While at Siwa I dried large quantities of figs and apricots—mish-mish—which were very successful, and especially useful for taking out on trek when fresh fruit is unobtainable. None of the natives had attempted drying fruit, though the excessive heat and the flat roofs offer excellent opportunities, and quite an industry could be developed in this way. A variety of vegetables are grown, but only by a very few people. The most common are onions, watercress, radishes, pepper, cucumbers, gherkins, egg fruit, mint, parsley and garlic. The gardens are manured with dry leaves and dried bundles of a thorny plant called “argoul,” which grows about the oasis and is much liked by camels. Bundles of it are cut and left for some months to dry, and finally dug into the soil round the fruit trees. The streets, markets and stables are all swept carefully, and the manure is sold to owners of gardens. The contents of public and private latrines are all collected and used as manure in the gardens. It is a good system, as it ensures sanitary arrangements being promptly carried out. The soil of Siwa is strongly impregnated with salt. In many places there are stretches of “sebukh” which consists of earth hardened by a strong proportion of salt which feels, and looks, like a ploughed field after a black frost. It is almost impassable, and the occasional deep water-holes, hidden by a layer of thin soil, make walking as dangerous as it is difficult. Two large salt lakes lie one on the east and one on the west of the town. The water in these lakes rises irregularly during the winter months, and subsides in the summer, leaving a glistening white surface of pure salt which looks exactly like ice, especially in places where the dark water shows between cracks in the salt. One can lift up white slabs of salt in the same way as ice, and send a piece skimming across the surface, like stones on a frozen pond at home. Sometimes there are deep pools in the midst of the marshes where the white salt and the vivid blue sky combine to colour the water with the most brilliant greens and blues. Causeways built by the natives traverse the marshes, and by these alone it is possible to cross them. In ancient days the Ammonians sent a tribute of salt to the kings of Persia, and such was the quality of the salt that it was used for certain special religious rites. The glitter of the salt lakes in the middle of the day is intensely trying to the eyes, but at sunset they reflect and seem to exaggerate every colour of the brilliant sky.