en Hamilcar, despairing of the Republic, took by force from the tribes
all that he wanted for the war--grain, oil, wood, cattle, and men. But
the inhabitants were not long in taking flight. The villages passed
through were empty, and the cabins were ransacked without anything being
discerned in them. The Punic army was soon encompassed by a terrible
solitude.

The Carthaginians, who were furious, began to sack the provinces; they
filled up the cisterns and fired the houses. The sparks, being carried
by the wind, were scattered far off, and whole forests were on fire on
the mountains; they bordered the valleys with a crown of flames, and
it was often necessary to wait in order to pass beyond them. Then the
soldiers resumed their march over the warm ashes in the full glare of
the sun.

Sometimes they would see what looked like the eyes of a tiger cat
gleaming in a bush by the side of the road. This was a Barbarian
crouching upon his heels, and smeared with dust, that he might not be
distinguished from the colour of the foliage; or perhaps when passing
along a ravine those on the wings would suddenly hear the rolling of
stones, and raising their eyes would perceive a bare-footed man bounding
along through the openings of the gorge.

Meanwhile Utica and Hippo-Zarytus were free since the Mercenaries
were no longer besieging them. Hamilcar commanded them to come to his
assistance. But not caring to compromise themselves, they answered him
with vague words, with compliments and excuses.

He went up again abruptly into the North, determined to open up one of
the Tyrian towns, though he were obliged to lay siege to it. He required
a station on the coast, so as to be able to draw supplies and men from
the islands or from Cyrene, and he coveted the harbour of Utica as being
the nearest to Carthage.

The Suffet therefore left Zouitin and turned the lake of Hippo-Zarytus
with circumspection. But he was soon obliged to lengthen out his
regiments into column in order to climb the mountain which separates
the two valleys. They were descending at sunset into its hollow,
funnel-shaped summit, when they perceived on the level of the ground
before them bronze she-wolves which seemed to be running across the
grass.

Suddenly large plumes arose and a terrible song burst forth, accompanied
by the rhythm of flutes. It was the army under Spendius; for some
Campanians and Greeks, in their execration of Carthage, had assumed the
ensigns o