It appeared that when she was about eight years old she and her small brother were playing outside their village somewhere in the North-West Sudan, and a band of Arabs—slave raiders—swooped down and carried them off. They were taken up into Tripoli and there she was sold to another Arab who brought her to Siwa on his way to Egypt. She fell ill and almost died, so the Arab, who did not want to delay, sold her cheap to the Sheikh of Aghourmi, father of the present one; he handed her over to his wife who cured the child. She remained at Aghourmi for the rest of her life. She was a lively old body and told the story in a very cheerful way, giggling and laughing, not apparently feeling any wish to return to her own land. [Illustration: SHEIKH MAHDI ABDEL NEBI, OF AGHOURMI WITH HIS DAUGHTER AND COUSIN] Aghourmi is almost more picturesque than Siwa. The road to the gate passes below the overhanging rock on which the houses stand, which is thickly surrounded by a luxuriant wilderness of apricot, fig and palm trees. The steep path to the village goes under three archways, each with an enormous wooden gateway, and this path is the only possible means of entering the place. Above one of the gates there is a high tower, and the houses alongside the path are loopholed so that an enemy making an attack could be safely fired at from all sides by the defenders. Inside the town there is the same dark maze of narrow streets as in Siwa, with wells and olive presses, but all on a smaller scale than those in Siwa town. There are a few houses below the walls. The sheikh lives in the middle of the town in a big, high house with a roof that has as fine a view as any that I have seen. I got home after sunset and often had another bathe—by moonlight—before changing into flannels for dinner, which I had on the terrace in front of the house. I slept upstairs, on the roof, but I always kept a spare bed ready in the room as quite often a wild “haboob”—sand-storm—would blow up in the middle of the night, and even indoors one would be smothered and choked with sand. Such was the average day at Siwa, and by nine or ten o’clock one was glad to turn in.