“KASR HASSUNA,” THE DISTRICT OFFICER’S HOUSEAfter eight months in Siwa Mohammed es Senussi went on to Jalo and came into contact with the Zouias, a fierce and warlike race of Arabs who held various oases in southern Tripoli. They adopted his teachings, and in 1844 he founded his first zawia—religious centre—at El Beda, where his eldest son was born. From this centre the Senussi brethren carried their teachings all over Africa, travelling with the great caravans of the merchants who traded in slaves, ivory, arms, etc., between the Sudan, Tripoli, Wadai and Egypt. Gradually they grew to be regarded as arbitrators in disputes, and important cases were brought to Mohammed es Senussi for hisjudgment. They successfully combined the duties of merchants and magistrates, acquiring great wealth and great influence. The Senussi were at all times opposed to luxury and intolerant of Unbelievers; they claimed that their form of Mohammedanism was more pure than any other, and as far as possible they kept aloof from politics.In 1852 Mohammed es Senussi returned to Mecca, and shortly afterwards he formally excommunicated the Sultan of Turkey. In 1856 he came, for the last time, to Jerabub, ninety miles west of Siwa. He died here three years later and was buried in the tomb in the mosque. At the time of his death his prestige was enormous; pilgrims travelled many thousands of miles to visit Jerabub, and Senussism had spread all over Central and North Africa. The Senussi zawias became rich from the profits of trading and owned large numbers of slaves, also arms and ammunition were imported from Turkey, landed on the Tripoli coast and taken down to the south. One of the greatest authorities on the Senussi estimated their numbers at between one and a half and three millions at the time of the death of Mohammed es Senussi. But their importance as a military factor was not great; being spread over such a vast area they lacked cohesion, and any combined action would be almost an impossibility.Mohammed es Senussi left two sons, Mohammed el Mahdi and Mohammed el Sherif. The former succeeded his father as the leader of the Senussi. He spent a considerable part of his life at Jerabub,acquiring great wealth and strengthening his influence by peaceable penetration. In 1884 he refused to help the Sudanese Mahdi, who appealed to the Senussi for assistance in driving the English out of Egypt. If the Senussi had risen then and joined with the Sudanese the position of Egypt would have been very dangerous. Mohammed el Mahdi died in 1902 and was succeeded by his nephew, Sayed Ahmed, as the son of Mohammed el Mahdi was still a boy.When Sayed Ahmed succeeded, the French were pushing their conquests inland from the coast, and the Turks were also advancing southwards in Tripoli. Sayed Ahmed did all he could to oppose them, but gradually he was forced to retire. One by one the various zawias were occupied, till finally the Senussi chief was driven back to Kufra and Jerabub. In 1911 Sayed Ahmed allied himself to the Turks, although the Senussi had always been at enmity with them, and when the Italians landed on the Tripoli coast the Senussi supported the Turks in the war against the Italians, and when the Turks were finally beaten the Senussi in the interior became once more practically independent.In the summer of 1915 the Senussi were still ostensibly at peace with Egypt and Britain, but the pro-German agents had successfully fomented an anti-British feeling, and the Arabs were being armed and organized by German and Turkish officers who landed in submarines—from Constantinople—evaded the Italians on the coast, and went down south intothe Senussi country. The British and Italian alliance was an incentive to the Arabs in Tripoli, who bitterly resented the Italian occupation of their country.Sollum, the frontier post, was garrisoned by a small detachment of the Egyptian army and the Coastguards, native troops with two or three English officers. In August, 1915, the crews of two English submarines, wrecked on the coast west of Sollum, were fired upon by the Senussi, but Sayed Ahmed apologized and declared that he did not know what nationality the men were. In the autumn it was known that the British attempt at Gallipoli was doomed; there was a danger of disturbances in Egypt, and the Turks attacked the Suez Canal.On November 5th theTara, an armed patrol boat, was torpedoed off Sollum. Three of her boats came ashore a few miles west of the frontier, and ninety-two men of the crew were captured by some Senussi Arabs and carried inland to a place called Bir Hakim, a well which lies about seventy miles south of the coast; here they were kept prisoners for several months, and during this time they suffered the most excessive privations at the hands of their captors. They were so badly fed that they were forced to eat snails, which are very plentiful in some parts of the desert; several men died, and their attempts to escape were in all cases unsuccessful. The history of their sufferings and adventures forms the subject of two books written by one of the survivors on his return home. Even after this incident Sidi Ahmedcontinued to protest his friendship for the British, and disclaimed any knowledge of the whereabouts of theTara’s crew.About this time large numbers of Arabs began to collect on the high desert above Sollum. The garrison was slightly reinforced and some armoured cars came up the coast from Egypt. On November 23rd Sollum was attacked by a numerous force of Senussi, armed with a miscellaneous collection of fire-arms and some old guns. The garrison was evacuated on to theRasheed, an Egyptian gunboat, during a heavy sand-storm, and on the same day the garrison of Barrani was taken down the coast on another boat. They landed at Matruh, which was put into a state of defence, and the garrison was very soon considerably augmented by British troops who were hurried up from Alexandria in trawlers and in cars from the railhead. A few days after they arrived at Matruh some of the men of the Egyptian Coastguards went over to the enemy, and Colonel Snow Bey, of the Coastguards, was shot while speaking to some so-called friendly Arabs on a reconnaissance.Colonel Snow and Major Royle, another officer of the Coastguards who lost his life later in the war, after joining the Flying Corps, were both very well known on the Western Desert. As a rule, the bedouins do not talk much of the Englishmen who lived and served among them, but even now, several years later, one constantly hears these two names mentioned round the camp fires of the Arabs.While the British force was building up the defences of Matruh, the Senussi collected a few miles west of the town. On December 13th the garrison advanced against the enemy, and a force of about 1300 Senussi was cleared out from a long wadi and driven off with heavy casualties. On this occasion a squadron of Yeomanry, who were fired on from a gully, charged at the enemy and came suddenly on a deep and unexpected drop.Towards the end of the month another large force of Arabs, under the command of Gaffar Pasha, a Germanized Turk and a very capable officer, occupied a valley called Wadi Majid, near Matruh. It appeared that they intended attacking Matruh on Christmas Day, when they supposed that the garrison would be eating and drinking—though, as it happened, there was not even any beer in the town. On Christmas Eve the British force, consisting of part of a New Zealand brigade, some Sikhs, Australian Light Horse and British Yeomanry, supported by aeroplanes and naval ships, which shelled the enemy from the coast, went out of Matruh and fought a successful action on Christmas Day. The Arab camp was destroyed, and the enemy were beaten off with heavy casualties. After the engagement the British force returned to Matruh. By this time the usual winter weather had begun; floods of rain fell on the coast, filling the wadis, swamping the roads and turning the country into a morass. Once again the enemy concentrated, at a place about 26 miles west of Matruh. They were located byaeroplanes, attacked and again driven westward. On February 26th another engagement took place at Agagia, near Barrani. The enemy lost heavily and Gaffar Pasha, the Commander of the Senussi army, was captured during a brilliant charge which was made by the Dorset Yeomanry. After this defeat Sayed Ahmed, the Senussi chief, with a number of his supporters and a huge quantity of baggage, retired from the coast, which was getting too hot for him, and trekked across the desert down to Siwa, travelling in great comfort with gramophones, clocks, brass bedsteads and a large harem!On arrival at Siwa he settled himself in the Kasr Hassuna, but he lived in a very different style to his ancestor, the original Mohammed es Senussi. A renegade Coastguard officer, Mohammed Effendi Saleh, was appointed as his second in command. At first the Siwans welcomed Sayed Ahmed with great enthusiasm, but their feelings rapidly changed when the ill-disciplined mob that made up his army took to spoiling the gardens and robbing the people. Mohammed Saleh had been in Siwa before and he knew exactly how much money the various inhabitants had. This acquaintance with everybody’s financial position was of great use when he began to extort money from the natives. Those who could not or would not pay were beaten in the market-place and forcibly enlisted into the army; those who paid a little were made corporals and officers, and only the people who gave much money were exempt from service. The richest sheikhs andmerchants were presented with Turkish and German medals and orders and promoted to Pashas and Beys. The officers of the Senussi force attired themselves in bright green putties, which they manufactured from the green baize tablecloths in the offices of the Markaz; all the files and the Government furniture, etc., was seized by Sayed Ahmed, who carried it about with him during the rest of the campaign, eventually leaving it at Jerabub when he finally left the country.Meanwhile the campaign on the coast was going badly for the Senussi. Barrani was occupied after the battle of Agagia, and from there the British force, reinforced by the Duke of Westminster and his armoured cars, pushed on towards Sollum, which was occupied on the 14th of March. Sollum was captured by a rear attack from above the Scarp, armoured cars and troops having managed to find a way up the cliffs by a steep, precipitous pass known as “Negb Halfia,” or “Hell Fire Pass,” as it was afterwards called. The Senussi blew up their large ammunition dump at Bir Wær, on the frontier, and the remains of their army were driven over the desert for many miles, pursued by the British cars, which scattered them far and wide and inspired all the Arabs with a holy dread of “Trombiles”—motors—which will never be forgotten. The capture of Sollum virtually ended the fighting on the coast; after that only Siwa remained to be cleared out. The country was full of fugitives and their starving families, who were fed and provided for by theBritish. Arab women flocked round the garrisons at Sollum and Matruh offering their silver ornaments and jewellery in exchange for food.On April 16th, much to the relief of the inhabitants, Sayed Ahmed left Siwaen routefor the Dakhla oasis. He took with him most of the able-bodied men in the place, as well as a number of Senussi soldiers and many camel loads of luggage. The Siwans were expected to bring their own food, but by this time they were reduced to such a state of poverty that they had not even enough dates to support themselves. A number of men died on the road, and still more deserted and made their way back to the oasis. Sayed Ahmed stayed for several months at Dakhla and then returned to Siwa, hurrying back like a hunted hare. On each of these little desert trips the Grand Sheikh shed a little of his baggage.During his absence from Siwa the sheikhs of the Medinia sect organized a very successful little rebellion. The people revolted against the Senussi sheikhs who had been left in charge, drove them into the Markaz, and besieged them for two days. Eventually peace was made, but not before the Senussi sheikhs had sent frantic messages to Sayed Ahmed complaining of the scandalous behaviour of the Siwans and imploring him to return. The Siwans at the same time sent letters to Sayed Ahmed with complaints against his sheikhs who had stayed in Siwa to keep order. The messengers met on the road and journeyed together till they came uponSayed Ahmed and his party between Dakhla and Siwa. They handed their letters to the sheikh and he read them together. The news of the “goings-on” at Siwa hastened his return.Once again he established himself in the Kasr Hassuna. Here he indulged in severe religious observances and urged the people to pray for divine help against the Unbelievers who had destroyed the Senussi army on the coast. In January Sayed Ahmed and Mohammed Saleh, his second in command, were considering retiring to Jerabub, so as to be still further away from the British. On the 2nd of February a force of armoured cars, lorries and light cars arrived a few miles north of Girba, a little oasis in a deep rocky valley north-west of Siwa. On the following day the cars successfully descended the pass and attacked the enemy camp at Girba. The Senussi were absolutely astounded. They had already learnt to fear the British cars, but they never for one moment thought it possible that a large force of motors could dash across the desert from the coast, almost 200 miles, and attack them in their stronghold. Owing to the rocky ground the cars were unable to get at close quarters with the enemy. The action lasted a whole day. The Senussi, who numbered about 800, were under the command of Mohammed Saleh, and another force of about 500 men were at Siwa with Sayed Ahmed. At the first alarm the Grand Sheikh bundled himself and his belongings on to camels and fled frantically over the sand-dunes towards Jerabub, followed by a stragglingmob of Arabs. On the evening of the 4th the enemy began to retire from their position at Girba, burning arms and ammunition before evacuating, and on the 5th of February the cars entered Siwa and the British force was received by the sheikhs and notables at the Markaz with expressions of relief and goodwill. The column left the town on the same day and reached “Concentration Point,” north of Girba, on the following day.Another detachment had been sent to a pass above the western end of the oasis in order to intercept the fugitives, but only a few cars were able to get down from the high country above, but the one Light Car Patrol which did descend managed to cut off a number of the enemy who were retreating to the west. On the 8th February the whole column went back to Sollum. The enemy’s losses were 40 killed, including 2 Senussi officers, and 200 wounded, including 5 Turkish officers. Sayed Ahmed and Mohammed Saleh both escaped, but after this crushing defeat, and the capture of the Siwa oasis, all danger from the Senussi forces was at an end.Some time previously, after the occupation of Sollum by the British, information was found as to the whereabouts of the prisoners from theTara, who had been joined by the survivors of theMoorina, who had also landed on the coast and had been captured by the Arabs. A force of armoured cars and other cars, under the command of the Duke of Westminster, set off on the 17th from Sollum with a native guide. They dashed across the desert to BirHakim, rescued the prisoners and brought them back to Sollum, having travelled across some 120 miles of unknown desert and attacked an enemy whose numbers they did not know. This gallant enterprise was perhaps the most brilliant affair which occurred during the operations on the Western Desert. The Duke of Westminster received the D.S.O. for his exploit, and was recommended for the Victoria Cross.After the capture of Siwa there was no more fighting on the Western Desert. Sollum, Matruh and the various stations on the coast were garrisoned with British infantry, gunners and Camel Corps, and a standing camp of Light Cars was made at Siwa, where they remained for some time. The F.D.A. took over the Administration of the Western Desert, and gradually the garrisons were withdrawn and replaced by F.D.A. Camel Corps. To-day there only remains one small detachment of Light Car Patrols in the fort at Sollum.Sayed Ahmed and Mohammed Saleh were never captured. The Grand Sheikh’s progress terminated on the Tripoli coast, where he was met by a Turkish submarine and carried over to Constantinople. He was received by the Sultan and has remained there ever since, an exile from his native land, probably regretting that he ever allowed himself to be persuaded to throw in his lot with the Turks.Sayed Ahmed did not distinguish himself in this campaign. Whenever he thought that the fighting was too near he hurriedly retired to some more distant place. His cowardly conduct was to acertain extent responsible for the failure of his troops; he never took part in the fighting and never led them in person. His behaviour was very different to that of Ali Dinar, Sultan of Darfur, in the Sudan, who was also persuaded by the Turks to rebel against the English at the same time. The latter showed considerable personal courage, and was killed on the field at the end of the war. Sayed Ahmed was succeeded by his cousin, Sidi Mohammed Idris, the son of Mohammed el Madhi, who had always shown himself to be strongly pro-British, and had carefully refrained from taking any part in the Senussi rising and the subsequent campaign. An agreement was drawn up by the British and the Italians which arranged that Idris should be responsible for keeping order inland, and that he should receive money and assistance. This arrangement has been in force up to now, and is in every way a success.SHEIKH MOHAMMED IDRIS, THE CHIEF OF THE SENUSSICHAPTER IVSIWA TOWN“Through sun-proof alleys,In a lone, sand hemm’dCity of Africa.”SIWA town is like no other place that I have seen either in Egypt, Palestine or the Sudan. It is built on a great rock in the centre of the oasis, and from a distance it resembles an ancient castle whose rugged battlements tower above the forests of waving palm trees, and the rich green cultivation. It is somewhat similar to St. Michael’s Mount, but the inside of the town reminds one more of those enormous ant hills which are found in Central Africa. The houses are built of mud, mixed with salt, with occasional large blocks of stone from the temples let into the walls. The builder works without a line, gradually adding to the wall, sitting astride the part which he has completed, so few of the walls are straight. Another architectural peculiarity is that owing to the necessity of constructing walls thicker at the base than at the top most of the houses, especially the minarets of the mosques, become narrower towards the summit. The houses are built one above the other against the face of the rock, and the outer walls form one greatline of battlements, pierced by little groups of windows, encircling the town, and rising sheer above the ground, in some places to a height of almost 200 feet. The original site of the town was the summit and sides of two limestone rocks which rise abruptly from the level of the plain; but as the population increased more houses were built on the top of the old ones, and the town, instead of spreading, began to ascend into the air, house upon house, street upon street, and quarter upon quarter, till it became more like a bee-hive than a town. Fathers built houses for their sons above the parental abode, till their great-grandsons reached a dizzy height on the topmost battlements. The mud of which the walls were built gradually hardened and became almost of the consistency of the original rock.In course of time the inside of the town has become a vast warren of houses connected by steep, twisting tunnels, very similar to the workings in a coal mine, where one needs to carry a light even in daytime, and two persons can scarcely walk abreast. This labyrinthine maze of dark, narrow passages, with little low doors of split palm logs opening into them from the tenements above, forms the old town of Siwa. In some places the walls are partly ruined and one gets little views of the green oasis, or the lower part of the town with its flat roofs and square enclosures, framed by the jagged ruined masonry. It took me nearly two years to know my way about this part of the town, at the expense of hittingmy head many times against the palm log beams supporting the low roofs which are in most cases only about 5 feet high.This human warren is surprisingly clean and free from the smells that one would expect in a place where there is such an absence of light and ventilation. One of the most curious things that one notices is the subdued hum of human voices, from invisible people, and the perpetual sound of stone-grinding mills, above, below and all around. When one meets people, groping along these tortuous passages, they loom into sight, silently, white robed, like ghosts, and pass with a murmured greeting to their gloomy homes. It is a great relief after stooping and slipping and barking one’s shins to reach the open roof on the highest tower of the town where, for a moment, the brilliant sunlight dazzles one’s eyes, accustomed to the murky gloom of the lower regions. When, on rare occasions, I had visitors, I used always to take them up to see the view from the highest battlements, with a few stout Sudanese Camel Corps men to help pull, push and propel the sightseers. But most of them, especially the elderly colonel type, were too hot and exhausted to appreciate the view when they finally arrived, so I eventually kept this “sight” for only the most active visitors.High up in the heart of the town, in a little open space surrounded by tall grim houses, there is an ancient well cut out of the solid rock. It contains excellent water. Apparently there is a spring in thecentre of the rock which supplies the well, and two smaller ones close by. Half-way down the well, about 30 feet from the top, just above the level of the water, there is a small entrance, wide enough to admit a boy, which leads into a narrow tunnel bored through the rock, terminating in the precincts of a mosque on the level ground. Nobody has traversed this passage for many years, owing to fear of snakes—which certainly exist, also jinns and afreets. The tunnel is about 150 yards long, and must have taken years to complete, but it is difficult to guess its original object. This old well is specially popular with women, as by drawing water here they can avoid going out to the springs where they would necessarily meet with men. Often when I passed out from the narrow entrance of a passage I would see a dozen women busy with their pitchers, veils cast aside, laughing and chattering—in a moment, like magic, every one would have silently vanished, and only the eyes peering from the adjoining windows would show any signs of life.Below the old high town, huddled at the base of the mighty walls, there are more houses, and these, too, are surrounded by an outer wall. Beyond this more modern houses have been built when there was less fear of raids from hostile Arabs. Most of the sheikhs and the rich merchants have deserted the high town and built large, comfortable houses down below, or among the gardens in the adjoining suburbs of Sebukh and Manshia. Many of them have also country houses, where they retire in thesummer when the heat in the town becomes intolerable, on their estates in different parts of the oasis. Residences of sheikhs and notables are distinguished by a strip of whitewash across the front, but woe betide a poor man if he decorates his house in a like manner. Tombs of sheikhs and holy men are whitewashed all over every year, at public expense. One of the most wealthy, and most unpopular, merchants covered the whole of his house with whitewash. This innovation caused grave disapproval among the conservative sheikhs of Siwa. They complained to me, saying that from time immemorial the notables had distinguished their houses by the strip of whitewash, but nobody had ever whitened the whole house—therefore nobody should! When a few days later some thieves broke into the “whitewashed sepulchre” and stole twelve pounds, the whole population agreed that it was a just retribution on unseemly pride.The three date markets are large walled-in squares where every merchant and family have a space to spread their dates for sale; one of them is common, the other two belong to east and west respectively. There is a little house by the entrance of each market where an old Sudanese watchman lives, paid in kind by contributions from everybody who uses the market. In the autumn thousands of Arabs come from Egypt and the west to buy dates, which are considered among the best in Egypt. Round the markets there are enclosures for camels and lodgings for the Arabs, who are only tolerated in the townbecause they come to trade. At the height of the season there is a busy scene. Hundreds of white-robed Arabs wander among the heaps of red, brown and yellow dates, arguing and bargaining loudly, while their camels gurgle and snarl outside, and over everything there rises a swarm of flies. Half-naked negroes toil and sweat as they load the camels with white palm-leaf baskets pressed down and full with sticky dates. Lively diversions occur when a shrill-voiced she-camel shakes off her load and runs wildly through the crowd, scattering the people, with her long neck stretched out like an agitated goose. Arab ponies squeal and shriek, donkeys bray and the pariah dogs snarl and yelp. There is a custom in Siwa that anybody may eat freely from the dates in the markets, but nobody is allowed to take any away; so the beggars, who are very numerous, crawl in among the buyers, clutching greedily with filthy hands at the best dates, and adding their whining complaints to the general din. Also all the dogs, children, chickens, goats and pigeons feed from the dates before the owners sell them. The most popular form of date food is a sort of “mush,” which consists of a solid mass of compressed dates with most, but not all, of the stones removed. I used to like dates, but after an hour in the markets one never wishes to eat another.The square white tomb of Sidi Suliman dominates the date markets. Although not actually a mosque it is the most venerated building in Siwa. Around it there are a few white tombstones, and on most nightsthe building is illuminated with candles burnt by votaries at the shrine of the saint. Close by there is a large unfinished mosque which was built by the ex-Khedive, who left off the work owing to lack of funds. Mosques in Siwa are conspicuous by their curious minarets, which remind one of small factory chimneys, or brick kilns; otherwise they are very similar to houses, except that they generally include a large court with a roof supported by mud pillars. In several of the mosques there are schools, and one sees a number of small boys sitting on the ground, with bored expressions, droning long verses of the Koran in imitation of the old sheikh who teaches them.Lately the “Powers that Be” decided that a regular school would be beneficial to the youth of Siwa. With some difficulty I secured a building and a teacher. The school began in great style. Almost every boy in the town attended. They learnt reading and writing, and after sunset they did “physical jerks” and drill, marching round the market square, much to the admiration of their parents. But the novelty palled. Attendance diminished. Attendance at school was to be quite voluntary, so I could do nothing. In about a month it had ceased to exist, and the little boys sat again at the feet of the old sheikhs in the mosque schools. Such is the conservatism of Siwa.Shopping in Siwa is very simple. Each shop is a general shop and contains exactly the same as the others. Prices do not vary, so one deals exclusivelywith one merchant; the shops are sprinkled about the town and the customers of each are the people who live nearest. The shops themselves are hardly noticeable. There is no display of goods, nothing in fact to distinguish a shop. One enters a little door and the room inside looks rather more like a storeroom than a living room; sometimes there is a rough counter, some shelves and a weighing machine, but measures consist mostly of little baskets which are recognized as containing certain quantities. The sacks and cases round the room contain flour, beans, tea, rice and sugar; in one corner there are some rolls of calico and a bundle of coloured handkerchiefs hung on a nail from the ceiling.In the storeroom which opens out of the shop there are more sacks, tins of oil, and perhaps a bundle of bedouin blankets. Yet some of the Siwan merchants clear over a thousand pounds a year by their shops and a little trade in dates. Egyptian money is used, the silver being much preferred to the paper currency, and credit is allowed, which enables the merchants to obtain mortgages and eventually possession of some of their customers’ gardens.The merchants’ wives attend to the lady customers. There is a side door in every shop which leads to an upper room, and here the Siwan ladies buy their clothes, served by the wife or mother of the merchant. Their purchases are mainly “kohl” for darkening the eyes, henna for ornamenting fingers and hands, silver ornaments, soft scarlet leathershoes and boots, blue cotton material manufactured at Kerdassa, near Gizeh, grey shawls, silks for embroidery, dyes for colouring baskets and very expensive flashy silk handkerchiefs made in Manchester, which they wear round their heads when indoors. Some of the merchants’ wives sell charms and amulets besides clothes. The women are very conservative in their fashions, only certain colours being worn. I once wanted a piece of green material to use in making a flag. I sent to every single shop in the town, but without success. However, it caused great excitement, and I heard, on the following day, that the gossips of the town had come to the conclusion that I was going to marry, and the green stuff was to be part of the lady’s trousseau. They were disappointed.There is nothing in Siwa that compares with the gorgeous bazaars of Cairo, or the gaily decked shops in the markets of provincial towns. These dark little shops have no colour, only a queer, rather pleasant smell, a potpourri of incense, spices, herbs, onions, olive oil and coffee. Meat is bought direct from the butchers, who combine and kill a sheep or a camel. Sugar and tea are the most popular necessities on the market. During the war, and for some time after, there was a sugar shortage. The supply for Siwa arrived at the coast, but rarely reached the oasis. When a small quantity did reach Siwa it was bought up immediately, and the merchants who obtained it took to gross profiteering. The price of an oke (2½ lbs.) reached as much as 40 piastres (8s.),which in Egypt is an excessively high price. Eventually the sale of sugar was supervised by the Government and sugar tickets were issued. Even then there were cases of sugar being smuggled across the frontier to Tripoli, where the shortage was even more severe. Arabs or Siwans are simply miserable if they have to go without sugar in their tea. It makes them cross and tiresome, and they say themselves that it injures their health. For the rest people depend on their garden produce, on dates, onions, fruit and coarse native bread. The women make their own clothes, and generally their husbands’ too, sometimes weaving the wool for the long “jibbas,” worn by the working men, on rough handlooms. There is a carpenter in the town and several masons, but as a shopping “centre” Siwa is not much of a catch.Although Siwan houses are unprepossessing from the outside their interiors are comparatively comfortable. What I personally objected to was the exceeding lowness of the doors, and yet the Siwans on the whole are tall. They told me that doors were made small for the sake of warmth. Roughly the houses are built on the usual Arab pattern; on the ground floor there are storerooms, stables, and servants’ quarters, upstairs there are guest-rooms, harem, and living rooms. The entrance hall has seats of mud similar to the walls, and is usually screened from sight by a corner inside the door. Stairs are steep and narrow with sudden sharp turnings; they are always pitch dark, as only the rooms in the outerwalls receive any light. Each house consists of two or three storeys and above them there is an open roof, sometimes with several rooms built on to it. The old houses of the high town are different, only those on the topmost level have open roofs. The immense thickness of the walls makes the houses cool in summer when the temperature often reaches 112 degrees in the shade, and warm in winter when icy winds sweep down from the high desert plateau. The rooms in the houses of the better classes are large and high, lit by little square windows, which are made in groups of three, one above and two below in order not to put unnecessary strain on the masonry. Each window has four divisions with a shutter to each division; these shutters are kept open in summer-time. The windows are very low, a few feet above the level of the floor, which allows people sitting on the ground to see out of them. The ceilings are made of palm trunks covered with rushes and a layer of mud; the ends of the trunks, if they are too long, project outside the walls and serve as pegs on which to hang bundles of bones to avert the “Evil Eye.” Mud, which becomes as hard as cement, is used not only for the walls, but for the stairs, the divans, ovens, and most of the kitchen utensils. Old stone coffins, discovered near the temple or in some of the rock tombs, are utilized as water-troughs in most houses. The floors are covered with palm matting, and an occasional old Turkish or Persian carpet; the divans are furnished with a few cushions, white bolster-like objects, or beautifully stampedleather from the Sudan. The walls are whitewashed and sometimes ornamented with crude coloured frescoes, and in almost every room there are several heavy wooden chests, handsomely carved, sometimes of great age, which are used for keeping valuables. Occasionally one sees a couple of chairs and a round tin table, like those which are used outside cafes, but personally I have always felt much more comfortable sitting cross-legged on a heap of cushions near the window than perched up on a rickety chair above my hosts. A brass tray, a low round table, a few baskets and an earthenware lamp hanging on the wall, completes the furniture of a guest-room. I have spent many pleasant hours sitting in one of these high rooms looking out over the feathery palm trees and watching the colours change as the sun sank behind the mountains, gossiping to some old sheikh, puffing a cigarette, and drinking little cups of sweet, green tea.THE WESTERN QUARTER FROM AN EASTERN ROOFIn summer-time the people sleep on the flat roofs of their houses, which for that reason are surrounded by low mud walls to ensure privacy from the neighbours. They lie on the roofs, men, women and children, always with their faces covered from the moon, because they say moonlight on sleeping faces causes madness. In the daytime the women gossip on the housetops and carry on intrigues, for there is nothing easier than hopping over the walls from one roof to the other, and it is not consideredcomme il fautfor husbands to frequent the roofs in daytime. Often when I climbed up to the citadel and lookeddown over the town I saw a group of girls sitting on the roofs, generally singing and dressing each other’s hair. When they caught sight of an intruder watching them from above they bolted down the steep stairs like rabbits to their burrows. One sees real rabbits, too. Almost all the natives breed them, and for safety’s sake they are kept on the housetops.One of the features of Siwa town are the “Dululas,” or sun shelters. They consist of spaces shaded from the sun by a roof of rushes and mud, supported by mud pillars. Often in the centre there is a stone basin containing water, which is kept always full at the expense of one of the sheikhs in memory of a deceased relation. Here the greybeards of the town assemble in the evenings, strangers sit and gossip when they visit the town, and the Camel Corps men wander through to hear the latest news. It is a sort of public club, and one hears even more gossip than at a club at home. The largest of these sun shelters has become a little market, and a few decrepit old men spread out their wares in its shade—a few baskets, a dozen onions, an old silk, tattered waistcoat and some red pepper would be the stock-in-trade of one of these hawkers. What they say in the “suk” corresponds to the “bazaar talk” in India, and it is incredible how soon the most secret facts are known there.The Siwans are a distinct race quite apart from the Arabs of the Western Desert, but in appearance they differ very slightly from their bedouin neighbours. Owing to their isolated dwelling-place they haveretained their original language, which appears to be an aboriginal Berber dialect. They are unquestionably the remnants of an aboriginal people of Berber stock, but constant intermarriage with outsiders has obliterated any universal feature in their appearance, and through intermarriage with Sudanese they have acquired a darker complexion and in some few cases negroid features. On the whole one does not see the Arab type, or the Fellah, or the Coptic type among the Siwans.The men are tall and powerfully built, with slightly fairer complexions than the Arabs. In some cases they have light straight hair and blue eyes, and one whole family has red hair and pink cheeks, though they themselves do not know where this originated. Most of the younger men are singularly ugly and have a fierce and bestial expression, but with age they improve, and the elders of the town are pleasant, dignified-looking men, though effeminate in their manners. The children are pallid and unhealthy in appearance. The Siwans have high cheek-bones, straight noses, and short, weak chins. They are very conceited and think much of their looks; on feast days even the oldest men darken their eyes with “kohl” and soak themselves with evil-smelling scent.The wealthy Siwans wear the usual Arab dress—white robes, a long silk shawl twisted round the body and flung over one shoulder, a soft red, blue-tasselled cap and yellow leather shoes. On gala days they appear in brilliant silks from Cairo, and colouredrobes from Tripoli and Morocco, but on ordinary occasions the predominating colour is white. The servants and labourers, who form the bulk of the population, and include many Sudanese who were brought from the south as slaves, wear a long white shirt, white drawers, a skull cap and sometimes a curious sack-like garment made of locally spun wool ornamented by brightly coloured patterns in silk or dye. Siwa is the only place in Egypt where one does not see the natives apeing European dress or slouching about in khaki trousers or tunics—remnants of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.The women are small and slender, and very pale owing to the inactivity of strict seclusion. The palest women are the most admired. Their large black eyes are ornamented with “kohl,” and their small hands are tinted with henna. In public they wear a universal dress which is quite distinctive. It consists of a dark blue striped robe, reaching below the knees, with full sleeves, cut square and embroidered round the neck, white drawers with a strip of embroidery round the ankles, and a large square grey shawl with a dark blue border, which covers them when they go abroad. Their ornaments consist of innumerable silver ear-rings, with bunches of silver chains and little bells, silver bangles, anklets, and necklaces. An unmarried girl is distinguished by a “virginity disc,” which is an engraved silver disc about the size of a saucer, suspended round the neck by a heavy silver ring. These rings are generally very old and beautifully engraved witharabesques. When a Siwan woman is wearing all her silver ornaments she tinkles like a tinsmith’s cart, but her husband poetically compares her to a caparisoned pony. Their general appearance is quite pleasing, but they are very unlike the handsome, healthy-looking Arab women of the coast.At home the wealthier women wear coloured silks and richer clothes. They wear their straight black hair thickly oiled and dressed in a complicated coiffure. A fringe of short curls hangs above the eyes, and a number of plaited braids are worn on each side of the face, like the fringe of a mop. Strips of scarlet leather are twisted into the tresses, which must always be of an uneven number, and on the ends of the leather are hung silver bells, rings and amulets. One of the first travellers to Siwa remarked on the strength of an ear that could bear such heavy silver ear-rings, but instead of hanging from the actual ear the rings are fastened to a leather band across the top of the head. All the material for women’s clothes is made by one family of Egyptian merchants at Kerdassa, near the Pyramids. One brother has a shop in Siwa, and the others live in Egypt. Owing to this the price of clothing is very great, yet none of the Siwan merchants have ever considered setting up an opposition trade.Women of the upper classes rarely appear in public during the day, except at funerals, when hundreds of them squat round the house, like a crowd of grey crows, howling and shrieking. When one rides pastthey hop up from the ground and run a few steps, with long grey shawls trailing behind them on the ground, and then they squat down again, like vultures scared off a carcase. They never work in the fields or drive the flocks to pasturage like the Arab women, or the fellahin, but occupy themselves in making baskets, or pottery, and in household duties. When one woman calls on another she wears all the clothes she possesses, and gradually discards them in order to impress the people she is visiting with her wealth. When I met a woman in the streets she would scuttle into the nearest doorway, or if there was not one handy she would pull a shawl over her face and flatten herself against a wall; even hideous old harridans affected an ecstasy of shyness on seeing an Englishman. Hardly any of the women can speak Arabic, and it is owing to their strange secretive lives that the Siwans have retained their language and are so unprogressive to-day. They resolutely oppose all innovations, refusing even the help and advice of the Egyptian Government doctor. It is to their influence as mothers that the women owe what power they have, because Siwan men care very little for their wives. Most men keep one wife only at a time, but they often marry as many as twenty or thirty, if they can afford to, divorcing each one when she ceases to please.The Siwans are typically Oriental. They are hospitable, dishonest, lazy, picturesque, ignorant, superstitious, cheerful, cunning, easily moved to joy or anger, fond of intrigue and ultra conservative. Theyare not immoral, they simply have no morals. The men are notoriously degenerate and resemble in their habits the Pathans of India. They seem to consider that every vice and indulgence is lawful. It is strange that these people who are among the most fanatical Mohammedans of Africa should have become the most vicious. Yet most of the Siwans are Senussi, members of that Mohammedan sect which corresponds in a way to the Puritanism of Christianity. It advocates a simple and abstemious life, and condemns severely smoking, drinking and luxury. Yet the most religious sheikhs are generally the most flagrantly outrageous.In spite of their unenviable reputation the Siwans are quite satisfied with themselves, and speak with tolerant pity of the Arabs and the Sudanese. The Siwan Sudanese have become like their original masters, and do not seem to object to being called “slaves,” but there are constantly furious rows between the natives and the Camel Corps originating with the word “slave” being used with reference to the latter. The Arabs, and to a greater extent the Siwans, consider themselves very superior to the Sudanese who, until quite recently, they could buy and sell.The population is divided into two classes, the one consisting of the sheikhs, merchants and landowners, the other of the servants and labourers. The former class is an all-powerful minority. There is no middle class. There is also a religious division; the Senussi predominate in numbers, butthe Medinia sect is the richest. The latter sect is said to be the successor of the Wahhabi confraternity; it is connected with the Dirkawi, which was founded by Sheikh Arabi el Dirkawi. It was established about one hundred years ago by Sheikh Zafer el Medani, who was born at Medina in Arabia. His doctrines found favour in Tripoli and were adopted by the Siwans some time before the arrival of the Senussi, and Sheikh Zafer himself visited Siwa on several occasions. The two sects are very similar. The Medinia have still several religious centres in Egypt and Tripoli, but they lost ground considerably on the advent of Senussiism. In spite of their similarities the two sects are by no means well disposed to each other. Membership is hereditary, and no one has been known to change from one party to the other. They have their own mosques, sheikhs and funds, and on religious festivals they hold their meetings in different parts of the town. I used always to make a point of visiting the gatherings of each sect. There are two other less important religious bodies known as the “Arusia” and the “Sudania,” but they only consist of a few dozen old men who perform strange dances on festivals in honour of their particular saints. The Siwans are very religious, more so than the average Arab, but this is probably owing to the fact that their mosques are conveniently near, and if one is absent from mosque the neighbours notice, and talk about it! One has heard of such things at home.The prosperity of the people depends almost entirely on the date harvest. The date groves, which form the wealth of the oasis, are watered by some two hundred fresh-water springs. The water rises through natural fissures, or artificial bore-holes, from a sandstone bed about 400 feet below the surface. The largest springs, such as the “Fountain of the Sun,” measure as much as 50 yards in diameter, with a depth of about 40 feet. Each basin is fed by a group of little water-holes, and the water comes up from the ground sometimes in continuous streams of bubbles, and sometimes with sudden bursts, so the surface seems constantly moving. There is a theory that an underground river flows east towards the Nile and its water comes to the surface in the various oases between Egypt and Tripoli. The fact that Siwa lies considerably below the level of the desert plateau, and even below sea-level, supports this theory. Or possibly the water comes from the high desert plateau north of Siwa, where there is a heavy rainfall; but the water supply never varies, and has never been known to run dry. The water in the springs differs considerably. In some it is very brackish, in others it is quite sweet, and some springs are flavoured with sulphur; again, some springs are warm, and others are several degrees colder, so one can chose a bathing-place, hot or cold, according to inclination. Many springs, often the sweetest ones, rise a few feet away from the salt marshes, and one spring, which used to be salt, has now become sweet. The largest springs are edgedto a certain depth with squared stones and blocks of masonry, which looks as if it might have been finished yesterday, though it was probably built almost a thousand years ago. The basins are generally round, shaded by a ring of palm trees, beyond which lie the gardens.The sides of the basins have been gradually built higher and higher, so that the surface of the water is now several feet above the level ground, and little brooks run down from the spring heads into the gardens in all directions. They are regulated by rough sluice gates, made generally of a large flat stone, which is removed to allow the water to flow, and replaced, with a plaster of mud, when the water is no longer needed. Each spring forms the nucleus of a garden which belongs to a number of different people. The gardens are divided into little beds of a uniform size, about 8 feet square, lying an inch or two lower than the level of the ground. These beds are known as “hods.” When the water is flowing the labourer goes in turn to each “hod” and scoops a passage with his hands connecting the “hod” with the water channel, which is on a higher level, then he makes a rough dam across the channel so that the water flows into the “hod” and fills it; afterwards he closes the entrance of the “hod” with a handful of mud, pushes aside the mud dam, and the stream flows on to the next “hod,” where the same thing occurs. I have seen little boys at the seaside doing just the same sort of thing. Insome cases two water channels cross, and then one of them flows through a hollowed palm trunk.The cultivation round every spring is made up of a number of gardens owned by different men, some of them consisting of no more than half a dozen palm trees and a couple of “hods.” All the ground is watered by the central spring, so a careful water system has been evolved by which the water is divided and portioned out to each piece of garden. For each spring there is a ponderous tome called “Daftar el Ain”—the Book of the Spring, which records the exact quantity of water, or rather the time of water, that each garden is allowed. This is followed with the greatest care by the Keeper of the Spring, who regulates the irrigation, and is paid by the owners of the adjoining garden in proportion to the number of trees that they own. Each day is divided into two halves, from sunrise to sunset, and sunset to sunrise; this again is subdivided into eighths, and each subdivision is called a “wagabah.” Thus if Osman Daud’s garden receives an allowance of four “wagabah” every other day, it means that he receives the full strength of the water from the springs for twelve hours on consecutive days.When one buys a garden the water rights are included, but men often sell part of their water right to a neighbour, this, of course, being recorded in the Book of the Spring, which is kept by one of the sheikhs. The “Ghaffir el Ain,” or Guardian of the Spring, takes his time from the call of the muezzin, or in distant gardens by the sun and the stars. Atnight a special muezzin calls from one of the mosques for the benefit of the watchmen on the springs out in the gardens. The system has been in force for so many centuries that there are very rarely any disputes on the subject. All questions are referred to the books, which serve also as records of ownership of the gardens.Each Siwan, however poor, keeps a book of his own in which he enters, or rather pays a scribe to record, an account of his property. It states the boundaries, number of trees and water rights of his garden. When a man buys a garden he writes down the particulars in his “daftar,” and this is signed by the person who sold the garden, and witnessed by several responsible sheikhs or “nas tayebin”—respectable people. This entry serves as a title-deed for the purchase. When I was at Siwa there was a lengthy and involved law case about the ownership of some property, in which one party, in order to prove inheritance, forged an entry in his “daftar.” But cases of forgery were not frequent—fortunately, as they added considerable complications to an already difficult case.There is more water in Siwa than is required for irrigating the gardens, and in many cases sweet water flows to waste among the salt marshes. The Siwans are unenterprising. They only cultivate just sufficient for their own needs, and not always that: they only work in the gardens where the soil, after centuries of watering and manuring, has become very rich. They grow a very little wheat and barley, butnot enough to supply the population, who depend on imported barley from the coast, yet there are many fertile plots of land which would raise corn, and which could easily be irrigated. Lack of labour and implements is their excuse when one questions them, but in the spring numbers of Siwans go up to the coast and hire themselves out to the bedouins as labourers, preferring to work on the coast instead of increasing the cultivation in their oasis.The palm groves of Siwa are very beautiful. It seems a veritable Garden of Hesperides when one arrives there after a long trek on the waterless desert which surrounds the oasis. One appreciates the slumberous shade of the luxuriant gardens, long, lazy bathes in the deep cool springs, and feasts of fruit on the banks of little rushing streams. Perhaps it is not surprising that the Siwans are lazy and indolent, for their country is in many ways a land of Lotus Eaters. The natives have a happy-go-lucky Omar Khayyámish outlook on life which is accentuated by the place they inhabit.The gardens consist mainly of date groves with some olive orchards. But among the date palms there are many other trees—figs, pomegranates, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, prickly pears, limes and sweet lemons. The numerous vineyards produce quantities of exceptionally fine grapes, which last for several months and are so plentiful that large quantities rot on the branches. The natives are not very fond of them and no wine is made in Siwa, except “araki,” which is distilled from ripe dates.Dates and a little olive oil are the only exports, and it is on the produce of the date palms that the life of the people depends. The poorer Siwans live almost entirely on dates; the beams and the doors of the houses are made from palm trunks; mats, baskets and fences are made from palm fronds; saddle crossbars are made from the wood; saddle packing consists of the thick fibre, the branches are used for fuel; the young white heart of the budding leaves is eaten as a special delicacy, and the sap of the palm makes “lubki,” a drink which is much liked by natives. The wealth of the whole community is derived from the sale of dates, so it is not surprising that they watch anxiously in springtime to see if the crop will be a good one. Generally, on alternate years, there is a good crop, then a fair crop, and when dates are plentiful olives are few. Nature seems to have made this careful arrangement.The cultivation of dates is by no means as simple as it would appear. The trees need careful watering, manuring and trimming, and one notices very clearly the difference in crops from well or badly cared for gardens. In the early spring the work of artificial pollination is carried out by special men who are skilled in the process. A branch is cut from the male date tree, which bears no fruit, sharpened, and thrust into the trunk of the female tree. Unless this is done to every tree the fruit becomes small and worthless. There are about 170,000 trees, each of which bears, after the fifth year, an average of three hundred pounds of fruit. Little attention is paid to the otherfruits which deteriorate from lack of pruning, but with a little trouble and proper methods they would improve. Formerly the oasis produced rice, oranges, bananas and sugar canes, but these no longer grow as they needed more trouble to cultivate. Only dates and olives are sold, and it is considered very shameful for a man to sell other fruit; the same idea applies to milk. Siwans either eat fruit themselves, give it to their friends, or let it rot; only the very poor natives sell any. I had considerable difficulty in getting a regular supply, but eventually I accepted “gifts” daily from certain men, and repaid them with sugar, which they liked, though if I had offered them money they would have considered themselves grievously insulted.While at Siwa I dried large quantities of figs and apricots—mish-mish—which were very successful, and especially useful for taking out on trek when fresh fruit is unobtainable. None of the natives had attempted drying fruit, though the excessive heat and the flat roofs offer excellent opportunities, and quite an industry could be developed in this way. A variety of vegetables are grown, but only by a very few people. The most common are onions, watercress, radishes, pepper, cucumbers, gherkins, egg fruit, mint, parsley and garlic.The gardens are manured with dry leaves and dried bundles of a thorny plant called “argoul,” which grows about the oasis and is much liked by camels. Bundles of it are cut and left for some months to dry, and finally dug into the soil round thefruit trees. The streets, markets and stables are all swept carefully, and the manure is sold to owners of gardens. The contents of public and private latrines are all collected and used as manure in the gardens. It is a good system, as it ensures sanitary arrangements being promptly carried out. The soil of Siwa is strongly impregnated with salt. In many places there are stretches of “sebukh” which consists of earth hardened by a strong proportion of salt which feels, and looks, like a ploughed field after a black frost. It is almost impassable, and the occasional deep water-holes, hidden by a layer of thin soil, make walking as dangerous as it is difficult. Two large salt lakes lie one on the east and one on the west of the town. The water in these lakes rises irregularly during the winter months, and subsides in the summer, leaving a glistening white surface of pure salt which looks exactly like ice, especially in places where the dark water shows between cracks in the salt. One can lift up white slabs of salt in the same way as ice, and send a piece skimming across the surface, like stones on a frozen pond at home. Sometimes there are deep pools in the midst of the marshes where the white salt and the vivid blue sky combine to colour the water with the most brilliant greens and blues. Causeways built by the natives traverse the marshes, and by these alone it is possible to cross them. In ancient days the Ammonians sent a tribute of salt to the kings of Persia, and such was the quality of the salt that it was used for certain special religious rites. The glitter of the salt lakes inthe middle of the day is intensely trying to the eyes, but at sunset they reflect and seem to exaggerate every colour of the brilliant sky.The salt lakes, the numerous springs, and the stagnant water lying about the gardens bred mosquitoes and fevers. Formerly this low-lying oasis was a hotbed of typhoid and malaria. Its evil reputation was known to the bedouins who never stayed there a day longer than was necessary, and even now they speak of almost every fever as “Siwan fever.” The natives themselves attributed the fever to fruit, and still call it “mish-mish fever,” owing to its prevalence during the season when apricots are ripe. But nowadays conditions are enormously improved. Typhoid is practically unknown, the malarial mosquito has been banished from Siwa, though it still swarms in the neighbouring oases; several thousand pounds has been spent by the Egyptian Government in draining and filling up stagnant pools, and fish have been imported by the Ministry of Health which breed in the springs and feed upon the mosquitoes’ eggs. The town is kept clean and there are very strict regulations about sanitation, and thousands of sugar-coated quinine tablets are distributed to the people each week. They have discovered now just how much of the sugar can be licked off before the quinine begins to taste. The result is that since the war there have been very few new cases of malaria, though many of the people are so sodden with fever that it is impossible to cure them.
“KASR HASSUNA,” THE DISTRICT OFFICER’S HOUSE
“KASR HASSUNA,” THE DISTRICT OFFICER’S HOUSE
“KASR HASSUNA,” THE DISTRICT OFFICER’S HOUSE
After eight months in Siwa Mohammed es Senussi went on to Jalo and came into contact with the Zouias, a fierce and warlike race of Arabs who held various oases in southern Tripoli. They adopted his teachings, and in 1844 he founded his first zawia—religious centre—at El Beda, where his eldest son was born. From this centre the Senussi brethren carried their teachings all over Africa, travelling with the great caravans of the merchants who traded in slaves, ivory, arms, etc., between the Sudan, Tripoli, Wadai and Egypt. Gradually they grew to be regarded as arbitrators in disputes, and important cases were brought to Mohammed es Senussi for hisjudgment. They successfully combined the duties of merchants and magistrates, acquiring great wealth and great influence. The Senussi were at all times opposed to luxury and intolerant of Unbelievers; they claimed that their form of Mohammedanism was more pure than any other, and as far as possible they kept aloof from politics.
In 1852 Mohammed es Senussi returned to Mecca, and shortly afterwards he formally excommunicated the Sultan of Turkey. In 1856 he came, for the last time, to Jerabub, ninety miles west of Siwa. He died here three years later and was buried in the tomb in the mosque. At the time of his death his prestige was enormous; pilgrims travelled many thousands of miles to visit Jerabub, and Senussism had spread all over Central and North Africa. The Senussi zawias became rich from the profits of trading and owned large numbers of slaves, also arms and ammunition were imported from Turkey, landed on the Tripoli coast and taken down to the south. One of the greatest authorities on the Senussi estimated their numbers at between one and a half and three millions at the time of the death of Mohammed es Senussi. But their importance as a military factor was not great; being spread over such a vast area they lacked cohesion, and any combined action would be almost an impossibility.
Mohammed es Senussi left two sons, Mohammed el Mahdi and Mohammed el Sherif. The former succeeded his father as the leader of the Senussi. He spent a considerable part of his life at Jerabub,acquiring great wealth and strengthening his influence by peaceable penetration. In 1884 he refused to help the Sudanese Mahdi, who appealed to the Senussi for assistance in driving the English out of Egypt. If the Senussi had risen then and joined with the Sudanese the position of Egypt would have been very dangerous. Mohammed el Mahdi died in 1902 and was succeeded by his nephew, Sayed Ahmed, as the son of Mohammed el Mahdi was still a boy.
When Sayed Ahmed succeeded, the French were pushing their conquests inland from the coast, and the Turks were also advancing southwards in Tripoli. Sayed Ahmed did all he could to oppose them, but gradually he was forced to retire. One by one the various zawias were occupied, till finally the Senussi chief was driven back to Kufra and Jerabub. In 1911 Sayed Ahmed allied himself to the Turks, although the Senussi had always been at enmity with them, and when the Italians landed on the Tripoli coast the Senussi supported the Turks in the war against the Italians, and when the Turks were finally beaten the Senussi in the interior became once more practically independent.
In the summer of 1915 the Senussi were still ostensibly at peace with Egypt and Britain, but the pro-German agents had successfully fomented an anti-British feeling, and the Arabs were being armed and organized by German and Turkish officers who landed in submarines—from Constantinople—evaded the Italians on the coast, and went down south intothe Senussi country. The British and Italian alliance was an incentive to the Arabs in Tripoli, who bitterly resented the Italian occupation of their country.
Sollum, the frontier post, was garrisoned by a small detachment of the Egyptian army and the Coastguards, native troops with two or three English officers. In August, 1915, the crews of two English submarines, wrecked on the coast west of Sollum, were fired upon by the Senussi, but Sayed Ahmed apologized and declared that he did not know what nationality the men were. In the autumn it was known that the British attempt at Gallipoli was doomed; there was a danger of disturbances in Egypt, and the Turks attacked the Suez Canal.
On November 5th theTara, an armed patrol boat, was torpedoed off Sollum. Three of her boats came ashore a few miles west of the frontier, and ninety-two men of the crew were captured by some Senussi Arabs and carried inland to a place called Bir Hakim, a well which lies about seventy miles south of the coast; here they were kept prisoners for several months, and during this time they suffered the most excessive privations at the hands of their captors. They were so badly fed that they were forced to eat snails, which are very plentiful in some parts of the desert; several men died, and their attempts to escape were in all cases unsuccessful. The history of their sufferings and adventures forms the subject of two books written by one of the survivors on his return home. Even after this incident Sidi Ahmedcontinued to protest his friendship for the British, and disclaimed any knowledge of the whereabouts of theTara’s crew.
About this time large numbers of Arabs began to collect on the high desert above Sollum. The garrison was slightly reinforced and some armoured cars came up the coast from Egypt. On November 23rd Sollum was attacked by a numerous force of Senussi, armed with a miscellaneous collection of fire-arms and some old guns. The garrison was evacuated on to theRasheed, an Egyptian gunboat, during a heavy sand-storm, and on the same day the garrison of Barrani was taken down the coast on another boat. They landed at Matruh, which was put into a state of defence, and the garrison was very soon considerably augmented by British troops who were hurried up from Alexandria in trawlers and in cars from the railhead. A few days after they arrived at Matruh some of the men of the Egyptian Coastguards went over to the enemy, and Colonel Snow Bey, of the Coastguards, was shot while speaking to some so-called friendly Arabs on a reconnaissance.
Colonel Snow and Major Royle, another officer of the Coastguards who lost his life later in the war, after joining the Flying Corps, were both very well known on the Western Desert. As a rule, the bedouins do not talk much of the Englishmen who lived and served among them, but even now, several years later, one constantly hears these two names mentioned round the camp fires of the Arabs.
While the British force was building up the defences of Matruh, the Senussi collected a few miles west of the town. On December 13th the garrison advanced against the enemy, and a force of about 1300 Senussi was cleared out from a long wadi and driven off with heavy casualties. On this occasion a squadron of Yeomanry, who were fired on from a gully, charged at the enemy and came suddenly on a deep and unexpected drop.
Towards the end of the month another large force of Arabs, under the command of Gaffar Pasha, a Germanized Turk and a very capable officer, occupied a valley called Wadi Majid, near Matruh. It appeared that they intended attacking Matruh on Christmas Day, when they supposed that the garrison would be eating and drinking—though, as it happened, there was not even any beer in the town. On Christmas Eve the British force, consisting of part of a New Zealand brigade, some Sikhs, Australian Light Horse and British Yeomanry, supported by aeroplanes and naval ships, which shelled the enemy from the coast, went out of Matruh and fought a successful action on Christmas Day. The Arab camp was destroyed, and the enemy were beaten off with heavy casualties. After the engagement the British force returned to Matruh. By this time the usual winter weather had begun; floods of rain fell on the coast, filling the wadis, swamping the roads and turning the country into a morass. Once again the enemy concentrated, at a place about 26 miles west of Matruh. They were located byaeroplanes, attacked and again driven westward. On February 26th another engagement took place at Agagia, near Barrani. The enemy lost heavily and Gaffar Pasha, the Commander of the Senussi army, was captured during a brilliant charge which was made by the Dorset Yeomanry. After this defeat Sayed Ahmed, the Senussi chief, with a number of his supporters and a huge quantity of baggage, retired from the coast, which was getting too hot for him, and trekked across the desert down to Siwa, travelling in great comfort with gramophones, clocks, brass bedsteads and a large harem!
On arrival at Siwa he settled himself in the Kasr Hassuna, but he lived in a very different style to his ancestor, the original Mohammed es Senussi. A renegade Coastguard officer, Mohammed Effendi Saleh, was appointed as his second in command. At first the Siwans welcomed Sayed Ahmed with great enthusiasm, but their feelings rapidly changed when the ill-disciplined mob that made up his army took to spoiling the gardens and robbing the people. Mohammed Saleh had been in Siwa before and he knew exactly how much money the various inhabitants had. This acquaintance with everybody’s financial position was of great use when he began to extort money from the natives. Those who could not or would not pay were beaten in the market-place and forcibly enlisted into the army; those who paid a little were made corporals and officers, and only the people who gave much money were exempt from service. The richest sheikhs andmerchants were presented with Turkish and German medals and orders and promoted to Pashas and Beys. The officers of the Senussi force attired themselves in bright green putties, which they manufactured from the green baize tablecloths in the offices of the Markaz; all the files and the Government furniture, etc., was seized by Sayed Ahmed, who carried it about with him during the rest of the campaign, eventually leaving it at Jerabub when he finally left the country.
Meanwhile the campaign on the coast was going badly for the Senussi. Barrani was occupied after the battle of Agagia, and from there the British force, reinforced by the Duke of Westminster and his armoured cars, pushed on towards Sollum, which was occupied on the 14th of March. Sollum was captured by a rear attack from above the Scarp, armoured cars and troops having managed to find a way up the cliffs by a steep, precipitous pass known as “Negb Halfia,” or “Hell Fire Pass,” as it was afterwards called. The Senussi blew up their large ammunition dump at Bir Wær, on the frontier, and the remains of their army were driven over the desert for many miles, pursued by the British cars, which scattered them far and wide and inspired all the Arabs with a holy dread of “Trombiles”—motors—which will never be forgotten. The capture of Sollum virtually ended the fighting on the coast; after that only Siwa remained to be cleared out. The country was full of fugitives and their starving families, who were fed and provided for by theBritish. Arab women flocked round the garrisons at Sollum and Matruh offering their silver ornaments and jewellery in exchange for food.
On April 16th, much to the relief of the inhabitants, Sayed Ahmed left Siwaen routefor the Dakhla oasis. He took with him most of the able-bodied men in the place, as well as a number of Senussi soldiers and many camel loads of luggage. The Siwans were expected to bring their own food, but by this time they were reduced to such a state of poverty that they had not even enough dates to support themselves. A number of men died on the road, and still more deserted and made their way back to the oasis. Sayed Ahmed stayed for several months at Dakhla and then returned to Siwa, hurrying back like a hunted hare. On each of these little desert trips the Grand Sheikh shed a little of his baggage.
During his absence from Siwa the sheikhs of the Medinia sect organized a very successful little rebellion. The people revolted against the Senussi sheikhs who had been left in charge, drove them into the Markaz, and besieged them for two days. Eventually peace was made, but not before the Senussi sheikhs had sent frantic messages to Sayed Ahmed complaining of the scandalous behaviour of the Siwans and imploring him to return. The Siwans at the same time sent letters to Sayed Ahmed with complaints against his sheikhs who had stayed in Siwa to keep order. The messengers met on the road and journeyed together till they came uponSayed Ahmed and his party between Dakhla and Siwa. They handed their letters to the sheikh and he read them together. The news of the “goings-on” at Siwa hastened his return.
Once again he established himself in the Kasr Hassuna. Here he indulged in severe religious observances and urged the people to pray for divine help against the Unbelievers who had destroyed the Senussi army on the coast. In January Sayed Ahmed and Mohammed Saleh, his second in command, were considering retiring to Jerabub, so as to be still further away from the British. On the 2nd of February a force of armoured cars, lorries and light cars arrived a few miles north of Girba, a little oasis in a deep rocky valley north-west of Siwa. On the following day the cars successfully descended the pass and attacked the enemy camp at Girba. The Senussi were absolutely astounded. They had already learnt to fear the British cars, but they never for one moment thought it possible that a large force of motors could dash across the desert from the coast, almost 200 miles, and attack them in their stronghold. Owing to the rocky ground the cars were unable to get at close quarters with the enemy. The action lasted a whole day. The Senussi, who numbered about 800, were under the command of Mohammed Saleh, and another force of about 500 men were at Siwa with Sayed Ahmed. At the first alarm the Grand Sheikh bundled himself and his belongings on to camels and fled frantically over the sand-dunes towards Jerabub, followed by a stragglingmob of Arabs. On the evening of the 4th the enemy began to retire from their position at Girba, burning arms and ammunition before evacuating, and on the 5th of February the cars entered Siwa and the British force was received by the sheikhs and notables at the Markaz with expressions of relief and goodwill. The column left the town on the same day and reached “Concentration Point,” north of Girba, on the following day.
Another detachment had been sent to a pass above the western end of the oasis in order to intercept the fugitives, but only a few cars were able to get down from the high country above, but the one Light Car Patrol which did descend managed to cut off a number of the enemy who were retreating to the west. On the 8th February the whole column went back to Sollum. The enemy’s losses were 40 killed, including 2 Senussi officers, and 200 wounded, including 5 Turkish officers. Sayed Ahmed and Mohammed Saleh both escaped, but after this crushing defeat, and the capture of the Siwa oasis, all danger from the Senussi forces was at an end.
Some time previously, after the occupation of Sollum by the British, information was found as to the whereabouts of the prisoners from theTara, who had been joined by the survivors of theMoorina, who had also landed on the coast and had been captured by the Arabs. A force of armoured cars and other cars, under the command of the Duke of Westminster, set off on the 17th from Sollum with a native guide. They dashed across the desert to BirHakim, rescued the prisoners and brought them back to Sollum, having travelled across some 120 miles of unknown desert and attacked an enemy whose numbers they did not know. This gallant enterprise was perhaps the most brilliant affair which occurred during the operations on the Western Desert. The Duke of Westminster received the D.S.O. for his exploit, and was recommended for the Victoria Cross.
After the capture of Siwa there was no more fighting on the Western Desert. Sollum, Matruh and the various stations on the coast were garrisoned with British infantry, gunners and Camel Corps, and a standing camp of Light Cars was made at Siwa, where they remained for some time. The F.D.A. took over the Administration of the Western Desert, and gradually the garrisons were withdrawn and replaced by F.D.A. Camel Corps. To-day there only remains one small detachment of Light Car Patrols in the fort at Sollum.
Sayed Ahmed and Mohammed Saleh were never captured. The Grand Sheikh’s progress terminated on the Tripoli coast, where he was met by a Turkish submarine and carried over to Constantinople. He was received by the Sultan and has remained there ever since, an exile from his native land, probably regretting that he ever allowed himself to be persuaded to throw in his lot with the Turks.
Sayed Ahmed did not distinguish himself in this campaign. Whenever he thought that the fighting was too near he hurriedly retired to some more distant place. His cowardly conduct was to acertain extent responsible for the failure of his troops; he never took part in the fighting and never led them in person. His behaviour was very different to that of Ali Dinar, Sultan of Darfur, in the Sudan, who was also persuaded by the Turks to rebel against the English at the same time. The latter showed considerable personal courage, and was killed on the field at the end of the war. Sayed Ahmed was succeeded by his cousin, Sidi Mohammed Idris, the son of Mohammed el Madhi, who had always shown himself to be strongly pro-British, and had carefully refrained from taking any part in the Senussi rising and the subsequent campaign. An agreement was drawn up by the British and the Italians which arranged that Idris should be responsible for keeping order inland, and that he should receive money and assistance. This arrangement has been in force up to now, and is in every way a success.
SHEIKH MOHAMMED IDRIS, THE CHIEF OF THE SENUSSI
SHEIKH MOHAMMED IDRIS, THE CHIEF OF THE SENUSSI
SHEIKH MOHAMMED IDRIS, THE CHIEF OF THE SENUSSI
SIWA TOWN
“Through sun-proof alleys,In a lone, sand hemm’dCity of Africa.”
“Through sun-proof alleys,In a lone, sand hemm’dCity of Africa.”
“Through sun-proof alleys,In a lone, sand hemm’dCity of Africa.”
“Through sun-proof alleys,
In a lone, sand hemm’d
City of Africa.”
SIWA town is like no other place that I have seen either in Egypt, Palestine or the Sudan. It is built on a great rock in the centre of the oasis, and from a distance it resembles an ancient castle whose rugged battlements tower above the forests of waving palm trees, and the rich green cultivation. It is somewhat similar to St. Michael’s Mount, but the inside of the town reminds one more of those enormous ant hills which are found in Central Africa. The houses are built of mud, mixed with salt, with occasional large blocks of stone from the temples let into the walls. The builder works without a line, gradually adding to the wall, sitting astride the part which he has completed, so few of the walls are straight. Another architectural peculiarity is that owing to the necessity of constructing walls thicker at the base than at the top most of the houses, especially the minarets of the mosques, become narrower towards the summit. The houses are built one above the other against the face of the rock, and the outer walls form one greatline of battlements, pierced by little groups of windows, encircling the town, and rising sheer above the ground, in some places to a height of almost 200 feet. The original site of the town was the summit and sides of two limestone rocks which rise abruptly from the level of the plain; but as the population increased more houses were built on the top of the old ones, and the town, instead of spreading, began to ascend into the air, house upon house, street upon street, and quarter upon quarter, till it became more like a bee-hive than a town. Fathers built houses for their sons above the parental abode, till their great-grandsons reached a dizzy height on the topmost battlements. The mud of which the walls were built gradually hardened and became almost of the consistency of the original rock.
In course of time the inside of the town has become a vast warren of houses connected by steep, twisting tunnels, very similar to the workings in a coal mine, where one needs to carry a light even in daytime, and two persons can scarcely walk abreast. This labyrinthine maze of dark, narrow passages, with little low doors of split palm logs opening into them from the tenements above, forms the old town of Siwa. In some places the walls are partly ruined and one gets little views of the green oasis, or the lower part of the town with its flat roofs and square enclosures, framed by the jagged ruined masonry. It took me nearly two years to know my way about this part of the town, at the expense of hittingmy head many times against the palm log beams supporting the low roofs which are in most cases only about 5 feet high.
This human warren is surprisingly clean and free from the smells that one would expect in a place where there is such an absence of light and ventilation. One of the most curious things that one notices is the subdued hum of human voices, from invisible people, and the perpetual sound of stone-grinding mills, above, below and all around. When one meets people, groping along these tortuous passages, they loom into sight, silently, white robed, like ghosts, and pass with a murmured greeting to their gloomy homes. It is a great relief after stooping and slipping and barking one’s shins to reach the open roof on the highest tower of the town where, for a moment, the brilliant sunlight dazzles one’s eyes, accustomed to the murky gloom of the lower regions. When, on rare occasions, I had visitors, I used always to take them up to see the view from the highest battlements, with a few stout Sudanese Camel Corps men to help pull, push and propel the sightseers. But most of them, especially the elderly colonel type, were too hot and exhausted to appreciate the view when they finally arrived, so I eventually kept this “sight” for only the most active visitors.
High up in the heart of the town, in a little open space surrounded by tall grim houses, there is an ancient well cut out of the solid rock. It contains excellent water. Apparently there is a spring in thecentre of the rock which supplies the well, and two smaller ones close by. Half-way down the well, about 30 feet from the top, just above the level of the water, there is a small entrance, wide enough to admit a boy, which leads into a narrow tunnel bored through the rock, terminating in the precincts of a mosque on the level ground. Nobody has traversed this passage for many years, owing to fear of snakes—which certainly exist, also jinns and afreets. The tunnel is about 150 yards long, and must have taken years to complete, but it is difficult to guess its original object. This old well is specially popular with women, as by drawing water here they can avoid going out to the springs where they would necessarily meet with men. Often when I passed out from the narrow entrance of a passage I would see a dozen women busy with their pitchers, veils cast aside, laughing and chattering—in a moment, like magic, every one would have silently vanished, and only the eyes peering from the adjoining windows would show any signs of life.
Below the old high town, huddled at the base of the mighty walls, there are more houses, and these, too, are surrounded by an outer wall. Beyond this more modern houses have been built when there was less fear of raids from hostile Arabs. Most of the sheikhs and the rich merchants have deserted the high town and built large, comfortable houses down below, or among the gardens in the adjoining suburbs of Sebukh and Manshia. Many of them have also country houses, where they retire in thesummer when the heat in the town becomes intolerable, on their estates in different parts of the oasis. Residences of sheikhs and notables are distinguished by a strip of whitewash across the front, but woe betide a poor man if he decorates his house in a like manner. Tombs of sheikhs and holy men are whitewashed all over every year, at public expense. One of the most wealthy, and most unpopular, merchants covered the whole of his house with whitewash. This innovation caused grave disapproval among the conservative sheikhs of Siwa. They complained to me, saying that from time immemorial the notables had distinguished their houses by the strip of whitewash, but nobody had ever whitened the whole house—therefore nobody should! When a few days later some thieves broke into the “whitewashed sepulchre” and stole twelve pounds, the whole population agreed that it was a just retribution on unseemly pride.
The three date markets are large walled-in squares where every merchant and family have a space to spread their dates for sale; one of them is common, the other two belong to east and west respectively. There is a little house by the entrance of each market where an old Sudanese watchman lives, paid in kind by contributions from everybody who uses the market. In the autumn thousands of Arabs come from Egypt and the west to buy dates, which are considered among the best in Egypt. Round the markets there are enclosures for camels and lodgings for the Arabs, who are only tolerated in the townbecause they come to trade. At the height of the season there is a busy scene. Hundreds of white-robed Arabs wander among the heaps of red, brown and yellow dates, arguing and bargaining loudly, while their camels gurgle and snarl outside, and over everything there rises a swarm of flies. Half-naked negroes toil and sweat as they load the camels with white palm-leaf baskets pressed down and full with sticky dates. Lively diversions occur when a shrill-voiced she-camel shakes off her load and runs wildly through the crowd, scattering the people, with her long neck stretched out like an agitated goose. Arab ponies squeal and shriek, donkeys bray and the pariah dogs snarl and yelp. There is a custom in Siwa that anybody may eat freely from the dates in the markets, but nobody is allowed to take any away; so the beggars, who are very numerous, crawl in among the buyers, clutching greedily with filthy hands at the best dates, and adding their whining complaints to the general din. Also all the dogs, children, chickens, goats and pigeons feed from the dates before the owners sell them. The most popular form of date food is a sort of “mush,” which consists of a solid mass of compressed dates with most, but not all, of the stones removed. I used to like dates, but after an hour in the markets one never wishes to eat another.
The square white tomb of Sidi Suliman dominates the date markets. Although not actually a mosque it is the most venerated building in Siwa. Around it there are a few white tombstones, and on most nightsthe building is illuminated with candles burnt by votaries at the shrine of the saint. Close by there is a large unfinished mosque which was built by the ex-Khedive, who left off the work owing to lack of funds. Mosques in Siwa are conspicuous by their curious minarets, which remind one of small factory chimneys, or brick kilns; otherwise they are very similar to houses, except that they generally include a large court with a roof supported by mud pillars. In several of the mosques there are schools, and one sees a number of small boys sitting on the ground, with bored expressions, droning long verses of the Koran in imitation of the old sheikh who teaches them.
Lately the “Powers that Be” decided that a regular school would be beneficial to the youth of Siwa. With some difficulty I secured a building and a teacher. The school began in great style. Almost every boy in the town attended. They learnt reading and writing, and after sunset they did “physical jerks” and drill, marching round the market square, much to the admiration of their parents. But the novelty palled. Attendance diminished. Attendance at school was to be quite voluntary, so I could do nothing. In about a month it had ceased to exist, and the little boys sat again at the feet of the old sheikhs in the mosque schools. Such is the conservatism of Siwa.
Shopping in Siwa is very simple. Each shop is a general shop and contains exactly the same as the others. Prices do not vary, so one deals exclusivelywith one merchant; the shops are sprinkled about the town and the customers of each are the people who live nearest. The shops themselves are hardly noticeable. There is no display of goods, nothing in fact to distinguish a shop. One enters a little door and the room inside looks rather more like a storeroom than a living room; sometimes there is a rough counter, some shelves and a weighing machine, but measures consist mostly of little baskets which are recognized as containing certain quantities. The sacks and cases round the room contain flour, beans, tea, rice and sugar; in one corner there are some rolls of calico and a bundle of coloured handkerchiefs hung on a nail from the ceiling.
In the storeroom which opens out of the shop there are more sacks, tins of oil, and perhaps a bundle of bedouin blankets. Yet some of the Siwan merchants clear over a thousand pounds a year by their shops and a little trade in dates. Egyptian money is used, the silver being much preferred to the paper currency, and credit is allowed, which enables the merchants to obtain mortgages and eventually possession of some of their customers’ gardens.
The merchants’ wives attend to the lady customers. There is a side door in every shop which leads to an upper room, and here the Siwan ladies buy their clothes, served by the wife or mother of the merchant. Their purchases are mainly “kohl” for darkening the eyes, henna for ornamenting fingers and hands, silver ornaments, soft scarlet leathershoes and boots, blue cotton material manufactured at Kerdassa, near Gizeh, grey shawls, silks for embroidery, dyes for colouring baskets and very expensive flashy silk handkerchiefs made in Manchester, which they wear round their heads when indoors. Some of the merchants’ wives sell charms and amulets besides clothes. The women are very conservative in their fashions, only certain colours being worn. I once wanted a piece of green material to use in making a flag. I sent to every single shop in the town, but without success. However, it caused great excitement, and I heard, on the following day, that the gossips of the town had come to the conclusion that I was going to marry, and the green stuff was to be part of the lady’s trousseau. They were disappointed.
There is nothing in Siwa that compares with the gorgeous bazaars of Cairo, or the gaily decked shops in the markets of provincial towns. These dark little shops have no colour, only a queer, rather pleasant smell, a potpourri of incense, spices, herbs, onions, olive oil and coffee. Meat is bought direct from the butchers, who combine and kill a sheep or a camel. Sugar and tea are the most popular necessities on the market. During the war, and for some time after, there was a sugar shortage. The supply for Siwa arrived at the coast, but rarely reached the oasis. When a small quantity did reach Siwa it was bought up immediately, and the merchants who obtained it took to gross profiteering. The price of an oke (2½ lbs.) reached as much as 40 piastres (8s.),which in Egypt is an excessively high price. Eventually the sale of sugar was supervised by the Government and sugar tickets were issued. Even then there were cases of sugar being smuggled across the frontier to Tripoli, where the shortage was even more severe. Arabs or Siwans are simply miserable if they have to go without sugar in their tea. It makes them cross and tiresome, and they say themselves that it injures their health. For the rest people depend on their garden produce, on dates, onions, fruit and coarse native bread. The women make their own clothes, and generally their husbands’ too, sometimes weaving the wool for the long “jibbas,” worn by the working men, on rough handlooms. There is a carpenter in the town and several masons, but as a shopping “centre” Siwa is not much of a catch.
Although Siwan houses are unprepossessing from the outside their interiors are comparatively comfortable. What I personally objected to was the exceeding lowness of the doors, and yet the Siwans on the whole are tall. They told me that doors were made small for the sake of warmth. Roughly the houses are built on the usual Arab pattern; on the ground floor there are storerooms, stables, and servants’ quarters, upstairs there are guest-rooms, harem, and living rooms. The entrance hall has seats of mud similar to the walls, and is usually screened from sight by a corner inside the door. Stairs are steep and narrow with sudden sharp turnings; they are always pitch dark, as only the rooms in the outerwalls receive any light. Each house consists of two or three storeys and above them there is an open roof, sometimes with several rooms built on to it. The old houses of the high town are different, only those on the topmost level have open roofs. The immense thickness of the walls makes the houses cool in summer when the temperature often reaches 112 degrees in the shade, and warm in winter when icy winds sweep down from the high desert plateau. The rooms in the houses of the better classes are large and high, lit by little square windows, which are made in groups of three, one above and two below in order not to put unnecessary strain on the masonry. Each window has four divisions with a shutter to each division; these shutters are kept open in summer-time. The windows are very low, a few feet above the level of the floor, which allows people sitting on the ground to see out of them. The ceilings are made of palm trunks covered with rushes and a layer of mud; the ends of the trunks, if they are too long, project outside the walls and serve as pegs on which to hang bundles of bones to avert the “Evil Eye.” Mud, which becomes as hard as cement, is used not only for the walls, but for the stairs, the divans, ovens, and most of the kitchen utensils. Old stone coffins, discovered near the temple or in some of the rock tombs, are utilized as water-troughs in most houses. The floors are covered with palm matting, and an occasional old Turkish or Persian carpet; the divans are furnished with a few cushions, white bolster-like objects, or beautifully stampedleather from the Sudan. The walls are whitewashed and sometimes ornamented with crude coloured frescoes, and in almost every room there are several heavy wooden chests, handsomely carved, sometimes of great age, which are used for keeping valuables. Occasionally one sees a couple of chairs and a round tin table, like those which are used outside cafes, but personally I have always felt much more comfortable sitting cross-legged on a heap of cushions near the window than perched up on a rickety chair above my hosts. A brass tray, a low round table, a few baskets and an earthenware lamp hanging on the wall, completes the furniture of a guest-room. I have spent many pleasant hours sitting in one of these high rooms looking out over the feathery palm trees and watching the colours change as the sun sank behind the mountains, gossiping to some old sheikh, puffing a cigarette, and drinking little cups of sweet, green tea.
THE WESTERN QUARTER FROM AN EASTERN ROOF
THE WESTERN QUARTER FROM AN EASTERN ROOF
THE WESTERN QUARTER FROM AN EASTERN ROOF
In summer-time the people sleep on the flat roofs of their houses, which for that reason are surrounded by low mud walls to ensure privacy from the neighbours. They lie on the roofs, men, women and children, always with their faces covered from the moon, because they say moonlight on sleeping faces causes madness. In the daytime the women gossip on the housetops and carry on intrigues, for there is nothing easier than hopping over the walls from one roof to the other, and it is not consideredcomme il fautfor husbands to frequent the roofs in daytime. Often when I climbed up to the citadel and lookeddown over the town I saw a group of girls sitting on the roofs, generally singing and dressing each other’s hair. When they caught sight of an intruder watching them from above they bolted down the steep stairs like rabbits to their burrows. One sees real rabbits, too. Almost all the natives breed them, and for safety’s sake they are kept on the housetops.
One of the features of Siwa town are the “Dululas,” or sun shelters. They consist of spaces shaded from the sun by a roof of rushes and mud, supported by mud pillars. Often in the centre there is a stone basin containing water, which is kept always full at the expense of one of the sheikhs in memory of a deceased relation. Here the greybeards of the town assemble in the evenings, strangers sit and gossip when they visit the town, and the Camel Corps men wander through to hear the latest news. It is a sort of public club, and one hears even more gossip than at a club at home. The largest of these sun shelters has become a little market, and a few decrepit old men spread out their wares in its shade—a few baskets, a dozen onions, an old silk, tattered waistcoat and some red pepper would be the stock-in-trade of one of these hawkers. What they say in the “suk” corresponds to the “bazaar talk” in India, and it is incredible how soon the most secret facts are known there.
The Siwans are a distinct race quite apart from the Arabs of the Western Desert, but in appearance they differ very slightly from their bedouin neighbours. Owing to their isolated dwelling-place they haveretained their original language, which appears to be an aboriginal Berber dialect. They are unquestionably the remnants of an aboriginal people of Berber stock, but constant intermarriage with outsiders has obliterated any universal feature in their appearance, and through intermarriage with Sudanese they have acquired a darker complexion and in some few cases negroid features. On the whole one does not see the Arab type, or the Fellah, or the Coptic type among the Siwans.
The men are tall and powerfully built, with slightly fairer complexions than the Arabs. In some cases they have light straight hair and blue eyes, and one whole family has red hair and pink cheeks, though they themselves do not know where this originated. Most of the younger men are singularly ugly and have a fierce and bestial expression, but with age they improve, and the elders of the town are pleasant, dignified-looking men, though effeminate in their manners. The children are pallid and unhealthy in appearance. The Siwans have high cheek-bones, straight noses, and short, weak chins. They are very conceited and think much of their looks; on feast days even the oldest men darken their eyes with “kohl” and soak themselves with evil-smelling scent.
The wealthy Siwans wear the usual Arab dress—white robes, a long silk shawl twisted round the body and flung over one shoulder, a soft red, blue-tasselled cap and yellow leather shoes. On gala days they appear in brilliant silks from Cairo, and colouredrobes from Tripoli and Morocco, but on ordinary occasions the predominating colour is white. The servants and labourers, who form the bulk of the population, and include many Sudanese who were brought from the south as slaves, wear a long white shirt, white drawers, a skull cap and sometimes a curious sack-like garment made of locally spun wool ornamented by brightly coloured patterns in silk or dye. Siwa is the only place in Egypt where one does not see the natives apeing European dress or slouching about in khaki trousers or tunics—remnants of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.
The women are small and slender, and very pale owing to the inactivity of strict seclusion. The palest women are the most admired. Their large black eyes are ornamented with “kohl,” and their small hands are tinted with henna. In public they wear a universal dress which is quite distinctive. It consists of a dark blue striped robe, reaching below the knees, with full sleeves, cut square and embroidered round the neck, white drawers with a strip of embroidery round the ankles, and a large square grey shawl with a dark blue border, which covers them when they go abroad. Their ornaments consist of innumerable silver ear-rings, with bunches of silver chains and little bells, silver bangles, anklets, and necklaces. An unmarried girl is distinguished by a “virginity disc,” which is an engraved silver disc about the size of a saucer, suspended round the neck by a heavy silver ring. These rings are generally very old and beautifully engraved witharabesques. When a Siwan woman is wearing all her silver ornaments she tinkles like a tinsmith’s cart, but her husband poetically compares her to a caparisoned pony. Their general appearance is quite pleasing, but they are very unlike the handsome, healthy-looking Arab women of the coast.
At home the wealthier women wear coloured silks and richer clothes. They wear their straight black hair thickly oiled and dressed in a complicated coiffure. A fringe of short curls hangs above the eyes, and a number of plaited braids are worn on each side of the face, like the fringe of a mop. Strips of scarlet leather are twisted into the tresses, which must always be of an uneven number, and on the ends of the leather are hung silver bells, rings and amulets. One of the first travellers to Siwa remarked on the strength of an ear that could bear such heavy silver ear-rings, but instead of hanging from the actual ear the rings are fastened to a leather band across the top of the head. All the material for women’s clothes is made by one family of Egyptian merchants at Kerdassa, near the Pyramids. One brother has a shop in Siwa, and the others live in Egypt. Owing to this the price of clothing is very great, yet none of the Siwan merchants have ever considered setting up an opposition trade.
Women of the upper classes rarely appear in public during the day, except at funerals, when hundreds of them squat round the house, like a crowd of grey crows, howling and shrieking. When one rides pastthey hop up from the ground and run a few steps, with long grey shawls trailing behind them on the ground, and then they squat down again, like vultures scared off a carcase. They never work in the fields or drive the flocks to pasturage like the Arab women, or the fellahin, but occupy themselves in making baskets, or pottery, and in household duties. When one woman calls on another she wears all the clothes she possesses, and gradually discards them in order to impress the people she is visiting with her wealth. When I met a woman in the streets she would scuttle into the nearest doorway, or if there was not one handy she would pull a shawl over her face and flatten herself against a wall; even hideous old harridans affected an ecstasy of shyness on seeing an Englishman. Hardly any of the women can speak Arabic, and it is owing to their strange secretive lives that the Siwans have retained their language and are so unprogressive to-day. They resolutely oppose all innovations, refusing even the help and advice of the Egyptian Government doctor. It is to their influence as mothers that the women owe what power they have, because Siwan men care very little for their wives. Most men keep one wife only at a time, but they often marry as many as twenty or thirty, if they can afford to, divorcing each one when she ceases to please.
The Siwans are typically Oriental. They are hospitable, dishonest, lazy, picturesque, ignorant, superstitious, cheerful, cunning, easily moved to joy or anger, fond of intrigue and ultra conservative. Theyare not immoral, they simply have no morals. The men are notoriously degenerate and resemble in their habits the Pathans of India. They seem to consider that every vice and indulgence is lawful. It is strange that these people who are among the most fanatical Mohammedans of Africa should have become the most vicious. Yet most of the Siwans are Senussi, members of that Mohammedan sect which corresponds in a way to the Puritanism of Christianity. It advocates a simple and abstemious life, and condemns severely smoking, drinking and luxury. Yet the most religious sheikhs are generally the most flagrantly outrageous.
In spite of their unenviable reputation the Siwans are quite satisfied with themselves, and speak with tolerant pity of the Arabs and the Sudanese. The Siwan Sudanese have become like their original masters, and do not seem to object to being called “slaves,” but there are constantly furious rows between the natives and the Camel Corps originating with the word “slave” being used with reference to the latter. The Arabs, and to a greater extent the Siwans, consider themselves very superior to the Sudanese who, until quite recently, they could buy and sell.
The population is divided into two classes, the one consisting of the sheikhs, merchants and landowners, the other of the servants and labourers. The former class is an all-powerful minority. There is no middle class. There is also a religious division; the Senussi predominate in numbers, butthe Medinia sect is the richest. The latter sect is said to be the successor of the Wahhabi confraternity; it is connected with the Dirkawi, which was founded by Sheikh Arabi el Dirkawi. It was established about one hundred years ago by Sheikh Zafer el Medani, who was born at Medina in Arabia. His doctrines found favour in Tripoli and were adopted by the Siwans some time before the arrival of the Senussi, and Sheikh Zafer himself visited Siwa on several occasions. The two sects are very similar. The Medinia have still several religious centres in Egypt and Tripoli, but they lost ground considerably on the advent of Senussiism. In spite of their similarities the two sects are by no means well disposed to each other. Membership is hereditary, and no one has been known to change from one party to the other. They have their own mosques, sheikhs and funds, and on religious festivals they hold their meetings in different parts of the town. I used always to make a point of visiting the gatherings of each sect. There are two other less important religious bodies known as the “Arusia” and the “Sudania,” but they only consist of a few dozen old men who perform strange dances on festivals in honour of their particular saints. The Siwans are very religious, more so than the average Arab, but this is probably owing to the fact that their mosques are conveniently near, and if one is absent from mosque the neighbours notice, and talk about it! One has heard of such things at home.
The prosperity of the people depends almost entirely on the date harvest. The date groves, which form the wealth of the oasis, are watered by some two hundred fresh-water springs. The water rises through natural fissures, or artificial bore-holes, from a sandstone bed about 400 feet below the surface. The largest springs, such as the “Fountain of the Sun,” measure as much as 50 yards in diameter, with a depth of about 40 feet. Each basin is fed by a group of little water-holes, and the water comes up from the ground sometimes in continuous streams of bubbles, and sometimes with sudden bursts, so the surface seems constantly moving. There is a theory that an underground river flows east towards the Nile and its water comes to the surface in the various oases between Egypt and Tripoli. The fact that Siwa lies considerably below the level of the desert plateau, and even below sea-level, supports this theory. Or possibly the water comes from the high desert plateau north of Siwa, where there is a heavy rainfall; but the water supply never varies, and has never been known to run dry. The water in the springs differs considerably. In some it is very brackish, in others it is quite sweet, and some springs are flavoured with sulphur; again, some springs are warm, and others are several degrees colder, so one can chose a bathing-place, hot or cold, according to inclination. Many springs, often the sweetest ones, rise a few feet away from the salt marshes, and one spring, which used to be salt, has now become sweet. The largest springs are edgedto a certain depth with squared stones and blocks of masonry, which looks as if it might have been finished yesterday, though it was probably built almost a thousand years ago. The basins are generally round, shaded by a ring of palm trees, beyond which lie the gardens.
The sides of the basins have been gradually built higher and higher, so that the surface of the water is now several feet above the level ground, and little brooks run down from the spring heads into the gardens in all directions. They are regulated by rough sluice gates, made generally of a large flat stone, which is removed to allow the water to flow, and replaced, with a plaster of mud, when the water is no longer needed. Each spring forms the nucleus of a garden which belongs to a number of different people. The gardens are divided into little beds of a uniform size, about 8 feet square, lying an inch or two lower than the level of the ground. These beds are known as “hods.” When the water is flowing the labourer goes in turn to each “hod” and scoops a passage with his hands connecting the “hod” with the water channel, which is on a higher level, then he makes a rough dam across the channel so that the water flows into the “hod” and fills it; afterwards he closes the entrance of the “hod” with a handful of mud, pushes aside the mud dam, and the stream flows on to the next “hod,” where the same thing occurs. I have seen little boys at the seaside doing just the same sort of thing. Insome cases two water channels cross, and then one of them flows through a hollowed palm trunk.
The cultivation round every spring is made up of a number of gardens owned by different men, some of them consisting of no more than half a dozen palm trees and a couple of “hods.” All the ground is watered by the central spring, so a careful water system has been evolved by which the water is divided and portioned out to each piece of garden. For each spring there is a ponderous tome called “Daftar el Ain”—the Book of the Spring, which records the exact quantity of water, or rather the time of water, that each garden is allowed. This is followed with the greatest care by the Keeper of the Spring, who regulates the irrigation, and is paid by the owners of the adjoining garden in proportion to the number of trees that they own. Each day is divided into two halves, from sunrise to sunset, and sunset to sunrise; this again is subdivided into eighths, and each subdivision is called a “wagabah.” Thus if Osman Daud’s garden receives an allowance of four “wagabah” every other day, it means that he receives the full strength of the water from the springs for twelve hours on consecutive days.
When one buys a garden the water rights are included, but men often sell part of their water right to a neighbour, this, of course, being recorded in the Book of the Spring, which is kept by one of the sheikhs. The “Ghaffir el Ain,” or Guardian of the Spring, takes his time from the call of the muezzin, or in distant gardens by the sun and the stars. Atnight a special muezzin calls from one of the mosques for the benefit of the watchmen on the springs out in the gardens. The system has been in force for so many centuries that there are very rarely any disputes on the subject. All questions are referred to the books, which serve also as records of ownership of the gardens.
Each Siwan, however poor, keeps a book of his own in which he enters, or rather pays a scribe to record, an account of his property. It states the boundaries, number of trees and water rights of his garden. When a man buys a garden he writes down the particulars in his “daftar,” and this is signed by the person who sold the garden, and witnessed by several responsible sheikhs or “nas tayebin”—respectable people. This entry serves as a title-deed for the purchase. When I was at Siwa there was a lengthy and involved law case about the ownership of some property, in which one party, in order to prove inheritance, forged an entry in his “daftar.” But cases of forgery were not frequent—fortunately, as they added considerable complications to an already difficult case.
There is more water in Siwa than is required for irrigating the gardens, and in many cases sweet water flows to waste among the salt marshes. The Siwans are unenterprising. They only cultivate just sufficient for their own needs, and not always that: they only work in the gardens where the soil, after centuries of watering and manuring, has become very rich. They grow a very little wheat and barley, butnot enough to supply the population, who depend on imported barley from the coast, yet there are many fertile plots of land which would raise corn, and which could easily be irrigated. Lack of labour and implements is their excuse when one questions them, but in the spring numbers of Siwans go up to the coast and hire themselves out to the bedouins as labourers, preferring to work on the coast instead of increasing the cultivation in their oasis.
The palm groves of Siwa are very beautiful. It seems a veritable Garden of Hesperides when one arrives there after a long trek on the waterless desert which surrounds the oasis. One appreciates the slumberous shade of the luxuriant gardens, long, lazy bathes in the deep cool springs, and feasts of fruit on the banks of little rushing streams. Perhaps it is not surprising that the Siwans are lazy and indolent, for their country is in many ways a land of Lotus Eaters. The natives have a happy-go-lucky Omar Khayyámish outlook on life which is accentuated by the place they inhabit.
The gardens consist mainly of date groves with some olive orchards. But among the date palms there are many other trees—figs, pomegranates, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, prickly pears, limes and sweet lemons. The numerous vineyards produce quantities of exceptionally fine grapes, which last for several months and are so plentiful that large quantities rot on the branches. The natives are not very fond of them and no wine is made in Siwa, except “araki,” which is distilled from ripe dates.Dates and a little olive oil are the only exports, and it is on the produce of the date palms that the life of the people depends. The poorer Siwans live almost entirely on dates; the beams and the doors of the houses are made from palm trunks; mats, baskets and fences are made from palm fronds; saddle crossbars are made from the wood; saddle packing consists of the thick fibre, the branches are used for fuel; the young white heart of the budding leaves is eaten as a special delicacy, and the sap of the palm makes “lubki,” a drink which is much liked by natives. The wealth of the whole community is derived from the sale of dates, so it is not surprising that they watch anxiously in springtime to see if the crop will be a good one. Generally, on alternate years, there is a good crop, then a fair crop, and when dates are plentiful olives are few. Nature seems to have made this careful arrangement.
The cultivation of dates is by no means as simple as it would appear. The trees need careful watering, manuring and trimming, and one notices very clearly the difference in crops from well or badly cared for gardens. In the early spring the work of artificial pollination is carried out by special men who are skilled in the process. A branch is cut from the male date tree, which bears no fruit, sharpened, and thrust into the trunk of the female tree. Unless this is done to every tree the fruit becomes small and worthless. There are about 170,000 trees, each of which bears, after the fifth year, an average of three hundred pounds of fruit. Little attention is paid to the otherfruits which deteriorate from lack of pruning, but with a little trouble and proper methods they would improve. Formerly the oasis produced rice, oranges, bananas and sugar canes, but these no longer grow as they needed more trouble to cultivate. Only dates and olives are sold, and it is considered very shameful for a man to sell other fruit; the same idea applies to milk. Siwans either eat fruit themselves, give it to their friends, or let it rot; only the very poor natives sell any. I had considerable difficulty in getting a regular supply, but eventually I accepted “gifts” daily from certain men, and repaid them with sugar, which they liked, though if I had offered them money they would have considered themselves grievously insulted.
While at Siwa I dried large quantities of figs and apricots—mish-mish—which were very successful, and especially useful for taking out on trek when fresh fruit is unobtainable. None of the natives had attempted drying fruit, though the excessive heat and the flat roofs offer excellent opportunities, and quite an industry could be developed in this way. A variety of vegetables are grown, but only by a very few people. The most common are onions, watercress, radishes, pepper, cucumbers, gherkins, egg fruit, mint, parsley and garlic.
The gardens are manured with dry leaves and dried bundles of a thorny plant called “argoul,” which grows about the oasis and is much liked by camels. Bundles of it are cut and left for some months to dry, and finally dug into the soil round thefruit trees. The streets, markets and stables are all swept carefully, and the manure is sold to owners of gardens. The contents of public and private latrines are all collected and used as manure in the gardens. It is a good system, as it ensures sanitary arrangements being promptly carried out. The soil of Siwa is strongly impregnated with salt. In many places there are stretches of “sebukh” which consists of earth hardened by a strong proportion of salt which feels, and looks, like a ploughed field after a black frost. It is almost impassable, and the occasional deep water-holes, hidden by a layer of thin soil, make walking as dangerous as it is difficult. Two large salt lakes lie one on the east and one on the west of the town. The water in these lakes rises irregularly during the winter months, and subsides in the summer, leaving a glistening white surface of pure salt which looks exactly like ice, especially in places where the dark water shows between cracks in the salt. One can lift up white slabs of salt in the same way as ice, and send a piece skimming across the surface, like stones on a frozen pond at home. Sometimes there are deep pools in the midst of the marshes where the white salt and the vivid blue sky combine to colour the water with the most brilliant greens and blues. Causeways built by the natives traverse the marshes, and by these alone it is possible to cross them. In ancient days the Ammonians sent a tribute of salt to the kings of Persia, and such was the quality of the salt that it was used for certain special religious rites. The glitter of the salt lakes inthe middle of the day is intensely trying to the eyes, but at sunset they reflect and seem to exaggerate every colour of the brilliant sky.
The salt lakes, the numerous springs, and the stagnant water lying about the gardens bred mosquitoes and fevers. Formerly this low-lying oasis was a hotbed of typhoid and malaria. Its evil reputation was known to the bedouins who never stayed there a day longer than was necessary, and even now they speak of almost every fever as “Siwan fever.” The natives themselves attributed the fever to fruit, and still call it “mish-mish fever,” owing to its prevalence during the season when apricots are ripe. But nowadays conditions are enormously improved. Typhoid is practically unknown, the malarial mosquito has been banished from Siwa, though it still swarms in the neighbouring oases; several thousand pounds has been spent by the Egyptian Government in draining and filling up stagnant pools, and fish have been imported by the Ministry of Health which breed in the springs and feed upon the mosquitoes’ eggs. The town is kept clean and there are very strict regulations about sanitation, and thousands of sugar-coated quinine tablets are distributed to the people each week. They have discovered now just how much of the sugar can be licked off before the quinine begins to taste. The result is that since the war there have been very few new cases of malaria, though many of the people are so sodden with fever that it is impossible to cure them.