“——Faint sweetness from some oldEgyptian fine worm-eaten shroudWhich breaks to dust when once unrolled.”But on the whole Siwans strongly disapprove of interfering with the tombs, although they firmly believe that some of the hills near the town contain hidden treasure, more valuable“Than all Bocara’s vaunted goldThan all the gems of Samarcand.”All the more obvious places, such as the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, at Omm Beyda, have been thoroughly dug about, but after spending some time in the oasis one comes across various places that appear to be untouched—virgin soil for the excavator.Behind the hill on which my house, Kasr Hassuna, was built there stood another great, isolated, limestone rock about 70 feet high with a circumference of about 400 yards. One evening, when I was climbing on this rock looking for a hawk’s nest, I came across the entrance of what I supposed to be a cave right at the top. I went in, but as I found that it stretched far into the rock I sent for my servants and an electric torch; then armed with this I pushed on into the darkness. There was a narrow tunnel about 5 feet high and 3 feet wide cut out of solid rock, and sloping downwards so steeply that in some places one could almost have sat down and tobogganed along. The tunnel, which was about 10 or 11 yards long, terminated at the mouth of a deep, dark shaft like a well, going straight down into the depths of the earth. I did no more exploring that day.On the next morning some of the sheikhs, who had evidently heard of my discovery from the servants, told me the following story very solemnly. Many years ago, in the time of their grandfathers, Sheikh Hassuna, the owner of the kasr—castle—discovered, as I had, the tunnel in the rock. He naturally supposed that it was the entrance to a placeof hidden treasure, but he did not like the idea of going down the shaft himself, and he could find nobody else who would. There was at this time a very venerated Fiki in Siwa, and eventually Sheikh Hassuna persuaded him to make the first descent, in order that he might exorcise the jinns and make it safe for the sheikh to secure the treasure. The Fiki was lowered at the end of a rope, with a torch, a Koran and a supply of incense. A few seconds afterwards the people who were in the tunnel and looking into the pit were startled by a rushing of wings and a great cloud of black smoke, which was the jinns escaping from the place. When they hauled up the Fiki he told them the following tale. At the bottom of the pit there was a vast chamber hewn out of stone, and at one end of it there was an iron door. When the Fiki began to read from the Koran the door swung open and two terrible jinns passed out of it, escaped up the shaft, and another jinn, a female, with huge wings, appeared and ordered him to depart and to warn all others never to visit the place again. So since that day nobody in Siwa disturbed the genii of the hill. Finally, the sheikhs advised me, if I would go down, to take with me somebody who could read the Koran.The same afternoon I called on an old Sudanese Fiki, called Haj Gabreen, and invited him to come exploring with me. He was a stalwart old Sudani about sixty years old, much respected by his compatriots of the Camel Corps and reputed skilful in doctoring and magic. He was decidedly nervous,but at length agreed to come, mainly, I suppose, owing to the audience of Camel Corps men who were listening. The affair was now, to my mind, patronized by the Church. I got a dozen of my stoutest men and a long rope. They lowered me down first, then a couple of men, followed by the Fiki who bumped from side to side with many groans and ejaculations of “Ya salaam”—“wallahi.” It was very disappointing. The shaft was about 25 feet deep, narrow at the top, but widening as it got lower. At the bottom there certainly was a sort of chamber cut out of the rock, but very roughly done; the floor of it was covered with a mass of loose stone and rubble which had evidently fallen in at some time, possibly during one of the earthquakes which are mentioned as occurring frequently at Siwa by the eighteenth-century travellers who visited the oasis. There was absolutely nothing in the shape of a door or a tomb, but one could not tell what there was further down as it was choked with loose stuff.I had men working at it for several days, trying to clear out the debris, but there seemed to be no end to it, and as one had to haul up every basket of stone to the top and then pass it from hand to hand along the tunnel, the difficulty was very great. The atmosphere, too, was very close and hot. Eventually we came to some large pieces of detached rock which we were unable to raise, and as the work had no appreciable result I finally gave it up.Some time afterwards I went to see the tombs of the kings at Thebes. My orderly, who had been atSiwa, was with me, and we were both struck by the similarity between the tombs of the kings and the underground place at Siwa, the latter of course being on a very small scale. Later, when I discovered that Siwa was at one time famous for its emerald mines, the idea suggested itself that this might have been an old mine. Unfortunately, not being an archæologist, I was unable to determine from the size and construction of the place whether it was likely to be a tomb or not. I afterwards discovered another passage, narrow but higher, cut into the outside of the rock about half-way down, apparently with the idea of tapping the shaft, but it only reached a few yards and then seemed to have been left uncompleted.Haj Gabreen, the old Fiki who went down the shaft with me, evidently spread a very fantastic rumour of my discoveries, because after I left Siwa I got messages from the Governor inquiring whether I really had found an iron door in the middle of the hill.There seemed to be an abnormally large number of old men in Siwa, as the climate is apparently conducive to old age. Siwans, like many other natives, are very vague about their own ages. Often if one asks them how old they are they reply, “Whatever age you would wish,” or sometimes, “The same age as your Excellency”—which they seem to consider a polite answer. Certainly most of the deaths that occur are those of young children or very old people. Considerable deference is paid to old age, although it may not always be accompanied by correspondingvirtue. When I was at Siwa the “Oldest Inhabitant” was a wrinkled old man called Haj Suliman, the grandfather of one of the principal merchants. He used to spend most of his time sitting outside his house gossiping to the passers-by, and I often stopped to talk to him. Unfortunately he was deaf and had no teeth, so conversation between us was not very brisk. He and his relations told me that he was 102 years old; he looked about 90, and could not have been less than 85. He used to tell me about his one and only visit to Cairo, some sixty years ago, on his way home from Mecca. He also remembered and described quite clearly the visit of a certain English traveller to Siwa in 1869.One day I heard a great deal of noise in the neighbourhood of Haj Suliman’s house; on inquiry I was told that there was a “fantasia” going on, so I strolled over to see it. I found a number of dancers, music in the shape of drums and whistles, and free “lubki” being handed round. Carpets were spread in the courtyard and Haj Suliman, very gaily dressed, was receiving the company, surrounded by his sons and grandchildren. He looked very pleased with himself and invited me to drink tea, which I did. All the time he stood near, evidently expecting me to say something to him. Eventually I asked him why he was giving a “fantasia”—at which the whole family began talking and telling me that it was for a wedding. “But where is the bridegroom?” I asked, and Haj Suliman leant forward with a silly grin on his antique face. Then, to my amazement,they told me that the old gentleman himself was the bridegroom, this being his thirty-sixth wedding and the bride was 14 years old. I realized that he had been expecting my congratulations, so I offered them, as he was evidently not of the opinion that “crabbed age and youth cannot live together.” He died suddenly about eight months later, “a victim of connubiality.” I had seen him the day before in his garden working hard with an enormous iron hoe as big as a spade, which is much used in Siwa.Another very old man in Siwa was an aged Sudani who sold a queer little collection of oddments in a corner of the market. At one time he had acted as postman for the Senussi between Siwa and Kufra. He told me, and I heard it besides from various sources, that he used to go alone to Kufra by a track across the sand-dunes south of Siwa. He was paid three pounds for each trip, but the danger was enormous; if his camel had strayed or fallen ill he would have been absolutely done for. Another queer old character was an old woman called Hanoui, who was at one time a secret agent and remarkably clever at acquiring information. She was also useful when one wanted to get baskets made.The only real industry in Siwa, and it is not an important one, is the making of mats and basket work from palm fronds. Mats and large coarse hampers for carrying dates on camels are made by men. The mats are usually round, very strong, lasting and useful. The Arabs buy large quantitiesof them when they come down for dates in the autumn. The baskets are made entirely by women. They are manufactured from thin strips of palm leaves which become like raffia; sometimes they are coloured with dye, but the better kinds are ornamented with minute patterns of coloured silk worked into the sides, and decorated with tassels of variegated coloured silks and scarlet leather flaps in which to fasten cords for holding them.The work is very fine indeed, so fine that in some cases the baskets will even hold water. They are made in various shapes, but generally round with a conical cover. Besides baskets they make dishes and platters with covers to them, which are used for carrying food and fruit. These baskets are exceedingly attractive and useful and command a high price in Cairo and in England. They are very light and can be made in “nests” of five or six, in order to be more easily conveyed. They are very distinctive and quite different to those that are made at Assuan, in Sinai, or the Sudan.Siwan women also make a rough kind of pottery. They get the clay from a hill near Siwa, and another kind of clay which they make into paint from another place on the oasis. The pottery is all made by hand, not on a wheel, so it is very rough, but it acquires a good colour and a slight glaze. It is used for making bowls, dishes, pitchers and little braziers for a charcoal fire on which the kettle is kept hot when the Siwans make tea. These utensils are ornamented with rude patterns of a darker colour, the groundbeing generally yellow, or a reddish brown. I found that there was one old man in Siwa who was a professional toy-maker, which is an occupation that one rarely comes across among Mohammedans, all forms of statues or images being forbidden by the Koran as tending towards the worship of idols. But the Siwan children have dolls and toy animals, and they are very cleverly made, too. This old man made them chiefly of rags stuffed with sawdust, and they really compared very favourably with the “Teddy bears” and other monstrosities that one sees at home. Siwan children are queer little things, very solemn and not as lively as the small Sudanese. They start working at an early age, and before that they seem to spend most of their time dabbling about in the streams among the gardens. One difference that one notices between these small children and ones of the same age at home is that the former are not given to the tiresome habit of continually asking questions.In trying to develop the basket-making industry one meets with many difficulties. The women are casual and lazy, so that it is almost impossible to ensure a definite supply of baskets by a certain date. The fact that the baskets are made only by women who live in strict seclusion is a great disadvantage, as one has to explain everything through a third person. Once as a great privilege I was allowed to see a woman at work on some baskets. She was the mother of one of the policemen, quite a venerable old thing, but for the occasion she sat swathed in a thickveil with only one eye showing, and thus with great difficulty she gave a demonstration of how baskets were made. I suggested several new shapes and patterns which she very quickly understood and taught to the others.SIWA TOWN FROM THE SOUTHWith the bedouin women it is different. During the war, especially at the close of the Senussi operations, there was great destitution among the Arabs. Numbers of men who had served with the Senussi were killed, and many others retired over the frontier and never returned. Their wives and children were left unprovided for. As usual the English, against whom they had been fighting, turned and helped these refugees. Miss Baird, the daughter of the late Sir Alexander Baird, collected a number of these women and their children at Amria, in the desert west of Alexandria, and in conjunction with the F.D.A. started a carpet-making industry. She lived amongst them herself, superintended the work, and by degrees she acquired a wonderful influence over them. She became somewhat like Lady Hester Stanhope in the Lebanon, only her influence was not due to religious superstition. I once stopped at Amria on my way from Cairo to Sollum by camel in the early days of the industry, and I shall never forget my first impression of the four or five hundred wild bedouin women working away at the carpets like girls in a factory at home, absolutely controlled by one young Englishwoman right out in the desert. Miss Baird’s death in 1919 was a very great loss, but the work that she began is still being carried on bythe F.D.A., who have moved the factory from Amria and installed it in an imposing building at Behig, which is the headquarters of the Eastern District of the Western Desert.One of the things that is noticeable at Siwa is the absence of flowers. Owing to there being no rain there is no sudden burst of vegetation in the spring, as there is along the coast. At certain times there is blossom in the gardens on the various trees—apples, almonds, pomegranates, lemons, etc.—and for a month or two there are roses and a very heavily scented flowering shrub called “tamar-el-hindi.” But one does not see the riot of colour that follows on the track of the rains. There are very few wild animals, too. In the neighbouring oases one sees gazelle and a few foxes, and in Siwa itself there are quantities of jackals. According to the natives an animal which they call “Bakhr wahash”—wild ox—is to be found at a place called Gagub, an uninhabited oasis, consisting of a salt lake surrounded by sterile palm trees, between Siwa and Jerabub. But when I went there I saw no signs of the creature. It is described as being the size of a donkey, of a yellowish brown colour, with two horns like a cow’s.In Siwa there are very few domestic animals. None of the people keep camels, partly because they have no need for them, and partly owing to the presence of the “ghaffar” fly which inoculates camels and horses with a disease that shortens their life very considerably. For this reason one set of camels belonging to the F.D.A. remain permanentlyat Siwa in order to avoid spreading the disease among the camels on the coast. Almost every man in Siwa has a donkey, and some of the large landowners have thirty or forty. One meets them everywhere, in the streets trotting along under enormous loads, but carrying them apparently with the greatest ease. The Siwans rarely walk any distance, they always ride. The donkeys are stout little beasts and are better treated on the whole than in Egypt. They are imported by the Gawazi Arabs from Upper Egypt and the Fayum, via Farafra, the oasis of “Bubbling Springs,” which lies south-east of Siwa, but they breed freely in Siwa, and their diet of dry dates seems to suit them well.Donkeys are also used as a threshing machine. When the barley is ripe it is cut and collected and spread out in a circle on a smooth, hard piece of ground. Ten or fifteen donkeys are harnessed abreast, in line, and driven round and round over the barley; when they wheel the innermost donkey moves very slowly, and the outer ones trot fast. In this way the corn is crushed out of the husks. Afterwards it is winnowed by the simple process of throwing it up into the air so that the straw blows away and leaves only grain. There are about a hundred cows in Siwa; they are small animals, about the size of a Jersey, but they give very good milk.At certain times one sees quite a number of birds at Siwa, but they are mostly migratory. I have noticed crane, duck, flamingo and geese on the salt lakes; hawks, crows, ravens and owls among thecliffs; doves, pigeon, hoopoes, wagtails and several varieties of small singing birds in the gardens. Some of them nest in the oasis, and I collected about a dozen different kinds of eggs, but unfortunately they all got broken. There is one bird which is, I believe, indigenous to Siwa, it is known by the natives as “Haj Mawla.” It is about the size of a thrush, black with white feathers in its tail, and a very pretty song somewhat similar to the note of a robin.Lately the Administration has installed lofts of carrier pigeons along the coast and at Siwa. On the coast they have been quite successful, but so far no pigeons have been trained to cross the desert. The hawks at Siwa are a serious menace to them, and quite a number have been killed. In former days the Libyan Desert produced ostriches. Browne, in 1792, mentions that he saw broken eggs and tracks of ostriches on his way to Siwa. But nowadays there are none. Many of the lions that were used in the arenas of Rome were brought from Libya, but these too are now extinct.“So some fierce lion on the Libyan plain,Rolls its red eyes, and shakes its tawny mane.”But the Arabs who travel between the Sudan and Tripoli tell of a long wadi, with water and vegetation, north of Darfur, which takes three days to cross by camel, and this wadi, so they say, is full of wild animals—lions, tigers, giraffe, etc.—which have never been hunted.Siwa is a bad place for snakes, scorpions and tarantulas. The cerestes, or horned viper, is verycommon, as well as several other poisonous species. One of the most deadly is a little light-coloured snake with a hard prong at the end of its tail like a scorpion, which lies half covered with sand. I also saw a specimen of the puff adder. My house seemed to be a favourite abode of snakes, which may possibly have been because I had a pigeon loft close to it. Several times I was awakened in the night by my dog barking in the room and found a big snake slithering along the floor, or underneath the edge of the matting. Three men were bitten by snakes while I was there and died as a result; in each case they had stepped on a snake with bare feet. Strabo relates that in these parts of Africa the workmen had to wear boots and rub garlic over their feet to protect themselves. The local cure, which seems quite ineffective, is to rub the powdered stems of a broombush on to the bite. Nothing will induce the natives to touch a snake, dead or alive, with their fingers, as they say the smell sticks to them and attracts other snakes. I was only once bitten by a scorpion, and unfortunately I was out on trek without a first-aid box. It was a large, blackish green scorpion, one of the worst kind, and it caught me on the end of one of my fingers. But my men knew what to do from previous experience. They tied my arm tightly at the elbow and the wrist with a tourniquet, and then cut several gashes with a razor blade across the finger which had been bitten. It was very painful during the night, and I had a good deal of fever, but I was none the worse for it after a couple of days. The cure for a scorpion biteis a powder made from a snake’s tail, cooked and pounded, and a few of the natives specialize in making this powder.There are no snake charmers in Siwa, and I have seen none anywhere on the Western Desert. In Egypt one meets many, the most famous perhaps is a man at Luxor. I saw him perform a few days before I left Egypt, and I was most impressed by his exhibition. One evening, without any warning, I took him out with me to a place near Karnak, having first examined him and satisfied myself that he had no snakes hidden about his clothes. In about a quarter of an hour he discovered seven or eight snakes. He used no whistle, but walked about in a very small area muttering to himself, stopping dead every now and then in front of a stone or a bush, thrusting his hand into it and withdrawing it clasping a writhing lively snake. Several of the snakes were known to me as being venomous. He took two of these, one by one, held them to his wrist, and let them bite him so that when he pulled them off his flesh they left blood on his hand. Anybody else would have suffered severely, and would probably have died, but the snake charmer was immune. His father and his grandfather had practised the same trade before him, and according to him they had neither of them suffered in any way by their profession.CHAPTER VICUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS“. . . Tell the laughing worldOf what these wonder-working charms are made. . . .Fern root cut small, and tied with many a knot,Old teeth extracted from a white man’s skull.A lizard’s skeleton, a serpent’s head:. . . O’er these the leachMutters strange jargons and wild circles forms.”“Custom is King, nay tyrant, in primitive society.”AFTER being some time at Siwa one cannot help noticing how very much the life of the people is influenced by their belief in superstitions and magic arts. To every ordinary accident or natural phenomenon they seem to attach a supernatural explanation, and they constantly carry out little rites, which have no apparent purpose, whose origin and reason they do not know, but which they explain has been the custom “min zamaan.” To believe, as they do, without knowing, is the grossest form of superstition. They have a number of purely local customs and practices which are entirely different to those which are prevalent in Egypt, or among the Arabs of the Western Desert. The Siwans are Mohammedans, and strictly religious in most of their observances, but in some of their habits one can trace a faint resemblance to rites thathave survived from former times, long before the people adopted their present religion. But most of the apparently meaningless practices are founded on the inherent fear of evil spirits, which are implicitly believed in by all the inhabitants.These fabulous beings are of many kinds, and have various characteristics; there are jinns, in whose veins runs fire instead of blood, who once inhabited the earth, but sinned and were driven away by the angels of God; Sheytans, who are children of Iblis, the Devil; Afreets, Marids; and Ghouls, who are female demons and live among deserts and graveyards, assuming various forms and luring men to death. These creatures are usually found in caves, tombs, wells, empty houses, latrines, and at cross roads. Sometimes they assume the shapes of men and sometimes they appear in the forms of domestic animals; in Siwa they are said to favour most the disguise of a cow.Among the most ignorant natives one meets with a decided reluctance to discuss things that are supernatural, but the more educated men are willing to speak of them. As in all countries the lower classes are the most credulous. For instance, in the case of certain old women who are reputed to be witches, the poor people avowedly believe in them, while the upper classes pretend not to; but when there is a birth or a wedding in the family of a sheikh, or a notable, they send presents to these old women saying that it is merely charity, although at heart they consider it safer to propitiate them in order toavert possible misfortune. It is rather like the lady in church who always bowed at the name of the Devil, because she thought it safer to be on the right side!The difference between the customs and superstitions of the Siwans and those of the Arabs on the desert which surrounds them is due to the fact that the former are of Berber origin. Their whole system of living is different, too. The Siwans are town dwellers whose dominant principle has been a sort of communism, whereas the Arabs are nomads, who adopted patriarchalism as their method of rule. The Siwans fought on foot, the Arabs were essentially cavalry. There are sheikhs in Siwa, but they are more like the members of a town council, while the real Arab sheikh corresponds to the feudal lord of the Middle Ages. It is strange to find the Siwans, with such a definite, different scheme of living, existing in the midst of a desert whose Arab population regards them almost as foreigners.Two distinct kinds of magic are practised in Siwa, Divine magic, or white magic, and Satanic, or black magic, black being considered the Devil’s colour. Certain old men and Fikis (readers of the Koran in the mosques) are supposed to have particular gifts in telling fortunes, compounding medicines and composing charms against evil, especially against the much dreaded Evil Eye. They work with the aid of the Koran, and by reciting long prayers and the names of Allah. This is legitimate magic. These men are conspicuously regular in their attendanceat the mosques, and their power is attributed to their peculiar goodness. Women are considered by Mohammedans, and particularly by Siwans, to be by nature more wicked than men. One Arab writer speaks of woman as “The Devil’s Arrow,” and another says, “—I stood at the gates of hell and lo, most of its inmates were women.” Even in theThousand and One Nightsone reads:“Verily women are devils created for us, they are the source of all the misfortunes that have occurred among mankind, in the affairs of the world and religion—”“Verily women are treacherous to everyone near and distant:With their fingers dyed with henna: with their hair arranged in plaits:With their eyebrows painted with kohl; they make one drink of sorrow;”This is the reason that any skill that the Siwan women possess in medicine, making amulets, or tracing lost property, is, as a matter of course, ascribed to their evil practices and their use of black magic, whereby they are able to invoke demons, ghools and afreets to carry out their orders, either for good or for evil. For this reason they keep their doings as secret as possible, and this secrecy increases their notoriety and evil reputation. But as their methods are said to be usually successful they are patronized as much, or even more, than the men, especially by their own sex. So there is quite a lively rivalry between Fikis, or wizards, and the wise women, or witches.Siwan women, owing to their precarious position as wives, are not fond of bearing children. Many ofthem use medicines, made from certain plants and herbs that grow in the oasis, to prevent childbirth. Browne mentions, as far back as 1792, that it was a common practice at Siwa for women to take their newly born infants, probably girls, up to the top of the walls and throw them over the battlements. There was one case of child murder reported while I was living there. Siwan women are not as hardy as Sudanese or Arab women, and the Egyptian doctor is of course never allowed to attend them for births. Women are looked after by the Siwan midwives, old women who have considerable practical experience, but make up for medical ignorance by a vast knowledge of amazingly futile superstitions. As a result quite a number of children die at birth. It was suggested that a Siwan woman should be sent to Cairo and be trained in a hospital; after much difficulty a suitable woman was found who was brave enough to be the first Siwan woman to leave the oasis, but unfortunately the proposition was never carried through.When the birth of a child occurs in the family of one of the sheikhs or notables it is celebrated with great rejoicings, especially if the baby is a boy, as there is an enormous superfluity of women in Siwa. On the seventh day after the birth all the female friends and relations of the mother come to the house to congratulate her, bringing their own children with them. She receives them with the child and the midwife, herself lying on the bare floor. It is the custom for all women, even the wives of the richest sheikhs,who occasionally have an old brass bedstead in their room, to sleep on the floor for ten days after giving birth to a child. A meal is provided for the guests—sweets, cakes, fruits, Arab tea, and a curious sort of edible clay which is brought from near Jerabub. This clay is a yellowish colour, tasting very like a mushroom, and is always eaten by Siwan, and sometimes by Arab, women when they are expecting a child. But the essential necessity at this meal is fish, which in a place that is 200 miles from the sea, and where there are no fresh-water fish of eatable size, is somewhat difficult to obtain. However, the merchants make a special point of bringing a species of salted fish from Cairo, which by the time it arrives at Siwa can be smelt from several streets away. This delicacy is thechef d’œuvreat birthday parties. It is curious that the Arabs on the coast, who could catch fresh fish, have the strongest abhorrence to eating fish of any kind. The practice at Siwa was inaugurated by the mother of Sidi Suliman, the patron sheikh, on the birth of her son.If the child is a boy the father decides on his name, but in the case of a girl the mother is sponsor. After the meal everybody looks at the child and congratulates the mother. Then the midwife, who is generally a toothless, dirty old hag, mixes some henna and paints the cheeks of all the children with a red stripe, and they run out into the streets and markets calling out the names of the child. The women remain. A large, round, earthenware bowl, specially made for the occasion, is then brought in and filled with water.Each woman throws into it her bracelets and silver ornaments. They stand in a circle holding the bowl while the midwife recites the name of the child, and the others repeat phrases, such as, “May he be happy—may he be favoured by Allah—may Allah avert all evil from him.” Then they solemnly raise the bowl several times in the air and let it drop to the ground; the bowl smashes into atoms, the water splashes over the floor, the bracelets and bangles roll along the ground, and the child screams loudly with fright. At this all afreets and jinns take flight, and the newly born child is blessed with fortune and riches. Afterwards the women collect their jewellery and return to their homes. Young children are not washed or kept clean; they are deliberately made to look as unattractive as possible, at an early age, in order not to tempt Providence. The Siwans dislike people to admire their belongings, especially their children, who are considered most susceptible to the Evil Eye, as it is thought that nothing can be more valuable than one’s offspring.The status of a woman in Siwa is low. She is worth less, and is of less importance, than a donkey. She is worth, in money, a little less than a goat. There is a strange custom in Siwa which is absolutely different to that among the Arabs or the Egyptians. There is a fixed price for a woman; that is to say, the “marriage money” paid by the man to his future wife’s parents is in all cases exactly the same—120 piastres (£1 4s.). It makes no difference whether the girl is young or old, maid or widow, rich or poor,exquisitely beautiful, which is rare, or hideously ugly, which is common; the only thing that varies is the trousseau of clothes which is given by the man to his bride, and the quality of this depends on his means. The present of a poor man would be one gown, one silk handkerchief, one shawl and one pair of trousers, but a rich man would give his wife several silk robes and silver ornaments. There were innumerable quarrels on the subject, especially when wives were divorced and their husbands tried to keep the clothes (which belonged rightly to the woman) and give them to the next wife. Daughters, among the Arabs, if they are sufficiently attractive, are a source of wealth to their parents, owing to the large amount of “marriage money” which they can demand, but in Siwa they bring in practically nothing. Marriage is not a binding institution. According to the Mohammedan law a wife can be divorced by her husband merely saying, “I divorce thee,” before two witnesses; he can do this twice, and after each time, if he changes his mind, he can order his wife to return to him, and she is compelled to do so. But if he says it three times, or if he says, “Thou art triply divorced,” it is irrevocable and he cannot get her back until she has been married to another man and divorced by him also. But such a contretemps rarely occurs.A BRIDE—THE DAUGHTER OE BASHU HABUN BEFORE HER WEDDINGIn Siwa a man marries, then divorces his wife as soon as he gets bored by her, and marries another. One man probably repudiates several dozen women in his lifetime, but each of them in her turn is hisregular, official and recognized wife. Polygamy is rare, in fact almost unknown, because when a man fancies a new wife he divorces his present one; owing to this there is very little promiscuous immorality, but the line between marriage and prostitution is very slender. A divorced woman does not lose caste, and in most cases she appears to have a better chance of marrying again than an unmarried girl. Men marry at sixteen, and girls from nine to twelve years old, so a girl of eleven has often been married and divorced several times. This state of things is simply the ordinary Mohammedan custom as regards marriage, but carried on in an absolutely lax manner. It has always been the same in Siwa, and so it is considered right and proper. It must be so confusing for the people to remember who is So-and-So’s wife for the time being. Naturally the prevailing conditions have a very disastrous effect on the birth-rate.A first-time marriage in the family of a sheikh or a rich notable is celebrated by festivities which last sometimes for several days. On the eve of the wedding, towards sunset time, the bride dresses in her richest clothes and accompanied by twenty or thirty girls walks through the gardens to a spring near the town called Tamousy. This spring is one of the oldest and most beautiful in Siwa. It is surrounded by stately palm trees and tropical vegetation; it is deep and very clear and the ancient masonry round it is still in excellent preservation. As the young bride and her attendants walk throughthe palm groves they chant a curious tune, a plaintive melody that sounds more like a dirge than a wedding song.“As from an infinitely distant landCome airs, and floating echoes, that conveyA melancholy into all our day.”The scene at the spring is very picturesque; the girls and women stand grouped round the water, their dark robes and silver ornaments reflected in its blue depths. Very solemnly the bride removes the large round, silver disc that hangs on a solid silver ring from her neck, which denotes that she is a virgin; she then bathes, puts on different clothes and has her hair plaited and scented by one of her friends. The procession then returns homewards. On the way they are met by another party of women, the relations of the bridegroom, who bring presents of money for the bride, each according to her means. An old woman collects the coins in a silk scarf, carefully noting the amount given by each individual, and the two parties return together, singing, through the palm-bordered paths to the town. These “virginity discs” are sometimes of great age, having been handed down from mother to daughter as heirlooms. Formerly they were always made of solid silver, but now they are often made of lead with a silver coating.One evening rather late I was bathing at Ein Tamousy, swimming round the spring without making much noise. Suddenly I looked up and saw a large crowd of girls—a wedding party—standing onthe path above. It was most awkward. I splashed loudly, but they were singing and talking so noisily that they did not hear. Eventually one of them saw me and screamed out that there was a jinn in the spring, whereupon the whole crowd fled shrieking into the gardens, leaving the bride’s wedding garment lying on the ground. I hastily slipped out, clutched my clothes and dressed hurriedly behind some palm trees, from whence I watched the party cautiously returning, one by one, to see whether the monster had disappeared.Meanwhile the bridegroom collects his friends and summons the Fiki; carpets are spread in the courtyard of his house, which is illuminated with candles and lanterns, and dishes of food are set before the guests. As soon as the marriage contract is settled each guest seizes as much food of any sort as he can possibly hold in his hand and crams it into his mouth; the more he eats the more he is supposed to show his friendship for the bridegroom. The usual tea generally follows. At midnight the bridegroom’s friends and relations—men, women and children—carrying lanterns and flaring torches, walk in procession through the narrow streets to the house of the bride and demand her from her father.On the return of the bride from her bath she is taken by her mother and hidden in an upper room of the house. When the bridegroom’s family have arrived they collect outside the door and call out, “Bring out the bride, the gallant groom awaits her.” The girl’s family answer, “We have lost her, we havelost her.” Then “Find her, the bridegroom is getting impatient,” and the answer is, “She is asleep, still sleeping.” Then the bridegroom’s family say, “Go, wake her, and bring her to her man.” Then the women of the bride’s house weep and scream, and there is a mock fight between the families. The men flourish their sticks and sometimes actually strike each other, but eventually the girl is produced and handed over to the bridegroom’s family by her father. The mock capture of the bride and the pretended resistance is possibly a survival of marriage by conquest, or possibly it is meant to denote excessive modesty on the part of the bride. If one inquires the reason the Siwans reply that it has been the custom “min zamaan,” and nobody is any the wiser.The bride wears her bridal gown, which is a long-sleeved robe of striped coloured silk and is weighed down with a quantity of silver ornaments, borrowed, if she has not enough of her own, from her friends; over this she wears a long woollen blanket entirely covering her, and she has a sword hung from her right shoulder. In this costume she rides on a led donkey to the house of the bridegroom, followed by the people of both families, singing and beating drums and cymbals. On arrival at the house she is received by an old woman, usually a Sudanese slave woman, who lifts her off the donkey, and with the assistance of others carries her across the threshold, up the stairs, into the bridal room, and lays her on the couch, taking care that the bride’s feet nevertouch the ground. The crowd remain below and are entertained by Zigale dancers, who are hired for the occasion. Later a sheep is killed at the entrance of the house, and the blood is smeared across the doorway in the Arab fashion; and if the family are wealthy several more sheep are roasted whole and a feast is made for the guests. Thursday is considered the most propitious day for a wedding, as the girl wakes up for the first time in her new home on a Friday, which is the Mohammedan Sunday.All this time the bridegroom remains in the background, taking no part in the doings. The old woman who received the bride brings her some dishes of food and a handful of wheat and salt, which she places beneath the pillow, where it remains for a week to keep away bad spirits and afreets who might otherwise be attracted to harm the newly married couple. Then the bridegroom arrives outside the door and knocks upon it, on which there follows a long conversation between him and the old woman. She calls out to him saying what a beautiful bride he has obtained, describing her as a young moon with eyes like a gazelle, cheeks like peach blossom and the figure of a swaying willow. After a high-flown eulogy the bridegroom inquires, “What is the girl worth?” to which the old woman replies, “Her weight in silver and gold—” which is queer when one remembers that she is actually worth £1 4s. The old woman then opens the door, and after receiving a present from the bridegroom retires and leaves themtogether. The bridegroom takes the sword from the girl and puts it under the mattress for use against jinns, takes off the blanket which entirely covers her, and then removes her right shoe and strikes her seven times on the foot with the palm of his hand. This is said to bring luck to the marriage. He stays with her for some time, but the marriage is not consummated until two days later. During this time the bridegroom leaves his house and spends his time in the gardens with one other man, who acts as a sort of best man.On the third day the presents from the girl’s family arrive: carved wooden chests, finely made baskets which have taken several months to complete, earthenware cooking pots and supplies of sugar and foodstuffs. The money which was given to the girl at the spring of Tamousy is counted again, and each of the donors is presented with some doves, rabbits or chickens, in proportion to the amount which they gave. Among the Arabs, and especially among the Berbers of the oases in southern Morocco, an excessive shyness and bashfulness exists between the bridegroom and his mother-in-law and all the bride’s near relations. This avoidance and aversion to the wife’s relatives may be another survival of the idea of marriage by conquest, but in Siwa one does not find it to such an extent as in other places. These festivities are only celebrated by the wealthier natives, and only when the girl is being married for the first time. Later marriages are quieter affairs, with nothing more than a little dancing, a freedistribution of “lubki” and perhaps one sheep cooked for the guests.When a Siwan dies his widow is expected to be “ghrula,” that is in mourning for a month and a half, but the custom has slackened now and most women marry again as soon as they get the chance. During the forty-five days the woman dresses in white and keeps to her house, only going out in the evening after sunset. She lives plainly, eating no meat and wearing no jewellery. On the last day of her seclusion the town-crier, accompanied by a boy beating a drum, announces in the town that the widow of So-and-So will proceed on the following morning to a certain spring, having completed her period of mourning. On the next morning a number of boys run through the streets calling out the same announcement and warning the people by what road she will pass, in order that they can keep to their houses and avoid seeing her. When she leaves her house some of her relations go up to the roof and again call out the warning. At noon the widow, with her hair hanging loose, her face uncovered, wearing a white robe and no ornaments, walks down to one of the springs and bathes there. Anybody who meets or sees her on the way is supposed to incur very bad luck indeed. After this Lady Godiva-like progress, she hurries back to her house, puts on her ordinary clothes, oils and dresses her hair and invites a number of her women friends to a feast. She then begins to hope for another husband.The town-crier is a venerable, white-beardedindividual whose family have held the post for many generations. It is his duty to announce any new regulations in the town, and to summon the populace to meetings or to work. When an announcement has been proclaimed on three consecutive days it is considered that everybody knows it, and if after this an order is infringed the excuse of ignorance is not entertained. The town-crier is a very necessary institution in a place where scarcely anybody can read, and public notices are therefore useless; his voice rivals the muezzin’s, and his drum corresponds to the bell of the old style English bellman.Funerals in Siwa are simple affairs. They generally take place in the early afternoon and are attended by almost everybody in the town. When a death occurs the women in the house raise the deathwail, which is taken up in piercing accents by the women in the other houses near, and then by the whole neighbourhood. It sounds appalling, especially when it starts suddenly in the night. The body is carried on a rough bier of olive wood, followed by a long procession, the relatives, the sheikhs and notables, usually riding on donkeys with umbrellas to shade them from the sun, and a nondescript crowd of women and men. As the procession passes through the streets the men chant a solemn dirge and the women swing their veils in the air, throwing dust on their heads, and every now and then joining in with shrill cries and wailings. On arrival at the cemetery the women sit down some distance apart, and the men proceed to the grave,reciting verses from the Koran. At twilight the women collect again before the door of the deceased’s house and continue the wailing, and afterwards the friends of the family are entertained at a funeral feast where they eat and praise the virtues of the dead person.
“——Faint sweetness from some oldEgyptian fine worm-eaten shroudWhich breaks to dust when once unrolled.”
“——Faint sweetness from some oldEgyptian fine worm-eaten shroudWhich breaks to dust when once unrolled.”
“——Faint sweetness from some oldEgyptian fine worm-eaten shroudWhich breaks to dust when once unrolled.”
“——Faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled.”
But on the whole Siwans strongly disapprove of interfering with the tombs, although they firmly believe that some of the hills near the town contain hidden treasure, more valuable
“Than all Bocara’s vaunted goldThan all the gems of Samarcand.”
“Than all Bocara’s vaunted goldThan all the gems of Samarcand.”
“Than all Bocara’s vaunted goldThan all the gems of Samarcand.”
“Than all Bocara’s vaunted gold
Than all the gems of Samarcand.”
All the more obvious places, such as the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, at Omm Beyda, have been thoroughly dug about, but after spending some time in the oasis one comes across various places that appear to be untouched—virgin soil for the excavator.
Behind the hill on which my house, Kasr Hassuna, was built there stood another great, isolated, limestone rock about 70 feet high with a circumference of about 400 yards. One evening, when I was climbing on this rock looking for a hawk’s nest, I came across the entrance of what I supposed to be a cave right at the top. I went in, but as I found that it stretched far into the rock I sent for my servants and an electric torch; then armed with this I pushed on into the darkness. There was a narrow tunnel about 5 feet high and 3 feet wide cut out of solid rock, and sloping downwards so steeply that in some places one could almost have sat down and tobogganed along. The tunnel, which was about 10 or 11 yards long, terminated at the mouth of a deep, dark shaft like a well, going straight down into the depths of the earth. I did no more exploring that day.
On the next morning some of the sheikhs, who had evidently heard of my discovery from the servants, told me the following story very solemnly. Many years ago, in the time of their grandfathers, Sheikh Hassuna, the owner of the kasr—castle—discovered, as I had, the tunnel in the rock. He naturally supposed that it was the entrance to a placeof hidden treasure, but he did not like the idea of going down the shaft himself, and he could find nobody else who would. There was at this time a very venerated Fiki in Siwa, and eventually Sheikh Hassuna persuaded him to make the first descent, in order that he might exorcise the jinns and make it safe for the sheikh to secure the treasure. The Fiki was lowered at the end of a rope, with a torch, a Koran and a supply of incense. A few seconds afterwards the people who were in the tunnel and looking into the pit were startled by a rushing of wings and a great cloud of black smoke, which was the jinns escaping from the place. When they hauled up the Fiki he told them the following tale. At the bottom of the pit there was a vast chamber hewn out of stone, and at one end of it there was an iron door. When the Fiki began to read from the Koran the door swung open and two terrible jinns passed out of it, escaped up the shaft, and another jinn, a female, with huge wings, appeared and ordered him to depart and to warn all others never to visit the place again. So since that day nobody in Siwa disturbed the genii of the hill. Finally, the sheikhs advised me, if I would go down, to take with me somebody who could read the Koran.
The same afternoon I called on an old Sudanese Fiki, called Haj Gabreen, and invited him to come exploring with me. He was a stalwart old Sudani about sixty years old, much respected by his compatriots of the Camel Corps and reputed skilful in doctoring and magic. He was decidedly nervous,but at length agreed to come, mainly, I suppose, owing to the audience of Camel Corps men who were listening. The affair was now, to my mind, patronized by the Church. I got a dozen of my stoutest men and a long rope. They lowered me down first, then a couple of men, followed by the Fiki who bumped from side to side with many groans and ejaculations of “Ya salaam”—“wallahi.” It was very disappointing. The shaft was about 25 feet deep, narrow at the top, but widening as it got lower. At the bottom there certainly was a sort of chamber cut out of the rock, but very roughly done; the floor of it was covered with a mass of loose stone and rubble which had evidently fallen in at some time, possibly during one of the earthquakes which are mentioned as occurring frequently at Siwa by the eighteenth-century travellers who visited the oasis. There was absolutely nothing in the shape of a door or a tomb, but one could not tell what there was further down as it was choked with loose stuff.
I had men working at it for several days, trying to clear out the debris, but there seemed to be no end to it, and as one had to haul up every basket of stone to the top and then pass it from hand to hand along the tunnel, the difficulty was very great. The atmosphere, too, was very close and hot. Eventually we came to some large pieces of detached rock which we were unable to raise, and as the work had no appreciable result I finally gave it up.
Some time afterwards I went to see the tombs of the kings at Thebes. My orderly, who had been atSiwa, was with me, and we were both struck by the similarity between the tombs of the kings and the underground place at Siwa, the latter of course being on a very small scale. Later, when I discovered that Siwa was at one time famous for its emerald mines, the idea suggested itself that this might have been an old mine. Unfortunately, not being an archæologist, I was unable to determine from the size and construction of the place whether it was likely to be a tomb or not. I afterwards discovered another passage, narrow but higher, cut into the outside of the rock about half-way down, apparently with the idea of tapping the shaft, but it only reached a few yards and then seemed to have been left uncompleted.
Haj Gabreen, the old Fiki who went down the shaft with me, evidently spread a very fantastic rumour of my discoveries, because after I left Siwa I got messages from the Governor inquiring whether I really had found an iron door in the middle of the hill.
There seemed to be an abnormally large number of old men in Siwa, as the climate is apparently conducive to old age. Siwans, like many other natives, are very vague about their own ages. Often if one asks them how old they are they reply, “Whatever age you would wish,” or sometimes, “The same age as your Excellency”—which they seem to consider a polite answer. Certainly most of the deaths that occur are those of young children or very old people. Considerable deference is paid to old age, although it may not always be accompanied by correspondingvirtue. When I was at Siwa the “Oldest Inhabitant” was a wrinkled old man called Haj Suliman, the grandfather of one of the principal merchants. He used to spend most of his time sitting outside his house gossiping to the passers-by, and I often stopped to talk to him. Unfortunately he was deaf and had no teeth, so conversation between us was not very brisk. He and his relations told me that he was 102 years old; he looked about 90, and could not have been less than 85. He used to tell me about his one and only visit to Cairo, some sixty years ago, on his way home from Mecca. He also remembered and described quite clearly the visit of a certain English traveller to Siwa in 1869.
One day I heard a great deal of noise in the neighbourhood of Haj Suliman’s house; on inquiry I was told that there was a “fantasia” going on, so I strolled over to see it. I found a number of dancers, music in the shape of drums and whistles, and free “lubki” being handed round. Carpets were spread in the courtyard and Haj Suliman, very gaily dressed, was receiving the company, surrounded by his sons and grandchildren. He looked very pleased with himself and invited me to drink tea, which I did. All the time he stood near, evidently expecting me to say something to him. Eventually I asked him why he was giving a “fantasia”—at which the whole family began talking and telling me that it was for a wedding. “But where is the bridegroom?” I asked, and Haj Suliman leant forward with a silly grin on his antique face. Then, to my amazement,they told me that the old gentleman himself was the bridegroom, this being his thirty-sixth wedding and the bride was 14 years old. I realized that he had been expecting my congratulations, so I offered them, as he was evidently not of the opinion that “crabbed age and youth cannot live together.” He died suddenly about eight months later, “a victim of connubiality.” I had seen him the day before in his garden working hard with an enormous iron hoe as big as a spade, which is much used in Siwa.
Another very old man in Siwa was an aged Sudani who sold a queer little collection of oddments in a corner of the market. At one time he had acted as postman for the Senussi between Siwa and Kufra. He told me, and I heard it besides from various sources, that he used to go alone to Kufra by a track across the sand-dunes south of Siwa. He was paid three pounds for each trip, but the danger was enormous; if his camel had strayed or fallen ill he would have been absolutely done for. Another queer old character was an old woman called Hanoui, who was at one time a secret agent and remarkably clever at acquiring information. She was also useful when one wanted to get baskets made.
The only real industry in Siwa, and it is not an important one, is the making of mats and basket work from palm fronds. Mats and large coarse hampers for carrying dates on camels are made by men. The mats are usually round, very strong, lasting and useful. The Arabs buy large quantitiesof them when they come down for dates in the autumn. The baskets are made entirely by women. They are manufactured from thin strips of palm leaves which become like raffia; sometimes they are coloured with dye, but the better kinds are ornamented with minute patterns of coloured silk worked into the sides, and decorated with tassels of variegated coloured silks and scarlet leather flaps in which to fasten cords for holding them.
The work is very fine indeed, so fine that in some cases the baskets will even hold water. They are made in various shapes, but generally round with a conical cover. Besides baskets they make dishes and platters with covers to them, which are used for carrying food and fruit. These baskets are exceedingly attractive and useful and command a high price in Cairo and in England. They are very light and can be made in “nests” of five or six, in order to be more easily conveyed. They are very distinctive and quite different to those that are made at Assuan, in Sinai, or the Sudan.
Siwan women also make a rough kind of pottery. They get the clay from a hill near Siwa, and another kind of clay which they make into paint from another place on the oasis. The pottery is all made by hand, not on a wheel, so it is very rough, but it acquires a good colour and a slight glaze. It is used for making bowls, dishes, pitchers and little braziers for a charcoal fire on which the kettle is kept hot when the Siwans make tea. These utensils are ornamented with rude patterns of a darker colour, the groundbeing generally yellow, or a reddish brown. I found that there was one old man in Siwa who was a professional toy-maker, which is an occupation that one rarely comes across among Mohammedans, all forms of statues or images being forbidden by the Koran as tending towards the worship of idols. But the Siwan children have dolls and toy animals, and they are very cleverly made, too. This old man made them chiefly of rags stuffed with sawdust, and they really compared very favourably with the “Teddy bears” and other monstrosities that one sees at home. Siwan children are queer little things, very solemn and not as lively as the small Sudanese. They start working at an early age, and before that they seem to spend most of their time dabbling about in the streams among the gardens. One difference that one notices between these small children and ones of the same age at home is that the former are not given to the tiresome habit of continually asking questions.
In trying to develop the basket-making industry one meets with many difficulties. The women are casual and lazy, so that it is almost impossible to ensure a definite supply of baskets by a certain date. The fact that the baskets are made only by women who live in strict seclusion is a great disadvantage, as one has to explain everything through a third person. Once as a great privilege I was allowed to see a woman at work on some baskets. She was the mother of one of the policemen, quite a venerable old thing, but for the occasion she sat swathed in a thickveil with only one eye showing, and thus with great difficulty she gave a demonstration of how baskets were made. I suggested several new shapes and patterns which she very quickly understood and taught to the others.
SIWA TOWN FROM THE SOUTH
SIWA TOWN FROM THE SOUTH
SIWA TOWN FROM THE SOUTH
With the bedouin women it is different. During the war, especially at the close of the Senussi operations, there was great destitution among the Arabs. Numbers of men who had served with the Senussi were killed, and many others retired over the frontier and never returned. Their wives and children were left unprovided for. As usual the English, against whom they had been fighting, turned and helped these refugees. Miss Baird, the daughter of the late Sir Alexander Baird, collected a number of these women and their children at Amria, in the desert west of Alexandria, and in conjunction with the F.D.A. started a carpet-making industry. She lived amongst them herself, superintended the work, and by degrees she acquired a wonderful influence over them. She became somewhat like Lady Hester Stanhope in the Lebanon, only her influence was not due to religious superstition. I once stopped at Amria on my way from Cairo to Sollum by camel in the early days of the industry, and I shall never forget my first impression of the four or five hundred wild bedouin women working away at the carpets like girls in a factory at home, absolutely controlled by one young Englishwoman right out in the desert. Miss Baird’s death in 1919 was a very great loss, but the work that she began is still being carried on bythe F.D.A., who have moved the factory from Amria and installed it in an imposing building at Behig, which is the headquarters of the Eastern District of the Western Desert.
One of the things that is noticeable at Siwa is the absence of flowers. Owing to there being no rain there is no sudden burst of vegetation in the spring, as there is along the coast. At certain times there is blossom in the gardens on the various trees—apples, almonds, pomegranates, lemons, etc.—and for a month or two there are roses and a very heavily scented flowering shrub called “tamar-el-hindi.” But one does not see the riot of colour that follows on the track of the rains. There are very few wild animals, too. In the neighbouring oases one sees gazelle and a few foxes, and in Siwa itself there are quantities of jackals. According to the natives an animal which they call “Bakhr wahash”—wild ox—is to be found at a place called Gagub, an uninhabited oasis, consisting of a salt lake surrounded by sterile palm trees, between Siwa and Jerabub. But when I went there I saw no signs of the creature. It is described as being the size of a donkey, of a yellowish brown colour, with two horns like a cow’s.
In Siwa there are very few domestic animals. None of the people keep camels, partly because they have no need for them, and partly owing to the presence of the “ghaffar” fly which inoculates camels and horses with a disease that shortens their life very considerably. For this reason one set of camels belonging to the F.D.A. remain permanentlyat Siwa in order to avoid spreading the disease among the camels on the coast. Almost every man in Siwa has a donkey, and some of the large landowners have thirty or forty. One meets them everywhere, in the streets trotting along under enormous loads, but carrying them apparently with the greatest ease. The Siwans rarely walk any distance, they always ride. The donkeys are stout little beasts and are better treated on the whole than in Egypt. They are imported by the Gawazi Arabs from Upper Egypt and the Fayum, via Farafra, the oasis of “Bubbling Springs,” which lies south-east of Siwa, but they breed freely in Siwa, and their diet of dry dates seems to suit them well.
Donkeys are also used as a threshing machine. When the barley is ripe it is cut and collected and spread out in a circle on a smooth, hard piece of ground. Ten or fifteen donkeys are harnessed abreast, in line, and driven round and round over the barley; when they wheel the innermost donkey moves very slowly, and the outer ones trot fast. In this way the corn is crushed out of the husks. Afterwards it is winnowed by the simple process of throwing it up into the air so that the straw blows away and leaves only grain. There are about a hundred cows in Siwa; they are small animals, about the size of a Jersey, but they give very good milk.
At certain times one sees quite a number of birds at Siwa, but they are mostly migratory. I have noticed crane, duck, flamingo and geese on the salt lakes; hawks, crows, ravens and owls among thecliffs; doves, pigeon, hoopoes, wagtails and several varieties of small singing birds in the gardens. Some of them nest in the oasis, and I collected about a dozen different kinds of eggs, but unfortunately they all got broken. There is one bird which is, I believe, indigenous to Siwa, it is known by the natives as “Haj Mawla.” It is about the size of a thrush, black with white feathers in its tail, and a very pretty song somewhat similar to the note of a robin.
Lately the Administration has installed lofts of carrier pigeons along the coast and at Siwa. On the coast they have been quite successful, but so far no pigeons have been trained to cross the desert. The hawks at Siwa are a serious menace to them, and quite a number have been killed. In former days the Libyan Desert produced ostriches. Browne, in 1792, mentions that he saw broken eggs and tracks of ostriches on his way to Siwa. But nowadays there are none. Many of the lions that were used in the arenas of Rome were brought from Libya, but these too are now extinct.
“So some fierce lion on the Libyan plain,Rolls its red eyes, and shakes its tawny mane.”
“So some fierce lion on the Libyan plain,Rolls its red eyes, and shakes its tawny mane.”
“So some fierce lion on the Libyan plain,Rolls its red eyes, and shakes its tawny mane.”
“So some fierce lion on the Libyan plain,
Rolls its red eyes, and shakes its tawny mane.”
But the Arabs who travel between the Sudan and Tripoli tell of a long wadi, with water and vegetation, north of Darfur, which takes three days to cross by camel, and this wadi, so they say, is full of wild animals—lions, tigers, giraffe, etc.—which have never been hunted.
Siwa is a bad place for snakes, scorpions and tarantulas. The cerestes, or horned viper, is verycommon, as well as several other poisonous species. One of the most deadly is a little light-coloured snake with a hard prong at the end of its tail like a scorpion, which lies half covered with sand. I also saw a specimen of the puff adder. My house seemed to be a favourite abode of snakes, which may possibly have been because I had a pigeon loft close to it. Several times I was awakened in the night by my dog barking in the room and found a big snake slithering along the floor, or underneath the edge of the matting. Three men were bitten by snakes while I was there and died as a result; in each case they had stepped on a snake with bare feet. Strabo relates that in these parts of Africa the workmen had to wear boots and rub garlic over their feet to protect themselves. The local cure, which seems quite ineffective, is to rub the powdered stems of a broombush on to the bite. Nothing will induce the natives to touch a snake, dead or alive, with their fingers, as they say the smell sticks to them and attracts other snakes. I was only once bitten by a scorpion, and unfortunately I was out on trek without a first-aid box. It was a large, blackish green scorpion, one of the worst kind, and it caught me on the end of one of my fingers. But my men knew what to do from previous experience. They tied my arm tightly at the elbow and the wrist with a tourniquet, and then cut several gashes with a razor blade across the finger which had been bitten. It was very painful during the night, and I had a good deal of fever, but I was none the worse for it after a couple of days. The cure for a scorpion biteis a powder made from a snake’s tail, cooked and pounded, and a few of the natives specialize in making this powder.
There are no snake charmers in Siwa, and I have seen none anywhere on the Western Desert. In Egypt one meets many, the most famous perhaps is a man at Luxor. I saw him perform a few days before I left Egypt, and I was most impressed by his exhibition. One evening, without any warning, I took him out with me to a place near Karnak, having first examined him and satisfied myself that he had no snakes hidden about his clothes. In about a quarter of an hour he discovered seven or eight snakes. He used no whistle, but walked about in a very small area muttering to himself, stopping dead every now and then in front of a stone or a bush, thrusting his hand into it and withdrawing it clasping a writhing lively snake. Several of the snakes were known to me as being venomous. He took two of these, one by one, held them to his wrist, and let them bite him so that when he pulled them off his flesh they left blood on his hand. Anybody else would have suffered severely, and would probably have died, but the snake charmer was immune. His father and his grandfather had practised the same trade before him, and according to him they had neither of them suffered in any way by their profession.
CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
“. . . Tell the laughing worldOf what these wonder-working charms are made. . . .Fern root cut small, and tied with many a knot,Old teeth extracted from a white man’s skull.A lizard’s skeleton, a serpent’s head:. . . O’er these the leachMutters strange jargons and wild circles forms.”“Custom is King, nay tyrant, in primitive society.”
“. . . Tell the laughing worldOf what these wonder-working charms are made. . . .Fern root cut small, and tied with many a knot,Old teeth extracted from a white man’s skull.A lizard’s skeleton, a serpent’s head:. . . O’er these the leachMutters strange jargons and wild circles forms.”“Custom is King, nay tyrant, in primitive society.”
“. . . Tell the laughing worldOf what these wonder-working charms are made. . . .Fern root cut small, and tied with many a knot,Old teeth extracted from a white man’s skull.A lizard’s skeleton, a serpent’s head:. . . O’er these the leachMutters strange jargons and wild circles forms.”“Custom is King, nay tyrant, in primitive society.”
“. . . Tell the laughing world
Of what these wonder-working charms are made. . . .
Fern root cut small, and tied with many a knot,
Old teeth extracted from a white man’s skull.
A lizard’s skeleton, a serpent’s head:
. . . O’er these the leach
Mutters strange jargons and wild circles forms.”
“Custom is King, nay tyrant, in primitive society.”
AFTER being some time at Siwa one cannot help noticing how very much the life of the people is influenced by their belief in superstitions and magic arts. To every ordinary accident or natural phenomenon they seem to attach a supernatural explanation, and they constantly carry out little rites, which have no apparent purpose, whose origin and reason they do not know, but which they explain has been the custom “min zamaan.” To believe, as they do, without knowing, is the grossest form of superstition. They have a number of purely local customs and practices which are entirely different to those which are prevalent in Egypt, or among the Arabs of the Western Desert. The Siwans are Mohammedans, and strictly religious in most of their observances, but in some of their habits one can trace a faint resemblance to rites thathave survived from former times, long before the people adopted their present religion. But most of the apparently meaningless practices are founded on the inherent fear of evil spirits, which are implicitly believed in by all the inhabitants.
These fabulous beings are of many kinds, and have various characteristics; there are jinns, in whose veins runs fire instead of blood, who once inhabited the earth, but sinned and were driven away by the angels of God; Sheytans, who are children of Iblis, the Devil; Afreets, Marids; and Ghouls, who are female demons and live among deserts and graveyards, assuming various forms and luring men to death. These creatures are usually found in caves, tombs, wells, empty houses, latrines, and at cross roads. Sometimes they assume the shapes of men and sometimes they appear in the forms of domestic animals; in Siwa they are said to favour most the disguise of a cow.
Among the most ignorant natives one meets with a decided reluctance to discuss things that are supernatural, but the more educated men are willing to speak of them. As in all countries the lower classes are the most credulous. For instance, in the case of certain old women who are reputed to be witches, the poor people avowedly believe in them, while the upper classes pretend not to; but when there is a birth or a wedding in the family of a sheikh, or a notable, they send presents to these old women saying that it is merely charity, although at heart they consider it safer to propitiate them in order toavert possible misfortune. It is rather like the lady in church who always bowed at the name of the Devil, because she thought it safer to be on the right side!
The difference between the customs and superstitions of the Siwans and those of the Arabs on the desert which surrounds them is due to the fact that the former are of Berber origin. Their whole system of living is different, too. The Siwans are town dwellers whose dominant principle has been a sort of communism, whereas the Arabs are nomads, who adopted patriarchalism as their method of rule. The Siwans fought on foot, the Arabs were essentially cavalry. There are sheikhs in Siwa, but they are more like the members of a town council, while the real Arab sheikh corresponds to the feudal lord of the Middle Ages. It is strange to find the Siwans, with such a definite, different scheme of living, existing in the midst of a desert whose Arab population regards them almost as foreigners.
Two distinct kinds of magic are practised in Siwa, Divine magic, or white magic, and Satanic, or black magic, black being considered the Devil’s colour. Certain old men and Fikis (readers of the Koran in the mosques) are supposed to have particular gifts in telling fortunes, compounding medicines and composing charms against evil, especially against the much dreaded Evil Eye. They work with the aid of the Koran, and by reciting long prayers and the names of Allah. This is legitimate magic. These men are conspicuously regular in their attendanceat the mosques, and their power is attributed to their peculiar goodness. Women are considered by Mohammedans, and particularly by Siwans, to be by nature more wicked than men. One Arab writer speaks of woman as “The Devil’s Arrow,” and another says, “—I stood at the gates of hell and lo, most of its inmates were women.” Even in theThousand and One Nightsone reads:
“Verily women are devils created for us, they are the source of all the misfortunes that have occurred among mankind, in the affairs of the world and religion—”
“Verily women are devils created for us, they are the source of all the misfortunes that have occurred among mankind, in the affairs of the world and religion—”
“Verily women are devils created for us, they are the source of all the misfortunes that have occurred among mankind, in the affairs of the world and religion—”
“Verily women are devils created for us, they are the source of all the misfortunes that have occurred among mankind, in the affairs of the world and religion—”
“Verily women are treacherous to everyone near and distant:With their fingers dyed with henna: with their hair arranged in plaits:With their eyebrows painted with kohl; they make one drink of sorrow;”
“Verily women are treacherous to everyone near and distant:With their fingers dyed with henna: with their hair arranged in plaits:With their eyebrows painted with kohl; they make one drink of sorrow;”
“Verily women are treacherous to everyone near and distant:With their fingers dyed with henna: with their hair arranged in plaits:With their eyebrows painted with kohl; they make one drink of sorrow;”
“Verily women are treacherous to everyone near and distant:
With their fingers dyed with henna: with their hair arranged in plaits:
With their eyebrows painted with kohl; they make one drink of sorrow;”
This is the reason that any skill that the Siwan women possess in medicine, making amulets, or tracing lost property, is, as a matter of course, ascribed to their evil practices and their use of black magic, whereby they are able to invoke demons, ghools and afreets to carry out their orders, either for good or for evil. For this reason they keep their doings as secret as possible, and this secrecy increases their notoriety and evil reputation. But as their methods are said to be usually successful they are patronized as much, or even more, than the men, especially by their own sex. So there is quite a lively rivalry between Fikis, or wizards, and the wise women, or witches.
Siwan women, owing to their precarious position as wives, are not fond of bearing children. Many ofthem use medicines, made from certain plants and herbs that grow in the oasis, to prevent childbirth. Browne mentions, as far back as 1792, that it was a common practice at Siwa for women to take their newly born infants, probably girls, up to the top of the walls and throw them over the battlements. There was one case of child murder reported while I was living there. Siwan women are not as hardy as Sudanese or Arab women, and the Egyptian doctor is of course never allowed to attend them for births. Women are looked after by the Siwan midwives, old women who have considerable practical experience, but make up for medical ignorance by a vast knowledge of amazingly futile superstitions. As a result quite a number of children die at birth. It was suggested that a Siwan woman should be sent to Cairo and be trained in a hospital; after much difficulty a suitable woman was found who was brave enough to be the first Siwan woman to leave the oasis, but unfortunately the proposition was never carried through.
When the birth of a child occurs in the family of one of the sheikhs or notables it is celebrated with great rejoicings, especially if the baby is a boy, as there is an enormous superfluity of women in Siwa. On the seventh day after the birth all the female friends and relations of the mother come to the house to congratulate her, bringing their own children with them. She receives them with the child and the midwife, herself lying on the bare floor. It is the custom for all women, even the wives of the richest sheikhs,who occasionally have an old brass bedstead in their room, to sleep on the floor for ten days after giving birth to a child. A meal is provided for the guests—sweets, cakes, fruits, Arab tea, and a curious sort of edible clay which is brought from near Jerabub. This clay is a yellowish colour, tasting very like a mushroom, and is always eaten by Siwan, and sometimes by Arab, women when they are expecting a child. But the essential necessity at this meal is fish, which in a place that is 200 miles from the sea, and where there are no fresh-water fish of eatable size, is somewhat difficult to obtain. However, the merchants make a special point of bringing a species of salted fish from Cairo, which by the time it arrives at Siwa can be smelt from several streets away. This delicacy is thechef d’œuvreat birthday parties. It is curious that the Arabs on the coast, who could catch fresh fish, have the strongest abhorrence to eating fish of any kind. The practice at Siwa was inaugurated by the mother of Sidi Suliman, the patron sheikh, on the birth of her son.
If the child is a boy the father decides on his name, but in the case of a girl the mother is sponsor. After the meal everybody looks at the child and congratulates the mother. Then the midwife, who is generally a toothless, dirty old hag, mixes some henna and paints the cheeks of all the children with a red stripe, and they run out into the streets and markets calling out the names of the child. The women remain. A large, round, earthenware bowl, specially made for the occasion, is then brought in and filled with water.Each woman throws into it her bracelets and silver ornaments. They stand in a circle holding the bowl while the midwife recites the name of the child, and the others repeat phrases, such as, “May he be happy—may he be favoured by Allah—may Allah avert all evil from him.” Then they solemnly raise the bowl several times in the air and let it drop to the ground; the bowl smashes into atoms, the water splashes over the floor, the bracelets and bangles roll along the ground, and the child screams loudly with fright. At this all afreets and jinns take flight, and the newly born child is blessed with fortune and riches. Afterwards the women collect their jewellery and return to their homes. Young children are not washed or kept clean; they are deliberately made to look as unattractive as possible, at an early age, in order not to tempt Providence. The Siwans dislike people to admire their belongings, especially their children, who are considered most susceptible to the Evil Eye, as it is thought that nothing can be more valuable than one’s offspring.
The status of a woman in Siwa is low. She is worth less, and is of less importance, than a donkey. She is worth, in money, a little less than a goat. There is a strange custom in Siwa which is absolutely different to that among the Arabs or the Egyptians. There is a fixed price for a woman; that is to say, the “marriage money” paid by the man to his future wife’s parents is in all cases exactly the same—120 piastres (£1 4s.). It makes no difference whether the girl is young or old, maid or widow, rich or poor,exquisitely beautiful, which is rare, or hideously ugly, which is common; the only thing that varies is the trousseau of clothes which is given by the man to his bride, and the quality of this depends on his means. The present of a poor man would be one gown, one silk handkerchief, one shawl and one pair of trousers, but a rich man would give his wife several silk robes and silver ornaments. There were innumerable quarrels on the subject, especially when wives were divorced and their husbands tried to keep the clothes (which belonged rightly to the woman) and give them to the next wife. Daughters, among the Arabs, if they are sufficiently attractive, are a source of wealth to their parents, owing to the large amount of “marriage money” which they can demand, but in Siwa they bring in practically nothing. Marriage is not a binding institution. According to the Mohammedan law a wife can be divorced by her husband merely saying, “I divorce thee,” before two witnesses; he can do this twice, and after each time, if he changes his mind, he can order his wife to return to him, and she is compelled to do so. But if he says it three times, or if he says, “Thou art triply divorced,” it is irrevocable and he cannot get her back until she has been married to another man and divorced by him also. But such a contretemps rarely occurs.
A BRIDE—THE DAUGHTER OE BASHU HABUN BEFORE HER WEDDING
A BRIDE—THE DAUGHTER OE BASHU HABUN BEFORE HER WEDDING
A BRIDE—THE DAUGHTER OE BASHU HABUN BEFORE HER WEDDING
In Siwa a man marries, then divorces his wife as soon as he gets bored by her, and marries another. One man probably repudiates several dozen women in his lifetime, but each of them in her turn is hisregular, official and recognized wife. Polygamy is rare, in fact almost unknown, because when a man fancies a new wife he divorces his present one; owing to this there is very little promiscuous immorality, but the line between marriage and prostitution is very slender. A divorced woman does not lose caste, and in most cases she appears to have a better chance of marrying again than an unmarried girl. Men marry at sixteen, and girls from nine to twelve years old, so a girl of eleven has often been married and divorced several times. This state of things is simply the ordinary Mohammedan custom as regards marriage, but carried on in an absolutely lax manner. It has always been the same in Siwa, and so it is considered right and proper. It must be so confusing for the people to remember who is So-and-So’s wife for the time being. Naturally the prevailing conditions have a very disastrous effect on the birth-rate.
A first-time marriage in the family of a sheikh or a rich notable is celebrated by festivities which last sometimes for several days. On the eve of the wedding, towards sunset time, the bride dresses in her richest clothes and accompanied by twenty or thirty girls walks through the gardens to a spring near the town called Tamousy. This spring is one of the oldest and most beautiful in Siwa. It is surrounded by stately palm trees and tropical vegetation; it is deep and very clear and the ancient masonry round it is still in excellent preservation. As the young bride and her attendants walk throughthe palm groves they chant a curious tune, a plaintive melody that sounds more like a dirge than a wedding song.
“As from an infinitely distant landCome airs, and floating echoes, that conveyA melancholy into all our day.”
“As from an infinitely distant landCome airs, and floating echoes, that conveyA melancholy into all our day.”
“As from an infinitely distant landCome airs, and floating echoes, that conveyA melancholy into all our day.”
“As from an infinitely distant land
Come airs, and floating echoes, that convey
A melancholy into all our day.”
The scene at the spring is very picturesque; the girls and women stand grouped round the water, their dark robes and silver ornaments reflected in its blue depths. Very solemnly the bride removes the large round, silver disc that hangs on a solid silver ring from her neck, which denotes that she is a virgin; she then bathes, puts on different clothes and has her hair plaited and scented by one of her friends. The procession then returns homewards. On the way they are met by another party of women, the relations of the bridegroom, who bring presents of money for the bride, each according to her means. An old woman collects the coins in a silk scarf, carefully noting the amount given by each individual, and the two parties return together, singing, through the palm-bordered paths to the town. These “virginity discs” are sometimes of great age, having been handed down from mother to daughter as heirlooms. Formerly they were always made of solid silver, but now they are often made of lead with a silver coating.
One evening rather late I was bathing at Ein Tamousy, swimming round the spring without making much noise. Suddenly I looked up and saw a large crowd of girls—a wedding party—standing onthe path above. It was most awkward. I splashed loudly, but they were singing and talking so noisily that they did not hear. Eventually one of them saw me and screamed out that there was a jinn in the spring, whereupon the whole crowd fled shrieking into the gardens, leaving the bride’s wedding garment lying on the ground. I hastily slipped out, clutched my clothes and dressed hurriedly behind some palm trees, from whence I watched the party cautiously returning, one by one, to see whether the monster had disappeared.
Meanwhile the bridegroom collects his friends and summons the Fiki; carpets are spread in the courtyard of his house, which is illuminated with candles and lanterns, and dishes of food are set before the guests. As soon as the marriage contract is settled each guest seizes as much food of any sort as he can possibly hold in his hand and crams it into his mouth; the more he eats the more he is supposed to show his friendship for the bridegroom. The usual tea generally follows. At midnight the bridegroom’s friends and relations—men, women and children—carrying lanterns and flaring torches, walk in procession through the narrow streets to the house of the bride and demand her from her father.
On the return of the bride from her bath she is taken by her mother and hidden in an upper room of the house. When the bridegroom’s family have arrived they collect outside the door and call out, “Bring out the bride, the gallant groom awaits her.” The girl’s family answer, “We have lost her, we havelost her.” Then “Find her, the bridegroom is getting impatient,” and the answer is, “She is asleep, still sleeping.” Then the bridegroom’s family say, “Go, wake her, and bring her to her man.” Then the women of the bride’s house weep and scream, and there is a mock fight between the families. The men flourish their sticks and sometimes actually strike each other, but eventually the girl is produced and handed over to the bridegroom’s family by her father. The mock capture of the bride and the pretended resistance is possibly a survival of marriage by conquest, or possibly it is meant to denote excessive modesty on the part of the bride. If one inquires the reason the Siwans reply that it has been the custom “min zamaan,” and nobody is any the wiser.
The bride wears her bridal gown, which is a long-sleeved robe of striped coloured silk and is weighed down with a quantity of silver ornaments, borrowed, if she has not enough of her own, from her friends; over this she wears a long woollen blanket entirely covering her, and she has a sword hung from her right shoulder. In this costume she rides on a led donkey to the house of the bridegroom, followed by the people of both families, singing and beating drums and cymbals. On arrival at the house she is received by an old woman, usually a Sudanese slave woman, who lifts her off the donkey, and with the assistance of others carries her across the threshold, up the stairs, into the bridal room, and lays her on the couch, taking care that the bride’s feet nevertouch the ground. The crowd remain below and are entertained by Zigale dancers, who are hired for the occasion. Later a sheep is killed at the entrance of the house, and the blood is smeared across the doorway in the Arab fashion; and if the family are wealthy several more sheep are roasted whole and a feast is made for the guests. Thursday is considered the most propitious day for a wedding, as the girl wakes up for the first time in her new home on a Friday, which is the Mohammedan Sunday.
All this time the bridegroom remains in the background, taking no part in the doings. The old woman who received the bride brings her some dishes of food and a handful of wheat and salt, which she places beneath the pillow, where it remains for a week to keep away bad spirits and afreets who might otherwise be attracted to harm the newly married couple. Then the bridegroom arrives outside the door and knocks upon it, on which there follows a long conversation between him and the old woman. She calls out to him saying what a beautiful bride he has obtained, describing her as a young moon with eyes like a gazelle, cheeks like peach blossom and the figure of a swaying willow. After a high-flown eulogy the bridegroom inquires, “What is the girl worth?” to which the old woman replies, “Her weight in silver and gold—” which is queer when one remembers that she is actually worth £1 4s. The old woman then opens the door, and after receiving a present from the bridegroom retires and leaves themtogether. The bridegroom takes the sword from the girl and puts it under the mattress for use against jinns, takes off the blanket which entirely covers her, and then removes her right shoe and strikes her seven times on the foot with the palm of his hand. This is said to bring luck to the marriage. He stays with her for some time, but the marriage is not consummated until two days later. During this time the bridegroom leaves his house and spends his time in the gardens with one other man, who acts as a sort of best man.
On the third day the presents from the girl’s family arrive: carved wooden chests, finely made baskets which have taken several months to complete, earthenware cooking pots and supplies of sugar and foodstuffs. The money which was given to the girl at the spring of Tamousy is counted again, and each of the donors is presented with some doves, rabbits or chickens, in proportion to the amount which they gave. Among the Arabs, and especially among the Berbers of the oases in southern Morocco, an excessive shyness and bashfulness exists between the bridegroom and his mother-in-law and all the bride’s near relations. This avoidance and aversion to the wife’s relatives may be another survival of the idea of marriage by conquest, but in Siwa one does not find it to such an extent as in other places. These festivities are only celebrated by the wealthier natives, and only when the girl is being married for the first time. Later marriages are quieter affairs, with nothing more than a little dancing, a freedistribution of “lubki” and perhaps one sheep cooked for the guests.
When a Siwan dies his widow is expected to be “ghrula,” that is in mourning for a month and a half, but the custom has slackened now and most women marry again as soon as they get the chance. During the forty-five days the woman dresses in white and keeps to her house, only going out in the evening after sunset. She lives plainly, eating no meat and wearing no jewellery. On the last day of her seclusion the town-crier, accompanied by a boy beating a drum, announces in the town that the widow of So-and-So will proceed on the following morning to a certain spring, having completed her period of mourning. On the next morning a number of boys run through the streets calling out the same announcement and warning the people by what road she will pass, in order that they can keep to their houses and avoid seeing her. When she leaves her house some of her relations go up to the roof and again call out the warning. At noon the widow, with her hair hanging loose, her face uncovered, wearing a white robe and no ornaments, walks down to one of the springs and bathes there. Anybody who meets or sees her on the way is supposed to incur very bad luck indeed. After this Lady Godiva-like progress, she hurries back to her house, puts on her ordinary clothes, oils and dresses her hair and invites a number of her women friends to a feast. She then begins to hope for another husband.
The town-crier is a venerable, white-beardedindividual whose family have held the post for many generations. It is his duty to announce any new regulations in the town, and to summon the populace to meetings or to work. When an announcement has been proclaimed on three consecutive days it is considered that everybody knows it, and if after this an order is infringed the excuse of ignorance is not entertained. The town-crier is a very necessary institution in a place where scarcely anybody can read, and public notices are therefore useless; his voice rivals the muezzin’s, and his drum corresponds to the bell of the old style English bellman.
Funerals in Siwa are simple affairs. They generally take place in the early afternoon and are attended by almost everybody in the town. When a death occurs the women in the house raise the deathwail, which is taken up in piercing accents by the women in the other houses near, and then by the whole neighbourhood. It sounds appalling, especially when it starts suddenly in the night. The body is carried on a rough bier of olive wood, followed by a long procession, the relatives, the sheikhs and notables, usually riding on donkeys with umbrellas to shade them from the sun, and a nondescript crowd of women and men. As the procession passes through the streets the men chant a solemn dirge and the women swing their veils in the air, throwing dust on their heads, and every now and then joining in with shrill cries and wailings. On arrival at the cemetery the women sit down some distance apart, and the men proceed to the grave,reciting verses from the Koran. At twilight the women collect again before the door of the deceased’s house and continue the wailing, and afterwards the friends of the family are entertained at a funeral feast where they eat and praise the virtues of the dead person.