Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/146

 AN AFRICAN POMPEII

populated and profitably cultivated, it now presents no signs of human life or of fertility. The neighboring desert, though shut off from it by the Aurés Mountains, seems by some mysterious influence to be gradually possessing itself of this poor heritage of Rome. An Arab guardian is the sole inhabitant. For him alone the imposing triumphal arch spans Timgad's most important thoroughfare; to him disfigured Roman gods and goddesses speak of a glorious past in which his race has taken no part; for him alone exists the ruined theater, once the pride and center of Timgad's social life. What builders they were, those sturdy Romans! The ruins of their structures will outlive the stucco cities of to-day to which France so proudly points. And when we remember that in Roman days there were no railroads to annihilate space, we gain a true conception of the force and perseverance displayed by the founders of this series of military cities, so far from the sea,