But what interests me most is the style of Sallust himself. How
ultra-modern this historian reads! His outlook upon life, his choice of
words, are the note of tomorrow; and when I compare with him certain
writers of the Victorian epoch, I seem to be unrolling a papyrus from
Pharaoh's tomb, or spelling out the elucubrations of some maudlin scribe
of Prester John.
The stones are there. And the quarries whence the Romans drew them have
also been found, by Guerin; they lie in the flanks of the Jebel Assalah,
and are well worth a visit; legions of bats--_tirlils_, the Arabs call
them--hang in noisome clusters from the roof.
Concerning these bats, the following story is told in Gafsa.
Not long ago a rich Englishman came here. He used to go out in the
evenings and shoot bats; then he put them into bottles with spirits of
wine--he was an amateur of bats. On the day of his departure from the
place, he said to the polyglot Arab guide whom he had picked up somewhere
on his wanderings:
"You will rejoin me in Tunis in ten days. Bring me more bats--tirlils:
_comprenni?_--from this country.
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