Encampment at Siwah. — Conference with the Sheikhs. — Refuse
to quit Siwah. — Attack on the tents. — Detained at Siwah. —
Incidents while Imprisoned. — Defensive Preparations. — A South
Wind blows Good Luck. — Manners, &c., of the People. — Their
Appearance and Dress. — An Industrious Race.
It was soon perfectly night; the ground seemed to be cut up with
ditches, and it was only by keeping close to my guide, as he
trotted along on his donkey, that I could make out the road. After
about half an hour, the guide jumping off his donkey, said to me,
“Now you are going up hill,” and before I knew what I was doing,
unable to see an inch before me in the darkness, I found my horse
clambering up what seemed to be the face of a precipice; in about
five minutes more, I found myself riding among walls; presently,
my guide stopping, began to call out, “Yusuf! Yusuf!” and thus
I found that instead of taking me to my tent, he had brought me to
the sheikh’s. After some delay a door was opened; and a longer
time elapsed before a flaring palm-branch was brought to light me;
and then I was conducted, through all sorts of tortuous passages to a
small room, where the sheikh and two young men were seated on mats,
before a blazing fire of olive wood. He received me very cordially,
told me that my tents were ready, and that whatever I required
I should get through him. I thanked him and accepted his offers,
giving him at the same time to understand, that I would take nothing
as a present, and that all I required should be paid for. He said
that the servant I had sent to him had already told him this.
These preliminaries being settled, there was a pause, which he
broke after looking steadily at my head for some time, by saying,
“Where’s your hat?” I thought I had misunderstood, and begged
he would favour me by repeating his remark. He gravely reiterated,
“Where’s your hat?” After the hearty fit of laughter which
so droll a question as this seemed to me produced, I told him
that, for the moment, I did not keep such an elegant luxury in my
establishment; but this seemed to puzzle him sorely, for a hat was
evidently, in his eyes, one of the chief articles of the Christian
faith. “Have you brandy, wine, rosolio, tea?” I began to think
that he was making a mental inventory of the good things he meant
to ask for, though I afterwards found it was mere curiosity to find
out whether I was as abundantly supplied with these good things,
as were my last predecessors at Siwah.
This cross-examination began to tire me, so I took leave of him;
but before I retired he invited me to return in the morning,
promising then to provide me with a guide to see all the curiosities
of Siwah. I promised to come early, but explained that by early I
did not mean early as he understood it, for, when not travelling,
I do not rise till two hours after the sun. “Oh!” he answered,
“drunk with araki;” meaning, that I lay in bed to sleep off
the effects of the intemperance he gave me credit for; when I
assured him that I had never in my life been drunk. “Do you,
then, never drink wine or araki?” seemed to be the only solution
for the wonder which his experience could suggest. We parted very
good friends, and I proceeded to my tent. The night was still too
dark for anything but the fires to be visible, and it was only the
next morning that I obtained an idea of our position.
I was encamped on a very wide plain to the south of the town; to
the right was an extensive palm grove with a few clumps in front of
the principal plantation, the nearest about a hundred yards off;
behind and to the left rose some limestone rocks, and near them
a square building, the castle, in which a garrison was formerly
lodged. In front, the town rose like a lofty fortress, built on a
conical rock, entirely concealed by the houses, which, joining one
another, seem to form a single many-storied edifice. To the west
of this, another rock or gara, quarried with numerous caverns,
rises to a considerable height; on one side of the rock, and in
the space between it and the town proper, houses, in the ordinary
style of mud architecture, are built.
It was here that Yusuf’s house, the largest in the place, was
built, leaning against the hill, and I now proceeded there to obtain
the guide he had promised me. I was received in a room open to the
street, in which a large crowd was assembled. Yusuf immediately
began, in a tone very different to that of the preceding evening,
to tell me the old story: that the people did not choose that I
should enter their town, or see their wells, which my incantations
might dry up, and that they insisted upon my immediate departure. In
the room, seated round the walls, were several stupid-looking men,
who, he told me, were the sheikhs of the place, over whom he had
no authority—his influence being confined to that part of the
rock which he inhabited, since his deposition some years before. He
tried hard to render the decision of the town council (the Mejlis)
palatable to me by frequent assurances, that the Siwyah have no
sense. “No sense! no sense!” he shouted into my ears, as if
I had been deaf. “They must learn sense, or buy it,” was my
answer, “for since I am come here, you cannot treat me in this
way; it is contrary to the rights of hospitality and the laws of
your country. I am an Englishman. There is my passport, the English
sultan’s firman, better than ’Abd el Mejid’s or any other in
the world, more respected by Abbas Pacha and ’Abd el Mejid himself
than their own. I ask to enter no man’s house. I shall not run
away with your wives, nor eat your children; but I have a right to
go by every public path; to see all I want to see of the old ruins
in your country; and if you, the sheikhs, prevent me, you must be
prepared to take the consequences; and if any one insults or molests
me, he has only himself to blame for what may happen to him.”
I had gone unarmed, but I now sent down to my tent for a pair of
revolvers, and after making Yusuf admire their construction, I had
them placed in the holsters of my saddle. “You ask me what is
my business here? I am a traveller from the west going to Cairo,
through the Sultan’s and Pacha’s dominions; you are their
subjects. Your own laws, the laws of Islam, give me full right to
travel in your country; the treaties with the Sultan guarantee me
protection; you are responsible to the Pacha, and he must answer
to my country for anything that befals me here.” I now mounted my
horse and was riding away, when the Mufti arrived, and I returned,
at Yusuf’s earnest request, to explain myself to him. He was an
irresolute, shuffling old man, apparently afraid to speak above a
whisper, but unable to deny the truth of what I said. Yusuf then
returned to the charge with shouts of “No sense! no sense!”
in which he was joined by all the sheikhs, who pretended to lament
the ignorance and stupidity of their rayahs, while the Mufti seemed
very anxious to get me into a religious discussion, which I was not
foolish enough to engage in. By this time the room was pretty full,
all the great men of the place, excepting two of the sheikhs and
the Cadi, who had refused to pollute their eyes with the sight of
the Christian, being assembled there. The street also in front was
crowded with the curious, who stared as if they never could see
enough of me; but they did not interrupt the discussion.
Seeing that the plea of stupidity did not turn me from my point,
they now changed their tone; and one of them, whose insolent air
had from the first been very offensive, gave me to understand
that I could not be allowed to defile their blessed country with
my presence, and that the best thing I could do would be to return
quietly to my tent, shut myself up there, and get camels as quickly
as possible to pursue my journey. “Four hawajahs came here from
Alexandria some years ago, we fired upon them, after forbidding our
people to have any intercourse with them, and they went away next
morning, vowing vengeance indeed, but nothing came of it.” “I
am not a hawajah, and I do not mean to run away;” then, turning
to the Mufti, I added, “nor will there, I am sure, be any reason
for me to do so. I only want to see the old ruins of your country,
and then, without having done injury to any one, I shall pursue my
journey.” So we bandied about the same arguments for at least three
hours, when at last it was agreed that before going to Omen Beydah I
should wait till midday next day to give them time to persuade their
people not to molest me; and that my time might not be lost, Yusuf
was to send me in the morning a man to accompany me to a hot well
near the high hill, which lies to the south of the town. I had now
no doubt that I had carried my point, and returned to dine in great
spirits, persuaded that I had vanquished the opposition, trusting to
the well-known timidity and gentleness of the Egyptian Fellah, and
the activity Mehemet Ali had always displayed in punishing violence
offered to travellers. I found my cook, a black, whom I had brought
with me from Dernah, in a terrible fright, for some of the people
had told him, when he went into the town to buy some provisions,
that they were coming to rob me during the night. I laughed at his
fears, quoting to him the saying, ‘Forewarned, forearmed.’
After dinner, I was smoking my chibouque and marking in my note-book
the little I had observed or heard during the day, when three shots
were fired, the balls passing with a loud whistling through my
tent just over my head. At first I thought little of the incident,
believing that it was a rough joke meant to frighten me; so I merely
looked at my watch and noted the circumstance in my note-book. It was
perfectly dark, and from the door of my tent nothing was visible, nor
should I have thought more of it but for the violent barking of my
dog, which showed that it heard people, who were invisible to me. I
sent a servant, therefore, to Yusuf’s to acquaint him with what
had passed, and soon after he was gone, the firing recommenced. I
now began to think the affair more serious than I had supposed;
I heard one gun hang fire close to my tent, and, turning, saw its
muzzle pressed against the wall of the tent on the shadow of my head;
I therefore had all the lights put out, and went cautiously out to
get a view of my assailants. The night was so black that this was
impossible, but it also favoured my evasion; after counting eleven
volleys, which gave me grounds to suspect that there was a numerous
body of men in the date-trees to the right, I, with my servant,
went up to the sheikh Yusuf’s house, abandoning the tents to their
fate. Moving cautiously across the plain, which separated us from
the town, and climbing the steep street which led to his house,
we could still see the fire of the enemy’s guns, and the more
frequent flashes in the pan, to which we probably owed our escape.
The servant whom I had sent there had returned, saying that he
could not make himself heard at Yusuf’s, but when we reached the
door a vigorous application of the butt-end of my rifle roused him;
having admitted me, I told him what had happened, adding, that I
should stay with him till morning. He immediately sent some of his
people to protect the tents, which they found had not been entered,
though there were seven shots in the one in which I had passed the
day, and one shot had passed immediately over the place where I was
reclining when the attack commenced; had I been sitting up instead
of lounging, it could not have missed me. By one of those strange
chances which one feels to be providential, I had just after sunset
ordered a larger tent to be pitched, in which to dine and sleep;
I had been all the morning in a small umbrella one, at which the
shots were principally aimed, and to this circumstance must my
escape be ascribed.
I spent the night in Yusuf’s house, and the next day he gave me
a small one, containing three rooms, opposite his own, in which to
stay as long as might be necessary. One of these rooms was built
on the roof, with a sort of terrace before it; we were standing
upon this, after viewing my intended abode, when our attention was
attracted to a large body of, perhaps, four or five hundred men,
most of them armed, who were in march with a flag, and several
camels against my tents. The rumour had been spread in the town
that the Christian was not dead, and the entire male population
of the Lifayah had gone against him, with camels to carry off the
spoil. They found the tents closed, and no appearance of any one
near them, but they thought I and my Frank servant were inside. It
was long before they ventured to approach, for the camel men, who
had come with me from Augila, had given a wonderful description of
the number and power of my arms; at last, some bolder than the rest,
went up and tore aside the curtain of the umbrella tent in which
I was supposed to be. Meanwhile, Yusuf had sent for some of the
sheikhs, and assuring them that anything stolen would have to be
replaced ten-fold by the town, he induced them to go to the rescue
of my baggage. This they succeeded in effecting, and returned in
a few hours to tell me that everything was safe, and to ask for
a certificate to that effect. I refused to take their word for it,
and at their urgent solicitation, accompanied by them, I rode down to
the plain, which was now quite solitary. Everything was in strange
confusion, but nothing had been taken away.
Seeing the turn things had taken, I now determined to continue my
journey at once, promising myself to return to Siwah with an escort
from the Viceroy, as soon as I should arrive in Egypt. But if the
Sewiyah had given me so warm a reception, they had no wish to lose
the advantage of my company; and, therefore, by threats prevented
any of the Arabs, of whom great numbers were now in Siwah, from
hiring me camels. I then proposed to Yusuf to leave my baggage in
his charge, if he would procure me a sufficient number of donkeys
to mount my servants, and carry a few skins of water and provisions;
but he declared that, without camels, it was impossible to cross the
desert, and that if I attempted to get away at the present moment,
the people would follow and massacre my servants and myself on the
road. I waited, therefore, a day or two to see what would turn up,
nothing doubting that rather than keep the Christian in their town,
these zealous Moslemin would in a day or two come to terms. In fact,
on the third day of my imprisonment, three of the sheikhs came
and offered me camels to go away with, but just before this the
Mufti had sent privately to warn me, that if I accepted the offer,
my caravan would be waylaid a few hours out of the oasis.
I now wrote to Her Majesty’s Consul-General in Cairo, acquainting
him with the position I was in, and requesting assistance, and Yusuf
dispatched my letter by one of his slaves, who was familiar with the
country he had to traverse. I had previously endeavoured to persuade
a Bedawy to be my messenger, but after bargaining for an exorbitant
remuneration, he lost courage and refused to take it. When, however,
on the second day afterwards, he missed the slave, he did not doubt
I had sent him to Cairo; and now, regretting the money he might
have gained, he revenged himself by telling the people that I had
sent to bring soldiers. On this the Mejlis assembled to deliberate;
their first proceeding was to come to Yusuf, to ask if it were true
that I had written to his Highness. He answered that he could tell
them nothing about it, and that they had better apply to me. The
three who had rescued the baggage, now, therefore, presented
themselves, and at Yusuf’s request I admitted them. In answer
to their questions I said that I was no way bound to satisfy their
curiosity, but that being a good-natured fellow, and my messenger
by this time a long way on his road, I consented to gratify them. I
had, indeed, written to tell how I had been attacked, and how I was
imprisoned by them in Sheikh Yusuf’s house, and that I had added,
I should now stay there till an answer was sent to me.
For the first fortnight that I was shut up in the cabin Yusuf had
given me, though unable to stir out, I found the time passed quickly
enough, as, besides that Yusuf and the people of his clan came often
to see me (so that my house was generally full), there was every
day something exciting, which afforded amusement. One evening,
for instance, some shots were fired into my house, probably by
way of keeping me on the _qui vive_ rather than with any murderous
intention; another day, the whole of the Lifayah assembled in arms,
at the small village called the Manshieh, determined at night to
march upon my house, and so end the matter. They were resolved to get
rid of the Christian; and to encourage themselves in their warlike
resolutions, many of them bound themselves “by the divorce,”
to exterminate him, and the big war-drum was put out into the sun
to stretch the skin, and give it a terror-inspiring tone. Next, a
deputation of the sheikhs came to me to offer peace and friendship,
if I would only go away and tell the Pacha that I had nothing to
complain of. I explained to them with infinite suavity, that this
was out of the question. How could I say that I had nothing to
complain of? beside this, my letter must be already in Cairo, and
having said in it that I should wait for an answer, I could not,
of course, go away till it came. I also reminded them of their own
frequent protestations, that they had no authority over the people,
and asked what security they could offer me that I should not be
attacked, as once intended, on the journey. Negotiation proving
ineffectual, they tried a new dodge. Yusuf was cited before the
Mejlis to answer for harbouring a Christian, and men were posted
in the narrow dark streets of the town to kill him as he went, but
the Mufti again sent him warning of the plot, which Yusuf the more
readily gave credence to, as his father had been killed in this way.
Then again a fresh attack with arms was planned for the evening,
and this seemed so menacing that Yusuf put garrisons into the
largest houses in my neighbourhood, and came himself, with ten men,
to aid in defending mine. I was luckily well provided with arms,
and disposed everything to make what would probably have been a
successful resistance. At the advice of one of the principal men of
the place, and to prevent the chance of firing on our own friends in
the dark, the garrison was withdrawn from the surrounding houses;
their presence there, in case of a _melée_, would, I confess,
have been more alarming to me than the attack from below, and being
marched to the foot of the Garah, with much screaming but fortunately
no bloodshed, they repulsed the Lifayah, who turned backwards when
they found preparations made to receive them. After this night
there was a regular patrol established in this part of the town.
One evening, just before sunset, when seated with Yusuf on the roof
of my dwelling, four men, with guns, were seen on the rock which
overhangs the house. They were observed just as they were creeping
round a corner, by a servant who was bringing a chibouque, our
backs being turned to them; a cry was immediately raised, people
were dispatched to arrest them, and two were secured, the others
escaping. Yusuf had no power to do anything with them, he being,
in fact, as much a prisoner as myself; and was fain to accept their
explanation, that they had come to shoot crows, in order to obtain
their galls, with which to anoint the eyes of some one who had
an ophthalmia.
Other trivial annoyances, many of them so childish as to be merely
amusing, were with great ingenuity resorted to. The little children
used to assemble round my house, calling out, “Oh, Consul,
there is no God but God!” and singing songs which I suspect
were not altogether complimentary. Nosrani and Consul were the
names I was known by among the people when they spoke of me to
one another. I had declined the latter title, to which I had no
pretension; and would not be called Hawadjah, which is the polite
name generally given to Franks in Egypt, even by the Government, in
its correspondence with the foreign Consuls, and which means a small
trader or pedlar; Yusuf, therefore, gave me the title of El Senhor,
which I have retained to this day. The people were forbidden to sell
me anything, and it was with no small difficulty that Yusuf procured
for me the very meagre fare with which I was fain to be satisfied;
a couple of tame fowls, some rice or lentils, butter and dates,
were the provision for four persons; and this scanty supply cost,
on an average, more than a guinea a-day. One of the wealthier people
sold me a goose one day, for which he was cited before the Mejlis,
and beaten, though his brother was one of the sheikhs.
Time wore on, and the twentieth day, on which I expected an answer
to my letter would arrive, had come and gone. Some Arabs from the
west brought a report that the Viceroy had been murdered, and some
of the sheikhs did not fail to come to me the next day to see how
I took the news. Of course, I made light of it, telling them that
if Abbas were dead, Said would be Viceroy, and that the English
Government, which does not die, would take as good care of me
under the one as under the other. When, however, a second report
to the same effect arrived, a few days afterwards, I acknowledge
that I felt less unconcern than I cared to show, for such an event,
if true, would have probably prolonged my detention, if it did not
endanger my life and that of my protector Yusuf, and my servants.
The time which I had calculated would bring an answer to my letters
(for I had found means to send a second letter on the chance of
the first having miscarried) had long past; and I had no easy
task to keep Yusuf and his friends in good spirits. They were
becoming very uneasy, for they had committed themselves both to
the Egyptian government and the Sewiyah; the first would render
them responsible for my safety, the second would never forgive the
protection afforded to the Christian. At length, one day, a hot
south wind arose, and blew with great violence during that and the
three following days; hereon a hundred and forty of the men, who
felt themselves most guilty, left Siwah for the Arab encampments on
the Okbah; for now they believed, most of them for the first time,
that something would come of my complaint, as a hot south wind in
Siwah, such as this, is regarded by them as the unfailing signal of
some coming calamity. One is almost tempted to think they must be
a remnant of the Psylli, who had escaped the general destruction of
their nation, and still dread their old enemy. Yusuf’s adjurations
and threats had had no effect in persuading them that they would
rue their inhospitable conduct to a stranger, but this day of hot
wind convinced them that what he said was true.
From this time forward there were constant applications from the
sheikhs and principal people of the Lifayah, to see the Nosrani; and
those whom I admitted, came to protest that they had taken no part
in anything that had befallen me, charitably throwing the blame on
the others. Each, in fact, was the only innocent man in the place;
and all felt the tenderest affection for my person. Such evidences
of esteem and consideration were, of course, most gratifying to my
feelings, and made me the more regret that they had put it out of
my power to be serviceable to them; having applied to the English
Consul-General, and he, of course, to the Viceroy, any decision in
the matter now depended, not on me, but on them.
Such scenes were not, however, my only amusements. During the
day I picked up some scraps of information about the manners and
superstitions of the country from my various visitors. From a Fezyan
Fikhi I got some quaint lessons in theological lore; and from a
Moghrabi treasure-seeker I heard a good deal of the excavations
which he had at different times made, not, however, to seek the
antiquities which he seems to have found, but the hidden wealth,
which, judging from his appearance, I should say had escaped
him. Every evening after dinner, Sheikh Yusuf and a dozen of his
friends used to come, and sit with me for two or three hours. Their
favourite conversation turned upon the wickedness of the Lifayah,
whom they seemed to regard as the greatest monsters in the world;
my guests would tell how they had beaten their last governor, and
killed Yusuf’s father, and how they fired upon travellers. Then
they would expatiate with monkey-like chuckling on the exasperation
which their conduct would produce in the Pacha; what he would do
to this one, what to that—all subjects which my friends wore
threadbare, without ever seeming to tire of them. Sometimes the
entertainment was varied by stories which Yusuf told with great
native humour; or we killed time and tried to satisfy our impatience
by practising the method of divination called Derb-er-raml.
The stories I will spare the reader, who has had enough of Arab
tales in every shape, though I am sadly tempted to tell how the two
little donkeys were welded into a big one, or how the ass stuck in
the mud, and the hyæna ate him, notwithstanding his long horns.
The inhabitants of Siwah speak a dialect of the Berbery, and only a
very few of them know any word of Arabic; they are unquestionably
an Aboriginal people, probably the descendants of one of the
Nomad tribes, who inhabited the interior of Libya, and who may
have succeeded to the possession of the Oasis of Ammon, after
the extinction of the Roman power in this country. The entire
population consists of the inhabitants of Siwah Proper, which is
divided into east and west, and those of Agharmy, a small town
about two miles to the east, in all little more than four thousand
souls. The inhabitants of the eastern part of the town, my enemies,
are called Sharkyin, or Lifayah, and these are again subdivided
into three clans. The Westerns or Gharbyin are, in the same way,
composed of three clans, and each clan has two sheikhs; these,
with the Mufti and Cadi, form the Mejlis, presided over until
his deposition by Yusuf as Sheikh-el-Beled. Their own account of
their origin is, that, excepting three families of the old race,
whose genealogy goes back to the remotest times, the whole of them
are Arabs, Moghrabin, or Fellahs; none of whom have been settled
here for more than four generations. Judging from their features, I
should think that there must be a much greater mixture of the blood
of an older race; nor is it likely, if Arabic had been the original
language of the immense majority, that it should be now only known
to so few persons, after this short lapse of time. Of the women
there is hardly one who understands anything but the Siwy Berbery.
They are a singularly ugly race, with dark-brown complexion, and
a truly bestial expression, but with no trace of the negro type,
while they are still further removed from the Arab and Copt. Their
fierce disposition makes them dreaded by the Arabs, who come to
Siwah to buy dates, and who are subjected during their stay there
to a most rigorous police. Those of the women whom I saw through
my telescope on the roofs of the houses, were not more agreeable
in appearance than the men; and even childhood is here devoid of
the engaging graces of its age.
The dress of the men is a long shirt with drawers; a skull-cap of
cotton, to which a milaya, such as is worn by the Egyptian women,
is added. The head-dress of the women is curious. The front hair
is plaited into twelve small braids, which hang straight over the
forehead; on each side is a similar short bunch, looking like nothing
but the cords of a mop, and round the head are wound two long plaits
brought from behind. Over this the milaya is thrown, and a dark blue
shirt completes the costume. They are kept very strictly confined
to the house, which the wealthier never leave, and no respectable
woman goes out excepting at night. These precautions of the Siwy
are said to be as efficacious as those of the Djin, who kept his
lady-love in a box; and the moral character of the Siwah fair is
such, that had he reigned here, Pheron would probably never have
recovered his eye-sight.
The men are notoriously bad, at the same time that they are among
the most fanatical Moslemin in Africa. In fact, I had good reason
to believe correct what was said to me of them:—“Every vice and
every indulgence is lawful (Hellal) to the Siwy. Nothing is forbidden
to them (Haram), but the presence of a Christian.” They are divided
into two schools, the followers of the Sunūsy, of whom I shall have
to speak later, and the Dirkawy, the ranters of Islam, who derive
their origin from a celebrated sheikh of Masrata, who died a hundred
years ago. Between the two orders the same affection seems to exist
as fable attributes to the Jesuits and Dominicans in Christendom.
The Siwy are superstitious, though, perhaps, not more so than the
ignorant masses in all countries; nearly all the men have amulets
sewed to their caps, or hung round their necks; every house is
defended from the evil eye by an earthen pot well blackened in the
fire, which is built mouth downwards over the doorway, or at one
corner; and in addition to this charm, it is not uncommon to see the
leg bones of an ass projecting from some part of the building: this
struck me particularly, as this use of it was once a superstitious
practice in England. This and similar practices were forbidden by
the Council of London, held about the year 1075.
After saying so much in dispraise of the Siwy, I must add that,
compared with the people of Jalo and Augila, they are an industrious
race, paying great attention to the cultivation of their palms
and olive-trees, which they manure and tend with infinite care. A
great part of the soil is capable of producing grain, and they
possess extensive corn-fields; these being cultivated entirely
with the spade, demand much labour; the consequence of which is,
that the small population is unable to bring even the near-lying
grounds completely under crop. From this cause several fertile
oases dependent on Siwah are now abandoned. Interspersed among their
palm-groves they have abundance of vines, apricots, and pomegranates,
whose sweet though small fruit they preserve all the winter. To
manure their trees they employ a thorny plant, which grows in great
quantities in Maragah, called ’agul. This they collect and bind
into large bundles, three of which form a donkey load; then, digging
pits round the trees, they bury these bundles in them, after which
they water them regularly once in six days. All caravans coming to
Siwah are obliged to put up in a particular place, and the manure
thus collected, along with the produce of the ’agul grounds,
is sold every year by auction for the benefit of the community.