The salt lakes, the numerous springs, and the stagnant water lying about the gardens bred mosquitoes and fevers. Formerly this low-lying oasis was a hotbed of typhoid and malaria. Its evil reputation was known to the bedouins who never stayed there a day longer than was necessary, and even now they speak of almost every fever as “Siwan fever.” The natives themselves attributed the fever to fruit, and still call it “mish-mish fever,” owing to its prevalence during the season when apricots are ripe. But nowadays conditions are enormously improved. Typhoid is practically unknown, the malarial mosquito has been banished from Siwa, though it still swarms in the neighbouring oases; several thousand pounds has been spent by the Egyptian Government in draining and filling up stagnant pools, and fish have been imported by the Ministry of Health which breed in the springs and feed upon the mosquitoes’ eggs. The town is kept clean and there are very strict regulations about sanitation, and thousands of sugar-coated quinine tablets are distributed to the people each week. They have discovered now just how much of the sugar can be licked off before the quinine begins to taste. The result is that since the war there have been very few new cases of malaria, though many of the people are so sodden with fever that it is impossible to cure them. [Illustration: CLEANING TAMOUSY SPRING] It is supposed that the fever is a form of malaria, but when I got it myself, very badly, and had several blood tests taken in Cairo, no germ of any known fever was found. The same thing happened to three other Englishmen who caught the fever in Siwa. So far no careful analysis has been made of the disease, which is spoken of as “malaria” because it is certain that malaria exists in the oasis.