his eyes cease to take note of them; but there are two spectacles, ever
new, elemental, that correspond to deeper impulses: this of palms in the
waste--the miracle of water; and that of fire--the sun.

A low hill near the entrance of the town (it is marked Meda Hill on the
map) had attracted my attention as promising a fine view. Thither, after
settling my concerns at the hotel, I swiftly bent my steps; it was too
late; the wintry sun had gone to rest. The oasis still lay visible,
extended at my feet; on the other side I detected, some three miles away,
a white spot--a house, no doubt--standing by a dusky patch of palms that
rose solitary out of the stones. Some subsidiary oasis, probably; it
looked an interesting place, all alone there, at the foot of those barren
hills.

And still I lingered, my only companion being a dirty brown dog, of the
jackal type, who walked round me suspiciously and barked, or rather
whined, without ceasing. At last I took up a stone, and he ran away. But
the stone remained in my hand; I glanced at it, and saw that it was an
implement of worked flint. Here was a discovery! Who were these carvers of
stones, the aboriginals of Gafsa? How lived they? A prolonged and
melodious whistle from the distant railway station served to remind me of
the gulf of ages that separates these prehistoric men from the life of our
day.

But as if to efface without delay that consoling impression, my downward
path led past a dark cavern before which was lighted a fire that threw
gleams into its recesses; there was a family crouching around it; they
lived in the hollow rock. A high-piled heap of bones near at hand
suggested cannibalistic practices.