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.