barrier, had them carefully searched;
facing him Matho was examining the multitude, trying to recognise some
one whom he might have seen at Salammbo's palace.

The camp was like a town, so full of people and of movement was it. The
two distinct crowds mingled without blending, one dressed in linen or
wool, with felt caps like fir-cones, and the other clad in iron and
wearing helmets. Amid serving men and itinerant vendors there moved
women of all nations, as brown as ripe dates, as greenish as olives,
as yellow as oranges, sold by sailors, picked out of dens, stolen from
caravans, taken in the sacking of towns, women that were jaded with love
so long as they were young, and plied with blows when they were old, and
that died in routs on the roadsides among the baggage and the abandoned
beasts of burden. The wives of the nomads had square, tawny robes of
dromedary's hair swinging at their heels; musicians from Cyrenaica,
wrapped in violet gauze and with painted eyebrows, sang, squatting on
mats; old Negresses with hanging breasts gathered the animals' dung
that was drying in the sun to light their fires; the Syracusan women had
golden plates in their hair; the Lusitanians had necklaces of shells;
the Gauls wore wolf skins upon their white bosoms; and sturdy children,
vermin-covered, naked and uncircumcised, butted with their heads against
passers-by, or came behind them like young tigers to bite their hands.

The Carthaginians walked through the camp, surprised at the quantities
of things with which it was running over. The most miserable were
melancholy, and the rest dissembled their anxiety.

The soldiers struck them on the shoulder, and exhorted them to be gay.
As soon as they saw any one, they invited him to their amusements. If
they were playing at discus, they would manage to crush his feet, or
if at boxing to fracture his jaw with the very first blow. The slingers
terrified the Carthaginians with their slings, the Psylli with their
vipers, and the horsemen with their horses, while their victims,
addicted as they were to peaceful occupations, bent their heads and
tried to smile at all these outrages. Some, in order to show themselves
brave, made signs that they should like to become soldiers. They were
set to split wood and to curry mules. They were buckled up in armour,
and rolled like casks through the streets of the camp. Then, when
they were about to leave, the Mercenaries plucked out their hair with
grotesqu