CAVE DWELLINGS — FEWKES. 625 



are told, he sees no sign of a village but only a number of cisternlike 

 depressions in the earth, each measuring about 30 feet in diameter. 

 But standing on the edge of one of these depressions and looking 

 over the side into it what a strange sight meets his eyes. Deep in 

 these sunken areas he sees the inhabitants, dogs, camels, and human 

 beings. This depression is a breathing place or sunken plaza into 

 which rooms open through lateral passageways, which are exca- 

 vations in the walls of the depression. Some of these chambers are 

 adorned with rugs and furniture. The sunken plaza is apparently 

 the living place, entrance to it being by means of a subterranean tun- 

 nel, slanting upward, large enough for passage of man or beast. 

 The troglodytic people which inhabit these subterranean chambers 

 now number 1,200, and there is historical evidence that they have 

 lived in these sunken pits for centuries. The court or sunken area 

 into which the different rooms open is a common gathering place for 

 the inhabitants, in which most of the household work is performed, 

 the excavated chambers being often arranged one above another, 

 serving as the sleeping rooms. 



There are several of these troglodytic towns in the arid deserts of 

 Tunis, some of them wholly below the earth's surface, while others 

 are partly above ground. The reasons man has resorted to this sub- 

 terranean life in this region are to escape from the torrid sun that 

 fiercely beats down on the parched desert and to obtain shelter from 

 the rain and sand storms. A remarkable similarity between pueblos 

 on the one side and another type of Tunisian town like Medinine on 

 the other is worthy of mention. Medinine, regarded by Hamy 1 as 

 the Mapalia of Sallust, and probably the same as the troglodytic 

 town mentioned by Strabo, according to Traeger, is composed of long, 

 narrow rows of rooms destitute of windows, their doorways looking 

 out on a common court. The rooms of this village, as shown by the 

 doors, are built one above another, facing in the same general 

 direction. 



A comparison of the accompanying view of Medinine (pi. 5, fig. 2) 

 and the Hopi pueblo, Oraibi, can not fail to reveal to the observer 

 general likenesses with special differences. The buildings ate four or 

 five stories high, with lateral doorways at different levels. Of minor 

 resemblance, visible in the figure, may be mentioned the steps, stairs, 

 or other foot rests by which one ascends from the ground to the upper 

 rooms. The row of these last, seen near the standing human figure 

 about halfway up the side of the building, closely recalls similar pro- 

 jecting stones found in some of the cliff dwellings in Arizona, Colo- 

 rado, and New Mexico. 



1 La Tunisie au debut du XX Siecle, Paris, 1904. 

 97578°— sm 1910 40 



