DIFFERENT WAYS OF SWIMMING 



people inhabiting dwellings hollowed out of the rock, 

 set one upon the other, like those to be seen in certain 

 parts of Touraine and Anjou. On our way we come 

 to Medenine, a strange old Berber city, the houses of 

 which look as though they were made of huts piled 

 one on top of the other in a mass, as though to recall 

 the storied grottoes of the mountainous area. We 

 pass close by the ruins of an ancient Roman town, 

 Gighti, whose extent and importance indicate that this 

 country, now denuded, was once rich and well popu- 

 lated. When we tread the flags of the deserted streets 

 we feel the same sort of desolation which we experi- 

 enced the previous evening when, before reaching 

 Sfax and Gabes, we looked upon the huge circus of 

 El-Djem, almost as large as the Coliseum at Rome, 

 now all alone in gloomy surroundings with nothing 

 but a sparsely inhabited country about it. In the 

 second and third centuries of our era there was a 

 populous agricultural and commercial city here, Thys- 

 drus, richly planted with olive trees and cereals. 

 Gordian, in a.d. 238, took possession of the empire 

 there. Not a trace of it remains to-day. The memories 

 are gone; there is no sign of the plantations, and, as 

 the poet says, the ruins themselves have perished. 



The desert invades and extends continually, and 

 when the vegetation can survive no longer, all life 

 disappears with it. The task of civilization consists 

 in stopping the advance of the desert, even making 

 it withdraw, by cultivation and irrigation, as the 

 Romans did in days gone by. Occasionally, after 

 leaving Medenine, we come upon it. The road passes 

 over broad stretches of sand, flat as the sea, with the 

 horizon all around like the circle one sees at sea with 

 oneself at the centre. The smallest object seems 

 enormous; a dog, a sheep, a camel stand out like 

 giants a long way off. The sand which covers the 

 soil has no growth but stumpy bushes upon it. The 

 lightest breeze raises its tiny grains into dust, carries 



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