But Siwa will never become a much-visited place, which is perhaps all for the best, owing to the strip of desert which stretches between it and the coast. Otherwise it might have developed into another Biskra, which is the oasis in Algeria that Hitchens describes so wonderfully in _The Garden of Allah_. Quite lately I noticed in a travel book called _Kufara, the Secret of the Sahara_, by Mrs. Rosita Forbes, a mention of this very desert between Siwa and the coast which was described as a “tame desert.” This expression, used by a lady with such great knowledge of deserts in all parts of the world, surprised me—and I own that it annoyed me! Her only experience of this particular desert was acquired during the one day in which she motored up from Siwa to Matruh in the company of several officers of the F.D.A. who met her there. But people on the Western Desert can remember, only too well, a terrible fatality which occurred less than a year ago in which three Englishmen were involved, and which proved conclusively that no waterless desert is safe or “tame,” even in these days when cars can travel across it. I was not actually in Siwa when Hassanein Bey arrived there, accompanied by Mrs. Forbes, after their memorable journey to Kufra, but I returned there soon afterwards, and it was very interesting to hear of her exploit from the various natives who came in to Siwa from the west. In spite of a climate that was sometimes trying, in spite of a bad bout of fever, and in spite of an occasional feeling of loneliness, the memory of the time that I spent at Siwa will always be a very happy one. Siwa is so absolutely unspoilt, and so entirely Eastern. Even the ubiquitous Greek trader has not penetrated this desert fastness. It is a place that grows on one, and the few who have been there, and who appreciate its curious fascination, find it very hard to leave. There is a saying in Egypt that whoever tastes the water of the Nile must some time return there, and I am very sure that he who drinks from the Siwa springs will always wish to go there again. Walking by moonlight under those huge, towering battlements of the strange old town, through streets and squares deserted save for an occasional white-robed figure, one could almost credit the queer stories of ghosts, jinns and afreets that are believed by the Siwans to haunt every spot in this mysterious little oasis which lies hidden among the great barren tracts of the pitiless Libyan Desert. [Illustration: THE WESTERN DESERT OF EGYPT] BIBLIOGRAPHY Books consulted in compiling the “History of Siwa”:— Anonymous History of Siwa (Arabic). ARRIAN. Expeditio Alexandri. BATES, ORIC. The Eastern Libyans. BLOCHET. History of the Arab Conquest. BOVARY. Letters from Egypt. BREASTED. History of Egypt. BROWNE, W. G. Travels in Africa (1792-6). BUDGE. Life of Alexander. BUTLER, A. J. Arab Conquest. CAILLIAUD. Travels in the Oases.