The history at Siwa tells how one Rashwan was King of Siwa when the Mohammedan army arrived, commanded by the Prophet’s khalifa. Rashwan summoned his priests and magicians and consulted them as to how the enemy were to be repelled. Acting on their advice he removed all the bodies from “Gebel Muta,” a hill near Siwa which is honeycombed with rock tombs, and cast them into the springs in order to poison the enemy. Then he retired into the town, depending on the wells inside the walls. The Mohammedan army arrived, but the water of the springs did them no harm. They stormed the town and captured it after a strenuous fight; Rashwan was killed, and the inhabitants embraced the faith of Islam at the sword’s point. During the period that followed the Arab invasion very little is known of Siwa. The oasis was inhabited by a mixture of Berbers and Arabs, the Berbers predominating. Occasional caravans of slave-traders passed northwards along the main desert routes, and some of the slaves, having been bought by the Siwans, remained in the oasis and intermarried with the inhabitants. The Siwans, diminished in numbers and in power, began to suffer from raids by the Arabs from the west and from the coast. According to the old history, which is preserved at Siwa, there was another small incursion from the east at a later date. About the middle of the fifteenth century there was a great plague which carried off a number of Siwans. A certain devout man in Egypt dreamed that the ground at Siwa was very rich. He came to the oasis and settled there, planting a special kind of date palm which he brought from Upper Egypt; he also grew dates for the “Wakf”—religious foundation—of the Prophet, which custom still continues. Later he made the pilgrimage and described the country of Siwa to the people of Mecca, who had never heard of it. They did him great honour. He returned to Siwa accompanied by thirty men, Berbers and Arabs, who settled in Siwa. They built an olive press in the centre of the high town and inscribed their names thereon. From these men, and their Siwan wives, certain of the present inhabitants are descended, and some Siwans boast to-day that their forebears came with “The Thirty” whose names were inscribed on the old olive press. “The Thirty” occupied the western part of the town, and the original Siwans remained in the eastern quarter and in the village of Aghourmi. Later the Siwans elected a council and chose a “Kadi”—judge—who drew up a code of laws.