SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT. / 
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 62| 
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 ; 5 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, wiiither 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 3 r early 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." 
6 Recent travelers there report very hospitable treatment, which accords with the 
writer's experience in Kharga and Dakhla. 
