One evening rather late I was bathing at Ein Tamousy, swimming round the spring without making much noise. Suddenly I looked up and saw a large crowd of girls—a wedding party—standing on the path above. It was most awkward. I splashed loudly, but they were singing and talking so noisily that they did not hear. Eventually one of them saw me and screamed out that there was a jinn in the spring, whereupon the whole crowd fled shrieking into the gardens, leaving the bride’s wedding garment lying on the ground. I hastily slipped out, clutched my clothes and dressed hurriedly behind some palm trees, from whence I watched the party cautiously returning, one by one, to see whether the monster had disappeared. Meanwhile the bridegroom collects his friends and summons the Fiki; carpets are spread in the courtyard of his house, which is illuminated with candles and lanterns, and dishes of food are set before the guests. As soon as the marriage contract is settled each guest seizes as much food of any sort as he can possibly hold in his hand and crams it into his mouth; the more he eats the more he is supposed to show his friendship for the bridegroom. The usual tea generally follows. At midnight the bridegroom’s friends and relations—men, women and children—carrying lanterns and flaring torches, walk in procession through the narrow streets to the house of the bride and demand her from her father. On the return of the bride from her bath she is taken by her mother and hidden in an upper room of the house. When the bridegroom’s family have arrived they collect outside the door and call out, “Bring out the bride, the gallant groom awaits her.” The girl’s family answer, “We have lost her, we have lost her.” Then “Find her, the bridegroom is getting impatient,” and the answer is, “She is asleep, still sleeping.” Then the bridegroom’s family say, “Go, wake her, and bring her to her man.” Then the women of the bride’s house weep and scream, and there is a mock fight between the families. The men flourish their sticks and sometimes actually strike each other, but eventually the girl is produced and handed over to the bridegroom’s family by her father. The mock capture of the bride and the pretended resistance is possibly a survival of marriage by conquest, or possibly it is meant to denote excessive modesty on the part of the bride. If one inquires the reason the Siwans reply that it has been the custom “min zamaan,” and nobody is any the wiser.