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It is not necessary to go back to the times of the Romans with their amphitheaters and gladiators, and with their throwing of Christians to wild animals, or to Nero using Christians as torches in his garden.
He used to celebrate great feasts in the public amphitheaters, and on the arena of the circus, and carouse there in company with the most dissolute men and women of the city a spectacle to the whole population.
Looking southwestward from the Henry Mountains the Circle Cliffs are seen. A great escarpment, several thousand feet in height and 70 or 80 miles in length, faces the mountain. It is the step to the long, narrow plateau. The streams that come down across these cliffs head in great symmetric amphitheaters, and when first seen from above they present a vast alignment of walled circles.
But instead of being plain, the walls are so deeply and elaborately carved into all sorts of recesses alcoves, cirques, amphitheaters, and side-cañons that were you to trace the rim closely around on both sides your journey would be nearly a thousand miles long.
The last rosy gleam faded from the tip of Point Sublime; and as if that were a signal, in all the clefts and canyons below, purple, shadowy clouds marshaled their forces and began to sweep upon the battlements, to swing colossal wings into amphitheaters where gods might have warred, slowly to enclose the magical sentinels.
The observer sits on the very edge of the fountain amphitheaters still holding large masses of snow; immediately below, almost at his feet, lie glistening, gem-like, in dark rocky setting, the three exquisite little lakes; on either side of these, embracing and protecting them, stretch out the moraine arms, reaching toward and directing the eye to the great Lake, which lies, map-like, with all its sinuous outlines perfectly distinct, even to its extreme northern end, twenty-five to thirty miles away.
But instead of being plain, the walls are so deeply and elaborately carved into all sorts of recesses alcoves, cirques, amphitheaters, and side canyons that, were you to trace the rim closely around on both sides, your journey would be nearly a thousand miles long.
Aside from the market place there were few or no open spaces. There were no amphitheaters or public baths as in the Roman cities. The streets were often mere alleys over which the jutting stories of the high houses almost met. The high, thick wall that surrounded it prevented its extending easily and rapidly as our cities do nowadays.
He wished to enjoy the excitement and the pleasure of the contest, to see the vast audience assembled before him, and held in charmed and enraptured attention by his performance; and to listen to and enjoy the triumphant grandeur of the applause which rolled and reverberated in the great Roman amphitheaters on such occasions with the sound of thunder.
"And what he will dare not do," said Uncle Prudent, "I Will do! Yes, I Will do!" At the moment the population of Timbuktu were crowding onto the squares and roads and the terraces built like amphitheaters. In the rich quarters of Sankere and Sarahama, as in the miserable huts at Raguidi, the priests from the minarets were thundering their loudest maledictions against the aerial monster.
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