The path to the town passed over a disused cemetery where the pony was very liable to stick its foot through the thin layer of soil above the graves, under an archway and into the street that divides the Eastern and Western quarters. The street itself was hard rock and very steep in parts, but owing to the height of the tall houses on each side it was generally cool and shady and a favourite resting-place of the inhabitants, many of whom lay stretched full length across the street taking their siesta. But the clattering hoofs of my pony generally roused them, and they scrambled out of the way when I came. The Siwans are well mannered, a virtue that one never sees in Egypt nowadays, and even in the Sudan it is on the wane. When I rode or walked in the town everybody would stand up as I passed, and if I met people riding they would dismount until I had gone on. I have heard people at home say what a scandal it is that in some places the poor downtrodden natives have to stand up and move off the path for an Englishman, but after all they would do exactly the same for their own Pashas, and apart from being an Englishman one was entitled to respect as being the representative of the Egyptian Government in Siwa. Once I was badly “had” over this. I was riding through the market with some policemen following me on my way to make an inspection. There was a group of Siwans sitting talking on the ground, and as I passed they all stood up—except one man who remained comfortably seated in the shade right in the middle of the path. I ordered one of the policemen to see who he was and to bring him along to the Markaz to answer for his bad manners. A few minutes later the man from the market was led into the office. He was stone blind! The Markaz is a large building outside the town with square courtyard surrounded by prisons, stores and offices. It has a permanent guard of locally enlisted police; they are quite smart men, but of little use when there is trouble in the town, and always at enmity with the Sudanese Camel Corps. At the Markaz I would usually find a number of petitions to be read and examined, some cases to be tried, and probably people applying for permits to cross the frontier who would have to be questioned and seen. Then the sheikhs would arrive and there would be discussions about various things—taxes, labour, work on the drains or Government buildings, new regulations and orders, and then perhaps the merchants would be summoned, and a heated controversy would follow about the price of sugar, or the butchers would come to complain of the cost of meat. It was like a daily meeting of a town council, and complicated by innumerable interests, rivalries and intrigues. All these matters, though they sound very small, were of considerable importance to the Siwans.