Yet, if the ancient writers are to be believed, what is now an exception must have been at one period the rule. Vast areas of plain and mountain, now destitute of tree or shrub, must have been green with forest or jungle. Great numbers of savage beasts once roamed a region which to-day can show no wild animals save prowling jackals and occasional gazelles. From the Tunisian forests came the wild beasts which were used not only in the arenas of Roman Africa but in the Colosseum of Rome itself. Elephants roamed the land in herds and were used as the first wave of attack by the Carthaginian armies; it is recorded that Juba lost the Battle of Thapsus because his war-elephants, recently captured in the forests, were untrained. The Roman mosaics preserved in the museums at Sousse and the Palace of the Bardo depict hunting scenes in which the game were lions, tigers, leopards, deer, and wild boar. In “Salammbô” Flaubert tells us how the mutinous mercenaries, marching upon Carthage, found the road through Sicca Veneria (the modern Kef) lined with crosses bearing crucified lions. Insufficient rainfall, a scarcity of springs and streams—these always have been and always will be the chief problems of the Tunisian farmer. The soil itself, even the sand of the Sahara, is amazingly fertile; make no mistake about that. All that it needs is water to cause it to blossom like the rose. This difficulty the Romans overcame with astonishing energy, patience, and success, as is attested by the ruined waterworks which to-day strew not only the plains but the high, desolate plateaus. They did in Africa two thousand years ago what we are doing to-day in New Mexico and Arizona, transforming deserts into gardens by the miracle of water. Not a gallon of the precious fluid was permitted to go to waste. Every stream was dammed at frequent intervals, just as we have dammed the Colorado, the Rio Grande, and the Gila, the water thus impounded being distributed by a vast network of canals and aqueducts. Every farmstead had its wells and tanks, every city and town its elaborate water-system. The land thus systematically watered was cultivated with a science and thoroughness which many of our own farmers might profitably emulate to-day. Horses and cattle, sheep and goats, found rough but ample pasturage upon the hills. Vineyards covered the lower slopes with their ordered rows. Figs, dates, apricots, and pomegranates flourished in the warmer districts. In the spring the alluvial plains became a sea of waving grain, which was produced in such quantities that Tunisia became the granary of Italy, and it was commonly said that he who held Africa could starve Rome.