INTO THE LAND OF EGYPT-- 38 A Wife For 245.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 26 November 1938, Page 4

INTO THE LAND OF EGYPT-- 38 A Wife For 245.

By H. V. MORTON

When I had been in Siwa for a day or so. 1 noticed that a youhg fellow, who might have been twenty years of age, began to Haunt the steps of the Resthouse. He was a curidus-lddkihg; rather dashing person, who carried himself in a vagtiely defiant manner. He was the Colour of cafe-ati-iait, his feet were bare, his close-cropped haif was cbvered with a round knitted cap. and froth the breast pocket of his galaibeh always protruded a packet df cigarettes and a box of matches. Yet 1 never saw him smoking. ‘‘What is that young rhah always hanging aboiit the place for?” 1 asked the Sudanese cook ohfe evening. “The young man . . he began, and then, covering his huge rriduth with a black hand, began to giggle, in a stupid, irritating manner.

“The youhg man wishes to sell you : a ‘Virginity-Disc’,” he said; and then burst out laughing. i knew that his amusement arose not from the object of the young man’s mis 7 1 sion—which would seem not at all ' funny to an Egyptian; &n Arab or a Su- < danese —but from something else; on ; which I could not quite put my finger. There was some mystery here. 1 , knew that to ask questions would be ; never to find out what it was. The only . thing to do was to pretend to notice • nothing and keep hay eyes and ears , open. “T&ll tHe yotihg to go aWay. I ; don't Want to buy cfrife.” * * * W When the cook had gone, I heard a great Burst of laugfiter from the kitchens. Whatever the joke was, it Was evidently a popular one. The young man, however, continued to haunt the place. He always stood up when I approached and gave me a little bow and a cheerful srrtiie. It thfcrt seemed to me that it Wright be interesting to' buy a “Virginity Disfc.” Those heavy hoops Of silver with th6ir , beriddril pectoral discS are worn over ] the shoulders by the girls of Siwa uiiiit , the WedHirig eve, when they are cast , into one of the (deepest springs in the ] oasis. The custom, like so much else at j Siwa, is of unknown antiquity, and it j may be that, .with the coming of the ( desfert car and the motor-lorry and in- j creased contact with “civilisation” (note \ inverted commas), such customs will i gradually die out: , Yes; I thought, it would be Interest- £ ing to have one of those discs as a ( souvenir bf Siwa. } * * ¥ * THe young man, given a little en- s couragement, now haunted the shad- £ ows of the' verandah iike a faithful dog, j but the first disc he produced was an g indifferent one, and was not worth ing at. .

. He returned with a really good ohe for which he wanted three Egyptian pounds, roughly the same price as three English pounds. As the price of a Wife has been stabilised at Siwa for many years at 120 piastres, Or £* 4s; t felt that the ybufig man wks frying tb overcharge file fbr the “Virginity Difcc.” He cxplairier thrit brides Were common. but Heavy silver discs were rarer. S6‘ we stHick a bargain df £2. t WascoHscious throughout these nebf much hearty amusement in the kitchen. One evening I happened to mention to the cook that the younj| man was a polite, honest and no doubt entirely trustworthy and moral young man, WQrthy of help and even emulation. The stupid fellow again covered his great black face with his hand and began to guffaw:— “Sir,” he said. “He is no young man. His name Is Ayesha. He is—a young woman!” The next tinie 1 saw Ay£shS, f dsKed her to sit down and tfeil me the story of her life. She told me that she had been married but was rid lodger married. She decided to ( suppprt herself by; selling things to thp date merchants, the caravans, and the rare visi,tofs who came to Siwa. But she found that, as a woman, her advances were always misunderstood. One day she dressed as a man and. as she put it, “the world changed.”

She found that With short hair artd in a mdscUline gdlaibeh with a packet of cigarettes protruding from a pocket, she was treated by men as one of themselves. I thought it interesting to encounter such a problem in the middle of the Libyan Desert. “I suppose if you marry agaih. . . ” 1 began, but a lobk of horror crossed her face: “Marty?” she cried. Why should I marry? I am happier as I am.” She told me that the sale of the disc to me was probably the big eofrihrtercial transaction of her year. And in a place where the wages of a Government labourer are 3s 6d a week, £2 is a lot Of money. Mo£t labourers in Siwa, however, receive ho money but are given food every six months. In an oasis with a perfect climate, where every other tree is hurig* with

food, th£ problems that Beset tHe poor in othfer countries Have ho parallel. * * * . * I can imagine that a Siwan woman, having tasted the fFeeddrri of a “man’s” liife, would not readily return to the seclusion in which SiWsifi wtfffilh drfe‘ so £ti'ictiy kept. During ali the time I was in Siwa I did not see one woman between thq ages of sixteen ahd thirty. Plenty of small girls are to be seen and many old women, but the married women of Siwft are kept behirid closed dbbrs. It is the tUstotri for girls tb rtiatry St a preposterously £aFiy kge. and tfieSp children, decked out in Bright colours, their hair done in a mass 4 of tight plaited curls, and oiled; With silver “Virginity Discs’* round their necks. ai ; e to bb sfeeh ev£ryWHere courting the gaze of prospective husbands. The style 6f hairdFe££ing Is curioUfely of the Wigs Wbrri by tH§ Women of Ancient Egypt as pictured in Theban tombs of the iBtH. Dynasty. The hair is parted on the crown Of the head and is tightly plaited, the front plaits fallirig forward in a straight line aerdss the forehead, entirely concealing it frOiti view. The hferr is bbtri ered with a sweet oil in which figleaves Have bCbfl poiindeb.

These little giris are loaded with Barbaric jewellery. Enormous earrings, attached not to the ears but to the hair; carry long chains to ivhich bells ar<J fixed. Huge necklaces, often made of beads takfeti frdrh circle their necks, and every unmarried girl wearg tHe “Virginity disc,” a Hoop o? solid silver ori which a round silverdisc about four inches in diameter is hung so that it falls on the breast. These disbs are ntiw becoming so scarce that many girls wbar ottly the silver hbdp. which was ohe of the reasons why I thought i should like to po££es3 one. It is sometimes assumed that clivbrcb is the result of civilisation and Sophistication, blit this lonely o§sis prbbabiy contains a higher percentage of divorces per head of the population than any other place in the world. Marriage ih Siwa, in fatt; corresponds far rriore nearly to our idea of a circulating library than tb matrimony, it is not unbbmhibn fbr a rfian to re 7 pudiate fifteen drid tWenty Wives, and I heard of dn old man Who had been married thirty-six times. V V V sfi Divorce carrier no sigma with it; and a divorced leaves onb husband to marry another immediately. Yet, despite the dreafy eafeer of repudiation which faces the average witS Irl this 6HSIS, ifiS bright little girld are the rhbst determined maH-hllriters. They will stick at nothing to eii-. chant the man of their choice, frequently invoking hlaglb ih the form of love ohiltres which are prepared by wrinkled old witches.^ But, sooner or later, the most ardent and Beautiful of Siwa’s daughters comes into general again, often as a middle-aged wbman oi’ a grandmother of thirty-five. “My Bodyguard Costs a Shilling!” Th»t’a how he describes his mid geltin of Pulmonas pastilles, which keep ’flp, cqlds bd coughs away. He’s safe wit!. Rulnjorias oh guard, for Pulmonas quickly dissolve iri the mouth and re : jbasq antiseptic vapours, whibh protect thq vulnerable nose, throat arid lungs Get l/- .tin of Pulmonas to-day. All chbrriipts and stores.