of Carthaginians, who were dressed in garments of black. The sailors'
tunics showed like drops of blood among the dark multitude, and nearly

naked children, whose skin shone beneath their copper bracelets,
gesticulated in the foliage of the columns, or amid the branches of a

palm tree. Some of the Ancients were posted on the platform of the
towers, and people did not know why a personage with a long beard

stood thus in a dreamy attitude here and there. He appeared in the
distance against the background of the sky, vague as a phantom and

motionless as stone.
All, however, were oppressed with the same anxiety; it was feared that

the Barbarians, seeing themselves so strong, might take a fancy to
stay. But they were leaving with so much good faith that the

Carthaginians grew bold and mingled with the soldiers. They
overwhelmed them with protestations and embraces. Some with

exaggerated politeness and audacious hypocrisy even sought to induce
them not to leave the city. They threw perfumes, flowers, and pieces

of silver to them. They gave them amulets to avert sickness; but they
had spit upon them three times to attract death, or had enclosed

jackal's hair within them to put cowardice into their hearts. Aloud,
they invoked Melkarth's favour, and in a whisper, his curse.

Then came the mob of baggage, beasts of burden, and stragglers. The
sick groaned on the backs of dromedaries, while others limped along

leaning on broken pikes. The drunkards carried leathern bottles, and
the greedy quarters of meat, cakes, fruits, butter wrapped in fig

leaves, and snow in linen bags. Some were to be seen with parasols in
their hands, and parrots on their shoulders. They had mastiffs,

gazelles, and panthers following behind them. Women of Libyan race,
mounted on asses, inveighed against the Negresses who had forsaken the

lupanaria of Malqua for the soldiers; many of them were suckling
children suspended on their bosoms by leathern thongs. The mules were

goaded out at the point of the sword, their backs bending beneath the
load of tents, while there were numbers of serving-men and water-

carriers, emaciated, jaundiced with fever, and filthy with vermin, the
scum of the Carthaginian populace, who had attached themselves to the

Barbarians.
When they had passed, the gates were shut behind them, but the people

did not descend from the walls. The army soon spread over the breadth
of the isthmus.

It parted into unequal masses. Then the lances appeared like tall
blades of grass, and finally all was lost in a train of dust; those of

the soldiers who looked back towards Carthage could now only see its
long walls with their vacant battlements cut out against the edge of

the sky.
Then the Barbarians heard a great shout. They thought that some from

among them (for they did not know their own number) had remained in
the town, and were amusing themselves by pillaging a temple. They

laughed a great deal at the idea of this, and then continued their
journey.

They were rejoiced to find themselves, as in former days, marching all
together in the open country, and some of the Greeks sang the old song

of the Mamertines:
"With my lance and sword I plough and reap; I am master of the

house! The disarmed man falls at my feet and calls me Lord and
Great King."

They shouted, they leaped, the merriest began to tell stories; the
time of their miseries was past. As they arrived at Tunis, some of

them remarked that a troop of Balearic slingers was missing. They were
doubtless not far off; and no further heed was paid to them.

Some went to lodge in the houses, others camped at the foot of the
walls, and the townspeople came out to chat with the soldiers.

During the whole night fires were seen burning on the horizon in the
direction of Carthage; the light stretched like giant torches across

the motionless lake. No one in the army could tell what festival was
being celebrated.

On the following day the Barbarian's passed through a region that was
covered with cultivation. The domains of the patricians succeeded one

another along the border of the route; channels of water flowed
through woods of palm; there were long, green lines of olive-trees;

rose-coloured vapours floated in the gorges of the hills, while blue
mountains reared themselves behind. A warm wind was blowing.

Chameleons were crawling on the broad leaves of the cactus.
The Barbarians slackened their speed.

They marched on in isolated detachments, or lagged behind one another
at long intervals. They ate grapes along the margin of the vines. They

lay on the grass and gazed with stupefaction upon the large,
artificially twisted horns of the oxen, the sheep clothed with skins

to protect their wool, the furrows crossing one another so as to form
lozenges, and the ploughshares like ships' anchors, with the

pomegranate trees that were watered with silphium. Such wealth of the
soil and such inventions of wisdom dazzled them.

In the evening they stretched themselves on the tents without
unfolding them; and thought with regret of Hamilcar's feast, as they

fell asleep with their faces towards the stars.
In the middle of the following day they halted on the bank of a river,

amid clumps of rose-bays. Then they quickly threw aside lances,
bucklers and belts. They bathed with shouts, and drew water in their

helmets, while others drank lying flat on their stomachs, and all in
the midst of the beasts of burden whose baggage was slipping from

them.
Spendius, who was seated on a dromedary stolen in Hamilcar's parks,

perceived Matho at a distance, with his arm hanging against his
breast, his head bare, and his face bent down, giving his mule drink,

and watching the water flow. Spendius immediately ran through the
crowd calling him, "Master! master!"

Matho gave him but scant thanks for his blessings, but Spendius paid
no heed to this, and began to march behind him, from time to time

turning restless glances in the direction of Carthage.
He was the son of a Greek rhetor and a Campanian prostitute. He had at

first grown rich by dealing in women; then, ruined by a shipwreck, he
had made war against the Romans with the herdsmen of Samnium. He had

been taken and had escaped; he had been retaken, and had worked in the
quarries, panted in the vapour-baths, shrieked under torture, passed

through the hands of many masters, and experienced every frenzy. At
last, one day, in despair, he had flung himself into the sea from the

top of a trireme where he was working at the oar. Some of Hamilcar's
sailors had picked him up when at the point of death, and had brought

him to the ergastulum of Megara, at Carthage. But, as fugitives were
to be given back to the Romans, he had taken advantage of the

confusion to fly with the soldiers.
During the whole of the march he remained near Matho; he brought him

food, assisted him to dismount, and spread a carpet in the evening
beneath his head. Matho at last was touched by these attentions, and

by degrees unlocked his lips.
He had been born in the gulf of Syrtis. His father had taken him on a

pilgrimage to the temple of Ammon. Then he had hunted elephants in the
forests of the Garamantes. Afterwards he had entered the service of

Carthage. He had been appointed tetrarch at the capture of Drepanum.
The Republic owed him four horses, twenty-three medimni of wheat, and

a winter's pay. He feared the gods, and wished to die in his native
land.

Spendius spoke to him of his travels, and of the peoples and temples
that he had visited. He knew many things: he could make sandals, boar-

spears and nets; he could tame wild beasts and could cook fish.
Sometimes he would interrupt himself, and utter a hoarse cry from the

depths of his throat; Matho's mule would quicken his pace, and others
would hasten after them, and then Spendius would begin again though

still torn with agony. This subsided at last on the evening of the
fourth day.

They were marching side by side to the right of the army on the side
of a hill; below them stretched the plain lost in the vapours of the

night. The lines of soldiers also were defiling below, making
undulations in the shade. From time to time these passed over