ASHMUNEIN— ANTINOE. 395 



place near the great caravanserai. According to this rough estimate the one 

 hundred thousand pahns of Siwah might suj)ply three million kilogrammes of dates, 

 and those of Agernii much about the same quantity. This is exclusive of the 

 public plantations, which yield fruit of an inferior quality, supplying fodder for the 

 animals. 



The salt of Siwah, which is of a superior quality, was formerly reserved for 

 certain religious ceremonies, and was exported as far as Persia for the use of the 

 royal household. The inhabitants of Siwah, who are of indolent habits, seek no 

 foreign markets for all these commodities, or for the tobacco smuggled into the oasis 

 from the coast of Cyrenaica. Of disagreeable appearance, and probably of very 

 mixed origin, they betray no resemblance to the fellahîn, but are as emaciated and 

 fever- stricken in appearance as the natives of El-Khargeh. Their language is of 

 Berber origin, although most of them understand and even speak a little Arabic. 

 They are excessively jealous, and oblige all the unmarried adult males, whether 

 bachelors or widowers, to dwell together outside the town in a sort of fortress, where 

 they remain shut up during the night. Newly married people remove at once to 

 the town, a sort of common tribal harem, where the husband's kindred assign them 

 the upper story of their pyramidal houses. In these dwellings the generations are 

 thus distributed, on an ascending scale from the ground-floor upwards. 



The village of Gara, in the oasis of like name, presents like Siwah the aspect of 

 a feudal stronghold. 



The inhabitants of Siwah and Gara are still very fanatical, although less so than 

 those of the oasis of Faredgha, which lies farther west in the direction of the Gulf 

 of Cabes. Here on the slopes of the plateau skirting the depression on the north, 

 is situated the parent house of the Senusi brotherhood. Jarahûb or Jerkbub, as 

 this place is variously called, was founded in the year 1860, as the residence of 

 Sidi Mohammed el-Mahdi, the grand-master of the Senusi. A small arsenal 

 and a small-arms factory are attached to this monastery, the inmates of which, 

 mostly immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, and other distant Mohammedan countries, 

 appear to have numbered about 750 in the year 1883. According to Godfrey Eoth, 

 the Mahdi of Faredgha is the " benefactor of the Bedouins." To him is due the 

 establishment in the Sahara of over fifty stations where caravans can obtain water 

 and provisions. 



AsHMUNEIN ^AnTINOE. 



From Siut to Cairo all the towns, connected together by the Nile Valley railway, 

 follow along the left bank of the river, the only side skirted by a broad zone of land 

 under cultivation. Beyond Manfalnt begins the Ibrahimieh Canal, which derives 

 its supply from the Bahr-Yusef. Here the plains are intersected in all directions 

 by channels and irrigation rills. This fertile region of Egypt was formerly covered 

 with several large towns. At the foot of the Arabian range lies the great necro- 

 polis of Tell-el-Aniarna, where all the dead were placed under the protection of the 

 Semitic god Aten (Aden, Adonai), the " radiant orb." 



Ashmunein, near the station and large sugar factory of Roda, occupies the site 



