The guest chamber was a long narrow room about twenty-five feet from east to west by twelve from north to south. Two windows and the door opened on to a kind of terrace, while on the opposite side three windows looked out, to the north, on to a garden, in which was the well that watered the ezba, and where a number of palms and other fruit trees were planted, over the tops of which could be seen the cliff bounding the oasis in the blue distance.
SHEYKH AHMED’S GUEST HOUSE.
The windows were draped with red curtains, and a doorway, leading into a small bedroom on the western end of the room was covered by a pair of heavy and rather dusty velveteen curtains of the same colour. The floor was carpeted, a few mats being placed here and there over the carpet. The roof, which seemed to be built in the usual way with palm trunk rafters supporting jerids (palm leaf stems), was covered with a thin coating of plaster, whitewashed like the walls and painted with broad red stripes—a form of decoration which, though roughly executed, was both effective and tasteful, and, taken with the subdued hues of the rugs on the floor, formed a colour scheme of which a European artist need not have been ashamed.
Knowing the reputation that the Senussi bear for leading the simple life, and their supposed aversion to adopting any European innovations, the contents of the room filled me with complete surprise.
On a plate by an open window, so as to be in the draught, stood the inevitable gula—a porous terra-cotta bottle for cooling water, to be found in every native’s house in Egypt. Nailed to the wall were circular paper fans of Japanese make and two or three of a curious hatchet shape, ornamented with bits of red cotton stuff, such as are made in the oasis. A gaudy red and black print of Mecca was nailed to the wall opposite to the door, and a second long print in silver on silk, which stretched nearly across the eastern wall, showed another view of the same subject in villainous perspective, together with some other scenes of Eastern towns that I was unable to identify, the spaces between the views being filled up with texts and Arabesque ornamentations.
The remainder of the furniture was pure European—a shelf, with a mirror beneath it fixed to the wall, might have been bought in Tottenham Court Road; a hammock chair and some of bent wood with cane seats of the usual type, a couple of deal tables, on one of which stood a nickel-plated paraffin lamp and a sparklet bottle, and on the other a few books, an ordinary black japanned tray, with a glass water bottle and tumblers, and a gramophone. On one side of the gaudy print of the sacred Ka’aba at Mecca, was a coloured oleograph of the Khedive, and on the other was one of King Edward VII!
Having seen us all settled comfortably in our places, Sheykh Ahmed excused himself from attending on us any further, explaining that it was time for the maghrib prayer, and departed downstairs, where shortly afterwards we heard him fervently leading the prayers in the room beneath us.
Soon after he returned with a servant bringing the inevitable tea. Having seen that we were all served, Sheykh Ahmed departed again to change his clothes, and returned in a more gorgeous raiment than before.
While waiting for dinner to appear, Sheykh Ahmed’s two brothers—Sheykh Mohammed and Sheykh ’Abd el Wahad—came in, went up and kissed his hand and then remained standing till he waved them permission to sit down.