SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT. 7 



business on which they came to the city, and had fixed on an hour, as they 

 thought, auspicious to travelers, they made ready for departure and on Friday, 

 24th February, 1792, we left Alexandria. 



They took the route by the seacoast, " the same that Alexander had 

 chosen for the march of his army." On Sunday, the 4th, after 75^ 

 hours of actual travel along the Mediterranean coast, they watered 

 the camels at a well affording a copious supply of sweet water, then 

 struck inland, toward the southwest. 



On Wednesday, the 7th, at night, we had reached a small village called Karet- 

 am-el Sogheir * * * This village is Independent, and its environs afford 

 nothing but dates, in which even the camels and asses of this quarter are 

 accustomed to find their nourishment * * * For about a mile and a half 

 from Karet-am-el Sogheir the country is sprinkled with dates, and some water 

 is found. 



They arrived at Siwa on Friday, the 9th, late at night, after 62J 

 hours of actual travel from the coast. 



We at length came to Siwa, which answers the description given of the oases, 

 as being a small fertile spot, surrounded on all sides by desert land. It was 

 about half an hour from the time of our entrance on this territory, by a path 

 surrounded with date trees, that we came to the town, which gives name to 

 the district. 



This first Christian visitor to their oasis for many centuries was 

 not made at all welcome by these Mohammedans ; ^ in fact, he was at 

 times in no small danger. He was naturally more interested in the 

 ruins of the ancient temple than in their agriculture, but he takes time 

 to tell us : 



The oasis which contains the town Siwa, is about 6 miles long and 4^ or 5 

 wide. A large proportion of the space is filled with date trees ; but there are 

 also pomegranates, figs and olives, apricots and plantains ; and the gardens are 

 remarkably flourishing. * * * Their list of household furniture is very 

 short, some earthenware made by themselves, and a few mats form the chief 

 part of it, none but the richer order being possessed of copper utensils. They 

 occasionally purchase a few slaves from the Marzouk caravan. The remainder 

 of their wants is supplied from Kahira or Alexandria, whither their dates are 

 transported, both in a dry state and beaten into a mass, which when good in 

 some degree resembles a sweetmeat. * * * They drink in great quantities 

 of the liquor extracted from the date tree, which they term date-tree water, 

 though it has often, in the state they drink it, the power of inebriating. 



Frederick Horneman(75) was the next after Browne to reach the 

 Oasis of Siwa and explore the ancient temple of Jupiter Ammon. 

 His account of the journey from Cairo to Aujila adds something 

 to the fund of information accumulated from other travelers. He 

 joined a company of merchants of Aujila, who had their rendezvous 

 at " Kardassi " or " Kardaseh," still a well-known village a few miles 

 north of the Gizeh Pyramids, from the vicinity of which the writer 

 purchased date offshoots in the springs of 1920 and 1922. 



The party set out from this village on September 5, 1798, joining 

 " the great body of the caravan, which yearly returns from Mecca." 

 The caravan went by the way of Wadi el Natrun, and on the eleventh 

 day, September 15, the traveler says, " we came to an inhabited spot, 

 after 5 hours' march arriving at the small village of Ummesogeir.'''' 

 This is the junction point with the trail from Alexandria along the 

 coast, over which Browne had arrived March 7, 1792, recording the 

 village as "Karet-am-el Sogheir." 



^ Recent travelers there report very hospitable treatment, which accords with the 

 writer's experience in Kharga and Dakhla. 



