north wind seemed to be driving farther and farther inland.

CHAPTER IV

PROCOPIUS TO CETHEGUS:

We are still marching forward, and certainly as if we were in a
friendly country. Our heroes, even the Huns, have understood, thanks
less to my marching orders than to actual experience, that they cannot
steal as many provisions as the people will voluntarily bring if they
are to be paid instead of being robbed. Belisarius is winning all the
provincials by kindness. So the colonists flock from all directions to
our camp and sell us everything we need, at low prices. When we are
obliged to spend the night in the open fields we carefully fortify the
camp.

When it can be done we remain at night in cities, as, for instance, in
Leptis and Hadrumetum. The Bishop, with the Catholic clergy, comes
forth to meet us, as soon as our Huns appear. The Senators and the most
aristocratic citizens soon follow. The latter willingly allow
themselves to be "forced "; that is, they wait till we are in the
forum, so, in case we should all be thrown by our undiscoverable foes
into the sea before we reach Carthage, they can attribute their
friendliness to us to our cruel violence. With the exception of a few
Catholic priests I have not seen a Roman in Africa for whom I felt the
slightest respect. I almost think that they, the liberated, are even
less worthy than we, the liberators.

We march on an average about ten miles daily. To-day we came from
Hadrumetum past Horrea to Grasse, about forty-four Roman miles from
Carthage,--a magnificent place for a camp. Our astonishment increases
day by day, the more we learn of the riches of this African province.
In truth, it may well be beyond human power to maintain one's native
vigor beneath this sky, in this region. And Grasse! Here is a country
villa--to speak more accurately, a proud pillared palace of the Vandal
King--gleaming with marble, surrounded by pleasure-gardens, whose like
I have never seen in Europe or Asia. About it bubble delicious springs
brought through pipes from a distance, or up through the sand by some
magical discoverer of water. And what a multitude of trees! and not one
among them whose boughs are not fairly bending under the burden of
delicious fruit. Our whole army is encamped in this fruit grove,
beneath these trees; every soldier has eaten his fill and stuffed his
leather pouch, for we shall march on early to-morrow morning; yet one
can