The Greeks ranged their tents of skin in parallel lines; the Iberians
placed their canvas pavilions in a circle; the Gauls made themselves
huts of planks; the Libyans cabins of dry stones, while the Negroes with
their nails hollowed out trenches in the sand to sleep in. Many, not
knowing where to go, wandered about among the baggage, and at nightfall
lay down in their ragged mantles on the ground.
The plain, which was wholly bounded by mountains, expanded around them.
Here and there a palm tree leaned over a sand hill, and pines and oaks
flecked the sides of the precipices: sometimes the rain of a storm would
hang from the sky like a long scarf, while the country everywhere was
still covered with azure and serenity; then a warm wind would drive
before it tornadoes of dust, and a stream would descend in cascades from
the heights of Sicca, where, with its roofing of gold on its columns of
brass, rose the temple of the Carthaginian Venus, the mistress of the
land. She seemed to fill it with her soul. In such convulsions of the
soil, such alternations of temperature, and such plays of light would
she manifest the extravagance of her might with the beauty of her
eternal smile. The mountains at their summits were crescent-shaped;
others were like women's bosoms presenting their swelling breasts, and
the Barbarians felt a heaviness that was full of delight weighing down
their fatigues.
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