material; steel and copper would have rotted away long ago, and the
stoutest palaces crumbled to dust under the teeth of the desert air.

The bed of the Oued Baiesh, which flows past Gafsa and is nearly half a
mile broad in some places, is rich in these worked flints which have been
washed out of its steep banks by the floods. Walking here the other day
with a miserable young Arab who, I verily believe, had attached himself to
me out of sheer boredom (since he never asked for a sou), I observed, in
the distance, a solitary individual, a European, pacing slowly along as
though wrapped in meditation; every now and then he bent down to the
ground.

"That's a French gentleman from Gafsa. He collects those stones of yours
all day long."

Another amateur, I thought.

"But not like yourself," he went on. "He picks them up, bad and good, and
when they don't look nice he works at them with iron things; I've seen
them! He makes very pretty stones, much prettier than yours. Then he sends
them away."

"How do you know this?"

"I've looked in at his window."

A modern "atelier" of flints--this was an amusing revelation. Maybe--who
knows?--half the museums of Europe are stocked with these superior
products.