been a traveller in the grandiose style of Hadrian; he perambulated his
world like a god, crowned with a halo of benevolence and omnipotence.

And it occurs to me that there must be other relics of antiquity still
buried under the soil of Gafsa, which is raised on a mound, like an
island, above the surrounding country; particularly in the vicinity of the
_termid_, which we may suppose to have lain near the centre of the old
town. And where are the paving-stones? The painstaking John Leo says that
the streets of Gafsa are "broad and paved, like those of Naples or
Florence." Have they been slowly submerged under the debris of Arabism, or
taken up and worked into the masonry of the Kasbah and other buildings?
Not one is left: so much is certain.

I borrowed Sallust and tried to press some flavour out of his description
of Marius' march to the capture of Gafsa. It was a fine military
performance, without a doubt; he led his troops by unsuspected paths
across the desert, fell upon the palace, sacked and burnt it, and divided
the booty among his soldiers: all this without the loss of a single man.
The natives needed a lesson, and they got it; to this day the name of
Marius is whispered among the black tents as that of some fabulous hero.
But what interests me most is the style of Sallust himself. How
ultra-modern this historian reads! His outlook upon life, his choice of
words, are the note of tomorrow; and when I compare with him certain
writers of the Victorian epoch, I seem to be unrolling a papyrus from
Pharaoh's tomb, or spelling out the elucubrations of some maudlin scribe
of Prester John.

The stones are there. And the quarries whence the Romans drew them have
also been found, by Guerin; they lie in the flanks of the Jebel Assalah,
and are well worth a visit; legions of bats--_tirlils_, the Arabs call