low they are not torn up by the wind, and I have seen a whole camp of army tents laid flat by a hurricane which tore many of them to pieces, while the Arab ones remained standing and dry within.

In appearance the Western Desert Arabs are fairer than the Arabs of Arabia and Palestine. This is probably due to the fact that when they originally took the country it was occupied by Berbers, a blue-eyed, fair-haired type, who are supposed to have crossed over from Europe into Africa at some remote period several thousand years ago. The Arabs are slightly darker than the Egyptians with features that are distinctly Semitic, expressing more intelligence than the fellahin. They are of a finer build and more wiry. Some of the Arab women are very handsome, and their costume is particularly becoming. They usually wear a long black robe with full sleeves, but on special occasions the robe is of striped silk, and a red woollen belt, several yards long, twisted round the waist like a cummerbund. Their head-dress consists of a coloured silk handkerchief tied tightly over the head, but allowing two coils of braided hair to appear on both sides of the face, then, above this, a long black scarf with a coloured fringe and a red and yellow border twisted into a high head-dress, folded like a mediæval coif below the chin, with the fringed ends hanging down behind. Soft scarlet leather boots complete the costume. Almost all the women tattoo their chins and often their foreheads with a blue pattern; this is considered by them to be very ornamental, but to European eyes it is singularly ugly. Old women dye their hair a brilliant orange colour, and men sometimes tint the tips of their beards, as well as their horses’ tails, with henna, presumably following what one sees advertised as “The henna cult of beauty.”

As in most Eastern countries when an Arab marries he pays “marriage money” to the parents or guardians of the bride. So a daughter is a source of riches to her parents if she is attractive enough to be worth a handsome dowry. The amount varies on the Western Desert from about five to a hundred pounds, according to the age, appearance and position of the girl. Half is paid on marriage, and the remainder is paid later by instalments, and it is liable to be forfeited if the wife does not behave well, but if the husband divorces the wife he must pay up the residue of the money to her parents. This makes a man very careful in the choice of a wife. In many ways the plan of buying a wife on the instalment system is a good one. Arabs have more freedom in these matters than many other Orientals. Women are not veiled, and men and girls have plenty of opportunities of seeing each other, and even speaking together, before marriage, though the actual negotiations are always carried out by a third person representing each party. Arabs rarely have more than two wives, though their religion allows them to have four, and divorce is not so very common among them. The women have a certain amount of influence which they exert without the men quite knowing it, but although their position is better than that of the Egyptian women, and infinitely better than that of Siwan women, they have a very hard time. They weave wool and make tents and carpets; they milk the flocks and make butter and cheese; they grind corn on rough mill-stones for making bread; they fetch water, often from a well many miles distant; and they collect wood every day for the camp fires; all this in addition to looking after their children and cooking. Mohammedan women of all classes are not expected to concern themselves with religion; they are not allowed to enter mosques, except on one day of the year, and during seven years in the Sudan and Egypt I only twice saw a Mohammedan woman praying in public. There are very definite social divisions among the Arabs, especially among their women. The wives of respectable Arabs never associate with or speak to women whose morals are considered doubtful. These ladies of the demi-monde inhabit tents, generally on the outskirts of the camps, and are conspicuous, as in every part of the world, by the brilliant colours of their clothes, and their many ornaments.

The Arabs are a kindly, hospitable people, not phlegmatic like the fellahin, but easily moved. I had some very good friends among them. When I was out on trek, if I came across an encampment, they would see us from a long distance off and invariably come out and invite me to dismount and rest awhile, and “fadhl” in their camp. “Fadhl” is an untranslatable word which means roughly “Stop and pass the time of day.” Sometimes I used to accept their hospitality for a few hours in the heat of the day, and rest in a cool dark tent, or wait talking in the tents in the evening while my men rode on ahead and prepared my camp a little distance away. One could never camp near bedouins, as their camels generally had mange, which is very catching, and their dogs were a nuisance at night, being “snappers up of unconsidered trifles” in the way of food, etc., and not always “unconsidered” either. These dogs are white or yellow woolly creatures who guard the flocks with great apparent courage, and attack any stranger, but when threatened they run yelping away with their tails between their legs. When I dismounted I would wait for a minute or so talking to the men, so as to give the Arabs a chance to arrange things. Women would run frantically from tent to tent carrying mats and carpets, and shooing away sheep and goats and small brown children; then the sheikh would lead me to the largest tent, spread with black and scarlet carpets, with probably a long striped blanket hung across the centre and screening one side of it. Or on warm summer nights the carpets were spread in front of the tents, on the open desert under the stars. Unless I specially asked to be excused the finest kid of the herd would be caught and killed and an hour or so later it would be brought in, boiled, on an enormous wooden dish, and I would be expected to eat “heavily” of this, also of the “asida” that followed. Asida, a dish which I always had the greatest difficulty in pretending to eat, consists of lightly cooked flour dough, with a hole scooped in the middle full of oil or melted fat and sugar, however, de gustibus non disputandum. The sheikh, and perhaps one or two of his relations, would join in the feast, watched with the greatest interest by the ladies of the camp who would collect on the other side of the curtain, and gaze firmly at me from underneath it, whispering, giggling and tinkling their bangles and ornaments as they moved. If I knew the people well they would not bother about hanging up a curtain, and women and children would creep into the tent and sit staring from the far end, or carry on their usual occupations—milking goats, spinning or making semna—but no woman would ever eat in the presence of a man out of respect to him, and a son would never think of sitting down and eating with his father unless he was specially invited to do so. Generally the sons waited on the party, and ate afterwards.

Semna is a kind of cheese made from goat’s milk. In the morning the sheep and goats are milked into wooden bowls, the milk is poured into a water-skin and rolled vigorously up and down by two women seated on the ground till it thickens into a sort of butter. The addition of a certain herb is needed if it is to be made into cheese. One kind of white butter made by the Arabs is very good and forms an excellent substitute for real butter, and a change from the tinned species.

Arabs are very free in their conversation, and personal remarks are not considered to be ill-mannered. They usually ask one’s age, and inquire whether people are married or not. The idea of a man being over twenty and still unmarried surprises them enormously; they think that he can’t afford to buy a wife. They always show a keen interest in what they consider the peculiar habits of Europeans. Hardly any of them can read or write, and very few have ever been off the desert. When a bedouin gets to Alexandria he is like a countryman in London. The bedouin are superstitious, but not as intensely so as the oasis dwellers. In every tent one notices a little bundle of charms hung on one of the tent poles to avert the Evil Eye. One such collection would consist of a black cock’s leg, a red rag, a dried frog, two bones, and a little leather charm, tied together and hung on the pole.

One day I was sitting talking to some Arabs in a tent when suddenly I realized that everybody was staring in a fascinated way at my mouth. I wondered what was the matter. Then I heard the women whispering to themselves: “He must be a very wealthy one; see how he adorns himself with gold.” I couldn’t imagine what they meant as I was only wearing a shirt, shorts and stockings, nothing very remarkable in the way of clothes. Then I heard something about “Gold tooth,” and I realized that their attention had been caught by a hideous gold crown that had been put over one of my front teeth in a great hurry just before I left Cairo the last time I was on leave. They thought it a most attractive and novel form of decoration.

When Arabs get money they either invest it in sheep and camels or bury it in the ground. Some of these men who lead the most primitive lives, living in a tent and feeding on a meagre diet of milk, bread, rice and dates, are the owners of many thousands of sheep and hundreds of camels. Sheep are generally worth two or three pounds, and camels about fifteen pounds each. Besides this, they often have a little bag of gold buried somewhere in the desert. They never spend their money on creature comforts, and the poorest and the richest men live practically in the same way. My Sudanese Camel Corps men used to criticize them, saying what a waste it seemed that they had so much money, and apparently didn’t know how to enjoy it, whereas in the Sudan when a man made money he would build a house, feed better and live in a more comfortable way than his neighbours. An Arab when he was “mabsout” (well off) didn’t seem to know how to be “mabsout”—meaning also “happy.”

Once I was camped near some Arabs and one of them, an old sheikh, was ill and considered by his relations likely to die. He was known to possess some money buried somewhere in the neighbourhood, and his relatives were most anxious that he should not die until he had disclosed the hiding-place. But the old man obstinately refused to tell them where it was. A deputation of his heirs called on me and asked me to make him speak. I agreed that it was unfortunate for them, but I could do nothing. When I suggested that they should take him to the hospital at Sollum, they were quite indignant and said that evidently Allah willed that he should die; the only distressing thing was his obstinacy about the money. This went on for several days, and then, to every one’s surprise, the old gentleman suddenly recovered. Some of his relations seemed sorry, and some relieved. When I last saw him he was watching a “fantasia” which was being held in honour of his recovery, with a pleased, benignant expression. Personally, I always had a faint idea that the money never existed, but all his people firmly believe in it, and he has kept the secret to this day.

A FALCONER OUTSIDE A BEDOUIN CAMP

One rather associates the idea of an Arab with his steed, a wonderful fiery creature that skims across the desert like a bird. The ponies on the Western Desert are a somewhat sorry collection. Only a few of the well-to-do Arabs keep horses. They are small hardy ponies very unlike the Arab steed of fiction. But they look better when they are ridden, with their high scarlet saddles, great iron stirrups and gaily tasselled bridles. The Arabs ride them either at an uncomfortable jog trot or at a tearing gallop. They have some curious ideas on the “points” of a pony; certain things are considered lucky or unlucky; for instance, if a pony has white stockings on both forelegs it is much esteemed, but a white stocking on one fore and one hind leg is exceedingly unlucky. There are many stretches of hard stony ground along the coast, so horses have to be shod; this is done by covering the whole of the foot with a flat piece of iron, and results in a terrific noise when they gallop over stony ground.

There is very little sport to be had on this part of the desert. The only form that the Arabs indulge in is the ancient pastime of hawking. Certain men of each tribe are proficient in training and hunting with hawks. Skill as a falconer seems to be hereditary in the same way as snake charming, fortune telling and various other practices. The Arabs prefer catching a full-grown bird and training it, to taking a young bird from the nest, which would appear to be the easiest plan. The method of trapping them is rather clever. When an Arab wants to catch a hawk, he takes a pigeon, slightly clips its wings to prevent its escape, and fastens a number of horsehair loops round its body, then he releases the pigeon, which flutters away. A hawk sights the pigeon, swoops down and becomes entangled in the meshes of the horsehair, so that the Arab is able to run up and secure it. The hawk takes many months to train. Gradually it becomes accustomed to its master, who invariably feeds it himself, and whistles when he gives it food in a way that it learns to know. Later he takes the bird on his wrist, hooded, and fastened by a leather thong; by degrees it becomes accustomed to his wrist and then he carries it about with him, still hooded. Finally he removes the hood and lets it tackle a hare or two which he brings to it, then one day he takes it out on to the desert and looses it at a running hare. The bird attacks the hare, brings it down, and sits on its prey till the master arrives, or if it flies up he draws it back by whistling and flinging a lump of meat into the air. Sometimes an Arab will catch over a dozen hares in a day’s hawking, but occasionally, after months of training, when he looses his bird for the first time it will fly away and never return. One sees a tethered hawk outside a tent in almost all the big encampments. A well-trained bird is worth several pounds among the Arabs, and it is very difficult to persuade them to part with one; they are used to catch pigeons, quail and other birds, besides hares.

Another sport which we went in for along the coast was coursing hares with Silugi dogs. These dogs are gazelle hounds and came originally from Arabia. There are now a certain number of them in Egypt, and all the officials on the Western Desert keep one or two. Silugis are very similar to greyhounds, generally white or pale coffee colour, with feathery tails and long-haired, silky ears. They are very fast indeed, but have no sense of scent, and hunt entirely by sight. They are rather delicate and very nervous, and in most cases they show little affection for human beings. At Matruh there was quite a pack which included a couple of fox-hounds, silugis, several terriers—of sorts—and a few nondescript bedouin pariahs. The Matruh pack specialized in foxes, but at Sollum there were more hares than foxes. The desert hares are rather smaller than the English ones, but they seemed to be faster.

The open country above the Scarp stretches over alternate patches of hard stony ground, and strips covered with low vegetation where a certain plant that smells like thyme predominates. Generally two or three of us went hunting together, or if there were only two Englishmen we took a couple of Sudanese syces or servants, who thoroughly enjoy all forms of hunting, all mounted on ponies, and accompanied by four or five dogs. We rode in extended order with intervals of about thirty yards between each rider, the dogs generally trotting along in front. Whoever raised a hare gave a wild yell and galloped after it, “hell for leather,” the rest following. The hounds would sight the hare and fling themselves in pursuit. Quite often the hare got away before they saw it, or managed to reach a bit of cover well ahead of the hounds, and then they would slacken down, at a loss, and wait till the riders came up and scoured the country round to put up the hare again. It sounds rather unsporting, but the hare stood a very good chance; in fact, generally more than half of them got away, and it gave one some splendid long gallops across the country. Sometimes we would raise a gazelle, and give chase, but few dogs or ponies can catch up a gazelle when it gets a little start and is really moving. I think the scale of speed was, gazelle, silugi, hare and ponies. It was a primitive form of hunting, but one liked it none the less, and jugged hare made a welcome change in the menu.

There were a certain number of gazelle on the desert quite close to the top of the Scarp and it was occasionally possible to get a shot at them, but they were very shy, and needed careful stalking over country that was almost without cover. When anybody went out specially to shoot gazelle none would appear, but when riding along on a camel one saw numbers of them; however, by the time one had dismounted and loaded the gazelle would be out of range, probably standing a long distance away “at gaze.” Gazelle do not mind camels if they have no people on them, and the Arabs sometimes get quite close to a gazelle by stalking it from among a number of grazing camels. At one time, after the war, the men of the Light Car Patrols took to hunting gazelle in Ford cars with a machine-gun; fortunately this practice was forbidden, but it scared the gazelle from the neighbourhood for a considerable time.

Numbers of rock pigeons nested among the cliffs on the coast, and quantities of them collected round the camel lines and fed off the refuse grain. In the autumn thousands of quail arrived on the coast from Europe; they were often so exhausted that the Arab boys could catch them in their hands. The natives netted them for sale to the Greeks, who exported them alive in crates to Alexandria. One got very tired of eating quail during the month or two that they were in season; still, at first they were extremely good. Among the wadis in the Scarp there were occasional coveys of red-legged partridge, and lately there have been a few sand-grouse about the high country; once or twice I have seen duck on the marshes near the sea, and an occasional bustard, but, on the whole, there was very little to be had in the way of shooting.

SILUGI HOUNDS

A number of jackals and a few wild cats lived in the caves among the wadis in the Scarp. Their mournful wailings echoed through the rocky ravines, and owing to its eeriness at night the bedouins thought that it was haunted by evil spirits. But in the daytime they climbed about it quite unconcernedly, and their goats snatched a scanty pasturage among the rocks. During most of the year the Scarp looks harsh and forbidding, but after the rains a change comes over it; one notices a faint green tinge about the cliffs, and a closer examination shows that it is covered with blossoming flowers and rock plants. The slopes become gay with mauve, pink, yellow and blue flowers, saltworts, samphires, sea lavender, yellow nettle, campanulas, little irises, marigolds, ranunculas, Spanish broom, masses of night-scented stock and a quantity of other little flowering plants which clothe the grim rocks in a robe of brilliant colour. The flat country, too, blossoms out into colour. One sees scarlet poppies, mallows, and tall scabious among the budding corn, and fields of swaying asphodel, and the whole desert is scented in the evening by the night-scented stock.

The rain that causes this transformation falls occasionally during the winter months from November till about March. During this time there are clouds in the sky, and sometimes terrific downpours. The Arabs greet the first rain of the season with great delight, the men sing and shout, and the women raise piercing shrieks to show their pleasure. Unless there is a good rainfall none of the barley grows, and the grazing on which the sheep and camels depend is insufficient. When it rains the wadis become rushing torrents, roads are impassable, every house leaks, and many of the roofs subside. The camels have to be led from their flooded lines to the higher ground where they stand shivering. Camels hate rain. If one is out on trek and a really stiff shower comes on the camels barrack down, with their backs towards the direction of the rain, and nothing will make them budge till it is over. One just has to wait till it stops. If the track is muddy and wet the camels slither and slide and one must dismount and lead them; they were made for hot, dry countries, not for a damp, wet climate. Hardly any of the houses at Matruh or Sollum are watertight, and it was nothing out of the ordinary when one called on a man to find him camped out in the middle of his most watertight room, surrounded by his perishable belongings, with a sort of canopy consisting of a waterproof sheet and a mackintosh or two stretched out above him. But though rain storms were very violent they did not last long, and the sun soon came out and dried everything up again. When, however, one was caught by a bad storm out on trek on the desert, with only a thin tent, and no change of clothes, it was very disagreeable.

The word “house” is misleading. People imagine at least a large comfortable bungalow. But on the Western Desert the average house occupied by an English official, with possibly a wife, was a three-roomed stone hut, with plastered walls and a wooden roof, with a very thin layer of cement. The largest room would be about twelve feet square, the plaster invariably crumbled off the walls owing to the salt in it, and the cement invariably cracked in the summer so that the rain poured through the roof in the winter. Cement for some reason was almost impossible to get. One always heard that for “next year” the Administration had included the building of real houses for its officials in the Budget, but this item was always one of the first to be struck out on the grounds of economy. Nobody has yet discovered an ideal roofing for the Western Desert, where there are extremes of heat and cold and occasional terrific hurricanes and downpours. So far, the best type of abode seems to be the bedouin tent.

One of the chief events on the coast was the arrival of the cruiser, Abdel Moneim, which came up from Alexandria about once every fortnight or three weeks bringing mails, supplies and sometimes high officials on tours of inspection. She spent a day or two in harbour at Matruh and Sollum on each trip. This little cruiser was built in Scotland for the Egyptian Government, and with two other boats comprises the navy of Egypt. She was a neat-looking grey ship, always very spick and span with fresh paint and shining brass, manned by a crew of Egyptians in white or blue sailors’ uniform and red tarbooshes. Her captain was an English bimbashi in the Egyptian Coastguards Administration, whose uniform was somewhat confusing, as he wore, besides the naval rank on his sleeve, a crown and star on his shoulder. The cruiser was carefully built so as to allow a spacious saloon and two state cabins, for the accommodation of the Director-General. Two machine-guns were posted fore and aft. The Abdel Moneim had the well-deserved reputation of being warranted to make the very best sailor seasick, even in comparatively calm weather. She rolled and pitched simultaneously in a more horrid manner than any ship I have ever known. The result was that, when people went down the coast to Alexandria on leave, they arrived in Egypt looking and feeling like nothing on earth, and spent the first few days of their all too short leave recovering from the evil after-effects of the voyage. I have never yet met anyone who really enjoyed a trip on the cruiser. Personally, the only time that I felt comfortable on board was when we were firmly moored to the quay at Matruh or Sollum. When the high officials landed after a sea trip they were generally feeling so ill that their visits were not entirely a pleasure to the people who were being inspected.

Occasionally misguided individuals, who knew nothing about it, got permission to go up to Sollum and back by cruiser, hoping for a pleasant little trip on the Mediterranean. Generally, when they arrived at Matruh, they inquired anxiously whether it was possible to return to Alexandria by car, or even by camel. Some queer visitors sometimes came on these “joy rides,” but very little joy was left in them by the time they reached Sollum. On one occasion, a Mr. B. of the Labour Corps, a Board School master in private life, arrived by cruiser at Matruh. He announced that he had come to study the coast and the Arabs. He was just the type that Kipling describes so well in his poems. The Governor invited him to lunch; he arrived in spurs, belt, etc., though it was the summer and every one else was wearing the fewest and thinnest clothes; however, that may have been politeness. There happened to be three or four other men present. At lunch Mr. B. proceeded to air his views on how the desert should be run; we heard some startling facts about it; he disapproved of the Administration, and told us so; he then proceeded to tell us about the Sudan, as he had lately spent one week in an hotel at Khartoum. The Governor had been recently transferred from the Sudan, where he had been Governor of one of the largest provinces, and as it happened every single man present had served there for some considerable time, so, naturally, we were interested to be told a few facts about it!

A couple of days later I happened to go down the coast with Mr. B. and a certain District Officer. The latter spent his whole time, when he wasn’t ill, telling Mr. B. the most outrageously impossible stories of camels, Arabs and the desert, which he swallowed unblinkingly and noted down in a copybook in order to give lectures, so he told us, at his club when he returned home. That club must have heard some startling stories. One of the facts—or fictions—that interested him particularly was a description of “watch camels which are posted by the Arabs round their flocks and when a stranger appears they gallop across to the camp and warn their masters.” Another very vivid story was the description of a whole herd of camels going mad from hydrophobia. It is wonderful how credulous some people can be, but I think he deserved it.

CHAPTER II

THE DESERT

“So on, ever on, spreads the path of the Desert,

Wearily, wearily,

Sand, ever sand—not a gleam of the fountain;

Sun, ever sun—not a shade from the mountain;

As a sea on a sea flows the width of the Desert

Drearily, drearily.”

THE Western Desert of Egypt is regulated by the Frontier Districts Administration, a comparatively new department of the Egyptian Government which was formed during the war and took over many of the duties of the old Egyptian Coastguards Administration. The F.D.A. is a military Administration with British officers, and is responsible for the Western Desert, Sinai and the country between the Red Sea coast and the Nile. In each of these provinces there is a Governor and several District Officers and officers of the Camel Corps. The Military Administrator at the head of the whole Administration is Colonel G. G. Hunter, C.B., C.M.G., and the Governor of the Western Desert is at present Colonel M. S. Macdonnell. The forces of the F.D.A. consist of a Sudanese Camel Corps and local police.

On the Western Desert there is one company of Camel Corps, about 170 strong, divided into three sections, of which two are stationed on the coast and one in the Siwa oasis. The duties of the Camel Corps are practically those of mounted police, patrolling the coast and frontier, preventing smuggling and gun running, and keeping order among the Arabs in case of any disturbance or trouble. But since the successful termination of the British operations against the Senussi in 1917 the Western Desert has been very peaceable, and the Arabs seem to be thoroughly satisfied with the organization by which they are now governed. During all the trouble in Egypt in 1919-21, when the country was seething with anti-British agitations, there were absolutely no disturbances or demonstrations among the Arabs of the Western Desert, and I have heard them in their tents discussing, quite genuinely, the foolishness of the goings-on in Egypt.

The F.D.A. Camel Corps was originally formed of Sudanese men from the Coastguard Camel Corps, with a large proportion of “yellow bellies” (Egyptians) who were gradually weeded out and replaced by Sudanese and Sudan Arabs, who were enlisted on the borders of Egypt, as the Sudan Government does not allow recruiting inside its territories except for the Egyptian Army. The F.D.A. Camel Corps is supposed to consist entirely of Sudanese, but a certain number of the men who were enlisted in the regions of Luxor and Kom Ombo are not real Sudanis. They are very well paid, provided with good uniforms and rations, and a certain percentage are allowed to have their wives with them on the coast. Every camp has its “harimat”—married quarters—where the married men and their families live. But before a man is allowed to marry he has to pass a test in musketry. Many of the men marry Arab women, and this sometimes caused considerable trouble among the Sudanese wives, who are by no means fond of their Arab “sisters.” As they all live close together in rather cramped quarters they have a very lively time. One’s office hours are often occupied in endeavouring to pacify some irate old Sudanese lady who brings a furious complaint that the Arab wife of her next-door neighbour is “carrying on” with her husband. Or one gets a long involved case like the following story to inquire into, generally when there is a great deal of other work to be done.

Ombashi (corporal) Suliman Hassan married an Arab lady called Halima bint—daughter of—Ahmed Abu Taleb; when she married her father gave her an old primus stove, a favourite possession of the Arabs at Sollum, which he had bought from the servant of one of the English officers—this incidentally caused another inquiry. The marriage was not a success, and after six months of unhappy married life Ombashi Suliman divorced his wife. Apparently he “celebrated” the divorce “not wisely but too well,” because on the next day he got a month’s hard labour for being drunk on duty. He took the primus with him when he went to prison. Halima retired to Bagbag with her goods and chattels, and after a suitable interval she married another Camel Corps man, this time a “naffer”—private—who brought her back with him to Sollum.

Ombashi Suliman had also consoled himself, and presented the primus stove, now very worn and shaky, to his new wife, a buxom Sudanese. She sold it to her married sister. It exploded and set a tent on fire; so the sister gave it to her little girl Zumzum, a small black infant with tight curls and one pink garment. Then one day Halima saw the primus, her primus, in the hands of the small Zumzum, and remembered about it. She rushed home to her new husband and stirred him to action; so he arrived at my office with a long incoherent complaint, demanding justice and the return of the stove.

I had to spend an entire morning unravelling this history and examining endless witnesses, who all wished to talk about any subject except the one I was getting at. When the present wife and the divorced wife of Ombashi Suliman met outside the office they were with difficulty restrained from fighting, and the lurid details which were wafted through the window, about the lives and antecedents of both ladies, were interesting, but quite unprintable. Eventually the small Zumzum, now in a state of inaudible terror, produced the primus, which was found to be worn out, irreparable, and absolutely useless.

One of the features of Sollum is a little cluster of tents and huts, near the Camel Corps Camp, which is known as the “Booza Camp.” It is run by about a dozen elderly Sudanese widows and divorcees who manufacture “marissa,” a drink made from barley. The men are allowed here at certain times and on holidays, as marissa is not permitted to be brewed in the camp. The wives have the strongest objection to this institution which attracts their husbands away from home, as a public-house does in England, though the dusky barmaids could not possibly be called attractive. One can rightly say of the Sudanese that their favourite diversions are wine, women and song.

The Sudanis of the Camel Corps are a very likeable lot. They are thoroughly sporting and have a strong sense of humour, but in many ways they are very like children. They have an aptitude for drill and soldiering, but are useless without British officers owing to their lack of initiative. They are faithful and become very attached to Englishmen, but they have a keen sense of discrimination. Like all native troops there is a tendency for each man to consider himself a born leader, and offer his advice and opinion on all occasions; this takes a long time to subdue. But with careful training they become efficient soldiers, and they look very smart in their khaki uniform, which is rather similar to an Indian’s. Physically many of them are splendid men, very powerful and muscular, like bronze statues, but although the climate of their own country is intensely hot they are by no means immune from the effects of sun, and they seem to be almost more liable to catch fever than an Englishman.

The three sections take it in turns to go to Siwa, where they generally remain from six to nine months. It is not a popular place, in spite of the fact that every man is allowed to marry, with no restrictions, such as first having to pass a musketry test. The men much prefer being on the coast where there is more going on, as they are at heart intensely sociable, and also, though living is cheap at Siwa, the climate has a bad reputation.

The best time to go to Siwa is in the spring, when the weather is cool and there is probably water on the road. The trip needs a good deal of preparing for, especially as one has to take down stores for many months. A camel patrol from Siwa used to meet a patrol from the coast at the half-way point on the road once every month, and in this way the mails were sent down to the oasis. A car patrol was supposed to go down at certain intervals, but they were very irregular, and sometimes, on the few occasions when they did come, they forgot to bring the mail. One depended so much on letters at Siwa that this was an intense disappointment. The following is a rough diary of a trek down to Siwa in the hot weather.

Saturday, July 24th.

Spent a busy morning making final arrangements for the trip and seeing that everything was ready. We moved off from Sollum at 3.30 p.m., myself, 39 men, 50 camels, and one dog. The whole camp turned out to see us off, including many small black babies belonging to the men. Some of the men wept profusely at parting with their wives, but almost before we were out of Sollum I heard them gaily discussing which of the Siwan ladies they would honour by marriage. Saturday is a fortunate day to start on a journey. Apparently the prophet Mohammed favoured Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but Saturdays most of all. Another good omen was the appearance of two crows which we passed just outside the camp; a single crow would have been cause for anxiety, and to see a running hare before camping at night is considered a very serious piece of ill-luck. I think this started from the idea that a running hare was a sign of people on the move close at hand, probably enemies.

We marched along the bottom of the Scarp and reached Bir Augerin, where we camped for the night, at sunset. At Augerin there is one of the many rock cisterns that one finds on the coast. These cisterns are large rectangular underground tanks, often 40 feet square and 20 feet high, with one or two square holes in the roof large enough to admit a man. The Arabs draw the water up in leather buckets on the end of a rope, or if the supply is low one man goes down and fills the bucket which is drawn up by the man above. They are always built in the middle of a hollow with several stone runnels that carry the rain water down from the higher ground. Generally there is a mound near the well with a sheikh’s tomb on the top of it, a cairn surrounded by a low wall, ornamented with a few little white flags which are contributed by passing travellers as a thank-offering for the water. According to M. Maspero, the cisterns along the coast were built by the Romans in the second century A.D., and were in use until the middle or end of the fourth century. Most of them are now so out of repair that they only hold water for a very short time after the rains have ceased, and when they are dry they become the home of snakes, bats and owls; however, I believe it is proposed to restore several of the most useful of them.

We camped near the well at Augerin. I had an indifferent dinner. My new cook, Abdel Aziz, seems to be a fool and unaccustomed to being on trek. He is a Berberin, a despised “gins”—race—but always considered to be good cooks. The men I have got with me are a fine lot, all “blacks” and mostly “Shaigis”—from the North Sudan. The old Bash-Shawish—sergeant-major—was previously in the Coastguards and knows the country well. I did not bother to put up a tent, but slept in the open under the stars, which were gorgeous. Not a very hot night.

25th.

Moved off at 4.30 a.m. by chilly but brilliant moonlight. Led the camels and walked for the first hour, then mounted and rode. The men made a long line riding along in file. Arrived at Bir Hamed, another cistern, at about 8 a.m. We stay here till to-morrow morning in order to give the camels a good day’s grazing and watering, as this is the last well before the real desert. Bir Hamed is a very wild, picturesque place among the rocky foot-hills below the Scarp. In the spring it becomes one mass of flowers, but now it looks dry and barren. The camels drank frantically and then went out to graze. There is still a fair amount of water in the well, which is icy cold and very refreshing. I, and almost all the men, had a bath, as it is the last opportunity till we get to Siwa. I spent a lazy day in my tent and the men slept most of the time. At four o’clock the camels were driven in to drink again, this time they were less eager to get to the water and sipped it in a mincing way like an affected old lady drinking tea.

CAMEL CORPS

After dinner, when I was sitting outside my tent in the moonlight, I heard a faint sound of shouting in the distance. I took a couple of men and walked in the direction the sound came from. About a mile from the camp we sighted a large number of black Arab tents that showed up clear in the moonlight on a slight rise in the ground. There had been a marriage in the tribe and the festivities were being concluded by a dance.

Two girls were slowly revolving round in the centre of an enormous circle of white-robed bedouins each holding in her hand, above her head, a long cane which she flourished in the manner that a dancer uses a bouquet of flowers. The girls wore the usual Arab dress, the black, long-sleeved robe and scarlet waist-band, but their faces were hidden by long black veils, and they wore white shawls fastened in flounces round the waist, which stuck out almost like a ballet girl’s skirt. The moon flashed on the heavy silver bangles on their arms and on their silver necklaces and earrings.

The audience were divided into four parties, the object of each party being to attract the dancers to them by the enthusiasm of their singing and hand-clapping. A man playing on a flute and another with a drum led the tune, which was wearily monotonous but strangely attractive and a fitting accompaniment to the scene. Gradually the singing became faster and louder, the white-robed Arabs swayed to and fro urging the dancers to fresh exertions; the girls revolved more rapidly and one of them began the “Dance de ventre,” which consists of rather sensuous quivering movements, not attractive to a European, but much admired by natives. The singing and hand-clapping became more violent and finally culminated in frenzied shouting when one of the girls halted, swaying, before the loudest section of the audience, and several men flung themselves on their knees, kissing her feet and exclaiming at her beauty, which if it existed was quite invisible to me, and praising her skill in dancing with high-flown speeches and compliments. Outside the circle of brown-faced, white-clad Arabs, and in the doors of the tents, there were a crowd of women watching the performance, and a group of dancing girls stood whispering to each other under their black veils, tinkling their ornaments, as they waited to step into the circle and relieve their companions.

I stood watching the dancing for a long time, and then returned to my tent. As I walked away I heard hoarse shouts of “Ya Ayesha—ya Khadiga,” as two new girls began to dance, and the whistle and the drum struck up another queer little melody. Not until almost dawn did quiet reign again on the desert, broken only by the occasional wail of a wandering jackal.

26th.

Moved off at 4 a.m. and marched till 9.30. We led the camels for the first two hours along the rocky, difficult ground below the Scarp, and then up a steep, stony pass to the top. I reached the top just as the “false dawn” glimmered with a streak of pale light in the east. There was a heavy dew; all the country down below looked grey and misty. Gradually the long, twisting line of led camels reached the summit, and as we rode off across the level upland towards Siwa the real sunrise began and the stars faded in the sky. The dew was so thick that the spiders’ webs on the bushes all sparkled. By midday it was intolerably hot. We halted at a place called Qur el Beid, a most depressing spot consisting of three low sand-hills and a tiny patch of vegetation which the camels sniffed at contemptuously, probably comparing it in their minds to the much superior grazing near Bir Hamed. I lunched lightly and lay sweating in my tent with Howa, my Silugi dog, lying openmouthed and panting at my side till we moved on again for the afternoon “shid”—march.

The first hour of the afternoon “shid” is the worst of the day. The swaying motion of the camel, the glare, and the burning sun beating down, makes one terribly inclined to sleep, and the hard, yellowish brown desert is absolutely monotonous. A good “hagin”—riding camel—is very comfortable to ride when it is trotting, but not at a walk. Its action is peculiar, first the two off legs move together, and then the two near legs; this is what causes the swinging motion. There is an idea that when people first ride a camel they are afflicted by a sort of sea-sickness, but although I am a bad sailor I have never felt this, nor have I yet met anyone who did. Camels are very easy to ride; one just sits on the saddle with legs crossed over the front pummel, and there is very little chance of falling off as long as the camel behaves itself. The usual way of mounting is to make the camel kneel down and then step on to the saddle, but if one is long-legged and active it is possible to spring up into the saddle from the ground, which is much quicker and useful when the ground is hard and unsuitable for the camel to kneel on. A camel’s usual pace is a slow trot, about 4½-5 miles an hour, and they can keep up this pace for hours on end. Of course they can go at a sort of gallop, if they like, and when they do this they cover the ground at a terrific speed, but it is rather difficult to ride them, and they have an unpleasant trick of suddenly swerving which generally shoots one over the camel’s head on to the ground. I have known, too, camels that bucked, and others that suddenly knelt down when one did not expect it, both very disconcerting tricks. They are not affectionate animals and they never seem to know their own masters; there was only one among mine that had any “parlour tricks,” and he used to inhale tobacco smoke through his nose, apparently with the greatest appreciation.

We saw several gazelle in the afternoon, but all too far away for a shot. Halted for the night at a place where there were about four small tufts of vegetation. The camels are less fastidious now and condescended to nibble at them.

The best time of the day is the evening when the sun sinks low, the desert becomes a pinkish colour, and our shadows stretch like huge monsters for yards across the ground. Then I begin to look out for a camping place, anywhere where there are a few scraps of dried-up vegetation, or, failing that, a soft-looking patch of ground where the camels will be comfortable. When we halt the baggage is unloaded and the camels are allowed to roam about and eat what they can find; in five minutes my tent is pitched, chair and table unfolded, and dinner is being prepared. Some of the men begin measuring out the camels’ dhurra—millet—and others go and collect bits of stick for the fires, or if there is no wood they use dry camel dung, which is an excellent fuel. Then the camels are driven in again, unsaddled and tied down in a long line; at a given signal the men run along the line and place each one’s food on a sack in front of its nose. Every man squats down by his own camel and watches it eat, preventing the ones who eat fast from snatching at their neighbour’s grain. Afterwards the men have their own supper—lentils, onions, bread and tea, and soon roll themselves up in their blankets, covering face and all, and go to sleep behind their saddles, which they use as shelters against the night wind. The only sound is the munching of the camels and an occasional hollow gurgle as they chew the cud, and the footsteps of the sentry as he moves up and down the line, “till the dawn comes in with golden sandals.”

Abdel Aziz is improving; he produced quite a decent dinner—sausages, fried onions and potatoes, omelette and coffee, followed by a cigar. One sleeps splendidly on the desert. Even in the hottest weather the nights are fairly cool. Towards morning, just before the “false dawn,” a little cool breeze blows over the sand and stirs the flaps of one’s tent, like a sort of warning that soon it will be time to get on the move again.

27th.

We marched for six hours in the morning and about four hours in the afternoon, and camped for the night at the half-way point between Sollum and Siwa, which is a mound ornamented by a few empty tins. The temperature in my tent at midday must have been about 120 degrees, and not a scrap of breeze or fresh air. This is real desert; there is not a vestige of any living thing, animal or vegetable. The ground is hard limestone covered with dark, shining pebbles, and in some places there are stretches of dried mud, left from the standing water after the rains. These mud pans are impassable in wet weather, and one has to make a wide detour to avoid them. Now they are cracked by the sun into a number of little fissures of a uniform size, about 6 inches square. The effect is very curious.

I once motored down to Siwa in a car driven by an English A.S.C. private who had never been out in the desert before. When we were running over one of these mud pans he remarked to me, “It seems wonderful how they have laid bits of this road with paving blocks—don’t it, sir!” I thought he was trying to be funny, but when I looked at him I saw that he was perfectly serious, so I agreed that it was indeed wonderful. Nobody believed the story when I told it afterwards, but it really did happen.

The mirage is very vivid. Almost all the time one sees what appears to be a sheet of shining water ahead in the distance, and one can distinguish bays and islands on it; gradually, as one gets nearer, it recedes and then fades away. It is like the shimmering heat that one sometimes sees at home on a hot day, but greatly intensified. Distances look out of proportion on the desert; little mounds, too small to be called hills, appear like huge mountains. About every thirty miles there seem to be slight rises of a terrace-like formation.

Every evening the men make bread, which they call “khuz.” It is very simply done and quite good when freshly baked. They take flour and a little salt and mix it together with water, in a basin or on a clean sack, kneading it into dough with their hands. When it is solid and firm they smooth it out into a flat, round loaf about 1½ inches thick. Then they go to the fire, scrape aside all the embers, and lay the loaf on the hot sand. Then they put the embers back on the top of the loaf. After a few minutes’ cooking they rake aside the fire again and turn the loaf, replacing the fire on the top as before. The time taken in cooking depends on the heat, but is generally about ten minutes. The bread lasts until the following evening.

All the way we are following what is known as a “mashrab,” a desert road, which consists of a narrow rut about a foot wide, worn by the passage of camels through many centuries. Without specially looking for them one would hardly notice these mashrabs, which are almost identical to the “gazelle paths” that wind aimlessly about the desert, but one is helped by the cairns of stones which are raised by the Arabs on every bit of high ground, sometimes to show the way and sometimes to mark the lonely grave of a less fortunate traveller. Each of these twisting desert tracks is known to the Arabs by a different name. There is the “Mashrab el Khamisa,” from Bagbag to Siwa, called thus because there are five wells on the way; there is the “Mashrab el Akhwan”—the Brothers’ Road, from Jerabub to the coast, which was used by the Senussi Brethren when they travelled from their Zowia at Jerabub into Egypt; and the “Mashrab el Abd”—the Slave’s Road, as according to legend, once upon a time, in the dim ages, a slave who was captured and brought by this route into Egypt from his home in the west, returned to the west and led an army against Egypt by the very road that he had come by as a captive. Often the mashrab seems to fade away, and then the trackers have to ride on ahead and pick it up again. A number of Bisharin from the North-East Sudan were specially enlisted in the Camel Corps as trackers and guides. They are thought to be more skilful at this work than any other tribe, though personally I think a bedouin is cleverer. But when working in a bedouin country it is best not to employ local natives. Some of the Bisharin are almost unnaturally clever, they can follow a footstep over hard, broken ground where anyone else would see no sign of anything. These men have a natural instinct for finding the way, a sort of abnormal bump of locality. When they first arrived on the coast some of them were wearing the usual clothes of their country and the fuzzy-wuzzy coiffure that is so remarkable a characteristic of their race. The Arabs had never seen this type of Sudanese and were intensely interested in them. Small bedouin boys used to stand and stare at these tall brown men with the great mops of woolly hair ornamented with a few skewer-like objects, but the Bisharin were absolutely indifferent.

28th.

Left “Keimat en Nus”—the half-way tent—at a very early hour and rode for a long time by moonlight; one can cover more ground when it is cold, but there is a danger of going off the track. The mashrab is faint enough in the daytime, but almost invisible at night. When we start off in the morning all the men shout together three times, “Ya Sidi Abdel Gader,” invoking a certain sheikh who is the patron sheikh of travellers. One of my men told me that he was born in Berber “min zaman”—a long time ago—and used to travel about the Sudan deserts without water or food. His descendants still live at Berber where he is buried.

For the first hour or two the men are very lively and rouse the desert with their singing. Usually one man sings the refrain in a rather drawling falsetto voice, and then the whole lot take up the chorus with a real swing, and some of them have very good voices, too. Sometimes the song is the history of a certain Abu Zeyed, a legendary character and an exceedingly lewd fellow, from all I could hear of his doings. Sometimes they would sing stories from the Thousand and One Nights, or sometimes the songs would be chants that reminded one of the Gregorian music in a very “High” church at home. Often I used to ride on ahead, almost out of sight, and then wait while the chanting voices gradually grew louder, and the long line of camels came into sight across the white moonlit sands. There was something very fascinating in the sound of the singing as we rode through the African desert at night.

But later on, when the sun began to warm up, nobody felt like singing. Occasionally somebody started, and a few voices joined in, but they very soon subsided again. At the midday halt the men rigged up rough bivouacs with blankets, and rifles as tent poles, then for several hours one lay in the scanty shade, feeling like a pat of butter that had been left out in the sun by mistake.

Howa is getting very tired. I picked her up and carried her on the saddle across my knees for several hours to-day. She is quite fit, but 200 miles in the hot weather does take it out of a dog. The camels are in good condition but much looking forward to water, their flanks are beginning to look “tucked in,” and at night some of them groan and gurgle horribly. To-morrow we should be in the oasis at the first well. This evening I functioned with the medicine chest; I gave several of the men pills and Eno’s, which they enjoyed, and dressed a foot with a bad cut on it. My own knees are like raw beef from the sun, though I’ve been wearing shorts all the summer. We have to be “canny” with the water as several of the “fanatis”—water-cans—are leaking. Fortunately I have trained myself only to drink a little in the morning and evening, and I can wash quite thoroughly in two cups of water.

Sometimes in the evening I walk right away from the camp into the utter quiet of the desert, out of sight of camels and men. It is a wonderful sensation to be in such absolute silence, with nothing to see but the horizon and “the rolling heaven itself.” Then I retrace my footsteps to the camp and enjoy the pleasant feeling of seeing the twinkling fires in the distance, and arriving at a neatly laid dinner-table right in the middle of nowhere.

“Daylight dies,

The camp fires redden like angry eyes,

The tents show white

In the glimmering light,

Spirals of tremulous smoke arise, to the purple skies,

And the hum of the camp sounds like the sea

Drifting over the desert to me.”

29th.

In the early morning, before dawn, we passed a caravan going north. I rode over to see who they were and found that it was a party of Mogabara Arabs on their way up to the coast, and thence into Egypt. One of them, Ibrahaim el Bishari, is quite a well-known merchant who travels about Egypt, Tripoli and the Sudan. He had come lately up from Darfur, via Kufra, Jalow and Jerabub, and was going down to the Sudan again after spending some time in Egypt. He talked about people I knew in Darfur and carried “chits” from a number of Englishmen. His fellows looked a fine lot of men, very different to the few Siwans who were travelling with them. I should have liked to have seen the stuff in his loads; he said he had some good carpets that he hoped to sell in Egypt. We wished each other a prosperous journey, and so parted “like ships that pass in the night.”

We camped at midday within sight of the high country above the oasis. This morning one of my men was talking about the Sudan and touched on the “Bilad el Kelab”—the Country of Dogs. All Sudanese believe that this place exists somewhere down in the south of the Sudan towards Uganda. I have seen them draw maps on the sand to show its position. In this mysterious country all the men become dogs at sunset time and roam about the gloomy forests like the werewolves of mediæval fiction. I have heard the men yarning over the camp fires and saying how their cousin’s wife’s brother—or some such distant relation—actually reached this country and returned alive. Of course it is always somebody else who saw it, but the story is firmly believed by all Sudanese, and so it is a very favourite topic of conversation. Sometimes they enlarge on it and tell how So-and-So married a wife from that country and one night a number of dogs arrived at his hut and carried the woman away with them.

This afternoon we ascended from the desert to the high limestone range that forms a rampart to the oasis on the north, and then we started crawling down into the Siwa valley. The desert plateau is about 600 feet above sea-level, and the oasis is 72 feet below it, and as the height of the hills is considerable there is a big drop down into the oasis. The track winds in and out through strange rocky passes, among weirdly shaped cliffs whose tortured shapes remind one of Gustave Doré’s illustration of the Inferno. These wild ravines are utterly desolate, even in the spring no vegetation grows among them. This is a land of broken stone where huge boulders seem to have been hurled about by giant hands. The sun sank low before we had escaped from the mountains, and the fantastically shaped crags were silhouetted with monstrous shadows against the yellow sky. Sometimes the narrow road seemed to cling to the side of a towering cliff, and at other times it twined in and out through deep, echoing valleys in the shadow of the overhanging, jagged rocks. In places the camels had to be led in single file. Once the men began to sing, but the dismal echoes among the caves sounded almost inhumanly depressing, so they gave it up, and we marched along in silence. Finally a line of far distant green appeared down below between two great cliffs, and one could see, very faintly, the masses of graceful palms nodding their crests over the murmuring oasis. To weary men after a six days’ camel ride across the desert the first glimpse of Siwa is like the sight of the sea to those ancient Greeks on the far-away shores of the Euxine.

CAMEL CORPS TREKKING TO SIWA, NEAR MEGAHIZ PASS

When all the camels had come out from the last valley among the rocks we “got mounted” and rode for about half a mile, past groups of palm trees, already heavy with clusters of yellow dates, to Ein Magahiz, which is the first spring in the oasis. Here we camped for the night, watered the camels, who simply revelled in the water, and I enjoyed a luxurious bathe in the deep cool spring which rises among a cluster of palm trees. All night we could hear the thudding of tom-toms in Siwa town, which is only a mile or so away.

“The cadenced throbbing of a drum,

Now softly distant, now more near,

And in an almost human fashion

It, plaintive, wistful, seems to come

Laden with sighs of fitful passion.”

30th.

The mosquitoes last night were a reminder that we are no longer up on the high desert; they were maddening, in spite of a net. This morning everybody bathed and shaved and generally polished up. We rode across to the town in great style; past the palm-shaded gardens with fences of yellow “gerida”—palm branches; past the white rest house, on the terraced side of a curious conical hill called “The Hill of the Dead,” honeycombed with rock tombs; past the long low “Markaz,” where the mamur and the police guard turned out to see us; across the wide market square, and through the narrow streets between tall houses of sunbaked clay below the enormous high walls of the old town. The heat was already great, and the streets were almost deserted, except for a few recumbent figures in a shady corner of the market-place, who scrambled up as we rode by and then hurried off to tell their friends that the “Hagana”—Camel Corps—had arrived.

The Camel Corps barracks and the District Officer’s house are out on the sand about half a mile south of the town. They occupy two isolated rocks about a quarter of a mile apart, which were formerly the strongholds of two Siwan sheikhs. The District Officer’s house stands on a limestone rock about 50 feet high. It is a high house built of mud and palm log beams. To reach it one goes up a steep path in the rock with roughly cut steps on to a little terrace with a sort of loggia that opens through the building into the large courtyard behind, which is surrounded by a high loopholed wall. There are two rooms on the ground floor, both high and long, about 30 by 15 feet, and two more rooms above with a roofed loggia and an open roof. The rooms have three windows in each, with glass in them, the only glass in Siwa, facing north and looking across the grove of palm trees below the house to the strange-looking town on its two rocks. The house was built by the former District Officer, who added to the old Siwan fortress which existed there; it has a wonderful position and is high enough to be free from mosquitoes.

I spent a busy day settling down and fixing up things with S——, who starts with his section for the coast in two days. S——is heartily sick of Siwa and longing to see the last of it. We dined on the terrace outside—to the accompaniment of throbbing tom-toms over in the town—on soup, chicken, caramel pudding and a dish of every sort of fruit, which was a pleasant change after months on the coast without any. Caramel pudding is the “pièce de résistance” of every cook in Egypt; unless one orders the meal it always appears on the menu. S——’s cook is an indifferent one. Out here I have noticed a universal habit of considering, or pretending to consider, one’s own servants absolute paragons of virtue, honesty, cleanliness and skill, and invariably running down everybody else’s. I have heard men hold forth for hours on the excellent qualities of their Mohammed, or Abdel, knowing myself that Mohammed—or Abdel—or whatever his name may be, was a double-dyed villain and swindling his master right and left—but now I am doing it myself!

I think what impressed me most on arriving at Siwa was the intense heat, the excellent bathing, the enormous height and strange appearance of the town, and the incessant sound of tom-toms from sunset onwards. One misses “the slow shrill creak of the water wheels, a mournful cry, half groan, half wail,” which is such a feature of Egypt and the Sudan. The average temperature in the summer was about 108 degrees in the shade, or on warmer days 110 degrees or 112 degrees, but the nights were cool, and every evening regularly at about eight o’clock a little breeze blew across from the east and freshened things up. The only way to keep the house cool was by leaving the doors and windows open all night, and keeping them closed and tightly shuttered during the day. It resulted in dark rooms, but at least they were fairly cool and free from flies. I soon made the house very comfortable with some rough home-made furniture and a few carpets and mats.

When a new Section of Camel Corps arrived at Siwa one of the first events that occurred was the “taking over” of wives. In most cases the men who were leaving handed on their wives to the new men, in the same way as the stores, barracks, camels, etc., were officially handed over by the officer who was going away to his relief. On the day before the new Section rode in all the ladies retired from the camp en masse to the houses of their relations in the town; the new men then entered into negotiations with the retiring Section for the taking over of the wives. A few of the men sought fresh pastures, but most of them took on the wife of a man they knew well in the other Section. On the day that the departing Section left Siwa all the ladies assembled on the road that they would pass, carrying their boxes and belongings, and when the camels came by they shrieked and wept, throwing dust on their heads, beating their breasts, pretending to tear their clothes, and showing signs of the most frantic sorrow at the departure of the men. As soon as the camels were round the corner out of sight they brushed off the dust, put on their bracelets, tidied themselves up and hurried merrily across to the “harimat” outside the barracks, followed by boys carrying their boxes, to their new husbands who were waiting for them. This performance happened regularly whenever there was an exchange of Sections. I used to watch the little tragi-comedy from my terrace. The harimat of Siwa consisted of a number of rush huts below the rock on which the fort was built. If any of the wives caused trouble, and they often did, they were ejected and never allowed to marry a soldier again. Polygamy was forbidden, and each lady, before she married, was required to produce a certificate stating that she was a respectable person, signed by several sheikhs and notables of the town. The Siwans had no objection to these alliances between Sudanese soldiers and Siwan women, as women in Siwa outnumber the men at the rate of three to one.

The daily routine at Siwa did not vary very much. In the summer I was generally called at 5.30, in time to run down from the house and have one plunge in the cool deep bathing pool in the palm grove below the rock before dressing. Clothes were a very minor matter; one wore simply shirt, shorts, shoes and stockings, all of the thinnest material. Then I used to walk over to the C.C. barracks and take the parade, sometimes mounted drill, sometimes dismounted. We did mounted drill on a stretch of firm white sand among the dunes south of the barracks. Breakfast was at about eight—eggs, coffee, bread and jam, the eggs being even smaller than Egyptian ones, about the size of bantam’s eggs, so one needed a lot for a meal. After breakfast I went across to the barracks again, and then rode down through the town on my pony to the Markaz.

The path to the town passed over a disused cemetery where the pony was very liable to stick its foot through the thin layer of soil above the graves, under an archway and into the street that divides the Eastern and Western quarters. The street itself was hard rock and very steep in parts, but owing to the height of the tall houses on each side it was generally cool and shady and a favourite resting-place of the inhabitants, many of whom lay stretched full length across the street taking their siesta. But the clattering hoofs of my pony generally roused them, and they scrambled out of the way when I came. The Siwans are well mannered, a virtue that one never sees in Egypt nowadays, and even in the Sudan it is on the wane. When I rode or walked in the town everybody would stand up as I passed, and if I met people riding they would dismount until I had gone on. I have heard people at home say what a scandal it is that in some places the poor downtrodden natives have to stand up and move off the path for an Englishman, but after all they would do exactly the same for their own Pashas, and apart from being an Englishman one was entitled to respect as being the representative of the Egyptian Government in Siwa. Once I was badly “had” over this. I was riding through the market with some policemen following me on my way to make an inspection. There was a group of Siwans sitting talking on the ground, and as I passed they all stood up—except one man who remained comfortably seated in the shade right in the middle of the path. I ordered one of the policemen to see who he was and to bring him along to the Markaz to answer for his bad manners. A few minutes later the man from the market was led into the office. He was stone blind!

The Markaz is a large building outside the town with square courtyard surrounded by prisons, stores and offices. It has a permanent guard of locally enlisted police; they are quite smart men, but of little use when there is trouble in the town, and always at enmity with the Sudanese Camel Corps. At the Markaz I would usually find a number of petitions to be read and examined, some cases to be tried, and probably people applying for permits to cross the frontier who would have to be questioned and seen. Then the sheikhs would arrive and there would be discussions about various things—taxes, labour, work on the drains or Government buildings, new regulations and orders, and then perhaps the merchants would be summoned, and a heated controversy would follow about the price of sugar, or the butchers would come to complain of the cost of meat. It was like a daily meeting of a town council, and complicated by innumerable interests, rivalries and intrigues. All these matters, though they sound very small, were of considerable importance to the Siwans.

There were six sheikhs recognized by the Administration, three of them eastern, and three western. Sheikh Saleh Said was the most influential and the most unbiassed by personal considerations. He was a big handsome man with a dark moustache and features that might have been copied from the bust of a Roman consul. He always wore a long blue robe, and was the most dignified and impressive of the sheikhs. I never saw him in a hurry or at all excited. Sheikh Thomi was a little dark fellow, and reputed to be the richest man in Siwa. He had a queer, quick way of speaking, was intensely obstinate, a staunch Westerner, but honest—as far as I ever knew. I once offended him very grievously. One day he sent me a basket of grapes, the first that had ripened in his vineyards. I gave the servant boy a piastre for bringing them. The boy returned and presented the piastre to Sheikh Thomi, who was very hurt at being sent 2½d. when he had made me a gift of fruit. Sheikh Thomi was a man of means and worth several thousand pounds. I heard about the piastre incident and explained it to him. To offer to pay for what is meant as a present is a real breach of good manners, much worse than refusing it.

Sheikh Mohammed Abdel Rahman was a venerable white-bearded individual who had been to Mecca and apparently lived on his reputation of excessive sanctity; he always agreed with everything I said, and then if I veered round and deliberately contradicted myself he did the same—it was not helpful!

Abdulla Hemeid was a sly, fat, greedy man with a pale face and blue eyes. He was very stingy and always complaining against taxation or anything that affected his pocket. He never gave an entertainment, but I always noticed him eating heartily in other people’s houses. His family were much esteemed and he had succeeded his father, who had been a very famous man in Siwa.

Mohammed Ragah was a thin, dark, hawk-like man, more like an Arab than a Siwan. He was very badly off for a sheikh, but keen and clever, and not above doing a bit of hard work with his own hands. He was the only man in Siwa at whose house one was given good coffee. He had shown great courage during the Senussi occupation in protecting some Egyptian officials who were in Siwa.

Mahdi Abdel Nebi, Sheikh of Aghourmi, was the youngest of the sheikhs, and the most reasonable and intelligent, though he had never been out of Siwa. He was a cheerful, pleasant fellow, but cordially disliked by the rest of the sheikhs. These six were the men who to a certain extent controlled the destinies of Siwa.

About once every week when I arrived at the Markaz I would find the doctor, or the mamur, or the clerk waiting for me in a state of tearful hysterics, begging me to forward his resignation to the Governor, as he could exist no longer in the company of his colleagues—the two other officials. Then would follow a long infantile complaint. If I could not smooth him down I had to bring in the other two, who would also dissolve into tears, and try and get to the bottom of the affair, which was always absolutely childish and ridiculous. On one occasion the mamur had refused to allow the doctor to have a watchman to escort him home past a certain graveyard which alarmed him, or the clerk accused the mamur of inveigling his cook into his service, or something equally small. Unfortunately the clerk was a Copt, the doctor a Syrian, and the mamur was a Cairene. It went on unceasingly, the most preposterous things served to bring one of them weeping to my office. And when they were relieved their successors were just the same. Yet they were good men at their work; the clerk had a heavy amount of office work and did it well; the doctor was quite clever and had been trained in America; and the mamur was good at his job. Exactly the same thing occurred among the native officials on the coast, so it was not only the effect of Siwan solitude.

From the Markaz I rode home, and after a light lunch either painted, read, or went to sleep till about four, when I had another bathe, followed by tea. After tea I went over to the Camel Corps for “stables,” and then generally out for a walk. Sometimes I went to Gebel Muta, the Hill of the Dead, a rocky hill on the north of the town full of tombs hewn out of the living rock, some of them being large and lofty with as many as eight coffin spaces round the sides. In one of them there were the remains of a coloured wall painting with figures of men and animals. Other times I climbed up to the top of the town. The view from the flat roofs of the highest houses on the rock is very wonderful, especially at sunset. On the south of the town there is a long ridge of rolling yellow sand-hills which change their contours when the desert winds sweep across them, and become pink and salmon-coloured in the evenings; towards the north one looks across a sea of palm groves and brilliant green cultivation to the jagged range of mountains that separate Siwa from the desert; on the west there is a great square mountain with a gleaming silver salt lake at its foot, and in the east one sees the little village of Aghourmi crowning another high rock which rises above the tree-tops.

At sunset the scene is exquisite, the hills turn from pink to mauve, and from mauve to purple, and their peaks are sharply outlined against the gold and crimson sky; long violet shadows spread across the rosy-tinted sand-hills, and the palm groves seem to take on a more vivid shade of green. The smoke ascends in thin spirals from the evening fires, and a low murmur rises from the streets and squares below; then suddenly the prayer of the muezzin sounds from the many mosques, and one can see the white-robed figures swaying to and fro on the narrow pinnacles of the round towers that in Siwa take the place of minarets. When the call to prayer is over and the last mournful chant has echoed across the oasis, and the glow in the sky is fading away, one hears far down beneath the soft thudding of a tom-tom and perhaps the faint whine of a reed pipe. When the deep blue Libyan night covers the city the music becomes louder and seems to throb like a feverish pulse from the heart of the town.

Often in the evening I rode out and called on the Sheikh of Aghourmi, which is the little village on another rock two miles from Siwa. Mahdi Abdel Nebi had recently succeeded to his father as Sheikh of Aghourmi and was having some difficulty in sustaining his authority, even with the support of the Administration, against the plots and intrigues of an old cousin of his, one Haj Mohammed Hammam, a sly old man who was rich, influential, and a thorough scoundrel, and wished to oust his cousin and become sheikh himself. After the war Haj Hammam had carefully cultivated the acquaintance of any British officers who came to Siwa, and he was inordinately proud of knowing their names and of certain small gifts that they had given him—a broken compass, a highly coloured biscuit tin and some photographs. These he showed on every occasion, and also remarked that they used always to call him “The Sheikh of Aghourmi”—this apparently being his only claim to the title.

Hammam used to employ people to let him know immediately when I was riding out to Aghourmi, so that he, and not the sheikh, should be waiting to receive me at the gates; then he would try to persuade me to accept his hospitality instead of the sheikh’s. Sheikh Mahdi always invited his old cousin to the tea drinking, though I could well have dispensed with him, but one could not object to the presence of another guest. Sheikh Mahdi’s house was the only one in which a woman ever appeared when I was there. She was an old Sudanese slave woman who had been brought many years ago from the Sudan. Once I got her to tell me her story, but she spoke such a queer mixture of Arabic and Siwan that it was difficult to follow.

It appeared that when she was about eight years old she and her small brother were playing outside their village somewhere in the North-West Sudan, and a band of Arabs—slave raiders—swooped down and carried them off. They were taken up into Tripoli and there she was sold to another Arab who brought her to Siwa on his way to Egypt. She fell ill and almost died, so the Arab, who did not want to delay, sold her cheap to the Sheikh of Aghourmi, father of the present one; he handed her over to his wife who cured the child. She remained at Aghourmi for the rest of her life. She was a lively old body and told the story in a very cheerful way, giggling and laughing, not apparently feeling any wish to return to her own land.

SHEIKH MAHDI ABDEL NEBI, OF AGHOURMI WITH HIS DAUGHTER AND COUSIN

Aghourmi is almost more picturesque than Siwa. The road to the gate passes below the overhanging rock on which the houses stand, which is thickly surrounded by a luxuriant wilderness of apricot, fig and palm trees. The steep path to the village goes under three archways, each with an enormous wooden gateway, and this path is the only possible means of entering the place. Above one of the gates there is a high tower, and the houses alongside the path are loopholed so that an enemy making an attack could be safely fired at from all sides by the defenders. Inside the town there is the same dark maze of narrow streets as in Siwa, with wells and olive presses, but all on a smaller scale than those in Siwa town. There are a few houses below the walls. The sheikh lives in the middle of the town in a big, high house with a roof that has as fine a view as any that I have seen.

I got home after sunset and often had another bathe—by moonlight—before changing into flannels for dinner, which I had on the terrace in front of the house. I slept upstairs, on the roof, but I always kept a spare bed ready in the room as quite often a wild “haboob”—sand-storm—would blow up in the middle of the night, and even indoors one would be smothered and choked with sand. Such was the average day at Siwa, and by nine or ten o’clock one was glad to turn in.

Occasionally after dinner one of the natives who were employed as secret service agents would arrive very mysteriously at the house on some excuse and report that there were fire-arms in the house of So-and-So. Sometimes the information was no more than an exaggerated rumour, but if it sounded true I would make a night raid on the person who was supposed to have rifles. These night raids were very dramatic, but did not always yield the harvest that was expected. The informer would lead the way, disguised by a turban pulled low over his head and a scarf muffling his eyes. I followed with a dozen armed Sudanese. The difficulty was to prevent the owner of the house getting wind of us before we surrounded the building, and to surround a Siwan house which has dozens of doors and passages and exits over roofs is no easy matter. It was not a matter of entering a hostile town, but of surprising a household. We would pad silently into the town, and anybody who we met roaming the streets would be attached to the party to prevent his giving warning. On reaching the house the guide slipped away in the darkness, and I surrounded the house with men; then at a whistle each man lit a torch and I beat on the door and demanded admittance.

Immediately the wildest hullabaloo began inside—men shouting, women yelling, donkeys braying and hens cackling. Sometimes this was done in order to distract our attention from somebody who tried to slip out and remove the rifles to a safe hiding-place. When the door was opened all the male occupants were marched outside and the harem sent into one room, where they sat on the floor with shawls over their heads and reviled us—but in Siwan, so nobody was any the wiser. The house was searched from top to bottom, the ceilings probed, the mats raised, and every room examined. Sometimes the rifles were buried in the floor, or hidden in bales of hay. Occasionally a modern rifle and some ammunition was found, but usually some old Arab guns and a bag or two of shot and gunpowder. If we had a successful haul the master of the house would be marched off in custody to the jail in the Markaz, and next day he would be tried, and probably heavily fined or imprisoned.

CHAPTER III

THE HISTORY OF SIWA

“Cities have been, and vanished; fanes have sunk,

Heaped into shapeless ruin; sands o’erspread.

Fields that were Edens; millions too have shrunk

To a few starving hundreds, or have fled

From off the page of being.”

SIWA lies thickly covered with “the Dust of History,” and its story is difficult to trace. For certain periods one is able to collect information on the subject, but during many centuries nothing is known. Some of the leading sheikhs have in their possession ancient documents and treaties which have been handed down through many generations from father to son. There is also an old Arabic history of Siwa, which appears to have been written some time during the fifteenth century, kept by the family whose members have always held a position corresponding to that of a town clerk, but this old history is so interwoven with curious legends and fables that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. I used to sit in the garden of the old sheikh who owned the book and listen while he read. He was a venerable but rascally old fellow in flowing white robes, the green turban of a “Haj,” and huge horn spectacles. The book itself was a muddled collection of loose sheets of manuscript kept in a leather bag.

Roughly the history of Siwa can be divided into four periods. The first, which is also the greatest period, dates from the foundation of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon. The second period begins at the Mohammedan invasion in the seventh century A.D. The third period commences with the subjugation of Siwa by Mohammed Ali, early in the nineteenth century; and the fourth and last period is the history of Siwa during the Great War.

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FIRST PERIOD

The Temple of Jupiter Ammon

According to the late Professor Maspero, the great authority on Egyptian antiquities, the oasis of Siwa was not connected with Egypt until about the sixteenth century B.C. In about 1175 B.C. the Egyptian oases, of which Siwa is one, were colonized by Rameses III, but very little authentic information is available on the history of Siwa until it came definitely under the influence of Egypt in the sixth century B.C. Mr. Oric Bates, in his exhaustive work, The Eastern Libyans, states that the original deity of the oasis was a sun god, a protector of flocks, probably with the form of a bull. The African poet Coreippus, mentions a ram-headed Libyan divinity called Gurzil who was represented as being the offspring of the original prophetic God of Siwa. His priests fought in battles, and the emblem of the god was carried by the Libyans in the fray. A sacred stone at Siwa is referred to by Pliny, which when touched by an irreverent hand stirred at once a strong and harmful sand-wind. The theory of sun worship, and the idea of an evil wind directed by some spirit in a stone is substantiated by the local customs and legends which are prevalent in Siwa at the present time.

It is certain that when the Egyptians occupied Siwa, in about 550 B.C., according to Mr. Bates, they discovered a local Libyan god firmly established and supported by a powerful but barbarous cult. So great was its reputation that King Crœsus of Lydia travelled to Siwa and consulted the oracle a little before, or at the time of, the Egyptian occupation. The Egyptians identified the local god of the oasis with their own Ammon. In the fourth century B.C. the god Ammon, of the Ammonians, for this was the name by which the people of Siwa were now known, had become one of the most famous oracles of the ancient world. At the time when the Egyptians recognized and worshipped the god of the oasis, a number of stories became prevalent, tending to prove that the deity at Siwa originated from the Ammon of Thebes, and one legend even went so far as to assert that the Ammon of Thebes was himself originally a Libyan herdsman who was deified by Dionysius. The following are some of the many legends which relate the origin of the Siwan god, and which suggest its connection with the Theban Ammon.

Herodotus, in whose works there are frequent allusions to the Ammonians, describes the inhabitants of the oasis of Ammon as being colonists from Egypt and Ethiopia, speaking a mixed language, and calling themselves Ammonians, owing to the Egyptians worshipping Jupiter under the name of Ammon. He relates that the colonists instituted an oracle in imitation of the famous one on the Isle of Meroë, and mentions the following account of its origin. Two black girls who served in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon at Thebes were carried away by Phœnician merchants. One of them was taken to Greece, where she afterwards founded the Temple of Dodona, which became a well-known oracle; the other was sold into Libya and eventually arrived at the kingdom of the Ammonians. Owing to her strange language, which resembled “the twittering of a bird,” she was supposed by the inhabitants to possess supernatural qualities; her reputation increased, and her utterances came to be regarded as the words of an oracle. There is a different version of the same fable in which the girls are represented as two black doves, one flying to Greece, the other to Libya.

According to Diodorus Siculus the Temple of Jupiter Ammon was built as far back as 1385 B.C., by Danaus the Egyptian. Rollins, in his History of the Ancient World, names Ham, the son of Noah, as the deity in whose honour the temple was built by the Ammonians. Another legend tells that Dionysius was lost in the desert on one of his fantastic expeditions and nearly died from thirst when suddenly a ram appeared, which led the party to a bubbling spring. They built a temple on the spot, in gratitude, and ornamented it with representations of a ram’s head. It is interesting to compare this story with one of the legends written in the Arabic history of Siwa. A Siwan, journeying in the desert, was led by a ram to a mysterious city where he found an avenue of black stone lions. He returned home, and set out again at a later date, meaning to rediscover the place, but he never found it again. In both cases it is a ram that led the way, and the god of Siwa is represented as having a ram’s head.

The temple, whose ruins are to be seen at the village of Aghourmi, near Siwa, was built probably during the sixth century B.C. The date is decided by the style of its architecture. This temple was known to the Egyptians as “Sakhit Amouou,” the “Field of Palms,” owing to its situation among groves of palm trees. It is evident that at this time Siwa was the principal island in a desert archipelago consisting of several oases, most of which are now uninhabited, obeying a common king and owing their prosperity to the great temple of the oracle. Such a cluster of islands would invest the dynasty to which King Clearchus and King Lybis belonged with considerable importance. Herodotus tells how certain Cyrenians held a conversation with Clearchus, King of the Ammonians, who told them that a party of young men had set off on an expedition from his country to the west, through a wild region full of savage animals, eventually arriving at a great river where they found a race of small black men. They supposed this river to be a branch or tributary of the Nile, but it was actually the river Niger. Thus it is shown that at this period Siwa was an independent monarchy. The Ammonians lived under the rule of their own kings and priests, and chieftainship was associated with priesthood. Silius Italicus describes the warrior priest Nabis, an Ammonian chief, “fearless and splendidly armed,” riding in the army of Hannibal.

Another early visitor to the oasis was Lysander the Spartan. Being disappointed by the oracle of Dodona he travelled to Siwa, under colour of making a vow at the temple, but hoping to bribe the priests to his interests. Notwithstanding “the fullness of his purse” and the great friendship between his father and Lybis, King of the Ammonians, he was totally unsuccessful, and the priests sent ambassadors to Sparta accusing Lysander of attempting to bribe the holy oracle. But “he so subtly managed his defence that he got off clear.” The Greeks held the oracle of Ammon in great veneration. The Athenians kept a special galley in which they conveyed questions across the sea to Libya. Mersa Matruh, sometimes called Ammonia, was the port for Siwa, and it was here that the ambassadors and visitors disembarked and started on their desert journey to the oasis. The poet Pindar dedicated an ode to Jupiter Ammon, which was preserved under the altar of the temple for some six hundred years; and the sculptor Calamis set up a statue to the god of the Ammonians in the Temple of Thebes at Karnak.

In 525 B.C., Cambyses, wishing to consolidate his newly acquired dominions in Northern Africa, dispatched two expeditions, one against Carthage, the other into Ethiopia. He made Memphis his base of operations and sent 50,000 men as an advance party to occupy the oasis of Ammon. His generals had orders to rob and burn the temple, make captives of the people and to prepare halting-places for the bulk of the army. They passed the oasis of Khargeh and proceeded north-west. But the whole army was lost in the sea of desert that lies between Siwa and Khargeh. The Ammonians, on inquiries being made, reported that the army was overwhelmed by a violent sand-storm during a midday halt. But it is more probable that they lost their way during one of the periodical sand-storms which are so prevalent in this desert region, and were overcome by thirst in the waterless, trackless desert. There was no further news; they never reached the temple, and not one of the soldiers returned to Egypt. This huge army still lies buried somewhere in that torrid waste, and perhaps some fortunate traveller may at a future date stumble unawares on the remains of the once mighty host. In the old Arabic history there are two other stories of armies that were lost in the desert. In one case it was a Siwan army which opposed the Mohammedan invaders, and in the other case an army of raiders from Tebu were lost on their way to attack the oasis.

In 500 B.C., Siwa and the other oases were subjected to Persia, and in the following year Cimon, the celebrated Athenian general, sent a secret embassy to the oracle while he was besieging Citium in Cyprus. The deputation was greeted by the oracle with the words, “Cimon is already with me,” and on their return it was found that Cimon had himself perished in battle. The foretelling of Cimon’s death augmented considerably the reputation of the oracle.

Oracles were most frequently situated in the vicinity of some natural phenomena; this at Siwa consisted of a sacred spring known as “Fons Solis,” the “Fountain of the Sun,” which by its strangeness contributed to the divine qualities of the temple. Very probably it was the “Ein el Hammam” which lies about a quarter of a mile south of the temple ruins and is to-day one of the largest and most beautiful springs in the oasis. Ancient writers describe its waters as being warm in the morning, cold at noon and boiling hot at midnight. Blind, black fish lived in the pool, according to the Arabic history, which was connected with the rites of the temple. The water to-day is a trifle warmer than most of the springs, and for that reason it is the favourite bathing-place of the inhabitants of Aghourmi. I have stood by the spring at midnight and tested its warmth, but it seemed in no way to differ from the other springs, except that it was a very little warmer.

There are many contemporary descriptions of the actual temple, and antiquarians have from time to time disputed as to its original size and form. It appears to have consisted of a main building, or sanctuary, surrounded by triple walls which enclosed the dwelling-places of the king, priests and the guards, standing on a rocky eminence among the palm groves. A smaller temple stood a few hundred yards south of the acropolis. The rock on which the village of Aghourmi now stands was evidently the site of the original temple and fortress, and the ruins below the village, known as “Omm Beyda,” are those of the minor temple. The two temples were connected by an underground passage.

The old history of Siwa gives a detailed description of the court of the king. The following is a rough translation. “At one period Siwa ranked among the important towns of the Egyptian sovereigns. It was ruled by a king called Meneclush who built a town and cultivated the land. He made the men drill and inaugurated a seven days’ feast in commemoration of his succession. The people of King Meneclush dressed richly and wore golden ornaments. The king lived in a stone and granite palace, and assembled his people in a great square which had four different courts, and in each court there was a statue which caught the sun at different times of the day, and when the sun shone upon the statues they spoke. When the people assembled they stood on seven steps. On the highest step sat the king, below, in succession, the king’s family, priests, astrologers and magicians, generals and courtiers, architects, soldiers, and, below, the people. Each step was inscribed with these words, ‘Look down, not towards the step above, lest ye become proud’—thus inculcating the principle of modesty. The king lived in a palace called Kreibein, inside the walls. In those days there were many buildings in Siwa, spreading from Omm Beyda to Gebel Dakrour. King Meneclush was stabbed by a girl and is buried, with his horse, in the Khazeena, underneath Aghourmi. . . . At a later period Siwa was divided into two parts ruled by two princes called Ferik and Ibrik. Afterwards a queen called Khamissa ruled in Siwa and gave her name to the square hill at the end of the Western lake.”

Much of the history is missing, and at times it plunges into descriptions of neighbouring countries, but it is interesting to find mention of “statues that speak” when touched by the sun.

As recently as 1837 there was a considerable portion of the smaller temple standing. Travellers described the roof, made of massive blocks of stone, the coloured ceilings, and the walls covered with hieroglyphics and sculptured figures. But the depredations of Arab treasure hunters, and a Turkish Governor who committed an unpardonable vandalism by blowing up the temple with gunpowder in order to obtain stone for building an office, have reduced the once imposing building to a single ruined pylon, or gateway, which towers above the surrounding gardens, a pathetic reminder of its former grandeur. This solitary ruin, and two massive stone gateways almost hidden by mud buildings in the middle of the village of Aghourmi, is all that remains of the temple that was once famous throughout the world. In a way the ruins are symbolic of Siwa which was once a powerful dominion, but is now nothing more than a wretched desert station with three or four thousand degenerate inhabitants.

In 331 B.C. the fame of the oracle reached its zenith, owing to Alexander the Great visiting it after having settled his affairs in Egypt. The visit to the famous oracle was undertaken in order to inquire into the mysterious origin of his birth. Probably at the same time Alexander wished to emulate the deeds of Hercules, from whom he claimed descent, and who was supposed during his wanderings to have visited the oasis. He marched along the coast to Parætonium—Matruh—where he was met by ambassadors from Cyrene, a wealthy city on the coast some 400 miles further west, who presented him gifts of chariots and war horses. He then turned south across the desert into a region “where there was nothing but heaps of sand.” After journeying four days the water supply, carried in skins, gave out, and the army was in danger of perishing from thirst when, by a fortunate chance, or by the direct interposition of the gods, the sky became black with clouds, rain fell, and by this miraculous means the army was preserved from destruction.

A little later the expedition lost its way, and after wandering for miles was saved by the appearance of a number of ravens who, flying before the army, guided them eventually to the temple. They found the oasis “full of pleasant fountains, watered with running streams, richly planted with all sorts of trees bearing fruit, surrounded by a vast dry and sandy desert, waste and untilled . . . the temperature of the air was like spring, yet all the place around it was dry and scorching . . . a most healthful climate.” Alexander was received by the oracle with divine honours, and returned to Egypt satisfied that he was indeed the authentic son of Zeus. As the son of the god he became a legitimate Pharoah, and adopted the pschent crown and its accompanying rites.

About this time various nations applied to the oracle for permission to deify their rulers, and on the death of his friend Hephistion, Alexander dispatched another embassy asking that Hephistion might be ranked as a hero. When Alexander died, in 323 B.C., it was suggested that he should be buried at Siwa. However, the suggestion was not carried out and he was buried at Alexandria, the city to which he gave his name. One of the hills in the desert near Siwa is still called “Gebel Sekunder,” and tradition has it that from this hill Alexander saw the ravens which led him to the temple.

The ritual of the temple was somewhat similar to several other oracular temples. The actual oracle was made in human figure, with a ram’s head, richly ornamented with emeralds and other precious stones. The figure of the god appears to have been shown as though wrapped for burial, and this dead god, who was a god of prophecy, may possibly have set the fashion of menes-worship which one still sees in Siwa when natives resort to the graves of their ancestors in order to learn the future. When a distinguished pilgrim arrived for a consultation the symbol of the god was brought up from the inmost sanctuary of the temple and carried on a golden barque, hung with votive cups of silver, followed by a procession of eighty priests and many singing girls, “who chanted uncouth songs after the manner of their country,” in order to propitiate the deity and induce him to return a satisfactory answer. The god directed the priests who carried the barque which way they should proceed, and spoke by tremulous shocks, communicated to the bearers, and by movements of the head and body, which were interpreted by the priests.

RUINS OF “OMM BEYDA” THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER AMMON

Those spaces among the palm groves at Aghourmi must have witnessed in ancient days many a splendid spectacle. One can imagine the magnificent ceremonies and the awe-inspiring rites which were solemnized among the shady vistas of tall palm trees, in the shadow of the great temple on the rock, the processions of chanting priests, the savage music of conches and cymbals, and the gorgeous caravans of Eastern monarchs, carrying offerings of fabulous treasure to lay before the mystic oracle of the oasis, whose infallible answers were regarded by the whole world with profound respect. In those days caravans from the West, and from the savage countries of the Sudan, brought slaves and merchandize to Siwa, and the barbarian followers of African chieftains mingled with the courtiers of Eastern potentates, and gazed with awe on the white-robed priests and the troops of pale singing girls. To-day the people of Aghourmi build their fires against the great crumbling archways that gave access to the holiest altar of Ammonium, and shepherds graze their flocks among the ruins of the smaller temple.

“The Oracles are dumb

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.”

Towards the end of the third century B.C. the fame of the oracle declined, although, according to Juvenal, the answers of Ammon were esteemed in the solution of difficult problems until long after the cessation of the oracle at Delphi. But in the second century B.C. the oracle was almost extinct. Strabo, writing when its fame was on the wane, advances a theory in his Geography that the Temple of Ammon was originally close to the sea. He bases his argument on the existence of large salt lakes at Siwa and the quantities of shells which are to be found near the temple. He considers that Siwa would never have become so illustrious, or possessed with such credit as it once enjoyed, if it had always been such a distance from the coast, therefore the land between Siwa and the sea must have been created comparatively recently by deposits from the ocean. Undoubtedly at some remote period the whole of the northern part of the Libyan Desert was under the sea, but there is nothing to prove that even then Siwa was a coast town, because one finds shells and fossils, such as Strabo mentions, over a hundred miles south of Siwa.

The Romans neglected Oriental oracles, especially those of Ammon. They preferred the auguries of birds, the inspection of victims and the warnings of heaven to the longer process of oracular consultation. In the reign of Augustus, Siwa had become a place of banishment for political criminals. Timasius, an eminent general, was sent there in A.D. 396 and Athanasius addresses several letters to his disciples who were banished to the oases, “a place unfrequented and inspiring horror.” The French poet Fénelon, in his play, The Adventures of Telemachus, makes the mistake of describing Siwa as a place where one sees “snow that never melts, making an endless winter on the mountain tops.”

Somewhere about the fourth century Christianity penetrated to Siwa, and the ruins of a church, or monastery, built probably at this time, where one can still distinguish the Coptic cross carved in stone, are visible at Biled el Roumi, near Khamissa. The ruin is described in the Arabic history as the place where “bad people” lived. But apparently Christianity was never embraced with much zeal. During the Berber uprisings in the sixth century Siwa relapsed into barbarism, and the Siwans probably took part with the Berbers in their struggles against the Byzantine rule which flourished on the coast. Early in the seventh century, when the Arab army invaded Egypt, the inland country west of Egypt was practically independent, the Berber tribes having won back their freedom.

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SECOND PERIOD

Mediæval Siwa

The second period of Siwa’s history is the most difficult to trace, especially with regard to the fixing of definite dates. One has to depend on the Arabic history at Siwa, and occasional highly coloured references to the oasis by the Arab historians and geographers. Siwa was known to the Arab writers as “Schantaria,” or “Santrieh,” spelt in various ways, which at a later date became “Siouah,” and finally “Siwa.”

In 640 Egypt was invaded by a Mohammedan army commanded by Amrou, who seized the country from the feeble grasp of the representatives of Heraclius. The tide of conquest swept west along the northern coast of Africa. The disunion of the Berber tribes made the conquest of the country more easy for the host of Islam. Fugitives from the Arabs fled inland to the remote places such as the oases, and it was not until several centuries later that the Arabs established their religion in Siwa. According to the Arabic history when Egypt was invaded by the Mohammedans the Siwans sent an army to help repel the enemy, but this army, like many others, was lost in the desert.

Mohammed Ben Ayas, an Arab historian who wrote in 1637, gives an account of the mysterious country of “Santarieh,” and describes how Moussa Ibn Nosseir was repulsed from its gates. In 708 Moussa attempted to reduce Siwa. He crossed the desert from Egypt in seven days. On arrival he found that all the Siwans had retired into their fortified town, which was surrounded by enormously high walls, with four iron gates. Finding it impossible to force an entrance he ordered his men to scale the walls and see what lay on the other side. With the aid of ladders they managed to reach the battlements, but each man who scaled the wall immediately disappeared over the other side and was never seen again. Moussa was so discouraged by this that he renounced his project and returned to Egypt, having lost a large number of soldiers. In 710 Tharic Ben Sayed, another Arab general, was also repulsed.

The mediæval Arab writers have many stories to tell of the strange things at Siwa. Among the wonders of the country was a magic lake over which no bird could fly without falling in, and it could only escape from the water if drawn out by a human hand. The four gates of the town were surmounted by four brass statues. When a stranger entered the gates a deep sleep fell upon him, and he remained in this state until one of the inhabitants came and blew upon his face. Without this attention he lay unconscious at the foot of the statue until death claimed him. There was a sacred stone in the town which was called “The Lover,” because of its strange power of attracting men. It drew them towards itself, and then when they touched it their limbs stuck to the stone. Struggles were of no avail, their only release was death. The neighbouring country was full of wild beasts, and serpents of prodigious length, with bodies as thick as palm trunks, dwelt among the hills and devoured sheep, cattle and human beings. Another species was particularly fond of eating camels. In one of the gardens there flourished a marvellous orange tree which bore 14,000 oranges, not including those that fell to the ground, every year. The author who mentions this tree asserts that he saw it himself!

All the Arab writers mention the mines at Siwa. Among the mountains that enclose the oasis people found iron, lapis lazulis and emeralds, which they sold in Egypt. They also exported the salt which they picked up on the ground, and obtained barley from Egypt in exchange. The only manufactures were leather carpets of great beauty, which were much prized by Egyptians.

The inhabitants of Siwa were Berbers; they worked naked in their gardens; the country was independent, thinly populated and showed signs of a former civilization. A strange breed of savage donkey, striped black and white—zebras—lived in the oasis. These animals allowed no one to mount them, and when taken to Egypt they died at once.

People used to find enchanted cities in the desert near Siwa, but latterly they have disappeared and their positions are now only marked by mounds of sand. Abdel Melik, Ibn Merouan, made an excursion from Egypt into the desert near Siwa, where he discovered a ruined city and a tree that bore every known fruit. He gathered some fruit and returned to Fostat—Cairo. A Copt told him that this city contained much treasure, so he sent out the Copt with a number of men provisioned for thirty days to rediscover the place, but they failed to find it. On another occasion an Arab was journeying near Siwa and suddenly saw a loaded camel disappear into a deep, rocky valley in the middle of the desert. He followed it and arrived at an oasis watered by a spring where there were people cultivating the land. They had never seen a stranger before. He returned to Egypt and reported the matter to the collector of taxes, who immediately sent out men to visit this oasis, but, as usual, they never found it.

There are innumerable stories of hidden cities in the desert near Siwa. This idea, and that of buried treasure, appeals strongly to an Oriental mind. Siwa itself, owing to its history, probably does contain a great deal that could be advantageously excavated. It is a field that would yield many treasures, as up to now no really thorough work has been carried out, though various people who have happened to be there have “done a little digging.” The ex-Khedive spent some money in uncovering some old ruins near one of the lakes, but really there is a great deal that has never been touched. Labour, and the difficulty of reaching Siwa, are the most formidable obstacles to any excavating projects.

It is interesting to note that nearly all the mediæval Arab historians mention the emerald mines at Siwa, and in these days the natives still hold a belief in their existence. In the time of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon the figure of the god was decorated with emeralds, which were probably found in the country. According to a Siwan tradition there exists a cave in the hill called Gebel Dakrour, south of Aghourmi, which contains precious stones. But its entrance is guarded by a jinn, who makes it invisible except to a person who has drunk from the water of a certain spring among the sand-dunes south of Siwa. The spring is unknown in these days, but I have seen it marked on an old map of the desert. Possibly some of the peculiar shafts that pierce the hills round Siwa are the remains of old mines; it is difficult to imagine what else they could be.

In 1048 the tribes of Hilal and Ben Soleim, who had been transported from Arabia as a punishment, and were living in the country between the Nile and the Red Sea, were given permission to cross the Nile and advance into Tripoli. Some 200,000 of them hastened like hungry wolves with their wives and families from Egypt to the west. They overran Tripoli and pushed on towards the shores of the Atlantic. It was some of these colonists who eventually forced Siwa to accept the Mohammedan rule, and by 1100, according to the Arab historians, the Koran flourished within the precincts of the Temple of Ammon. From that date onwards Siwa has been fanatically Mohammedan. The Siwans were not swept into oblivion by this great Arab invasion; apparently only a very few Arabs remained in the oasis, and very shortly they themselves became indistinguishable from the Siwans. From this time the Berbers, as a nation, ceased to exist, but they remained Berbers, not Arabs, and in a few out-of-the-way places, such as Siwa, they retained much of their original language.

The history at Siwa tells how one Rashwan was King of Siwa when the Mohammedan army arrived, commanded by the Prophet’s khalifa. Rashwan summoned his priests and magicians and consulted them as to how the enemy were to be repelled. Acting on their advice he removed all the bodies from “Gebel Muta,” a hill near Siwa which is honeycombed with rock tombs, and cast them into the springs in order to poison the enemy. Then he retired into the town, depending on the wells inside the walls. The Mohammedan army arrived, but the water of the springs did them no harm. They stormed the town and captured it after a strenuous fight; Rashwan was killed, and the inhabitants embraced the faith of Islam at the sword’s point.

During the period that followed the Arab invasion very little is known of Siwa. The oasis was inhabited by a mixture of Berbers and Arabs, the Berbers predominating. Occasional caravans of slave-traders passed northwards along the main desert routes, and some of the slaves, having been bought by the Siwans, remained in the oasis and intermarried with the inhabitants. The Siwans, diminished in numbers and in power, began to suffer from raids by the Arabs from the west and from the coast.

According to the old history, which is preserved at Siwa, there was another small incursion from the east at a later date. About the middle of the fifteenth century there was a great plague which carried off a number of Siwans. A certain devout man in Egypt dreamed that the ground at Siwa was very rich. He came to the oasis and settled there, planting a special kind of date palm which he brought from Upper Egypt; he also grew dates for the “Wakf”—religious foundation—of the Prophet, which custom still continues. Later he made the pilgrimage and described the country of Siwa to the people of Mecca, who had never heard of it. They did him great honour. He returned to Siwa accompanied by thirty men, Berbers and Arabs, who settled in Siwa. They built an olive press in the centre of the high town and inscribed their names thereon. From these men, and their Siwan wives, certain of the present inhabitants are descended, and some Siwans boast to-day that their forebears came with “The Thirty” whose names were inscribed on the old olive press. “The Thirty” occupied the western part of the town, and the original Siwans remained in the eastern quarter and in the village of Aghourmi. Later the Siwans elected a council and chose a “Kadi”—judge—who drew up a code of laws.

Under this government the population increased and the people flourished again; they treated travellers well, especially pilgrims from the west on their way to Mecca. The people of Tripoli came to hear of them, and they made an alliance together. Siwa became a “Zawia”—religious dependency—of Tripoli, and the Siwans fought in the army of Tripoli. Siwa once more became a market for slaves and a halting-place for the caravans from the south and the west. Slaves came in great numbers from Wadai and the Sudan, via Kufra, Jalo and Jerabub. Egyptian merchants came to Siwa bringing merchandise, and returned to Egypt with slaves and dates. From the Sudan came ivory, gold, leather and ostrich feathers.

During the time of Sidi Suliman, a very devout Kadi, the savage people of Tebu, in the south, made constant raids upon Siwa, and troubled the people greatly. On one occasion it was known that a large army of the enemy were advancing on the oasis. The venerable judge offered up prayers for help against the enemy, and every man in Siwa went to the mosques. As a consequence the whole army was buried in the sand and the road they came by was blotted out. Sidi Suliman encouraged his people to show hospitality to strangers, but some years after his death the people, forgetting his injunctions, drove away from the gates some poor Arab pilgrims who sought their hospitality. It is said that the door of Sidi Suliman’s tomb miraculously closed, marking the strong displeasure of the saint, nor did it open until the Arabs had been brought in and hospitably entertained. According to another legend Sidi Suliman, whilst walking near the town, suddenly became thirsty. There was no water at hand so he struck the ground seven times with his staff, and fresh water gushed forth, which flows in that place to-day. Before Sidi Suliman was born his mother felt a frantic desire to eat some fish. There was none in the town, and the sea lay 200 miles distant. The woman seemed on the point of death. Suddenly a pigeon flew through the open window of her room and deposited a large fish on the floor. She ate the fish, recovered, and Sidi Suliman was born. For this reason all Siwan women eat fish when they are pregnant, hoping that their offspring may be such another as Sidi Suliman. These, and many other legends, are told of Sidi Suliman, who has become the most venerated patron sheikh of the Siwans.

The system of living in Siwa in those days was very curious. The high town existed, with a thin fringe of buildings huddled at the foot of the walls. None of the suburbs, such as Sebukh or Manshia, were built. At night all flocks and cattle were driven within the walls. Married men only, with their wives and families, lived in the high town. Unmarried men, youths over fifteen years of age and widowers shaved their heads, as a distinction, and occupied the houses outside the walls. The town was one vast harem. After sunset no bachelors were allowed inside the gates, and any man who divorced his wife was cast out—until he bought a new one. The bachelors, who were known as “Zigale,” formed a kind of town guard. On the approach of strangers they sallied out to meet them and detained them until the council of sheikhs had decided whether they were to be permitted to enter the town. Strangers were almost always accommodated outside the walls. There was one family of Siwans who were always interpreters, for in those days, unlike to-day, hardly any of the natives spoke any language but their own. The council of sheikhs met in a room close to the main gate of the town, and near it there was a deep, dark pit which served as a prison.

After Sidi Suliman a number of other kadis ruled in the oasis. One of them was called Hassan Mitnana, and during his lifetime a great quarrel arose between the eastern and western factions of the town. This began in about the year 1700. The dispute originated about a road which divides the town into two parts. A family on the eastern side wished to enlarge their house by building out into the street. Their opposite neighbours objected to the public thoroughfare being narrowed merely in order to enlarge a private dwelling-place. There was a dispute, a quarrel, and a fight in which the two sides of the street took part. One side called themselves “Sherkyn”—the Easterners—and the other side called themselves “Gharbyn”—the Westerners. The whole population took up the quarrel, which developed into a permanent civil war. At times it died down and seemed on the point of extinction, then, quite suddenly, it flamed up, ending in pitched battles in the space before the town, where the casualties were often very severe considering the smallness of the population.

THE CITADEL AND THE MOSQUE OF EL ATIK

Before the days of gunpowder these battles were fought in an open space below the walls of the town. On an appointed day the two opposing armies faced one another. The men stood in front, armed with swords and spears, the women collected behind the men, carrying bags full of stones which they hurled at the enemy, or at anyone on their own side who showed signs of cowardice. Platoons, each of a few dozen men, advanced in turn and fought in the space midway between the two armies, then gradually the whole of both forces became engaged. The women displayed great fierceness; they often joined in the fray, beating out the life from any of their enemies who they found lying wounded, with sharp stones. It seems amazing that, notwithstanding these frequent battles, the Siwans managed to live in such a confined space, so close together.

It is only during the last few years of peaceful government, since the war, that the violent animosity between the two parties has died down. A few families of opposing parties have intermarried, but even now one rarely meets a western sheikh in the eastern quarter, or vice versa. Both quarters are entirely self-supporting. They have their own wells, olive presses, mosques and date markets.

At the time of writing I hear from Siwa that a few months after I left there was another outbreak between east and west. Some eastern men were riding home from their gardens, excited by “lubki”—palm wine. They rode through the streets of the western quarter, shouting and singing. The western people took this as an insult and attacked them. In ten minutes 800 men had collected in the square, the east and the west facing each other. A fierce fight began, but fortunately, as the men were only armed with sticks and tools, there were no fatal injuries. The local police and the mamur were unable to do anything, and the Egyptian officials retired to the Markaz—Government Office. A few minutes later the Camel Corps arrived with fixed bayonets and dispersed the crowd. There were about fifty cases needing hospital treatment, some of them being quite severe.

Such were the lively conditions of internecine warfare when Browne, the first Englishman to visit Siwa, arrived at the oasis in 1792. He came in disguise with a caravan from Egypt. But against an infidel, a common foe, the Siwans stood united. Browne’s identity was discovered; he was received with stones and abuse, roughly treated, and sent back to Egypt without having seen much of the oasis. But during his brief stay he formed no favourable opinion of the people. They were notorious for their monstrous arrogance, intense bigotry and gross immorality.

Six years later Hornemann, of the African Association, arrived at Siwa, travelling in the guise of a young mameluke, with a pilgrim caravan on its way from Mecca to the kingdom of Fezzan. He described Siwa as a small independent state, acknowledging the Sultan, but paying no tribute. He estimated the population at 8000 persons. The Siwans were governed by a council of sheikhs, who held their meetings and trials in public, and flew to arms on the slightest provocation when they disagreed. When Hornemann left Siwa he was followed by the inhabitants who apparently suspected his identity. “The braying of several hundred asses heralded the approach of the Siwan Army.” With great difficulty he persuaded the sheikhs that his passport from Napoleon Buonaparte was really a firman from the Sultan. They finally allowed him to proceed on his way. He sent his papers to Europe from Tripoli, but he himself perished while exploring North Africa. It is very curious that most of the few Europeans who visited Siwa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were Germans.

The difficulties that meet a European travelling in the guise of a Mohammedan are not so formidable as they would appear. Knowledge of the language would seem to be the greatest stumbling-block. But in North Africa there are so many dialects, and so many different pronunciations, that an Arab from one part of the desert would find it difficult to understand an Arab from another district, and the difference in the accent or pronunciation of an Egyptian from Cairo and a European speaking Arabic, would not be recognized in many of the more remote districts.

(3)

THIRD PERIOD

The Turkish Rule

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

In the year 1816 there was a great fight between the two factions, in which the easterners gained the day. Ali Balli, a western sheikh, went to Egypt and described to the Government the independent state of Siwa and the condition of anarchy prevalent there. In 1820 Mohammed Ali invaded the Sudan. In order to protect his western flank he sent a force of 1300 men, with some cannon, commanded by Hassein Bey Shemishera, one of his generals, against the fanatical population of Siwa. They crossed the desert via Wadi Natrun and the oasis of Gara. A few of the western faction welcomed the army, but most of the population prepared to fight. After a desperate battle, lasting for several hours, the Siwans were severely beaten, and from that date Siwa was permanently secured to Egypt. The Turks entered the town, seized the principal men, and in course of time some sixty of the notables were executed by Hassein Bey, who punished by death on the least suspicion of rebellion or revolt. A tribute was imposed on Siwa, and Sheikh Ali Balli was made omda, supported by the Turks. After some time Hassein Bey and the army returned to Egypt. The Siwans promptly refused to pay tribute, so in 1827 Hassein Bey returned with a force of 800 men, occupied the town after a brief contest, executed eighteen of the notables, confiscated their property, but paid the widows of the unfortunate men ten pounds each as full compensation for the life of a Siwan notable. He also banished twenty of the sheikhs, increased the tribute, and appointed a Turkish officer as Governor of Siwa, with a small force. Under Hassein Bey the Siwans suffered considerably. He seized their money, slaves, dates and silver ornaments, which he sent to his home in Egypt. He built the first “Markaz”—Government Office—whose ruins stand behind the Kasr Hassuna, the present District Officer’s house, where I lived.

During the nineteenth century several Europeans visited Siwa, but they met with no encouragement and were in most cases badly treated. One of them, Butin, a French colonel, carried on his camels a collapsible boat in which he hoped to reach the island on the salt lake of Arashieh, which according to legends contained fabulous treasure and the sword and seal of Mohammed. He managed to bring the boat to Siwa, but the natives refused to let him embark. These early travellers all mention the subterranean passages connecting Aghourmi and Omm Beyda, also between Siwa town and the Hill of the Dead. The natives described these passages as having “biute”—houses—or possibly burying spaces, opening out on either side. The entrances have now in all cases been blocked up by stones and rubbish, but with a little labour they could easily be excavated. Several old men in Siwa know the exact position of the entrances to these passages, which I have seen myself.

The successor of Hassein Bey was Farag Kashif, who built a causeway across one of the salt lakes, making each family work on it in turn. It is a useful piece of work, a narrow path, wide enough for two camels to pass abreast, supported by rough stakes and palm logs, crossing the salt bog which would otherwise be impassable. Several more mamurs were appointed, but they were mere figureheads, as all the power lay in the hands of the omda, Ali Balli. Each year that the taxes were unpaid, and this was frequent, a punitive expedition arrived from Egypt.

The omda was hated by most of the Siwans, who held him responsible for the Turkish occupation, and the years of oppression. Knowing his unpopularity he never left his house after sunset. Certain of the eastern sheikhs bribed two young western men to lure him from his house at night. They persuaded him to come to Mesamia, a narrow tunnel in the western quarter, and there they stabbed him to death. Yousif Ali, the omda’s son, demanded blood money, or the surrender of his father’s murderers, but the eastern sheikhs refused and secretly sent the men to Derna. Then followed a few years with neither omda nor mamur, and a government, of sorts, by a council of sheikhs.

Yousif Ali was a clever, ambitious man. Bayle St. John, who visited Siwa in 1849, described him as “a broad, pale-faced man, with a sly, good-humoured expression, of ambitious character, with speech full of elegant compliments.” He wore a tarbouch, a white burnous and carried a blunderbuss. Except for the blunderbuss the description would suit several of the present-day Siwan notables. For seven years he went every winter to Cairo, trying to persuade the Government to make him omda in place of his father. He earned the nickname of “The Schemer.” He spent a great deal of money on bribes in Egypt, but was always unsuccessful.

In the year 1852 Hamilton, an English traveller, came to Siwa on his way back to Egypt, after journeying in Tripoli and North Africa. In his Wanderings in North Africa he devotes several pages to his experiences in Siwa. The following version of what happened to him is told there now by the Siwans. He pitched his camp near the Markaz, half a mile south of the town. The Siwans bitterly resented any European visitors, so Yousif Ali, knowing this, collected the fighting men and deliberately inflamed their anger against the stranger who had come to spy out their land; he urged them that it was their duty to kill the “Unbeliever,” so they determined to make a night attack on Hamilton’s camp. Then Yousif Ali secretly warned Hamilton of the intended attack, and persuaded him to take shelter in his house. Hamilton left his tents standing empty, and during the night the “Zigale”—fighting men—opened fire on them, but the Englishman was safely lodged in Yousif Ali’s house. Thus Yousif Ali gained credit for having saved Hamilton from the attack which he himself had instigated. This is a characteristic example of Siwan diplomacy.

After the attack the Siwans refused to let Hamilton leave the town, and for six weeks he was practically a prisoner in a little house adjoining that of Yousif Ali. During this time the people amused themselves by shooting and throwing stones at his windows, and collecting in crowds to stare and jeer at the “Nosrani”—Christian. Matters became worse and the most fanatical sheikhs on the town council advocated his execution. With great difficulty he managed to send two letters, by slaves, to the Viceroy of Egypt; but he spent an anxious time as the days passed and no answer came. The Siwans found out about the letters, and as time passed and it became more and more probable that the messengers were lost, so the people became more and more insolent. Some of the sheikhs offered to lend him camels to escape from the town, on the condition that he first wrote to the Viceroy saying that he had been well treated. They intended to murder him as soon as he left the town, and to secure his baggage for themselves, but he discovered the plot and refused to leave.

One day an abnormally hot wind rose from the south and blew with great violence for three days. This was taken as a serious omen of coming disaster. The idea that a sudden violent wind, stirred by an evil “jinn,” foreshadows a catastrophe, is implicitly believed by the Siwans and by all Berbers. A number of Siwans who had been most aggressive hurriedly left the town, and the remainder endeavoured, to the best of their ability, to conciliate Hamilton. The sheikhs who had been most vindictive now fawned upon their “guest,” who became a person to be conciliated instead of a despised Christian. Evidently they had secret news of the approach of a party of cavalry from Egypt. On the 14th March, 1852, two sheikhs arrived and announced the approach of 150 irregular cavalry, who with 14 officers had been dispatched by the Viceroy to effect his release, in response to Hamilton’s letter. A week later, with much “fantasia” and display, the army left Siwa accompanied by Hamilton and Yousif Ali. The Turkish Commandant, with typically stupid obstinacy, refused to take any prisoners, but bound over a number of the sheikhs to appear in Egypt in two months’ time. Needless to say they failed to appear.