Fountains in the Sand | Page 4

was an
implement of worked flint. Here was a discovery! Who were these
carvers of stones, the aboriginals of Gafsa? How lived they? A
prolonged and melodious whistle from the distant railway station
served to remind me of the gulf of ages that separates these prehistoric
men from the life of our day.
But as if to efface without delay that consoling impression, my
downward path led past a dark cavern before which was lighted a fire
that threw gleams into its recesses; there was a family crouching around
it; they lived in the hollow rock. A high-piled heap of bones near at
hand suggested cannibalistic practices.
These, then, are the primitives of Gafsa. And for how long, I wonder,
has this convenient shelter been inhabited? From time immemorial,
perhaps; ever since the days of those others. And, after all, how little
have they changed in the intervening thousands of years! The
wild-eyed young wench, with her dishevelled hair, ferocious
bangle-ornaments, tattooings, and nondescript blue rags open at the
side and revealing charms well fitted to disquiet some robust
savage--what has such a creature in common with the rest of us? Not
even certain raptures, misdeemed primeval; hardly more than what falls
to man and beast alike. On my appearance, she rose up and eyed me
unabashed; then sank to the ground again, amid her naked and uncouth
cubs; the rock, she said, was warmer than the black tents; they paid no
rent; for the rest, her man would return forthwith. And soon there was a
clattering of stones, and a herd of goats scrambled up and vanished
within the opening.

The partner was neither pleased nor displeased at seeing me there;
every day he went to pasture his flock on the slopes of the opposite
Jebel Guetter, returning at nightfall; he tried to be civil but failed, for
want of vocabulary. I gave him the salutation, and passed on in the
gloaming.

Chapter II
BY THE OUED BAIESH
This collecting of flint implements grows upon one at Gafsa; it is in the
air. And I find that quite a number of persons have anticipated me in
this amusement, and even written tomes upon the subject--it is ever
thus, when one thinks to have made a scientific discovery. These stones
are scattered all over the plain, and Monsieur Couillault has traced the
site of several workshops--_ateliers_--of prehistoric weapons near Sidi
Mansur, which lies within half a mile of Gafsa, whence he has
extracted--or rather retrieved, for the flints merely lie upon the
ground--quantities of instruments of every shape; among them, some
saws and a miniature spade.
[Illustration: Gafsa and Jebel Orbata]
My collection of these relics, casually picked up here and there, already
numbers two hundred pieces, and illustrates every period of those early
ages--uncouth battle-axes and spear-points; fine needles, apparently
used for sewing skins together; the so-called laurel-leaves, as thin as
card-board; knife-blades; instruments for scraping beast-hides--all of
flint. What interests me most, are certain round throwing-stones; a few
are flat on both sides, but others, evidently the more popular shape, are
flat below and rise to a cone above. Of these latter, I have a series of
various sizes; the largest are for men's hands, but there are smaller ones,
not more than eleven centimetres round, for the use of children: one
thinks of the fierce little hands that wielded them, these many thousand
years ago. Even now the natives will throw by preference with a stone
of this disk-like shape--the cone pointing downwards. But, judging by
the size of their implements, the hands of this prehistoric race can
hardly have been as large as those of their modern descendants.
Then, as now, Gafsa must have been an important site; the number of
these weapons is astonishing. Vast populations have drifted down the

stream of time at this spot, leaving no name or mark behind them, save
these relics fashioned, by the merest of chances, out of a practically
imperishable material; steel and copper would have rotted away long
ago, and the stoutest palaces crumbled to dust under the teeth of the
desert air.
The bed of the Oued Baiesh, which flows past Gafsa and is nearly half
a mile broad in some places, is rich in these worked flints which have
been washed out of its steep banks by the floods. Walking here the
other day with a miserable young Arab who, I verily believe, had
attached himself to me out of sheer boredom (since he never asked for a
sou), I observed, in the distance, a solitary individual, a European,
pacing slowly along as though wrapped in meditation; every now and
then he bent down to the ground.
"That's a French gentleman from Gafsa. He collects those stones of
yours all day long."
Another amateur, I thought.