While at Siwa I dried large quantities of figs and apricots—mish-mish—which were very successful, and especially useful for taking out on trek when fresh fruit is unobtainable. None of the natives had attempted drying fruit, though the excessive heat and the flat roofs offer excellent opportunities, and quite an industry could be developed in this way. A variety of vegetables are grown, but only by a very few people. The most common are onions, watercress, radishes, pepper, cucumbers, gherkins, egg fruit, mint, parsley and garlic.
The gardens are manured with dry leaves and dried bundles of a thorny plant called “argoul,” which grows about the oasis and is much liked by camels. Bundles of it are cut and left for some months to dry, and finally dug into the soil round the fruit trees. The streets, markets and stables are all swept carefully, and the manure is sold to owners of gardens. The contents of public and private latrines are all collected and used as manure in the gardens. It is a good system, as it ensures sanitary arrangements being promptly carried out. The soil of Siwa is strongly impregnated with salt. In many places there are stretches of “sebukh” which consists of earth hardened by a strong proportion of salt which feels, and looks, like a ploughed field after a black frost. It is almost impassable, and the occasional deep water-holes, hidden by a layer of thin soil, make walking as dangerous as it is difficult. Two large salt lakes lie one on the east and one on the west of the town. The water in these lakes rises irregularly during the winter months, and subsides in the summer, leaving a glistening white surface of pure salt which looks exactly like ice, especially in places where the dark water shows between cracks in the salt. One can lift up white slabs of salt in the same way as ice, and send a piece skimming across the surface, like stones on a frozen pond at home. Sometimes there are deep pools in the midst of the marshes where the white salt and the vivid blue sky combine to colour the water with the most brilliant greens and blues. Causeways built by the natives traverse the marshes, and by these alone it is possible to cross them. In ancient days the Ammonians sent a tribute of salt to the kings of Persia, and such was the quality of the salt that it was used for certain special religious rites. The glitter of the salt lakes in the middle of the day is intensely trying to the eyes, but at sunset they reflect and seem to exaggerate every colour of the brilliant sky.
The salt lakes, the numerous springs, and the stagnant water lying about the gardens bred mosquitoes and fevers. Formerly this low-lying oasis was a hotbed of typhoid and malaria. Its evil reputation was known to the bedouins who never stayed there a day longer than was necessary, and even now they speak of almost every fever as “Siwan fever.” The natives themselves attributed the fever to fruit, and still call it “mish-mish fever,” owing to its prevalence during the season when apricots are ripe. But nowadays conditions are enormously improved. Typhoid is practically unknown, the malarial mosquito has been banished from Siwa, though it still swarms in the neighbouring oases; several thousand pounds has been spent by the Egyptian Government in draining and filling up stagnant pools, and fish have been imported by the Ministry of Health which breed in the springs and feed upon the mosquitoes’ eggs. The town is kept clean and there are very strict regulations about sanitation, and thousands of sugar-coated quinine tablets are distributed to the people each week. They have discovered now just how much of the sugar can be licked off before the quinine begins to taste. The result is that since the war there have been very few new cases of malaria, though many of the people are so sodden with fever that it is impossible to cure them.
CLEANING TAMOUSY SPRING
It is supposed that the fever is a form of malaria, but when I got it myself, very badly, and had several blood tests taken in Cairo, no germ of any known fever was found. The same thing happened to three other Englishmen who caught the fever in Siwa. So far no careful analysis has been made of the disease, which is spoken of as “malaria” because it is certain that malaria exists in the oasis.
Each spring in Siwa is cleaned out once in every two years in the summer-time. On these occasions the owners of the gardens give a free meal to the labourers, and a luncheon party to their friends. It is a popular and pleasant entertainment. Almost all the men in the town turn out and work in relays of fifty or a hundred, baling out the water from the springs with old kerosene tins, leather buckets and earthenware pitchers. It is a slow proceeding; some of the largest springs take several days to finish, and the work must be continuous, as the basins are continually filling. The men and boys, covered with mud, shout and sing as they work, every now and then diving into the water and swimming round. Every man, woman and child in Siwa can swim, and most of them are expert divers. The women swim like dogs, with much splashing, but the men are very good. A pump would drain a well in a single day and save much labour and wasted time. As the water sinks masons and carpenters repair the sides of the basin, fitting in new stones and patching up old ones. A curious custom terminates these occasions. Each guest and labourer is presented by the owners of the spring with a handful of berseem—clover—as a partial payment for his labour. When the men ride home in the evening they twist the clover in wreaths round their heads and round the donkeys’ ears, then, when they arrive at the town, the donkeys are allowed to eat it.
One of the “characters” of Siwa, always very much in evidence on these occasions, was an old, half-witted man known as “Sultan Musa.” He suffered from a delusion that he was the Sultan of Siwa, but I fancy that he was trifle less foolish than he pretended to be. He played the part of court jester at all entertainments. The Siwans found him intensely comic; they asked him questions—how old was he, how many wives, and what he had done; when he mumbled that he was 100 years old and had 20 wives, and various other domestic details, they simply shrieked with laughter. I got heartily sick of the old imbecile and announced that I did not wish to see him when I went anywhere. Sometimes when I arrived at a party I would catch sight of him being hurriedly bundled out of sight, and later I heard the servants in the background laughing hilariously at his dreary witticisms.
A few days after my arrival at Siwa I received an invitation to a luncheon in the garden of one of the leading sheikhs. The messenger announced that Sheikh Thomi would call for me at eight o’clock on the following morning; I wondered at the hour—but accepted the invitation. The next morning, while shaving before breakfast, I was disturbed by a terrific hullabaloo. My dogs, who strongly object to unknown natives, a trait which I encouraged, were circling furiously round a party of Siwans who sat on their donkeys below the house. My servants went out and rescued them, explaining that I would be down soon; a few minutes later I joined them. After many salutations and polite inquiries I was introduced to the other guests, a crafty-looking, one-eyed merchant, two venerable, white-bearded sheikhs and several notables of the town. They were all dressed very distinctly in their best, wearing coloured silks or spotless white robes. Sheikh Thomi, a cheerful, rotund little man, with the reputation of being the richest sheikh in Siwa, wore a long white burnous and a gorgeously embroidered scarlet silk scarf, and rode a big black donkey with a satanic expression. I was offered the choice of a number of donkeys. I picked out the largest one, and off we went. The donkeys have no bridles or reins; one steers them by beating their necks with a stick, and very occasionally they go the way one wants them to. Mine was the fastest, so I led the cavalcade, hoping that my mount was sure-footed. We dashed through the town with a tremendous clatter and a cloud of dust, scattering children, hens and old women, out on to the roads, and then for a mile or so at a hard gallop towards some gardens. My donkey knew the way. We arrived at the garden as it was beginning to grow hot, and were met at the entrance by a troop of servants who took the donkeys.
Sheikh Thomi led me, slightly dishevelled, through a thick palm grove, followed by the rest of the party, to a large summer-house built of logs and thatch, set on the edge of a round spring from whose green-blue depths constant streams of silver bubbles rose to the surface. Little green frogs swam in the water and numbers of scarlet dragon-flies hovered over it. The walls of the summer-house were hung with gaily striped Tripoli blankets—vermilion, white and green—the floor was covered with beautiful old Persian carpets, and cushions were ranged round the sides. Through the open ends of the building I saw long vistas of palm trunks, and the sun caught the scarlet blossoms of the pomegranates and the shining, purple grapes on their trellis frames. The air was heavy with the scent of orange blossom and “tamar-el-hindi,” and the deep shade inside the hut was a welcome relief. Outside the white-robed servants hurried to and fro, carrying baskets and dishes, while two boys, in the distance, sang curious Siwan songs, answering each other back as they swung to and fro high up on two palm trees. Sheikh Thomi, with much whispering and smiling, went outside. I leant back on my cushions lulled by “the liquid lapse of murmuring streams,” thinking how absolutely Eastern the whole scene was.