178 



DISCOVERY 



The Natives and their Customs 



The people of the oasis number a little over 3,000, 

 but are dying out through intermarriage. They are 

 not of Arab stock, but seem somewhat allied to the 

 Berbers. It has been suggested that they are the 

 descendants of the expedition sent out from Egypt by 

 Cambj'ses the Great, which expedition never returned 

 to the Nile Valley. A disease known as Siwa fever, 

 of malarial type, is further helping in the destruction 

 of the population. 



Strangely enough, many of the men are physically 

 fine, heights of 6 feet 6 inches being common, and 

 the build big in proportion. Some of them have fair 

 hair and blue eyes. Though Senussi, they are very 

 pro-British — possibly as a result of the war, when Ford 



It is faced nearly to the top with blocks of stone, the 

 work probably having been done from three to four 

 thousand years ago. 



Wives, whatever their station, only cost 24s. each, 

 so that there is small wonder that the Siwans make 

 frequent changes. Probably, however, 24s. represents 

 a large sum to the Siwan, for on my asking the sheikh 

 if there were any wealthy men in the place, he gravely 

 replied that there were several exceedingly rich men, 

 possessing fortunes of quite £1,000 each ! 



One of the social customs is that when a woman 

 calls on another she wears all the clothes .she possesses, 

 and during her visit discards them one by one, placing 

 them in a heap at her side, in order to impress her 

 hostess with her wealth. 



As regards food, the Siwans eat anything, but have 



■»-WiW«- -V. 



Fir. 4.— ruins of TEMPI,E; ok JUPITER AMMOX. 



cars and aeroplanes first appeared in this fanatical 

 spot, which had previously been untroubled by 

 Europeans. 



Siwan marriage customs are free and easy. The 

 people marry very young, and as a rule, by the time a 

 girl is eleven or twelve years of age she has been married 

 and divorced three or four times. Generally speaking 

 the inhabitants arc very punctilious about the question 

 of divorce, carefully divorcmg one woman before they 

 marry the next, though in a lifetime a man will fre- 

 quently marry from thirty to forty wives. Needless 

 to say, the birth-rate is low. 



On the night before the first marriage the maidens 

 bathe in a well set apart for theii" use. It is a beautiful 

 palm-fringed pool about 20 yards across and 40 feet 

 deep, from the bottom of which water bubbles up, 

 overflowing through an outlet into an irrigation brook. 



a decided preference for dogs, cats, rats, and mice. 

 It is indeed impossible to keep a dog or a cat to deal 

 with the hosts of rats and mice, as they so soon dis- 

 appear into the cooking-pot. 



The Ruined Temple of Jupiter Ammon 



The principal building of interest in the oasis is 

 the ruined temple of Jupiter Ammon. This was 

 founded by priests from Thebes in 13S5 B.C., or 200 

 years before the oasis was colonised by Rameses III. 

 Siwa was then known as Ammonia, and after the temple 

 was built it began to gain fame as the home of an 

 Oracle. So famous did the Oracle become that the 

 Athenians kept special galleys to convey questions to 

 it for solution, their expeditions coming by sea to 

 Mersa Matruh, and thence over the desert by camel. 

 In 331 B.C. Alexander the Great visited Ammonia to 



