There is nothing in Siwa that compares with the gorgeous bazaars of Cairo, or the gaily decked shops in the markets of provincial towns. These dark little shops have no colour, only a queer, rather pleasant smell, a potpourri of incense, spices, herbs, onions, olive oil and coffee. Meat is bought direct from the butchers, who combine and kill a sheep or a camel. Sugar and tea are the most popular necessities on the market. During the war, and for some time after, there was a sugar shortage. The supply for Siwa arrived at the coast, but rarely reached the oasis. When a small quantity did reach Siwa it was bought up immediately, and the merchants who obtained it took to gross profiteering. The price of an oke (2½ lbs.) reached as much as 40 piastres (8s.), which in Egypt is an excessively high price. Eventually the sale of sugar was supervised by the Government and sugar tickets were issued. Even then there were cases of sugar being smuggled across the frontier to Tripoli, where the shortage was even more severe. Arabs or Siwans are simply miserable if they have to go without sugar in their tea. It makes them cross and tiresome, and they say themselves that it injures their health. For the rest people depend on their garden produce, on dates, onions, fruit and coarse native bread. The women make their own clothes, and generally their husbands’ too, sometimes weaving the wool for the long “jibbas,” worn by the working men, on rough handlooms. There is a carpenter in the town and several masons, but as a shopping “centre” Siwa is not much of a catch.