SIWA
[Illustration: THE WALLS OF SIWA]
SIWA
THE OASIS OF JUPITER AMMON
BY C. DALRYMPLE BELGRAVE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
GENERAL SIR REGINALD WINGATE
BART., G.C.B., ETC. ETC. ILLUSTRATED
WITH SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THE AUTHOR
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD.
LONDON: VIGO STREET, W. 1
_First Published in 1923_
Printed in Great Britain at
_The Mayflower Press, Plymouth_. William Brendon & Son, Ltd.
TO
MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE COAST
Siwa — Whereabouts — The ex-Khedive and Germans — The
ancient Libyans — The coastal belt — The Mariut Railway
— Mersa Matruh — The Bay — Antony and Cleopatra — Greek
Traders — Motor Maniacs — Sponge fishers — From Matruh to
Sollum — Barrani and Bagbag — Sollum Bay — Western Desert
Arabs, characteristics, tents, carpets, appearance, marriage
customs, women — An Arab meal — “Gold tooth” — Buried
money — Horses — Hawking — Silugi hounds — Hunting —
Shooting — The Scarp — Flowers — The Rains — Houses —
The Cruiser _Abdel Moneim_ — A tripper 1
CHAPTER II
THE DESERT
The Frontier Districts Administration — The Camel Corps —
Harimat — Story of a stove — The Booza Camp — The men —
Diary of trek from Sollum to Siwa — Departure — Augerin,
a Roman cistern — Bir Hamed — A desert dance — Ascent
of Scarp — Qur el Beid — Camel riding — Evening on the
desert — Camp — Utter desert — Mud pans — Mirage —
“Khuz” bread — Desert tracks — Bisharin trackers —
Night marching — A caravan — “The country of Dogs” —
Among the ravines — The Megahiz Spring — Siwa — District
Officer’s House — “Taking over” wives — A typical day
— Siwan manners — The Sheikhs — The staff — View from
Siwa — Aghourmi village — A slave woman — A rifle raid 37
CHAPTER III
THE HISTORY OF SIWA
FIRST PERIOD. THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER AMMON
The Siwan Deity — A local religion — Legendary origin of
the God — Herodotus — The Kingdom of the Ammonians —
Lysander’s visit — Cambyses — A lost army — Cimon’s
death foretold — The “Fountain of the Sun” — The temples
— The King’s court — The temple to-day — Alexander visits
Siwa — His adventures on the way — Ritual of the temple —
Decline of its fame — Strabo’s theory — The Romans —
Christianity 74
SECOND PERIOD. MEDIÆVAL SIWA
Arab invasion of Egypt — Attempts to subjugate the oasis —
Arab historians — The marvels of Siwa — Hidden cities —
Emerald mines — Siwans become Mohammedans — King Rashwan
— “The Thirty” — Sidi Suliman — Legends about him —
Style of living — Quarrel between east and west — Civil wars
— Recent disturbance — Browne at Siwa — Hornemann 89
THIRD PERIOD. THE TURKISH RULE
Invasion of Siwa — Hassein Bey — Colonel Butin — Ali Balli,
the Omda — Hamilton at Siwa, his imprisonment — Punitive
expedition — Death of Yousif Ali — Turkish mamurs — A
desert firebrand — “The Widow’s War” — Osman Habun
— Abdel Arti, smuggler — Death of “The Habun” 102
FOURTH PERIOD. SIWA AND THE WAR
The Italians in Tripoli — German intrigues — The Senussi
confraternity — Mohammed el Senussi, his life at Siwa — Caves
of the Kasr Hassuna — Growth of the Senussi — Mohammed el
Mahdi — Sayed Ahmed — The situation in 1915 — Evacuation
of Sollum — Capture of the crew of the _Tara_ — Matruh —
Battle on Christmas Day — Wadi Majid — Battle of Agagia and
occupation of Barrani — Sayed Ahmed at Siwa — Occupation
of Sollum — Sayed Ahmed goes to Dakhla and back — Siwans
revolt — Battle of Girba — Occupation of Siwa — Rescue
of _Tara_ crew by Duke of Westminster — Sayed Ahmed retires
to Constantinople 117
CHAPTER IV
SIWA TOWN
The town — Architecture — Wells — Custom of whitewash —
Date Markets — Mosques — School — Shops — Interior of
houses — The Roofs — “Dululas” — The Siwan race —
Men — Women — Appearance — Clothes — Religious sects —
Springs, gardens, irrigation, water rights — Salt lakes —
Fever — Spring cleaning — “Sultan Mousa” — A luncheon
party — The ceremony of tea — Appetites — Dog eaters —
Life of an Englishman in Siwa — Two “cases” — Women
witnesses — Bakshish 133
CHAPTER V
SUBURBAN OASES
Zeitoun and Kareished — The oasis of Gara — The village —
The curse of Sheikh Abdel Sayed — A legend of Gara — The
Mejberry pass — El Areg and Bahrein — The Arabs of Maragi
— The northern oases — Jerabub — Sheikh Ithneini and his
treasures — _Terra incognita_ — Kufra — Excavating in
Siwa — The “Oldest Inhabitant” his wedding — Industries,
baskets, mats, and earthenware — The “Bedouin Industries”
— Animals and birds — Snakes, snake charming 177
CHAPTER VI
CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
Belief in Superstitions — Divine and Satanic magic — Demons
— A birthday — Naming the child — Women — Marriage and
divorce — A wedding, the bride’s bath, fetching the bride,
presents — “Ghrula,” customs of a widow — The Town Crier
— Funerals — Cemeteries — Evil Eye, charms to avert the
curse — A visit to a witch — Methods used to obtain a husband
— Invoking demons — Discovering stolen property — Exposing
a thief — Divination and fortune telling — Sacrificing a bull
— The Pilgrimage, rolling the bangles, to ensure a safe journey
— “Yom el Asher,” the children’s “Christmas” 207
CHAPTER VII
“FANTASIAS”
Social life in Siwa — Games — “Lubki” drinkers — Giving
alms to the poor — Sheikhs in fiction and in fact — “Beit
el Mal” — Ramadan, the Mohammedan Lent — The Mulid of Sidi
Suliman — Paying calls — Etiquette of eating — The religious
dance of the Medinia — The “Zikr” — Bacchanalian revels
— Siwan music and singing — Women dancers 239
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Walls of Siwa Frontispiece
Col. The Honble. M. G. Talbot, C.B.; Sheikh
Idris el Senussi; and The Idrisi of Luxor to face foreword
The Author „ page 2
A Falconer outside a Bedouin Camp „ „ 26
Silugi Hounds „ „ 30
Camel Corps „ „ 44
Camel Corps trekking to Siwa, near Megahiz Pass „ „ 58
Sheikh Mahdi Abdel Nebi, of Aghourmi, with his
Daughter and Cousin „ „ 70
Ruins of “Omm Beyda,” The Temple of Jupiter
Ammon „ „ 86
The Citadel and Mosque of El Atik „ „ 98
Gate into the Western Quarter „ „ 112
“Kasr Hassuna,” The District Officer’s House „ „ 120
Sheikh Mohammed Idris, the Chief of the Senussi „ „ 132
The Western Quarter from an Eastern Roof „ „ 144
Cleaning Tamousy Spring „ „ 160
In the Western Quarter „ „ 176
The Spring of Zeitoun „ „ 178
Siwa Town from the South „ „ 200
A Bride — The Daughter of Bashu Habun before
her Wedding „ „ 214
The Town-Crier’s Daughter „ „ 222
A Little Siwan Girl „ „ 238
A “Fantasia” at the tomb of Sidi Suliman „ „ 252
Map.
[Illustration: COL. THE HONBLE. M. G. TALBOT, C.B.; SHEIKH IDRIS EL
SENUSSI; AND THE IDRISI OF LUXOR]
FOREWORD
KNOCKENHAIR,
DUNBAR,
_2nd November_, 1922.
DEAR MR. BELGRAVE,
When you begged me to write a “Foreword” for your first book
on Siwa, you asked me if I remembered you as a Junior Officer in
the British Camel Company at Khartoum in the early days of the
Great War—and later in the Camel Corps of the Frontier Districts
Administration of Egypt. My answer is that I remember you well in
both capacities, and I have a very happy recollection of the excellent
services rendered by both the units in which you served. The appearance
of British soldiers patrolling on camels up the White and Blue Niles
had the best possible effect in cementing and consolidating the
good relations existing between the Sudanese populations and our
troops and confirming that spirit of loyalty and goodwill which,
throughout the war, characterized the once fanatical Dervishes of
Mahdist times—a truly marvellous transformation which had changed
them from a fierce and ruthless enemy into loyal and brave soldiers
and peaceful inhabitants, who were enabled to render the British
cause wholehearted and ready support at a most critical period of
our history.
Your transfer to the Frontier Districts Administration of Egypt also
interests me, for it may not be known to you that one of the first
reforms I instituted on my own transfer from the Governor-Generalship
of the Sudan to the High Commissionership of Egypt at the end of
1916 was the organization of the new Administration to which you
were appointed.
Before our reconquest of the Sudan I had, as Director of Military
Intelligence in Egypt, some connection with the oases of the
Libyan Desert and the activities of the Senussi, as well as with the
government of the Sinai Peninsula. In those early days of the British
occupation of Egypt, Turkish rule prevailed in Tripoli, and the actual
frontier between that province and Egypt was often in dispute—whilst
a somewhat similar condition existed on Egypt’s eastern frontier in
Sinai. It was thought politically desirable at that time to maintain
the _status quo_ and to avoid trouble with the Turkish authorities
to whom Egypt still owed a nominal Suzerainty—that this was not
always feasible is evidenced by the celebrated “Akaba incident”
which at one time threatened to disturb the peace between the two
countries. The preservation of the _status quo_ to which I refer,
meant the maintenance on the extreme eastern and western frontiers
of Egypt of the purely Egyptian administrative control which, owing
to the almost total absence of supervision, was of the lightest and
could hardly be designated as efficient. The necessity of inaugurating
some improvement in both directions had frequently been mooted,
but it was not until the advent of the Great War and the military
operations against the Turks in Sinai, on the one hand, and against
the Senussi invasion of Egypt, on the other, that the long-postponed
reorganization became possible. By that time Italian had given
place to Turkish control in Tripoli, whilst it was also evident that
Palestine and Arabia were no longer to remain an integral portion of
the Turkish Empire.
These facts made it very desirable to establish a closer Administrative
Control in both directions, and it is to me a matter of great
satisfaction that an organization known as the Frontiers District
Administration materialized, under the able direction of Colonel
G. G. Hunter and his efficient staff of British and Egyptian officers
and officials, with its well-equipped Camel Corps, its patrolling
system, and its more intimate and sympathetic government of the
oases and of the somewhat unruly nomad tribes on both western and
eastern frontiers.
The mere fact that you, as one of these District Officers, have
been resident for nearly two years in the important, though remote
and little-known, Oasis of Siwa, and have been able to write a very
interesting and useful account of your experiences—together with an
admirable survey of its ancient, mediæval and recent history—its
customs, superstitions and its social life, is but one proof amongst
many others of the value of this new organization which, in spite of
the various political changes in Egypt, has, I hope, come to stay.
As an ex-officer and one who was lately in Egypt, you are wise to
avoid in your book all reference to recent political events and the
complicated situations to which they have given rise. In this letter
I shall observe a similar reticence, and the more so having regard
to the positions I have held in Egypt and the Sudan. Remarks on so
controversial a subject must be complete and detailed if they are to
assist the general public in forming a true estimate of the “tangled
skein” which the political situation now represents—a situation
in which truth and fiction are almost inextricably involved.
The perusal of the proof sheets you have sent me, together with your
excellent series of illustrations (and here may I congratulate you on
the artistic skill of the charming sketches displayed in the coloured
reproductions?), recall that “lure of the desert” which is so
fascinating to all of us whose lot has been cast in those countries
bordering on the Great Nile waterway and the illimitable stretches
of sandy desert beyond. Your apt quotations at the beginning of each
chapter show that the “lure” has seized you also, and I can
well understand your desire to undertake further service in those
regions which so evidently attract you, and in which you have won the
sympathy and respect of the nomad Arab and sedentary Berber tribes
of the Western Desert.
The title of your book is well explained in Part I, Chapter III,
and you are wise to add a bibliography of the various works you have
consulted, for there is no subject more debatable than the origin
of the Berber tribes of whom you write. “This crossing to Africa
by the Northern Mediterranean peoples,” says Professor Breasted
in his _History of Egypt_, “is but one of the many such ventures
which in prehistoric ages brought over the white race whom we know
as Libyans.” His remarks refer to events in the thirteenth century
B.C., when people known as the Tehenu lived on the western borders of
the Delta of Egypt, beyond them were the Libyans, and still further
to the west were the Meshwesh or Maxyes of Herodotus—all of them
doubtless ancestors of the great Berber tribes of North Africa.
In the reign of the Pharaoh Mereneptah, the successor of Rameses
the Great, it appears that one Meryey, King of the Libyans, forced
the Tehenu to join him, and supported by roving bands of maritime
adventurers from the coast (the Sherden or Sardinians, the Sikeli,
natives of early Sicily, the Lysians and the Etruscans), invaded
Egypt. It is with these wandering marauders that the peoples of Europe
emerge for the first time upon the arena of history.
It is probable that not long before this invasion a great Canaanite
migration into Libya had taken place, for it is recorded by the
historian Procopius, a native of Cæsarea (565 B.C.), how the Hebrews,
after quitting Egypt, attacked Palestine from beyond Jordan under
Joshua. After the capture of Jericho they advanced westwards, drove
out the Gergazites, Jebusites and other tribes inhabiting the eastern
shores of the Mediterranean, and forced them to flee into Egypt,
where they were not allowed to settle, but were obliged to move
westwards along the North African coast and into the oases. There
is also evidence that some of these emigrants, under Roman pressure,
were forced further westwards to Morocco and were called Moors. Later
on they, in their turn, were followed by a similar migration of Jews
from Palestine.
Thus it would appear that as far back as the thirteenth century
B.C. the original Libyans, a warlike race, became co-mingled with
maritime adventurers from Southern Europe, with Canaanites, Jews
and Egyptians—a truly wonderful admixture of Asiatics, Africans and
Europeans, and it is with the ancestors of this international potpourri
that you deal so interestingly when you trace onwards, through the
ages down to the present day, the history of those desert nomads and
those sedentary dwellers of the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. Surely your
story will stimulate interest not only in the archæologist, but in
all who desire to trace the manners, customs and characteristics
of present-day peoples to their original sources. Those Siwans of
whom you make a special study are of all people perhaps the most
interesting, for, living, as it were, on an island, in a sea of desert,
they—like the Abyssinians on the east—have been less affected
by the world-changes than those who inhabit the main highways of
the great African continent. The cult of Ammon and the seat of the
Great Oracle, it is true, brought countless hordes of strangers to
that mystic depression lying some seventy feet below the level of the
Mediterranean, but the leading characteristics of the inhabitants have
probably altered little, and religion—from Ammon worship to Islam,
with an occasional admixture of Christian, Jewish and Pagan rites
(the last brought by countless slaves from Central Africa)—has
remained the all-absorbing interest of these oases dwellers.
As you truly say, the origin of the branching-horned ram as the fleshly
symbol of the great God Ammon, “the King of the Gods,” “the
unrevealed,” “the hidden one,” still remains a mystery. We know
that the solar god Ra, whose supremacy in the “Old Kingdom” was
so marked, from the Fifth Dynasty onwards and was at its zenith in
the Twelfth Dynasty, became linked in the religion of the “Middle
Kingdom” with Ammon, hitherto an obscure local god of Thebes
who attained some prominence in the political rise of the city and
was called by the priests Ammon-Ra. His cult gradually spread over
the civilized world, and in the Roman period he was worshipped as
Jupiter Ammon. He was essentially the god of Oracles, but how he
came to have his special sanctuary in the Western Desert is still a
mystery, though your account of this in the legends of the Arabic
history of Siwa (Chapter III) throws an interesting light on the
subject. Herodotus, we know, gave to Siwa the name of Oasis (probably
derived from the Coptic word Ouahe, to dwell, from which the Arabic
Wa is derived)—that is to say a fertile spot surrounded by desert,
and thus from Siwa all other oases have derived their names.
To Siwa then came kings and wise men of the East, merchants and
pilgrims, all bringing offerings to the temple of the god and
soliciting the advice of the Oracle on their mundane affairs. For
a thousand years and more these treasures were accumulating, but
where are they now? As Egyptian research has yielded up unexpected
buried treasure, may not the ancient god still have something in
reserve for the archæologist and treasure-seeker who is bold enough
to undertake excavation work in the little village of Aghourmi,
some two miles east of Siwa, where the ruins of the Temple of Ammon
still exist? Your interesting account of these ruins and the legends
you have so sedulously culled from the Siwans, cannot fail again to
create interest in the hidden treasures of the desert. One who has had
some terrible experiences at the hands of the Senussi Arabs during the
war—I refer to the gallant and gifted author of that thrilling story,
_Prisoners of the Red Desert_, Captain Gwatkin-Williams, R.N.—writes,
“It may be that this twentieth century of ours, this era of fish and
bird men, may see lifted the mystery which shrouds the hidden treasure
of Ammon, the ‘Unrevealed,’ for, so far as our limited modern
information goes, those treasures have never yet been discovered.”
Your interesting account of the visit of Alexander the Great (331
B.C.) to the Oracle, when, marching along the coast to Matruh,
he turned south and underwent great hardships before reaching his
destination, recalls a very different journey I made to Sollum in
1917. Leaving Alexandria by train for Behig, I there found a fleet of
armoured motorcars awaiting me, and the journey to and from Sollum,
then garrisoned by British troops, was comfortably accomplished
in four days. To my great regret I was too pressed for time to be
able to visit Siwa, where, “on all hands springs of water gushed
forth . . . that human ants’ nest, fabricated for the most part of
rock-salt, mud and palm trunks . . . to which the Great War surging
round the world had brought the drone of aeroplanes, the hum of
armoured cars and rattle of machine guns.”
Your reference in Chapter V to the wonderful work carried on by
Miss Nina Baird amongst the bedouin women and children rendered
destitute in consequence of the Senussi invasion, recalls several
visits Lady Wingate and I made to Amria—the village in the desert
west of Alexandria and not far from Lake Mariut, where, as you say,
this courageous lady worked practically singlehanded in teaching these
desert waifs and strays to make carpets—thus starting an industry
and giving the women and children a means of livelihood and a form of
protection which for ever will be remembered with gratitude by the
Western Arabs. A daughter of that well-known and greatly respected
Scotsman, Sir Alexander Baird, an excellent horsewoman, a good Arabic
scholar, and one who performed important services in the Egyptian
troubles in the spring of 1919, Miss Baird’s energetic efforts
throughout the war utterly exhausted her strength, and she fell
an easy victim to typhoid soon after—to be followed a few months
later by her talented father, and thus was the British community in
Egypt deprived of two valuable lives who had endeared themselves to
Europeans and natives alike and whose loss is deplored by all. On my
last visit the carpet-making industry was about to be removed from
Amria to an imposing structure built by Captain Jennings Bramley
at Behig, the headquarters of the Eastern District of the Western
Desert. Here this energetic official had also constructed, out of
the ruins of an old building, a mediæval-looking stronghold, where
we spent a few days and visited the ruined church of St. Menas, to
which you make a passing reference in Chapter I. This buried Christian
city is locally known as Abu Menas, and for long defied discovery,
as it had not occurred to those in search of it to connect it with
the Arab name of Abumna, until the German explorer, Kauffmann, and
his companion lighted on the historic spot, which lies from fifty
to fifty-five miles south-west of Alexandria. Your readers may be
interested to know that Menas was an Egyptian in the Roman army
who became a Christian and took the opportunity of a great public
function to make an avowal of his faith which was proscribed under
the Emperor Diocletian. He was tortured and eventually beheaded. His
friends begged or stole his body, tied it on a camel and determined
to found a settlement wherever the camel should lie down. Menas
before death had expressed a wish to be buried near Lake Mariut,
and here surely enough the camel insisted on lying down, and could
not be induced to go further—so his followers buried the body on
the spot. Many miracles were reported of his tomb, the settlement
became a large Christian city with a magnificent cathedral built of
granite from Assuan and marble from Italy. For some centuries the
place became a resort for pilgrimage from all parts of the near East,
but soon after the Arab conquest it was despoiled to provide material
for the mosques in Alexandria and Cairo. Gradually the ruins were
silted up with the ever-shifting sand, becoming mere mounds, and it
was the chance discovery of a small terra-cotta plaque imprinted with
the figure of Menas, standing erect with arms outstretched between
two kneeling camels and a rough inscription, that led Herr Kauffmann
and his friend to unearth the great basilica which had contained the
tomb. The walls of the cathedral appear to have been lined with marble,
whilst small pieces of mosaic on the floor give the impression that
the dome was probably adorned in the same way. Some of the bases and
capitals of the pillars are decorated after the Greek style with
acanthus leaf ornaments, others in the stricter Roman method of
straight panels. The dwelling-houses are small and constructed in
blocks separated by narrow streets. Not far distant, on the coast,
stand the ruins of Abusir (the Taposiris Magna of the Romans) which was
evidently used as a port of arrival and departure by the thousands of
pilgrims who came across the sea to pay their vows in this hallowed
sanctuary. When I visited this place it was garrisoned by the very
efficient Indian Camel Corps which the Maharajah of Bikaner had sent
as his contribution to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.
Your interesting sketch of the rise of the great Senussi, the
establishment of his now widespread confraternity and his invasion,
at the instigation of German and Turkish officers and officials, of
Egypt in 1915; his hostile occupation of the oases and the successful
campaign so ably directed by General Sir W. Peyton, which finally drove
his forces across the frontier and re-established Egyptian domination
in the Western Desert, merits careful perusal if the reader wishes to
understand the last of that series of invasions from the West which
began in the days of the Pharaoh Mereneptah, nearly three thousand
five hundred years ago, and which, given favourable conditions,
may yet be repeated.
All you so interestingly describe recalls my long connection with
the doings of the Confraternity when Sayed Mohammed el Mahdi, the son
of Sayed Ben Ali, the virtual founder of the order, was its titular
head. To him, in 1883, the Sudan Mahdi wrote, offering the position
of third Khalifa in his new hierarchy. Had Sayed Mohammed accepted, it
is possible that, in addition to the Sudan revolt, the whole of North
Africa might have been ablaze; but the Senussi Mahdi aimed at peaceful
penetration rather than military occupation: his zawias (religious
rest-houses) had gradually been extended to Central and West Africa,
they “were neutral meeting-places where difficulties, tribal,
commercial, legal or religious, could be settled by an unbiassed
authority. His akhwan were judges as well as missionaries. They defined
tribal areas, settled water and grazing rights as well as meting out
the justice of the Koran to those who infringed the code of Islam.”
The interest of the Turkish Government in this great movement dates
back many years, and I well remember when the late Ghazi Mukhtar
Pasha (then Turkish High Commissioner in Egypt) procured the original
manuscript Senussi prayer-book, had one thousand copies lithographed
in a private printing press in Cairo, and dispatched them as a present
to the Senussi with a request in the title-page for the great religious
leader’s “help in prayer.”
Sayed Mohammed died on the 1st June, 1902. I had full knowledge of
the dispatch to Kufara—the then headquarters of the Order—of his
tombstone which had been secretly cut and engraved in Cairo by an
expert native stonemason; but if I digress in this manner I shall soon
exceed the limits of a “Foreword,” and so must rapidly pass over
these early experiences which, nevertheless, proved useful when the
Great War let loose all the hidden forces of hostility and revealed the
immense influence of Islamic teaching for good or ill as applied in the
interests of the various opponents. That, on the one hand, Sayed Ahmed,
the uncle and successor of Sayed Mohammed, should have espoused the
Turco-German cause and harboured Enver Pasha and other notable Turkish
officers who had crossed to the north coast of Africa in submarines,
to organize the Senussi campaigns against Egypt and the Sudan; whilst,
on the other hand, British influence and British officers were enabled
to assist the Sherif of Mecca—the Guardian of the Holy Places of
Islam—in his successful revolt against Turkish rule in Arabia,
are interesting and little-understood features in the history of the
great world upheaval from which we have but recently emerged, and no
doubt they will be chronicled in due course by those concerned in these
“side-shows,” as they are somewhat inadequately described. It must
not, however, be forgotten that—insignificant as they may appear in
comparison with the terrific clash of arms in Western Europe—they
have resulted in giving Egypt tranquillity on its western frontier,
in restoring to the Sudan the great lost province of Darfur, and in
freeing the Arabian Peninsula—results which in pre-war days would
have been characterized as epoch-making events, but which have passed
almost unnoticed in the great changes which have taken place in the
territorial redistributions of the Treaty of Versailles.
To touch on but one little-known detail, you refer to the Talbot
Mission. This has not attracted the attention it deserves, but I
venture to think history will credit Colonel Milo Talbot with no
mean achievement when it is realized that his mission effected the
triangular treaties between Great Britain, Italy and the present head
of the Senussi Confraternity, Sayed Mohammed el Idrisi, whereby both
Egypt and Tripoli have secured, let us hope, a trusted ally.
Incidentally—through the good offices of Colonel Talbot’s able
Egyptian coadjutor, Hassanein Bey— that intrepid lady, Rosita Forbes,
accompanied by the Bey, was enabled to penetrate to the Oasis of
Kufara in 1921. Another member of the Talbot Mission—Mr. Francis
Rodd—is also utilizing his experiences of the Senussi Confraternity
and the Western Desert by making a prolonged and important journey
with Mr. Buchanan from West Africa, which should throw much new and
interesting light on many still obscure localities.
In these days of improved communications—when the two ends of
the great iron road destined to connect South with North Africa
are gradually approaching one another, and when other railways are
either under construction or projected to connect the Atlantic with
the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea—the time may not be far distant
when the great Sahara and Libyan Deserts, too, will be traversed from
north to south and east to west, and the undoubted mineral wealth and
raw products of Central Africa will be brought to the nearest ports
for shipment to all parts of the world. Your remarks, therefore, on
mining, industries, trade and the means of communication southwards
from the Mediterranean through the oases which you and others have
visited, will doubtless prove of value and merit careful consideration.
Meanwhile, much good work remains to be done by officers and officials
like yourself who take a keen interest in the welfare of the sparse
nomad and sedentary populations of these still remote districts,
fostering amongst them those feelings of confidence and goodwill which
will go far towards preparing them for the advent of the amenities
of civilization which must come with the inevitable development of
the no longer Dark Continent. Now, however, that the clash of arms
is past and, let us hope, a new era of peaceful development set in,
I might well have prefaced my remarks with this quotation:
“God’s benison go with you, and with those
That would make good of bad and friends of foes.”
The immortal poet’s words seem to me not only to synchronize with
the pleasantly conversational style of your own narrative which has
induced the somewhat novel method I have adopted of writing you a
letter by way of an introduction—but they also express the spirit
which will, I trust, animate us in our present and future relations
with those nations and peoples of the Near East who unfortunately
for themselves espoused our enemies’ cause in the Great War, but
whose best interests lie—now and henceforth—in the friendship
and goodwill of the Allies.
Your chapters on the customs, superstitions and “fantasias” of
the Siwans recall much that is similar amongst the Sudan tribes and
peoples—especially those of the Moslem Faith—and your account of
the “zikr” is particularly interesting. In the words of an Islamic
writer, by means of this religious exercise “the whole world and all
its attractions disappears from the vision of the faithful worshipper,
and he is enabled to behold the excellence of the Most High. Nothing
must be allowed to distract his attention from its performance, and
ultimately he attains by its medium a proper conception of the Tauhid,
or unity of God. . . . To enter Paradise one must say after every
prayer ‘God is Holy’ ten times, ‘Praised be God’ ten times,
and ‘God is great’ ten times.”
If the age of miracles has not gone for ever then these Moslem
devotees—the descendants of the ancient warriors of the Libyan
Desert, side by side with their courageous and resourceful British
helpers—may yet cause the great Oracle of Jupiter Ammon to reveal
the secrets of that old-time sanctuary with which your book deals
so interestingly.
[Signature: Yours sincerely
Reginald Wingate.]
“On grassy slopes the twining vine boughs grew
And hoary olives ’twixt far mountains blue,
And many a green-necked bird sung to his mate
Within the slim-leaved thorny pomegranate
That flung its unstrung rubies on the grass.”
“But a desert stretched and stricken left and right, left and right,
Where the piled mirages thicken under white-hot light—
A skull beneath a sandhill and a viper coiled inside—
And a red wind out of Libya roaring ‘Run and hide.’”
SIWA
SIWA
THE OASIS OF JUPITER AMMON
CHAPTER I
THE COAST
“. . . Some strip of herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown.”
SIWA—pronounced “Seewah”—is a little-known oasis in the Libyan
Desert on the borders of Egypt and Tripoli. It lies 200 miles south
of Sollum, the Egypt-Tripoli frontier port on the Mediterranean coast,
and almost 400 miles west of the Nile Valley. Siwa is the northernmost
oasis of a string of oases which stretch from Egypt into the middle
of Tripoli. These “Islands of the Blessed”—as they were
called by the ancients—are natural depressions in the great Libyan
table-land which are preserved from the inroads of shifting sand by
the high limestone cliffs that surround them, and are made fertile and
habitable by numbers of sweet water springs. Siwa consists of a little
group of oases in a depression about 30 miles long and 6 miles wide,
lying 72 feet below the level of the sea, surrounded by a vast barren
table-land, parched and featureless, where rain rarely falls, which can
only be crossed if one carries sufficient water for the whole journey.
Siwa is one of the least known and most interesting places in
North Africa, but owing to its inaccessibility very few Europeans
had visited it prior to the outbreak of the Great War. It has a
population of between three and four thousand inhabitants, who are
not Arabs but the remains of an older race, of Berber origin. They
have a language of their own, which is only spoken, not written,
and has survived among the dwellers of the oasis from many centuries
before the Arab invasion, owing to the remoteness of the country and
the slight communication between Siwa and the outer world. At present
the birth-rate is considerably lower than the death-rate, so it appears
likely that in course of time the Siwan race will become extinct.
It was my fortune, after spending a year or so on the coast, to be
stationed at Siwa, during 1920-21, in command of a section of the
Frontier Districts Administration Camel Corps, and for some time as
the District Officer of the oasis. Under the present regime there
has been one British officer, seconded from the Army for service
under the Egyptian Government, posted alone in the Siwa oasis. While
I was there I spent my spare time in discovering as much as possible
about the history of the place, and the manners and customs of this
desert community, which differ very considerably from those of the
Arabs or the people of Egypt. No history, from its earliest times
to the present day, has ever been written of this strange place,
and it appears probable that now, when British officials are being
withdrawn from Egypt, Siwa will once more sink back into obscurity.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR]
The oasis is most easily reached from Sollum, or from Matruh, another
port on the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria. The journey can be
done in two days by car, when the rough desert track that is called
a road is in good order; it takes six days on a trotting camel, and
about ten days with a bedouin caravan of slow walking camels. The
Arab covers the whole distance on foot, living on a surprisingly
small quantity of dates, water and camel milk. The desert is quite
waterless, except for the first few miles, where there are occasional
rock cisterns which fill during the rains and provide a little water
during the first few months of the hot weather.
The coastal belt of Western Egypt was comparatively unknown
country before the war, though by no means as remote as the inland
oases. Strangely enough, excepting the few officials of the Egyptian
Coastguards Administration, the Europeans who seemed to know most
about this country before the war were Germans, who were encouraged
by Abbas Helmi, the ex-Khedive, in their attempts to exploit the
commercial and agricultural possibilities of the coast. In 1913 Herr
Ewart Falls published a book called _Three Years in the Libyan Desert_
which was an account of some archæological works carried out by him
and his colleagues—Germans—on the site of the ancient city of
St. Menas, south-west of Alexandria. In this book he describes how
he accompanied the Khedive on his visit to Siwa in 1905. He gives a
flamboyant description of the Royal progress. The party consisted of
the Khedive, four Europeans, twenty soldiers, a number of servants, 62
riding camels, horses, and 288 baggage camels, which seem an incredibly
large number. The Khedive drove the whole way—200 miles—in a
carriage, a species of phaeton, constantly changing horses. Herr Falls
mentions the intense enthusiasm of the natives on the occasion of the
Kaiser’s birthday, and discusses the possibilities of a Pan-islamic
rising against the much hated English who “curtail the Khedive’s
political activities.” He gives statistics on the fighting forces
of the Arabs, and considers that the time is ripe for stirring up
sedition. One of his theories is that the Arab tribe “Senagra”
originate from a German boy, called Singer, who was wrecked on the
coast. There is a photograph in his book of one of the main streets
in the old town of Siwa which he calls “Interior of an ancient
tomb”! It is really a very remarkable book and gives one a good
insight into German ideas in Egypt before the war.
In ancient days the coast west of Alexandria was inhabited by various
Libyan tribes, the most famous being the Nasamonians, who lived by
the plunder of wrecks, and the Lotophagi, who are immortalized in
Tennyson’s famous poem “The Lotus-Eaters,” dwellers of a land
“In which it seemed always afternoon.” These two tribes lived
on the coast that lies west of the present frontier. The coast which
lies between the present frontier and Alexandria was thinly populated
by wandering tribes of Libyans, a nomadic people, who depended, as
the bedouins do now, on the rains to feed their flocks. The inland
country was a land of mystery vaguely described as being the haunt
of strange wild beasts, although nowadays this waterless tract
nourishes few wild creatures of any description. In later times
Persians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines established some centres
of civilization on the coast, but this strip immediately west of
Alexandria was never thickly populated, and one finds few signs of any
former civilization. The Arabs, after planting Mohammedanism in Egypt,
continued their victorious course westward along the coast, forcing
their religion on the people at the point of the sword, or driving the
natives inland to the oases, which remained unconquered till a later
date. Thus, the Arabs of the desert have always considered themselves
to be the conquerors, and the oasis dwellers to be the conquered.
The coastal belt from Alexandria to the sea slopes gently upwards in
strips of undulating country till it reaches the foot of the ledge of
the great Libyan plateau. This narrow strip of fairly fertile country
between the desert and the Mediterranean gradually diminishes in
width, from east to west, till at Sollum the cliffs of the Libyan
plateau reach the sea. At its widest part, near Alexandria, the
coastal belt stretches inland for nearly 40 miles before merging into
the desert. The coast is inhabited by Arabs of the Awlad Ali tribe,
who move about with their flocks and camels from well to well, having
only a transitory interest in the soil, which they sow with a little
barley in the places where it will grow, and depending on the rains,
which are very heavy on the coast, to fill their wells and cisterns,
and to water the wild vegetation that feeds their herds. The land is
most fertile close to the sea, but for the first 10 or 20 miles on
the high desert plateau above the cliffs there is flat scrub-covered
country that makes a good grazing-ground for sheep and camels. Farther
south one sees less vegetation, and very soon the real desert begins,
which stretches hard and dry under the blazing sun for 200 miles down
to Siwa, and beyond Siwa over unexplored country till it reaches the
distant Sudan.
As one goes farther west from Alexandria the country becomes wilder
and one sees fewer people, but there are several little towns, or
settlements, along the coast. The ex-Khedive had a project of opening
up this district and, aided by German enterprise, he built a railway
which was destined to connect Alexandria with his western frontier at
Sollum, and shorten the sea journey from Europe to Egypt. But the line
only got as far as Bir Fuca, about 100 miles west of Alexandria. The
Khedive found that his agricultural experiments in the Western Desert
were not a success and, realizing this, he tried to sell the railway
to a German firm, but Lord Kitchener, who was then High Commissioner,
stepped in and secured it for Egypt. There is a motor road, known as
the Khedival Road, from Alexandria to beyond Matruh, and another road,
of very inferior quality, from Matruh to Sollum.
Mersa Matruh—Mersa means a harbour—a small town on the coast about
200 miles west of Alexandria, is where the Governor of the Western
Desert has his headquarters. Matruh is the ancient Parætonium,
sometimes called Ammonia, and was the port for Siwa in the days when
that place was known as the oasis of Ammon. Matruh consists of a few
dozen little one-storied stone houses, plastered and painted white,
with gay shutters, yellow, green and blue, inhabited by Greek colonists
who do a thriving business by trading with the Arabs, and exporting
barley and sheep to Alexandria. There is a picturesque mosque on the
cliffs above the bay, whose minaret forms a landmark for many miles,
a hospital, police barracks, the Governor’s house, and a number of
Government offices and houses of Government officials. There are large
numbers of resident Arabs in the neighbourhood who remain near Matruh,
as it is the commercial centre of the desert. At most times, especially
in the summer, Matruh is a singularly attractive little place, but when
it is visited by a “khamsin” wind, which blows up the fine white
sand—and this is not unfrequent—it becomes a more detestable spot
than anywhere else on the desert. The cliffs at Matruh suddenly cease
and are carried on by a reef of partly submerged jagged rocks which
protect the large harbour. The entrance—between two rocks—is so
narrow that only ships of moderate size can pass, and when a heavy
sea is running outside the entrance is impassable. The bay is 1½
miles long and half a mile wide, but in places where there are shoals
the water is only 2 fathoms deep. To the east and west of the harbour
there are a series of lagoons separated from the sea by a line of low
cliffs, and divided from each other by narrow spits of sand. On the
cliff above the bay, commanding the entrance, there is an old ruined
Turkish fort, a yellow castellated building, which was occupied during
the war by a detachment of Royal Artillery. The houses are on the
southern shore, behind them there is a low rocky ridge crowned with
some little forts which were built during the Senussi rising in 1916,
when Matruh was for some time the British base. The bay is surrounded
by firm white sands sloping gently down to the brilliantly coloured
water. It is well sheltered and, consequently, never very rough; the
varying depths of the water cause it to assume different colours—in
some cases almost as brilliant as those of the kingfishers who fly
up and down the shore; at times it is incredibly blue, so blue that
the open sea outside looks black in comparison, and at other times it
is vividly green, with long streaks of purple where the dark seaweed
shows through the water. Matruh is a pleasant place in summer-time,
the bathing is ideal, and the climate is cooler than Alexandria,
which is the summer resort of all Egypt. But the great disadvantage
is the lack of water; there are several wells, but the water in them
is of an indifferent quality, so at present it is brought by boat
from Alexandria, at great expense, and pumped into tanks on the shore.
Some signs of former civilization are still visible, and it is evident
that the Romans, with their usual appreciation of beautiful places,
realized the attraction of this smooth, brilliant bay. There are
ruins of several villas on the banks of the lagoons, and in places
flights of steps have been cut through the rock leading down to the
water. The Governor’s bungalow is built on the site of a villa
that was once inhabited by Cleopatra. According to tradition, Antony
retired there after his defeat at Actium and found solace in the
embraces of Cleopatra. One can scarcely imagine a more ideal spot
than this for the site of the villa. It stood among low sand-hills
a few feet above the harbour, right on the edge of the bay, so near
that the rippling water must have sounded through the marble halls
of the villa. From the windows of the present building one looks over
the gorgeously blue bay to a line of sharp black rocks where the white
waves break, and beyond to the deep blue open sea. At night, when the
water shines silver in the moonlight, and the little waves creep up
the white shore and break with phosphorescent splashes on the sands,
one can easily picture Antony and Cleopatra gliding smoothly in a boat
through the lagoons, which were connected by channels in those days,
or feasting superbly to the sound of
“Some Egyptian royal love-lilt
Some Sidonian refrain,”
in the villa above the bay. In the summer quantities of “Mex
Lilies” (Amaryllis) grow on the hills and scent the air with their
heavy perfume. A short time before the war an American archæologist
made some valuable finds among the foundations of Cleopatra’s
villa, and on several occasions coins have been unearthed in the
neighbourhood.
The present-day Greek colonists of Matruh are not very attractive
people. They are very clever at their trade and seem to become
prosperous in a remarkably short time. They make their money by
squeezing the Arabs, who are forced to deal with them, as there is
nobody else from whom they can buy necessities such as tea, sugar,
rice, etc. The Greeks have the monopoly of trade and sell their goods
at a prohibitive price, quite out of proportion to their worth, even
considering the cost of transport. Their favourite system is to buy
whole crops of barley from the Arabs before it is ripe, when the owner
is particularly hard up. The Administration, to a certain extent, is
able to check excessive profiteering, but there are innumerable ways
in which the Greek is able to “do” the Arab. It seems a pity,
because, in my estimation, the Arab is a much better man than the
Greek trader. Not unnaturally, Greeks are very unpopular. Farther
along the coast, in Tunis and Algeria, their place is taken by the
Jews, but on the Western Desert there are no Jews—so the Greeks
have it all their own way.
There are generally two or three English officials at Matruh,
and possibly their wives, so there is usually more going on there
than at any other place on the coast; in fact, Matruh is a sort of
metropolis of the desert, but at the same time it is very much a desert
station. Lately, when I was staying there, there arrived one evening
an enormous new American car containing two English officers on leave,
and a very smartly dressed lady, wife of one of them. By amazing good
luck they had managed to get through from Alexandria without mishap,
stopping a night _en route_. On arrival at Matruh they asked to be
directed to the “Hotel,” which they had heard was “small, but
very clean and comfortable.” They looked exceedingly blank when
we told them there was no hotel—and never had been—but they were
conducted to the rest house, where they settled down. Next day they
complained that the rest house was neither clean nor comfortable. The
greatest disadvantage, to my mind, in all the rest houses on the
Western Desert is the multitude of fleas which nothing that one can do
is able to destroy or even keep under. This car was not the kind used
by the Administration on the desert; the party had brought no spare
parts for it, no servant, no provisions except some biscuits and a
tin or two of peaches, only a few glass bottles of water, which were
naturally almost boiling after some hours in the heat of an August
day, and none of them could speak any Arabic. At dinner that night
they all appeared in full evening dress which they had brought with
them, and, to everybody’s horror, they announced their intention of
“running down to Siwa” on the next day. We explained carefully that
to reach Siwa they would have to cross 200 miles of waterless desert,
and no car ever attempted the trip alone. But nothing seemed to daunt
them. Finally, however, the Governor heard of their plan and forbade
it forthwith; they started off to Alexandria on the following day,
with an escort of two cars, and as they went they murmured indignantly
about “red tape and absurd restrictions.” It is amazing what a
strange idea of the desert some people seem to have.
Matruh is the centre of the sponge fishing industry which is carried
on during certain months of the year along the coast. The sponge
fishers are mostly Italians, and a fine-looking lot of men. They have
a little fleet of sailing-boats, and one steam-tug. The boats put out
for several days at a time, working up and down the coast. They use
no diving-bells, but when a man dives he holds on to a heavy stone,
which sinks rapidly; he makes a jab at the sponges, cutting off one,
and then lets go of the stone and rises to the surface. Sometimes the
men seem to bound out of the water when they rise to the top. They
are able to remain submerged for several minutes. But the work tells
on their health; they are highly paid, but they say themselves that
they usually die at about forty, and there is always the horrid
possibility of being attacked by sharks, which are more plentiful in
the Mediterranean than they used to be before the war. At Sollum there
are several graves of sponge fishers who were killed in this way. I
never bought a single sponge myself during the whole time I was on
the Western Desert. When I was at Sollum I used to ride out along the
shore with a syce carrying a bag after every heavy storm and we would
usually pick up about a dozen first-class sponges worth about half a
guinea each at home. Fortunately, the Arabs had no use for such things
as sponges. One found pumice stone lying about the shore also. During
the war an enormous amount of wreckage was swept ashore and collected
by patrols of Camel Corps for building purposes and firewood. Sometimes
the whole coast would be littered with cotton from a wrecked ship
carrying cotton to Europe; another time we collected stacks of good
brown paper, which is still being used on the Western Desert, and
another time a number of casks of wine and rum were picked up.
Between Matruh and Sollum there is a little place called Sidi Barrani,
which consists of a police barracks and a high gaunt building which
is a rest house and office, and about half a dozen white bungalows
belonging to Greek traders. Each of these places has either a British
officer or, if it is not sufficiently important, an Egyptian mamur
who is responsible for keeping order, etc. Barrani is a desolate
place, but very beautiful in springtime when the country is ablaze
with flowers and green budding corn. Rest houses in Egypt and the
Sudan correspond to the Dak Bungalows in India. Those on the Western
Desert are quite comfortably furnished and well provided with plate
and linen. An old Sudanese soldier looks after each rest house. It is
a relief after trekking along the coast by car or camel to arrive at
a place where everything is ready and, in winter-time, to get a roof
over one’s head, though probably a leaky one.
Two roads run from Barrani to Sollum; one goes along the coast among
the strangely white sand-hills which are a feature of the district,
and the other, which is less liable to be flooded in winter, is higher
and farther inland. The country that one passes on the upper road
between Barrani and Sollum, between the blue Mediterranean and the
high rocky Scarp that runs parallel to the sea, is very attractive,
especially in the soft evening light. In the heat of the day it looks
dry and parched, except during a month or two immediately after the
rains. One meets very few travellers on the narrow road that winds up
and down, round low hills which are covered with heathery undergrowth,
and often topped with rough stone cairns. Some places are very like a
Scotch moor, or a stretch of Dartmoor. There is a certain plant which
is the colour of purple heather, and another that looks from a distance
like withered bracken. In summer-time, especially on the lower road,
one is constantly deceived by the vivid mirage that hovers above some
salt swamps close to the white sand-hills on the shore.
Occasionally, one passes a party of Arabs, with their skirts tucked
high above the knees, stalking along behind their woolly shuffling
camels, or perhaps one meets a patrol of Camel Corps, black Sudanese,
in khaki uniforms, trotting briskly along on fast riding camels;
then an old bedouin sheikh, wrapped in his long silk shawl, ambles
past on his Arab pony. Farther on, one smells the sharp sweet scent
of burning brushwood that comes from the fires outside the low black
tents where some Arabs are camping, and one can see them squatting
round the flame in the tent doors, with their white woollen cloaks
pulled over them, while in the distance a boy drives the camels and
sheep close up to the camp for the night. On the lower road, near
the shore, between Barrani and Sollum, there is a lonely little hill
crowned by a rough block-house where there used to be a detachment
of the Camel Corps. This place is called Bagbag and was used as a
frontier post before the war in Tripoli between the Italians and the
Turks. As one approaches Sollum the escarpment on the left comes
nearer, the foot-hills cease, and the road runs across a mile or
two of flat country within sound and sight of the sea right at the
foot of the towering cliffs. Before arriving at the camp the road
crosses several deep water-courses which come “from thymy hills
down to the sea-beat shore” through rocky ravines in the Scarp;
they are dry and sandy in summer, but during the rains they become
rushing torrents, quite impossible to cross in a car. Riding home in
the evening, one sees a number of twinkling fires in the bedouin camp,
and above them, sharply outlined against the primrose-coloured sky,
is the top of the great rocky Scarp, like a dark wall that one has
to ascend before reaching the desert.
Sollum consists of about a score of little buildings, and a large
bedouin encampment, situated on the shore of a bay in an angle
made by the sea and the Scarp which rises to a height of over 600
feet immediately behind the camp, and juts out into the sea in a
rocky promontory. There are several wells at Sollum and one little
orchard of fig-trees which breaks the monotony of the brown-coloured
soil. Most of the buildings, including a large Camel Corps barracks,
were erected since the war. There are one or two little shops, owned
by Greeks, and a rough native café presided over by an evil-looking,
one-eyed Egyptian, who is also the barber of the place. For a long
time there was a British garrison, but this was recently withdrawn,
leaving a force of Camel Corps and a small detachment of Light Cars
in the old Turkish fort on the top of the cliffs above the bay. At
one time there were about a dozen officers quartered here, and five
or six of them had their wives with them. Sollum became quite like an
Indian hill station—perhaps even worse, and when a certain elderly
general, well known as a misogynist, inspected the place, he stated
in his report that there were six officers’ wives and six different
sets, the result being that they were very shortly moved and replaced
by unmarried officers.
One gets to feel hemmed in at Sollum. On the north lies the sea, and on
the south and west rise the rocky cliffs of the Scarp. The only open
country is along the coast towards the east. A steep twisting motor
road, like a Swiss mountain pass, leads up the face of the cliff on
the track of an old Roman road, and several very precipitous paths
ascend the Scarp behind the camp to the high table-land above. But
once one has climbed the Scarp and reached the top there is a great
flat plain stretching out into the distance, which is good country
for riding, and full of hares and gazelle. This is the bedouins’
grazing ground, and every few miles one comes across great herds
of camel and sheep, and large camps of Arabs. There are a few rock
cisterns on the northern edge of the plateau and from these the Arabs
get their water. They often camp 10 or 15 miles away from a well and
send in a party of women and boys to fill the water-skins every other
day. Arabs seldom bathe, even when they are camped close to the sea,
but fortunately the sun is a wonderful purifier.
The nomad Arabs of the Western Desert are a hardy, picturesque race,
very different from the fellahin of Egypt. Their active open-air life
makes them strong and healthy. Patriarchalism is a dominant system
among them; they are divided into a number of tribes and sub-tribes,
each under its own sheikh who is responsible to the Government for
the good behaviour of his people.
These tribal divisions breed factions, enmities and lifelong feuds,
which result in occasional raids and forays on neighbouring tribes,
and the carrying off of camels. Another source of dispute are the
rights and ownerships of wells, which cause frequent fights, so
a District Officer on the coast needs to be well acquainted with
the tribal politics of the Arabs in his area. One of the greatest
grievances of the Arabs on the Egyptian side of the frontier is the
fact that, since the Senussi rebellion in 1916, they are not allowed
to be in possession of fire-arms, but their neighbours, over the
border in Tripoli, are under no such restrictions. The Arabs on the
Egyptian desert argue, quite rightly, that they are liable to suffer
from raids by the western Arabs who can dash across the frontier,
drive off a herd of camels, and retire again into Tripoli where they
will be safe from pursuit, as the Italians have very little influence
outside their coastal towns, and of course if anybody belonging to
the Egyptian Administration ventured across the frontier without an
invitation, and was caught, it might almost lead to international
complications. But the Egyptian Government considers that the forces
of the Administration are sufficient to keep order on the frontier
and protect the Arabs. (The situation is not dissimilar to that in
Ireland during 1920.)
The Arabs are a pastoral people. As the Siwans depend almost entirely
upon their date palms, so do the Arabs depend on their camels and
sheep, and to a lesser extent on the barley crop. Their tents,
called “kreish,” in which they live, are made of camel wool,
woven into long strips and fastened together, supported in the
middle by two poles about 6 feet high, sloping down to about 3 feet
above the ground, with a movable fringe hung round the sides from
the bottom of the roof-piece. These tents are very comfortable,
especially in summer-time when the sides are kept open, propped up
with short poles. There is no furniture inside them, but the floor is
covered with matting and bedouin carpets, which are made of finely
spun wool, white sheep’s wool—sometimes dyed scarlet, brown,
grey—yellow camel’s wool, and black goat’s hair. They are woven
in stripes and geometrical designs, and ornamented with black and red
tassels. The largest tents are often 20 or 30 feet long and 10 feet
wide, sometimes divided into two parts by a striped Tripoli blanket
which is hung across the middle. One can be very comfortable in one
of these tents, with no furniture except a heap of carpets and rugs.
Each bedouin has two sets of tents, a thin summer one, and a thicker
one which is used during the winter; the latter is lined with a
wonderful patchwork made from pieces of coloured cotton and linen,
like an old-fashioned patchwork quilt. When it rains the wool of the
roof swells and tightens, and the water slides off the steep sides
of the tent as it does from the proverbial duck’s back. Being so
low they are not torn up by the wind, and I have seen a whole camp of
army tents laid flat by a hurricane which tore many of them to pieces,
while the Arab ones remained standing and dry within.
In appearance the Western Desert Arabs are fairer than the Arabs
of Arabia and Palestine. This is probably due to the fact that
when they originally took the country it was occupied by Berbers,
a blue-eyed, fair-haired type, who are supposed to have crossed
over from Europe into Africa at some remote period several thousand
years ago. The Arabs are slightly darker than the Egyptians with
features that are distinctly Semitic, expressing more intelligence
than the fellahin. They are of a finer build and more wiry. Some of
the Arab women are very handsome, and their costume is particularly
becoming. They usually wear a long black robe with full sleeves, but on
special occasions the robe is of striped silk, and a red woollen belt,
several yards long, twisted round the waist like a cummerbund. Their
head-dress consists of a coloured silk handkerchief tied tightly
over the head, but allowing two coils of braided hair to appear on
both sides of the face, then, above this, a long black scarf with
a coloured fringe and a red and yellow border twisted into a high
head-dress, folded like a mediæval coif below the chin, with the
fringed ends hanging down behind. Soft scarlet leather boots complete
the costume. Almost all the women tattoo their chins and often their
foreheads with a blue pattern; this is considered by them to be very
ornamental, but to European eyes it is singularly ugly. Old women
dye their hair a brilliant orange colour, and men sometimes tint the
tips of their beards, as well as their horses’ tails, with henna,
presumably following what one sees advertised as “The henna cult
of beauty.”
As in most Eastern countries when an Arab marries he pays “marriage
money” to the parents or guardians of the bride. So a daughter is
a source of riches to her parents if she is attractive enough to be
worth a handsome dowry. The amount varies on the Western Desert from
about five to a hundred pounds, according to the age, appearance and
position of the girl. Half is paid on marriage, and the remainder is
paid later by instalments, and it is liable to be forfeited if the
wife does not behave well, but if the husband divorces the wife he
must pay up the residue of the money to her parents. This makes a man
very careful in the choice of a wife. In many ways the plan of buying
a wife on the instalment system is a good one. Arabs have more freedom
in these matters than many other Orientals. Women are not veiled, and
men and girls have plenty of opportunities of seeing each other, and
even speaking together, before marriage, though the actual negotiations
are always carried out by a third person representing each party. Arabs
rarely have more than two wives, though their religion allows them to
have four, and divorce is not so very common among them. The women have
a certain amount of influence which they exert without the men quite
knowing it, but although their position is better than that of the
Egyptian women, and infinitely better than that of Siwan women, they
have a very hard time. They weave wool and make tents and carpets;
they milk the flocks and make butter and cheese; they grind corn
on rough mill-stones for making bread; they fetch water, often from
a well many miles distant; and they collect wood every day for the
camp fires; all this in addition to looking after their children and
cooking. Mohammedan women of all classes are not expected to concern
themselves with religion; they are not allowed to enter mosques, except
on one day of the year, and during seven years in the Sudan and Egypt
I only twice saw a Mohammedan woman praying in public. There are very
definite social divisions among the Arabs, especially among their
women. The wives of respectable Arabs never associate with or speak
to women whose morals are considered doubtful. These ladies of the
_demi-monde_ inhabit tents, generally on the outskirts of the camps,
and are conspicuous, as in every part of the world, by the brilliant
colours of their clothes, and their many ornaments.
The Arabs are a kindly, hospitable people, not phlegmatic like
the fellahin, but easily moved. I had some very good friends among
them. When I was out on trek, if I came across an encampment, they
would see us from a long distance off and invariably come out and
invite me to dismount and rest awhile, and “fadhl” in their
camp. “Fadhl” is an untranslatable word which means roughly
“Stop and pass the time of day.” Sometimes I used to accept their
hospitality for a few hours in the heat of the day, and rest in a
cool dark tent, or wait talking in the tents in the evening while my
men rode on ahead and prepared my camp a little distance away. One
could never camp near bedouins, as their camels generally had mange,
which is very catching, and their dogs were a nuisance at night,
being “snappers up of unconsidered trifles” in the way of food,
etc., and not always “unconsidered” either. These dogs are white
or yellow woolly creatures who guard the flocks with great apparent
courage, and attack any stranger, but when threatened they run yelping
away with their tails between their legs. When I dismounted I would
wait for a minute or so talking to the men, so as to give the Arabs a
chance to arrange things. Women would run frantically from tent to tent
carrying mats and carpets, and shooing away sheep and goats and small
brown children; then the sheikh would lead me to the largest tent,
spread with black and scarlet carpets, with probably a long striped
blanket hung across the centre and screening one side of it. Or on
warm summer nights the carpets were spread in front of the tents,
on the open desert under the stars. Unless I specially asked to be
excused the finest kid of the herd would be caught and killed and an
hour or so later it would be brought in, boiled, on an enormous wooden
dish, and I would be expected to eat “heavily” of this, also of
the “asida” that followed. Asida, a dish which I always had the
greatest difficulty in pretending to eat, consists of lightly cooked
flour dough, with a hole scooped in the middle full of oil or melted
fat and sugar, however, _de gustibus non disputandum_. The sheikh,
and perhaps one or two of his relations, would join in the feast,
watched with the greatest interest by the ladies of the camp who would
collect on the other side of the curtain, and gaze firmly at me from
underneath it, whispering, giggling and tinkling their bangles and
ornaments as they moved. If I knew the people well they would not
bother about hanging up a curtain, and women and children would creep
into the tent and sit staring from the far end, or carry on their
usual occupations—milking goats, spinning or making semna—but no
woman would ever eat in the presence of a man out of respect to him,
and a son would never think of sitting down and eating with his father
unless he was specially invited to do so. Generally the sons waited
on the party, and ate afterwards.
Semna is a kind of cheese made from goat’s milk. In the morning the
sheep and goats are milked into wooden bowls, the milk is poured into
a water-skin and rolled vigorously up and down by two women seated on
the ground till it thickens into a sort of butter. The addition of a
certain herb is needed if it is to be made into cheese. One kind of
white butter made by the Arabs is very good and forms an excellent
substitute for real butter, and a change from the tinned species.
Arabs are very free in their conversation, and personal remarks are
not considered to be ill-mannered. They usually ask one’s age, and
inquire whether people are married or not. The idea of a man being over
twenty and still unmarried surprises them enormously; they think that
he can’t afford to buy a wife. They always show a keen interest in
what they consider the peculiar habits of Europeans. Hardly any of them
can read or write, and very few have ever been off the desert. When
a bedouin gets to Alexandria he is like a countryman in London. The
bedouin are superstitious, but not as intensely so as the oasis
dwellers. In every tent one notices a little bundle of charms hung on
one of the tent poles to avert the Evil Eye. One such collection would
consist of a black cock’s leg, a red rag, a dried frog, two bones,
and a little leather charm, tied together and hung on the pole.
One day I was sitting talking to some Arabs in a tent when suddenly I
realized that everybody was staring in a fascinated way at my mouth. I
wondered what was the matter. Then I heard the women whispering
to themselves: “He must be a very wealthy one; see how he adorns
himself with gold.” I couldn’t imagine what they meant as I was
only wearing a shirt, shorts and stockings, nothing very remarkable
in the way of clothes. Then I heard something about “Gold tooth,”
and I realized that their attention had been caught by a hideous gold
crown that had been put over one of my front teeth in a great hurry
just before I left Cairo the last time I was on leave. They thought
it a most attractive and novel form of decoration.
When Arabs get money they either invest it in sheep and camels or bury
it in the ground. Some of these men who lead the most primitive lives,
living in a tent and feeding on a meagre diet of milk, bread, rice
and dates, are the owners of many thousands of sheep and hundreds of
camels. Sheep are generally worth two or three pounds, and camels
about fifteen pounds each. Besides this, they often have a little
bag of gold buried somewhere in the desert. They never spend their
money on creature comforts, and the poorest and the richest men live
practically in the same way. My Sudanese Camel Corps men used to
criticize them, saying what a waste it seemed that they had so much
money, and apparently didn’t know how to enjoy it, whereas in the
Sudan when a man made money he would build a house, feed better and
live in a more comfortable way than his neighbours. An Arab when
he was “mabsout” (well off) didn’t seem to know how to be
“mabsout”—meaning also “happy.”
Once I was camped near some Arabs and one of them, an old sheikh,
was ill and considered by his relations likely to die. He was known
to possess some money buried somewhere in the neighbourhood, and
his relatives were most anxious that he should not die until he had
disclosed the hiding-place. But the old man obstinately refused to tell
them where it was. A deputation of his heirs called on me and asked
me to make him speak. I agreed that it was unfortunate for them, but
I could do nothing. When I suggested that they should take him to the
hospital at Sollum, they were quite indignant and said that evidently
Allah willed that he should die; the only distressing thing was his
obstinacy about the money. This went on for several days, and then,
to every one’s surprise, the old gentleman suddenly recovered. Some
of his relations seemed sorry, and some relieved. When I last saw
him he was watching a “fantasia” which was being held in honour
of his recovery, with a pleased, benignant expression. Personally,
I always had a faint idea that the money never existed, but all his
people firmly believe in it, and he has kept the secret to this day.
[Illustration: A FALCONER OUTSIDE A BEDOUIN CAMP]
One rather associates the idea of an Arab with his steed, a wonderful
fiery creature that skims across the desert like a bird. The ponies
on the Western Desert are a somewhat sorry collection. Only a few of
the well-to-do Arabs keep horses. They are small hardy ponies very
unlike the Arab steed of fiction. But they look better when they are
ridden, with their high scarlet saddles, great iron stirrups and gaily
tasselled bridles. The Arabs ride them either at an uncomfortable
jog trot or at a tearing gallop. They have some curious ideas on the
“points” of a pony; certain things are considered lucky or unlucky;
for instance, if a pony has white stockings on both forelegs it is
much esteemed, but a white stocking on one fore and one hind leg is
exceedingly unlucky. There are many stretches of hard stony ground
along the coast, so horses have to be shod; this is done by covering
the whole of the foot with a flat piece of iron, and results in a
terrific noise when they gallop over stony ground.
There is very little sport to be had on this part of the desert. The
only form that the Arabs indulge in is the ancient pastime of
hawking. Certain men of each tribe are proficient in training and
hunting with hawks. Skill as a falconer seems to be hereditary in
the same way as snake charming, fortune telling and various other
practices. The Arabs prefer catching a full-grown bird and training it,
to taking a young bird from the nest, which would appear to be the
easiest plan. The method of trapping them is rather clever. When an
Arab wants to catch a hawk, he takes a pigeon, slightly clips its wings
to prevent its escape, and fastens a number of horsehair loops round
its body, then he releases the pigeon, which flutters away. A hawk
sights the pigeon, swoops down and becomes entangled in the meshes of
the horsehair, so that the Arab is able to run up and secure it. The
hawk takes many months to train. Gradually it becomes accustomed to
its master, who invariably feeds it himself, and whistles when he
gives it food in a way that it learns to know. Later he takes the bird
on his wrist, hooded, and fastened by a leather thong; by degrees it
becomes accustomed to his wrist and then he carries it about with him,
still hooded. Finally he removes the hood and lets it tackle a hare
or two which he brings to it, then one day he takes it out on to the
desert and looses it at a running hare. The bird attacks the hare,
brings it down, and sits on its prey till the master arrives, or
if it flies up he draws it back by whistling and flinging a lump of
meat into the air. Sometimes an Arab will catch over a dozen hares
in a day’s hawking, but occasionally, after months of training,
when he looses his bird for the first time it will fly away and never
return. One sees a tethered hawk outside a tent in almost all the big
encampments. A well-trained bird is worth several pounds among the
Arabs, and it is very difficult to persuade them to part with one;
they are used to catch pigeons, quail and other birds, besides hares.
Another sport which we went in for along the coast was coursing hares
with Silugi dogs. These dogs are gazelle hounds and came originally
from Arabia. There are now a certain number of them in Egypt, and all
the officials on the Western Desert keep one or two. Silugis are very
similar to greyhounds, generally white or pale coffee colour, with
feathery tails and long-haired, silky ears. They are very fast indeed,
but have no sense of scent, and hunt entirely by sight. They are rather
delicate and very nervous, and in most cases they show little affection
for human beings. At Matruh there was quite a pack which included a
couple of fox-hounds, silugis, several terriers—of sorts—and a
few nondescript bedouin pariahs. The Matruh pack specialized in foxes,
but at Sollum there were more hares than foxes. The desert hares are
rather smaller than the English ones, but they seemed to be faster.
The open country above the Scarp stretches over alternate patches
of hard stony ground, and strips covered with low vegetation where
a certain plant that smells like thyme predominates. Generally
two or three of us went hunting together, or if there were only
two Englishmen we took a couple of Sudanese syces or servants,
who thoroughly enjoy all forms of hunting, all mounted on ponies,
and accompanied by four or five dogs. We rode in extended order with
intervals of about thirty yards between each rider, the dogs generally
trotting along in front. Whoever raised a hare gave a wild yell and
galloped after it, “hell for leather,” the rest following. The
hounds would sight the hare and fling themselves in pursuit. Quite
often the hare got away before they saw it, or managed to reach a bit
of cover well ahead of the hounds, and then they would slacken down,
at a loss, and wait till the riders came up and scoured the country
round to put up the hare again. It sounds rather unsporting, but the
hare stood a very good chance; in fact, generally more than half of
them got away, and it gave one some splendid long gallops across the
country. Sometimes we would raise a gazelle, and give chase, but few
dogs or ponies can catch up a gazelle when it gets a little start and
is really moving. I think the scale of speed was, gazelle, silugi,
hare and ponies. It was a primitive form of hunting, but one liked
it none the less, and jugged hare made a welcome change in the menu.
There were a certain number of gazelle on the desert quite close to
the top of the Scarp and it was occasionally possible to get a shot at
them, but they were very shy, and needed careful stalking over country
that was almost without cover. When anybody went out specially to shoot
gazelle none would appear, but when riding along on a camel one saw
numbers of them; however, by the time one had dismounted and loaded the
gazelle would be out of range, probably standing a long distance away
“at gaze.” Gazelle do not mind camels if they have no people on
them, and the Arabs sometimes get quite close to a gazelle by stalking
it from among a number of grazing camels. At one time, after the war,
the men of the Light Car Patrols took to hunting gazelle in Ford cars
with a machine-gun; fortunately this practice was forbidden, but it
scared the gazelle from the neighbourhood for a considerable time.
Numbers of rock pigeons nested among the cliffs on the coast, and
quantities of them collected round the camel lines and fed off the
refuse grain. In the autumn thousands of quail arrived on the coast
from Europe; they were often so exhausted that the Arab boys could
catch them in their hands. The natives netted them for sale to the
Greeks, who exported them alive in crates to Alexandria. One got
very tired of eating quail during the month or two that they were in
season; still, at first they were extremely good. Among the wadis
in the Scarp there were occasional coveys of red-legged partridge,
and lately there have been a few sand-grouse about the high country;
once or twice I have seen duck on the marshes near the sea, and an
occasional bustard, but, on the whole, there was very little to be
had in the way of shooting.
[Illustration: SILUGI HOUNDS]
A number of jackals and a few wild cats lived in the caves among the
wadis in the Scarp. Their mournful wailings echoed through the rocky
ravines, and owing to its eeriness at night the bedouins thought that
it was haunted by evil spirits. But in the daytime they climbed about
it quite unconcernedly, and their goats snatched a scanty pasturage
among the rocks. During most of the year the Scarp looks harsh and
forbidding, but after the rains a change comes over it; one notices
a faint green tinge about the cliffs, and a closer examination shows
that it is covered with blossoming flowers and rock plants. The slopes
become gay with mauve, pink, yellow and blue flowers, saltworts,
samphires, sea lavender, yellow nettle, campanulas, little irises,
marigolds, ranunculas, Spanish broom, masses of night-scented stock
and a quantity of other little flowering plants which clothe the grim
rocks in a robe of brilliant colour. The flat country, too, blossoms
out into colour. One sees scarlet poppies, mallows, and tall scabious
among the budding corn, and fields of swaying asphodel, and the whole
desert is scented in the evening by the night-scented stock.
The rain that causes this transformation falls occasionally during
the winter months from November till about March. During this time
there are clouds in the sky, and sometimes terrific downpours. The
Arabs greet the first rain of the season with great delight, the men
sing and shout, and the women raise piercing shrieks to show their
pleasure. Unless there is a good rainfall none of the barley grows, and
the grazing on which the sheep and camels depend is insufficient. When
it rains the wadis become rushing torrents, roads are impassable,
every house leaks, and many of the roofs subside. The camels have to
be led from their flooded lines to the higher ground where they stand
shivering. Camels hate rain. If one is out on trek and a really stiff
shower comes on the camels barrack down, with their backs towards
the direction of the rain, and nothing will make them budge till it
is over. One just has to wait till it stops. If the track is muddy
and wet the camels slither and slide and one must dismount and lead
them; they were made for hot, dry countries, not for a damp, wet
climate. Hardly any of the houses at Matruh or Sollum are watertight,
and it was nothing out of the ordinary when one called on a man to find
him camped out in the middle of his most watertight room, surrounded
by his perishable belongings, with a sort of canopy consisting of a
waterproof sheet and a mackintosh or two stretched out above him. But
though rain storms were very violent they did not last long, and
the sun soon came out and dried everything up again. When, however,
one was caught by a bad storm out on trek on the desert, with only
a thin tent, and no change of clothes, it was very disagreeable.
The word “house” is misleading. People imagine at least a
large comfortable bungalow. But on the Western Desert the average
house occupied by an English official, with possibly a wife, was a
three-roomed stone hut, with plastered walls and a wooden roof, with
a very thin layer of cement. The largest room would be about twelve
feet square, the plaster invariably crumbled off the walls owing
to the salt in it, and the cement invariably cracked in the summer
so that the rain poured through the roof in the winter. Cement for
some reason was almost impossible to get. One always heard that for
“next year” the Administration had included the building of real
houses for its officials in the Budget, but this item was always one
of the first to be struck out on the grounds of economy. Nobody has
yet discovered an ideal roofing for the Western Desert, where there
are extremes of heat and cold and occasional terrific hurricanes and
downpours. So far, the best type of abode seems to be the bedouin tent.
One of the chief events on the coast was the arrival of the cruiser,
_Abdel Moneim_, which came up from Alexandria about once every
fortnight or three weeks bringing mails, supplies and sometimes
high officials on tours of inspection. She spent a day or two in
harbour at Matruh and Sollum on each trip. This little cruiser was
built in Scotland for the Egyptian Government, and with two other
boats comprises the navy of Egypt. She was a neat-looking grey ship,
always very spick and span with fresh paint and shining brass, manned
by a crew of Egyptians in white or blue sailors’ uniform and red
tarbooshes. Her captain was an English bimbashi in the Egyptian
Coastguards Administration, whose uniform was somewhat confusing,
as he wore, besides the naval rank on his sleeve, a crown and star
on his shoulder. The cruiser was carefully built so as to allow a
spacious saloon and two state cabins, for the accommodation of the
Director-General. Two machine-guns were posted fore and aft. The _Abdel
Moneim_ had the well-deserved reputation of being warranted to make
the very best sailor seasick, even in comparatively calm weather. She
rolled and pitched simultaneously in a more horrid manner than any
ship I have ever known. The result was that, when people went down
the coast to Alexandria on leave, they arrived in Egypt looking and
feeling like nothing on earth, and spent the first few days of their
all too short leave recovering from the evil after-effects of the
voyage. I have never yet met anyone who really enjoyed a trip on the
cruiser. Personally, the only time that I felt comfortable on board
was when we were firmly moored to the quay at Matruh or Sollum. When
the high officials landed after a sea trip they were generally feeling
so ill that their visits were not entirely a pleasure to the people
who were being inspected.
Occasionally misguided individuals, who knew nothing about it,
got permission to go up to Sollum and back by cruiser, hoping for
a pleasant little trip on the Mediterranean. Generally, when they
arrived at Matruh, they inquired anxiously whether it was possible to
return to Alexandria by car, or even by camel. Some queer visitors
sometimes came on these “joy rides,” but very little joy was
left in them by the time they reached Sollum. On one occasion, a
Mr. B. of the Labour Corps, a Board School master in private life,
arrived by cruiser at Matruh. He announced that he had come to study
the coast and the Arabs. He was just the type that Kipling describes
so well in his poems. The Governor invited him to lunch; he arrived
in spurs, belt, etc., though it was the summer and every one else was
wearing the fewest and thinnest clothes; however, that may have been
politeness. There happened to be three or four other men present. At
lunch Mr. B. proceeded to air his views on how the desert should be
run; we heard some startling facts about it; he disapproved of the
Administration, and told us so; he then proceeded to tell us about the
Sudan, as he had lately spent one week in an hotel at Khartoum. The
Governor had been recently transferred from the Sudan, where he had
been Governor of one of the largest provinces, and as it happened
every single man present had served there for some considerable time,
so, naturally, we were interested to be told a few facts about it!
A couple of days later I happened to go down the coast with Mr. B. and
a certain District Officer. The latter spent his whole time, when he
wasn’t ill, telling Mr. B. the most outrageously impossible stories
of camels, Arabs and the desert, which he swallowed unblinkingly and
noted down in a copybook in order to give lectures, so he told us,
at his club when he returned home. That club must have heard some
startling stories. One of the facts—or fictions—that interested
him particularly was a description of “watch camels which are posted
by the Arabs round their flocks and when a stranger appears they
gallop across to the camp and warn their masters.” Another very
vivid story was the description of a whole herd of camels going mad
from hydrophobia. It is wonderful how credulous some people can be,
but I think he deserved it.