CHAPTER IV
SIWA TOWN
“Through sun-proof alleys,
In a lone, sand hemm’d
City of Africa.”
SIWA town is like no other place that I have seen either in Egypt, Palestine or the Sudan. It is built on a great rock in the centre of the oasis, and from a distance it resembles an ancient castle whose rugged battlements tower above the forests of waving palm trees, and the rich green cultivation. It is somewhat similar to St. Michael’s Mount, but the inside of the town reminds one more of those enormous ant hills which are found in Central Africa. The houses are built of mud, mixed with salt, with occasional large blocks of stone from the temples let into the walls. The builder works without a line, gradually adding to the wall, sitting astride the part which he has completed, so few of the walls are straight. Another architectural peculiarity is that owing to the necessity of constructing walls thicker at the base than at the top most of the houses, especially the minarets of the mosques, become narrower towards the summit. The houses are built one above the other against the face of the rock, and the outer walls form one great line of battlements, pierced by little groups of windows, encircling the town, and rising sheer above the ground, in some places to a height of almost 200 feet. The original site of the town was the summit and sides of two limestone rocks which rise abruptly from the level of the plain; but as the population increased more houses were built on the top of the old ones, and the town, instead of spreading, began to ascend into the air, house upon house, street upon street, and quarter upon quarter, till it became more like a bee-hive than a town. Fathers built houses for their sons above the parental abode, till their great-grandsons reached a dizzy height on the topmost battlements. The mud of which the walls were built gradually hardened and became almost of the consistency of the original rock.
In course of time the inside of the town has become a vast warren of houses connected by steep, twisting tunnels, very similar to the workings in a coal mine, where one needs to carry a light even in daytime, and two persons can scarcely walk abreast. This labyrinthine maze of dark, narrow passages, with little low doors of split palm logs opening into them from the tenements above, forms the old town of Siwa. In some places the walls are partly ruined and one gets little views of the green oasis, or the lower part of the town with its flat roofs and square enclosures, framed by the jagged ruined masonry. It took me nearly two years to know my way about this part of the town, at the expense of hitting my head many times against the palm log beams supporting the low roofs which are in most cases only about 5 feet high.
This human warren is surprisingly clean and free from the smells that one would expect in a place where there is such an absence of light and ventilation. One of the most curious things that one notices is the subdued hum of human voices, from invisible people, and the perpetual sound of stone-grinding mills, above, below and all around. When one meets people, groping along these tortuous passages, they loom into sight, silently, white robed, like ghosts, and pass with a murmured greeting to their gloomy homes. It is a great relief after stooping and slipping and barking one’s shins to reach the open roof on the highest tower of the town where, for a moment, the brilliant sunlight dazzles one’s eyes, accustomed to the murky gloom of the lower regions. When, on rare occasions, I had visitors, I used always to take them up to see the view from the highest battlements, with a few stout Sudanese Camel Corps men to help pull, push and propel the sightseers. But most of them, especially the elderly colonel type, were too hot and exhausted to appreciate the view when they finally arrived, so I eventually kept this “sight” for only the most active visitors.
High up in the heart of the town, in a little open space surrounded by tall grim houses, there is an ancient well cut out of the solid rock. It contains excellent water. Apparently there is a spring in the centre of the rock which supplies the well, and two smaller ones close by. Half-way down the well, about 30 feet from the top, just above the level of the water, there is a small entrance, wide enough to admit a boy, which leads into a narrow tunnel bored through the rock, terminating in the precincts of a mosque on the level ground. Nobody has traversed this passage for many years, owing to fear of snakes—which certainly exist, also jinns and afreets. The tunnel is about 150 yards long, and must have taken years to complete, but it is difficult to guess its original object. This old well is specially popular with women, as by drawing water here they can avoid going out to the springs where they would necessarily meet with men. Often when I passed out from the narrow entrance of a passage I would see a dozen women busy with their pitchers, veils cast aside, laughing and chattering—in a moment, like magic, every one would have silently vanished, and only the eyes peering from the adjoining windows would show any signs of life.
Below the old high town, huddled at the base of the mighty walls, there are more houses, and these, too, are surrounded by an outer wall. Beyond this more modern houses have been built when there was less fear of raids from hostile Arabs. Most of the sheikhs and the rich merchants have deserted the high town and built large, comfortable houses down below, or among the gardens in the adjoining suburbs of Sebukh and Manshia. Many of them have also country houses, where they retire in the summer when the heat in the town becomes intolerable, on their estates in different parts of the oasis. Residences of sheikhs and notables are distinguished by a strip of whitewash across the front, but woe betide a poor man if he decorates his house in a like manner. Tombs of sheikhs and holy men are whitewashed all over every year, at public expense. One of the most wealthy, and most unpopular, merchants covered the whole of his house with whitewash. This innovation caused grave disapproval among the conservative sheikhs of Siwa. They complained to me, saying that from time immemorial the notables had distinguished their houses by the strip of whitewash, but nobody had ever whitened the whole house—therefore nobody should! When a few days later some thieves broke into the “whitewashed sepulchre” and stole twelve pounds, the whole population agreed that it was a just retribution on unseemly pride.