I had rather expected that the Matmata dwellings would contain some specimens of indigenous art, such as one finds among other very ancient peoples, as, for example, the Hopi. Yet, so far as I could discover, the Troglodytes possess no art of their own. The walls of the tunnel-like entrance to one of their houses, it is true, were decorated with a sort of dado of colored hand-prints, easily recognizable, however, as the hand of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, and hence an Arab form of decoration. The people seem to have an innate if quite undeveloped love for the beautiful, however, as is evidenced by the pride with which they display the paltry trinkets—bits of the cheap pottery common in North Tunisia, gaudy lithographs of Turkish origin, empty wine-bottles with flowers stuck in the necks, looking-glasses, cracked pieces of European chinaware, in one case a tin which had contained a well-known smoking-mixture—which are _objets d’art_ to them. These things are not beautiful, it is true, but many of the objects which we treasure because of their rarity are not beautiful either. A funeral was held in Bled Kebira while we were there, but on account of the presence of numerous women, and of the fact that the Matmatas object to having their religious ceremonies witnessed by non-Moslems, we could view it only from a distance. The services were conducted in one of the larger _ghars_, and at their conclusion the coffin, borne on the shoulders of several men, was carried through the winding tunnel to the open air and thence up a precipitous foot-path to the little unkempt cemetery, where deceased Matmatas are laid to rest beneath far less soil than they are accustomed to live under when alive. It was one of the most bizarre spectacles I have ever witnessed: the multitude of white-veiled, white-robed figures issuing in seemingly endless procession from a black hole in the ground, their voices raised in a plaintive, barbaric chant. “It reminds me,” said Mrs. Powell, “of Doré’s picture of the Day of Judgment, when the sheeted dead arise from their graves.” Just then there came from the French _caserne_ on the hill the shrill notes of a bugle sounding the noon mess-call. “Yes,” remarked my daughter, “and there goes Gabriel’s horn!” * * * * * Midway between the eastern slopes of the Matmata Plateau and the coast, close to the Tripolitanian border, is Medenine. It is one of the most extraordinary places in the world; I know of nothing even remotely like it. Here too the inhabitants are troglodytes, if by troglodytes are meant those who creep into holes, which is the classic definition. But, whereas the troglodytes of Matmata lives in holes beneath the ground, those of Medenine have their holes above it, in what might be termed desert apartment-houses, four, five, occasionally even six stories in height.