The work is very fine indeed, so fine that in some cases the baskets will even hold water. They are made in various shapes, but generally round with a conical cover. Besides baskets they make dishes and platters with covers to them, which are used for carrying food and fruit. These baskets are exceedingly attractive and useful and command a high price in Cairo and in England. They are very light and can be made in “nests” of five or six, in order to be more easily conveyed. They are very distinctive and quite different to those that are made at Assuan, in Sinai, or the Sudan. Siwan women also make a rough kind of pottery. They get the clay from a hill near Siwa, and another kind of clay which they make into paint from another place on the oasis. The pottery is all made by hand, not on a wheel, so it is very rough, but it acquires a good colour and a slight glaze. It is used for making bowls, dishes, pitchers and little braziers for a charcoal fire on which the kettle is kept hot when the Siwans make tea. These utensils are ornamented with rude patterns of a darker colour, the ground being generally yellow, or a reddish brown. I found that there was one old man in Siwa who was a professional toy-maker, which is an occupation that one rarely comes across among Mohammedans, all forms of statues or images being forbidden by the Koran as tending towards the worship of idols. But the Siwan children have dolls and toy animals, and they are very cleverly made, too. This old man made them chiefly of rags stuffed with sawdust, and they really compared very favourably with the “Teddy bears” and other monstrosities that one sees at home. Siwan children are queer little things, very solemn and not as lively as the small Sudanese. They start working at an early age, and before that they seem to spend most of their time dabbling about in the streams among the gardens. One difference that one notices between these small children and ones of the same age at home is that the former are not given to the tiresome habit of continually asking questions. In trying to develop the basket-making industry one meets with many difficulties. The women are casual and lazy, so that it is almost impossible to ensure a definite supply of baskets by a certain date. The fact that the baskets are made only by women who live in strict seclusion is a great disadvantage, as one has to explain everything through a third person. Once as a great privilege I was allowed to see a woman at work on some baskets. She was the mother of one of the policemen, quite a venerable old thing, but for the occasion she sat swathed in a thick veil with only one eye showing, and thus with great difficulty she gave a demonstration of how baskets were made. I suggested several new shapes and patterns which she very quickly understood and taught to the others. [Illustration: SIWA TOWN FROM THE SOUTH]