Although Siwan houses are unprepossessing from the outside their interiors are comparatively comfortable. What I personally objected to was the exceeding lowness of the doors, and yet the Siwans on the whole are tall. They told me that doors were made small for the sake of warmth. Roughly the houses are built on the usual Arab pattern; on the ground floor there are storerooms, stables, and servants’ quarters, upstairs there are guest-rooms, harem, and living rooms. The entrance hall has seats of mud similar to the walls, and is usually screened from sight by a corner inside the door. Stairs are steep and narrow with sudden sharp turnings; they are always pitch dark, as only the rooms in the outer walls receive any light. Each house consists of two or three storeys and above them there is an open roof, sometimes with several rooms built on to it. The old houses of the high town are different, only those on the topmost level have open roofs. The immense thickness of the walls makes the houses cool in summer when the temperature often reaches 112 degrees in the shade, and warm in winter when icy winds sweep down from the high desert plateau. The rooms in the houses of the better classes are large and high, lit by little square windows, which are made in groups of three, one above and two below in order not to put unnecessary strain on the masonry. Each window has four divisions with a shutter to each division; these shutters are kept open in summer-time. The windows are very low, a few feet above the level of the floor, which allows people sitting on the ground to see out of them. The ceilings are made of palm trunks covered with rushes and a layer of mud; the ends of the trunks, if they are too long, project outside the walls and serve as pegs on which to hang bundles of bones to avert the “Evil Eye.” Mud, which becomes as hard as cement, is used not only for the walls, but for the stairs, the divans, ovens, and most of the kitchen utensils. Old stone coffins, discovered near the temple or in some of the rock tombs, are utilized as water-troughs in most houses. The floors are covered with palm matting, and an occasional old Turkish or Persian carpet; the divans are furnished with a few cushions, white bolster-like objects, or beautifully stamped leather from the Sudan. The walls are whitewashed and sometimes ornamented with crude coloured frescoes, and in almost every room there are several heavy wooden chests, handsomely carved, sometimes of great age, which are used for keeping valuables. Occasionally one sees a couple of chairs and a round tin table, like those which are used outside cafes, but personally I have always felt much more comfortable sitting cross-legged on a heap of cushions near the window than perched up on a rickety chair above my hosts. A brass tray, a low round table, a few baskets and an earthenware lamp hanging on the wall, completes the furniture of a guest-room. I have spent many pleasant hours