Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/485

 ASmnJNEIN— ANTINOE. 895 place near the great earavanflerai. According to this rough estimate the one hundred thousand puhns of Siwah might supply throe million kilogrammes of dates, and those of Agenni much about the same quantity. This is exclusive of the public plantations, which yield fruit of an inferior quality, supplj-ing fodder for the animals. The suit of Siwah, which is of a superior quality, was formerly reserved for certain religious ceremonies, and was exported as far as Persia for the use of the royal household. Tlic inhabitants of Siwah, who are of indolent habita, seek no foreign markets for all these commodities, or for the tobacco smuggled into the oasis from the coast of Cyrenaica. Of disagreeable appearance, and probably of very mixed origin, they betray no resemblance to the fellahin, but are as emaciated and fever-stricken in appearance as the natives of El-Khargeh. Their language is of Berber origin, although most of them understand and even speak a little Arabic. They are excessively jealous, and oblige all the unmarried adult males, whether bachelors or widowers, to dwell together outside the town in a sort of fortress, where they remain shut up during the night. Newly married people remove at once to the town, a sort of common tribal harem, where the husband's kindred assign them the upper story of their pyramidal houses. In these dwellings the generations are thus distributed on an ascending scale from the ground-floor upwards. The village of Gara, in the oasis of like name, presents like Siwah the aspect of a feudal stronghold. The inhabitants of Siwah and Gara are still very fanatical, although less so than those of the oasis of Faredgha, which lies farther west in the direction of the Gulf of Cabes. Here on the slopes of the plateau skirting the depression on the north, is situated the parent house of the Senusi brotherhood. Jarabub or JerkbQb, as this place is variously called, was foimded in the year 1860, as the residence of Sidi Mohammed el-Mahdi, the grand-master of the Senusi. A small arsenal and a small-arms factory are attached to this monastery, the inmates of which, mostly immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, and other distant Mohammedan countries, appear to have numbcTcd about 750 in the year 1883. According to Godfrey Roth, the Mahdi of Faredgha is the " benefactor of the Bedouins." To him is due the establishment in the Sahara of over fifty stations where caravans can obtain water and provisions. • ASHMUNEIN — AnTIXOE. From Siut to Cairo all the towns, connected together by the Nile Valley railway, follow along the left bank of the river, the only side skirted by a broad zone of land under cultivation. Beyond Manfalut begins the Ibrahimieh Canal, which derives its supply from the Bahr-Yusef. ITere the plains are intersected in all directions by channels and irrigation rills. This fertile region of Egj'pt was formerly covered with several large towns. At the foot of the Arabian range lies the great necro- polis of Tell- ff-Amn run, where all the dead were placed under the protection of the Semitic god Aten (Adon, Adonai), the " radiant orb." Ashmunein, near the station and large sugar factory of Hoda, occupies the site