or of milk, with faded mustaches, and red horsehair tied to the
crowns of their heads, who laid aside their military cloaks and tall
boots of untanned leather to bathe in the river, were Gauls. The others,
bronzed and so thin that their skeletons were outlined as if they would
push through the skin, were Africans from the oases of the great desert,
mysterious people, who with the beating of their small drums caused the
moon to descend, and by playing the flute forced venomous serpents to
dance. Mingling with them were the bulky Lusitanians, with limbs as
strong as columns, and broad rock-like chests; those from Baetica, united
to their horses day and night by a love which lasted all their lives;
the hostile Celtiberians, bushy-haired and dirty, wearing their rags
with arrogance; tribes from the North, who worshipped solitary menhirs
as gods, and in the moonlight sought mysterious herbs for charms and
philters; men of ferocious customs, in perpetual battle with hunger;
barbarian people of whom horrifying tales were told, believed to devour
the bodies of the conquered after a victory.

The Balearic slingers provoked laughter in spite of their ferocious
aspect. From the walls the observers commented on the extravagant
customs which prevailed in their island home, and the multitude burst
into laughter contemplating the almost naked youths, carrying sticks
with charred points which served them as lances, and having three
slings, one wound around the forehead, another about the waist, and the
third held in the hand. One of these slings was of horsehair, one of
esparto, and the third of bull tendon, and one or the other was used
according to the distance they had to throw.

They lived on their islands in caves or in the hollow spaces between
huge masses of rock, and they were taught to use the sling while mere
children. Their fathers set their bread some distance from them, and
would not let them eat it until they had brought it down with a pebble.
Their passion was drunkenness, and woman their strongest appetite. In
combat they turned with scorn from prisoners who would bring high ransom
to capture the women, and they not infrequently would exchange six
strong slave men for a single slave woman. On the islands they were
unfamiliar with gold and silver; the elders divining the evils of money,
had prohibited the importation of coins, and the Balearic slingers in
the service of Carthage, unable to carry their earnings to their