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.
"But not like yourself," he went on. "He picks them up, bad and good, and
when they don't look nice he works at them with iron things; I've seen
them! He makes very pretty stones, much prettier than yours. Then he sends
them away."
"How do you know this?"
"I've looked in at his window."
A modern "atelier" of flints--this was an amusing revelation. Maybe--who
knows?--half the museums of Europe are stocked with these superior
products.
Sages will be interested to learn that Professor Koken, of Tuebingen, in a
learned pamphlet, lays it down that these flints of Gafsa belong to the
Mesvinian, Strepyian, Praechellean--to say nothing of the Mousterian,
Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian, and other types.
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