|The Physical Constitution Of the Tell|
Thus a simple plan of a portion of the Tell is as given on the [following page], where the line of crosses indicates the watershed between the Mediterranean and the inland drainage of the High Plateaux.
|The New Vineyard|
But if one were to mark on this map a stippled surface for contours under five hundred feet, a hatched one for the same between five and fifteen hundred, a black one up to two thousand five hundred, and above that leave the heights in white with little triangles for the summits, one would get some such complicated scheme as is shown on the [opposite page], where it will be seen that a high mountain (at C) overlooks the shore far from the watershed, and the scheme of valleys is complex and might seem a labyrinth to a man on foot without a map. At A and B are the ports of each bay, and near to each at the mouth of either river a large plain such as is characteristic of the heads of all these inlets. Their earth is black, deep, and fertile: inviting the plough. Such fields fed Utica, Icosium and Hippo Regius and Cæsarea. They remained wild and abandoned for over a thousand years, but to-day you may see miles of vineyards planted in rows that run converging to the limits of the plain, where, until this last generation, no one had dug or pruned or gathered or pressed since the Latin language was forgotten in these lands. Indeed, it would be possible for a fantastic man to see in this replanting of the vine a symbol of the joy of Europe returning; for everywhere the people of the desert have had a fear of wine, and their powerful legends have affected us also in the north for a time. But the vine is in Africa again. It will not soon be uprooted.
Such plains, then, their rivers and their adjacent seaport towns, make up the Tell, in which the Romans nourished many millions and in which the most part of the reconstituted province will at last build its homes.
By such a bay and entering such a harbour, whoever comes to Africa reaches land.
|The Bay of Hippo|