THE CENTRAL PROVINCE 



57 



expedition, and who would endure for a time the attacks of the fleas, 

 might obtain most interesting results by excavating the floors of these 

 caverns. Native tradition never stretches very far back in these countries, 

 but as far as it does stretch, the people declare the caves to have been 

 inhabited from the earliest days of their traditions. Nowadays, owing to the 

 Pax Britannica, they are practically deserted. The natives told me they 

 would only be reoccupied either if war broke out again or if any unusual 

 drought occurred in the lowlands, obliging them to drive their cattle to 

 the mountain pastures. 



48. CRATER WALL OF ELGON, SEEN FROM THE WEST 



In many cases the entrance to the cave has been partially closed in 

 at the side by boulders piled on top of one another and defended by a 

 palisade of sticks. Altogether these caves are so interesting that some 

 attempt by the local Government should be made to maintain them in 

 their present condition as an object-lesson showing in all probability 

 what the habitations of our own Cave ]Men were like in Great Britain 

 hundreds of thousands of years ago. In the extreme south of Tunis and 

 in other parts of inner North Africa there are, as we know, tribes of 

 cave-dwellers of Berber stock who have brought cave-dwelling to a pitch 

 of something like modern civilisation and retinement. I have seen 



