g the rocks; and
leaving the weakest, about three thousand in number, behind them, they
began their march to rejoin the army at Tunis.

Above the gorge there stretched a meadow thinly sown with shrubs; the
Barbarians devoured the buds. Afterwards they found a field of beans;
and everything disappeared as though a cloud of grasshoppers had passed
that way. Three hours later they reached a second plateau bordered by a
belt of green hills.

Among the undulations of these hillocks, silvery sheaves shone at
intervals from one another; the Barbarians, who were dazzled by the
sun, could perceive confusedly below great black masses supporting them;
these rose, as though they were expanding. They were lances in towers on
elephants terribly armed.

Besides the spears on their breasts, the bodkin tusks, the brass plates
which covered their sides, and the daggers fastened to their knee-caps,
they had at the extremity of their tusks a leathern bracelet, in
which the handle of a broad cutlass was inserted; they had set out
simultaneously from the back part of the plain, and were advancing on
both sides in parallel lines.

The Barbarians were frozen with a nameless terror. They did not even try
to flee. They already found themselves surrounded.

The elephants entered into this mass of men; and the spurs on their
breasts divided it, the lances on their tusks upturned it like
ploughshares; they cut, hewed, and hacked with the scythes on their
trunks; the towers, which were full of phalaricas, looked like volcanoes
on the march; nothing could be distinguished but a large heap, whereon
human flesh, pieces of brass and blood made white spots, grey sheets
and red fuses. The horrible animals dug out black furrows as they passed
through the midst of it all.

The fiercest was driven by a Numidian who was crowned with a diadem of
plumes. He hurled javelins with frightful quickness, giving at intervals
a long shrill whistle. The great beasts, docile as dogs, kept an eye on
him during the carnage.

The circle of them narrowed by degrees; the weakened Barbarians offered
no resistance; the elephants were soon in the centre of the plain.
They lacked space; they thronged half-rearing together, and their tusks
clashed against one another. Suddenly Narr' Havas quieted them, and
wheeling round they trotted back to the hills.

Two syntagmata, however, had taken refuge on the right in a bend of
ground, had thrown away their arms, and were all kn