Carthage (Extinct city) -- History -- Fiction; Historical fiction
Then from the direction of Ariana appeared the men of the West, the
people of the Numidians. In fact, Narr’ Havas governed only the
Massylians; and, moreover, as they were permitted by custom to abandon
their king when reverses were sustained, they had assembled on the
Zainus, and then had crossed it at Hamilcar’s first movement. First
were seen running up all the hunters from Malethut-Baal and Garaphos,
clad in lions’ skins, and with the staves of their pikes driving small
lean horses with long manes; then marched the Gætulians in cuirasses of
serpents’ skin; then the Pharusians, wearing lofty crowns made of wax
and resin; and the Caunians, Macarians, and Tillabarians, each holding
two javelins and a round shield of hippopotamus leather. They stopped at
the foot of the Catacombs among the first pools of the Lagoon.
But when the Libyans had moved away, the multitude of the Negroes
appeared like a cloud on a level with the ground, in the place which the
others had occupied. They were there from the White Harousch, the Black
Harousch, the desert of Augila, and even from the great country of
Agazymba, which is four months’ journey south of the Garamantians,
and from regions further still! In spite of their red wooden jewels, the
filth of their black skin made them look like mulberries that had been
long rolling in the dust. They had bark-thread drawers, dried-grass
tunics, fallow-deer muzzles on their heads; they shook rods furnished
with rings, and brandished cows’ tails at the end of sticks, after the
fashion of standards, howling the while like wolves.
Then behind the Numidians, Marusians, and Gætulians pressed the
yellowish men, who are spread through the cedar forests beyond Taggir.
They had cat-skin quivers flapping against their shoulders, and they led
in leashes enormous dogs, which were as high as asses, and did not bark.
Finally, as though Africa had not been sufficiently emptied, and it had
been necessary to seek further fury in the very dregs of the races, men
might be seen behind the rest, with beast-like profiles and grinning
with idiotic laughter—wretches ravaged by hideous diseases, deformed
pigmies, mulattoes of doubtful sex, albinos whose red eyes blinked in
the sun; stammering out unintelligible sounds, they put a finger into
their mouths to show that they were hungry.
The confusion of weapons was as great as that of garments and peoples.
There was not a deadly invention that was not present—from wooden
daggers, stone hatchets and ivory tridents, to long sabres toothed
like saws, slender, and formed of a yielding copper blade. They handled
cutlasses which were forked into several branches like antelopes’
horns, bills fastened to the ends of ropes, iron triangles, clubs and
bodkins. The Ethiopians from the Bambotus had little poisoned darts
hidden in their hair. Many had brought pebbles in bags. Others, empty
handed, chattered with their teeth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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