TARTARIN OF TARASCONbyALPHONSE DAUDET

EPISODE THE FIRSTIN TARASCON

I. The Garden Round the Giant Trees. 

MY first visit to Tartarin of Tarascon has remained a never-to-be-forgotten date in my life; although quite ten or a dozen years ago, Iremember it better than yesterday. 

At that time the intrepid Tartarin lived in the third house on the leftas the town begins, on the Avignon road. A pretty little villa in thelocal style, with a front garden and a balcony behind, the wallsglaringly white and the venetians very green; and always about thedoorsteps a brood of little Savoyard shoeblackguards playinghopscotch, or dozing in the broad sunshine with their headspillowed on their boxes. 

Outwardly the dwelling had no remarkable features, and nonewould ever believe it the abode of a hero; but when you steppedinside, ye gods and little fishes! what a change! From turret tofoundation-stone -- I mean, from cellar to garret, -- the wholebuilding wore a heroic front; even so the garden!

O that garden of Tartarin's! there's not its match in Europe! Not anative tree was there -- not one flower of France; nothing hutexotic plants, gum-trees, gourds, cotton-woods, cocoa and cacao, mangoes, bananas, palms, a baobab, nopals, cacti, Barbary figs --well, you would believe yourself in the very midst of Central Africa, ten thousand leagues away. It is but fair to say that these werenone of full growth; indeed, the cocoa-palms were no bigger thanbeet root and the baobab (arbos gigantea -- "giant tree, " youknow) was easily enough circumscribed by a window-pot; but, notwithstanding this, it was rather a sensation for Tarascon, and thetownsfolk who were admitted on Sundays to the honour ofcontemplating Tartarin's baobab, went home chokeful ofadmiration. 

Try to conceive my own emotion, which I was bound to feel onthat day of days when I crossed through this marvellous garden, and that was capped when I was ushered into the hero's sanctum. 

His study, one of the lions -- I should say, lions' dens -- of the town, was at the end of the garden, its glass door opening right on to thebaobab. 

You are to picture a capacious apartment adorned with firearmsand steel blades from top to bottom: all the weapons of all thecountries in the wide world -- carbines, rifles, blunderbusses, Corsican, Catalan, and dagger knives, Malay kreeses, revolverswith spring-bayonets, Carib and flint arrows, knuckle-dusters, life-preservers, Hottentot clubs, Mexican lassoes -- now, can youexpect me to name the rest? Upon the whole fell a fierce sunlight, which made the blades and the brass butt-plate of the musketsgleam as if all the more to set your flesh creeping. Still, thebeholder was soothed a little by the tame air of order and tidinessreigning over the arsenal. Everything was in place, brushed, dusted, labelled, as in a museum; from point to point the eyedescried some obliging little card reading:

 ----------------------------------------- I Poisoned Arrows! I I Do Not Touch! I -----------------------------------------

Or, ----------------------------------------- I Loaded! I I Take care, please! I -----------------------------------------

If it had not been for these cautions I never should have daredventure in. 

In the middle of the room was an occasional table, on which stooda decanter of rum, a siphon of soda-water, a Turkish tobacco-pouch, "Captain Cook's Voyages, " the Indian tales of FenimoreCooper and Gustave Aimard, stories of hunting the bear, eagle, elephant, and so on. Lastly, beside the table sat a man of betweenforty and forty-five, short, stout, thick-set, ruddy, with flaming eyesand a strong stubbly beard; he wore flannel tights, and was in hisshirt sleeves; one hand held a book, and the other brandished a verylarge pipe with an iron bowl-cap. Whilst reading heaven onlyknows what startling adventure of scalp-hunters, he pouted out hislower lip in a terrifying way, which gave the honest phiz of the manliving placidly on his means the same impression of kindly ferocitywhich abounded throughout the house. 

This man was Tartarin himself -- the Tartarin of Tarascon, thegreat, dreadnought, incomparable Tartarin of Tarascon. 

II. A general glance bestowed upon the good town ofTarascon, and a particular one on "the cap-poppers. "

AT the time I am telling of, Tartarin of Tarascon had not becomethe present-day Tartarin, the great one so popular in the wholeSouth of France: but yet he was even then the cock of the walk atTarascon. 

Let us show whence arose this sovereignty. 

In the first place you must know that everybody is shooting mad inthese parts, from the greatest to the least. The chase is the localcraze, and so it has ever been since the mythological times when theTarasque, as the county dragon was called, flourished himself andhis tail in the town marshes, and entertained shooting parties got upagainst him. So you see the passion has lasted a goodish bit. 

It follows that, every Sunday morning, Tarascon flies to arms, letsloose the dogs of the hunt, and rushes out of its walls, with game-bag slung and fowling-piece on the shoulder, together with a hurly-burly of hounds, cracking of whips, and blowing of whistles andhunting-horns. It's splendid to see! Unfortunately, there's a lack ofgame, an absolute dearth. 

Stupid as the brute creation is, you can readily understand that, intime, it learnt some distrust. 

For five leagues around about Tarascon, forms, lairs, and burrowsare empty, and nesting-places abandoned. You'll not find a singlequail or blackbird, one little leveret, or the tiniest tit. And yet thepretty hillocks are mightily tempting, sweet smelling as they are ofmyrtle, lavender, and rosemary; and the fine muscatels plumped outwith sweetness even unto bursting, as they spread along the banksof the Rhone, are deucedly tempting too. True, true; but Tarasconlies behind all this, and Tarascon is down in the black books of theworld of fur and feather. The very birds of passage have ticked itoff on their guide-books, and when the wild ducks, coming downtowards the Camargue in long triangles, spy the town steeples fromafar, the outermost flyers squawk out loudly:

"Look out! there's Tarascon! give Tarascon the go-by, duckies!"

And the flocks take a swerve. 

In short, as far as game goes, there's not a specimen left in the landsave one old rogue of a hare, escaped by miracle from themassacres, who is stubbornly determined to stick to it all his life!He is very well known at Tarascon, and a name has been given him. "Rapid" is what they call him. It is known that he has his form onM. Bompard's grounds -- which, by the way, has doubled, ay, tripled, the value of the property -- but nobody has yet managed tolay him low. At present, only two or three inveterate fellows worrythemselves about him. The rest have given him up as a bad job, andold Rapid has long ago passed into the legendary world, althoughyour Tarasconer is very slightly superstitious naturally, and wouldeat cock-robins on toast, or the swallow, which is Our Lady's ownbird, for that matter, if he could find any. 

"But that won't do!" you will say. Inasmuch as game is so scarce, what can the sportsmen do every Sunday?

What can they do?

Why, goodness gracious! they go out into the real country two orthree leagues from town. They gather in knots of five or six, recline tranquilly in the shade of some well, old wall, or olive tree, extract from their game-bags a good-sized piece of boiled beef, rawonions, a sausage, and anchovies, and commence a next to endlesssnack, washed down with one of those nice Rhone wines, whichsets a toper laughing and singing. After that, when thoroughlybraced up, they rise, whistle the dogs to heel, set the guns on halfcock, and go "on the shoot" -- another way of saying that everyman plucks off his cap, "shies" it up with all his might, and pops iton the fly with No. 5, 6, or 2 shot, according to what he is loadedfor. 

The man who lodges most shot in his cap is hailed as king of thehunt, and stalks back triumphantly at dusk into Tarascon, with hisriddled cap on the end of his gun-barrel, amid any quantity of dog-barks and horn-blasts. 

It is needless to say that cap-selling is a fine business in the town. There are even some hatters who sell hunting-caps ready shot, torn, and perforated for the bad shots; but the only buyer known is thechemist Bezuquet. This is dishonourable!

As a marksman at caps, Tartarin of Tarascon never had his match. 

Every Sunday morning out he would march in a new cap, and backhe would strut every Sunday evening with a mere thing of shreds. The loft of Baobab Villa was full of these glorious trophies. Henceall Tarascon acknowledged him as master; and as Tartarinthoroughly understood hunting, and had read all the handbooks ofall possible kinds of venery, from cap-popping to Burmese tiger-shooting, the sportsmen constituted him their great cynegeticaljudge, and took him for referee and arbitrator in all theirdifferences. 

Between three and four daily, at Costecalde the gunsmith's, a stoutstern pipe-smoker might be seen in a green leather-covered arm-chair in the centre of the shop crammed with cap-poppers, they allon foot and wrangling. This was Tartarin of Tarascon deliveringjudgement -- Nimrod plus Solomon. 

III. "Naw, naw, naw!" The general glanceprotracted upon the good town. 

AFTER the craze for sporting, the lusty Tarascon race cherishesone love: ballad-singing. There's no believing what a quantity ofballads is used up in that little region. All the sentimental stuffturning into sere and yellow leaves in the oldest portfolios, are to befound in full pristine lustre in Tarascon. Ay, the entire collection. Every family has its own pet, as is known to the town. 

For instance, it is an established fact that this is the chemistBezuquet's family's:

"Thou art the fair star that I adore!"

The gunmaker Costecalde's family's:

"Would'st thou come to the land Where the log-cabins rise?"

The official registrar's family's:

"If I wore a coat of invisible green, Do you think for a moment I could be seen?"

And so on for the whole of Tarascon. Two or three times a weekthere were parties where they were sung. The singularity was theirbeing always the same, and that the honest Tarasconers had neverhad an inclination to change them during the long, long time theyhad been harping on them. They were handed down from father toson in the families, without anybody improving on them orbowdlerising them: they were sacred. Never did it occur toCostecalde's mind to sing the Bezuquets', or the Bezuquets to tryCostecalde's. And yet you may believe that they ought to know byheart what they had been singing for two-score years! But, nay!everybody stuck to his own, and they were all contented. 

In ballad-singing, as in cap-popping, Tartarin was still the foremost. His superiority over his fellow-townsmen consisted in his nothaving any one song of his own, but in knowing the lot, the whole, mind you! But -- there's a but -- it was the devil's own work to gethim to sing them. 

Surfeited early in life with his drawing-room successes, our heropreferred by far burying himself in his hunting story-books, orspending the evening at the club, to making a personal exhibitionbefore a Nimes piano between a pair of home-made candles. Thesemusical parades seemed beneath him. Nevertheless, at whiles, whenthere was a harmonic party at Bezuquet's, he would drop into thechemist's shop, as if by chance, and, after a deal of pressure, consent to do the grand duo in Robert le Diable with old MadameBezuquet. Whoso never heard that never heard anything! For mypart, even if I lived a hundred years, I should always see the mightyTartarin solemnly stepping up to the piano, setting his arms akimbo, working up his tragic mien, and, beneath the green reflection fromthe show-bottles in the window, trying to give his pleasant visagethe fierce and satanic expression of Robert the Devil. Hardly wouldhe fall into position before the whole audience would be shudderingwith the foreboding that something uncommon was at hand. Aftera hush, old Madame Bezuquet would commence to her ownaccompaniment:

 "Robert, my love is thine! To thee I my faith did plight, Thou seest my affright, -- Mercy for thine own sake, And mercy for mine!"

In an undertone she would add: "Now, then, Tartarin!" WhereuponTartarin of Tarascon, with crooked arms, clenched fists, andquivering nostrils, would roar three times in a formidable voice, rolling like a thunderclap in the bowels of the instrument:

"No! no! no!" which, like the thorough southerner he was, hepronounced nasally as "Naw! naw! naw!" Then would old MadameBezuquet again sing:

 "Mercy for thine own sake, And mercy for mine!"

"Naw! naw! naw!" bellowed Tartarin at his loudest, and there thegem ended. 

Not long, you see; but it was so handsomely voiced forth, so clearlygesticulated, and so diabolical, that a tremor of terror overran thechemist's shop, and the "Naw! naw! naw!" would be encoredseveral times running. 

Upon this Tartarin would sponge his brow, smile on the ladies, wink to the sterner sex, and withdraw upon his triumph to goremark at the club with a trifling, offhand air:

"I have just come from the Bezuquets', where I was forced to sing'em the duo from Robert le Diable. "

The cream of the joke was that he really believed it!

IV. "They!"

CHIEFLY to the account of these diverse talents did Tartarin owehis lofty position in the town of Tarascon. Talking of captivating, though, this deuce of a fellow knew how to ensnare everybody. Why, the army, at Tarascon, was for Tartarin. The bravecommandant, Bravida, honorary captain retired -- in the MilitaryClothing Factory Department -- called him a game fellow; and youmay well admit that the warrior knew all about game fellows, heplayed such a capital knife and fork on game of all kinds. 

So was the legislature on Tartarin's side. Two or three times, inopen court, the old chief judge, Ladevese, had said, in alluding tohim:

"He is a character!"

Lastly, the masses were for Tartarin. He had become the swellbruiser, the aristocratic pugilist, the crack bully of the localCorinthians for the Tarasconers, from his build, bearing, style --that aspect of a guard's-trumpeter's charger which fears no noise;his reputation as a hero coming from nobody knew whence or forwhat, and some scramblings for coppers and a few kicks to the littleragamuffins basking at his doorway. 

Along the waterside, when Tartarin came home from hunting onSunday evenings, with his cap on the muzzle of his gun, and hisfustian shooting-jacket belted in tightly, the sturdy river-lightermenwould respectfully bob, and blinking towards the huge bicepsswelling out his arms, would mutter among one another inadmiration:

"Now, there's a powerful chap if you like! he has double-muscles!"

"Double muscles!" why, you never heard of such a thing outside ofTarascon!

For all this, with all his numberless parts, double-muscles, thepopular favour, and the so precious esteem of brave CommandantBravida, ex-captain (in the Army Clothing Factory), Tartarin wasnot happy: this life in a petty town weighed upon him andsuffocated him. 

The great man of Tarascon was bored in Tarascon. 

The fact is, for a heroic temperament like his, a wild adventurousspirit which dreamt of nothing but battles, races across the pampas, mighty battues, desert sands, blizzards and typhoons, it was notenough to go out every Sunday to pop at a cap, and the rest of thetime to ladle out casting-votes at the gunmaker's. Poor dear greatman! If this existence were only prolonged, there would besufficient tedium in it to kill him with consumption. 

In vain did he surround himself with baobabs and other Africantrees, to widen his horizon, and some little to forget his club andthe market-place; in vain did he pile weapon upon weapon, andMalay kreese upon Malay kreese; in vain did he cram withromances, endeavouring like the immortal Don Quixote to wrenchhimself by the vigour of his fancy out of the talons of pitiless reality. Alas! all that he did to appease his thirst for deeds of daring onlyhelped to augment it. The sight of all the murderous implementskept him in a perpetual stew of wrath and exaltation. His revolvers, repeating rifles, and ducking-guns shouted "Battle! battle!" out oftheir mouths. Through the twigs of his baobab, the tempest ofgreat voyages and journeys soughed and blew bad advice. To finishhim came Gustave Aimard, Mayne Reid, and Fenimore Cooper. 

Oh, how many times did Tartarin with a howl spring up on thesultry summer afternoons, when he was reading alone amidst hisblades, points, and edges; how many times did he dash down hisbook and rush to the wall to unhook a deadly arm! The poor manforgot he was at home in Tarascon, in his underclothes, and with ahandkerchief round his head. He would translate his readings intoaction, and, goading himself with his own voice, shout out whilstswinging a battle-axe or tomahawk:

"Now, only let 'em come!"

"Them"? who were they?

Tartarin did not himself any too clearly understand. "They" was allthat should be attacked and fought with, all that bites, claws, scalps, whoops, and yells -- the Sioux Indians dancing around the war-stake to which the unfortunate pale-face prisoner is lashed. Thegrizzly of the Rocky Mountains, who wobbles on his hind legs, andlicks himself with a tongue full of blood. The Touareg, too, in thedesert, the Malay pirate, the brigand of the Abruzzi -- in short, "they" was warfare, travel, adventure, and glory. 

But, alas!! it was to no avail that the fearless Tarasconer called forand defied them; never did they come. Odsboddikins! what wouldthey have come to do in Tarascon?

Nevertheless Tartarin always expected to run up against them, particularly some evening in going to the club. 

V. How Tartarin went round to his club. 

LITTLE, indeed, beside Tartarin of Tarascon, arming himself capa-pie to go to his club at nine, an hour after the retreat had soundedon the bugle, was the Templar Knight preparing for a sortie uponthe infidel, the Chinese tiger equipping himself for combat, or theComanche warrior painting up for going on the war-path. "Allhands make ready for action!" as the men-of-war's men say. 

In his left hand Tartarin took a steel-pointed knuckle-duster; in theright he carried a sword-cane; in his left pocket a life-preserver; inthe right a revolver. On his chest, betwixt outer and undergarment, lay a Malay kreese. But never any poisoned arrows -- theyare weapons altogether too unfair. 

Before starting, in the silence and obscurity of his study, heexercised himself for a while, warding off imaginary cuts andthrusts, lunging at the wall, and giving his muscles play; then hetook his master-key and went through the garden leisurely; withouthurrying, mark you. "Cool and calm -- British courage, that is thetrue sort, gentlemen. " At the garden end he opened the heavy irondoor, violently and abruptly so that it should slam against the outerwall. If "they" had been skulking behind it, you may wager theywould have been jam. Unhappily, they were not there. 

The way being open, out Tartarin would sally, quickly glancing tothe right and left, ere banging the door to and fastening it smartlywith double-locking. Then, on the way. 

Not so much as a cat upon the Avignon road -- all the doors closed, and no lights in the casements. All was black, except for the parishlamps, well spaced apart, blinking in the river mist. 

Calm and proud, Tartarin of Tarascon marched on in the night, ringing his heels with regularity, and sending sparks out of thepaving-stones with the ferule of his stick. Whether in avenues, streets, or lanes, he took care to keep in the middle of the road --an excellent method of precaution, allowing one to see dangercoming, and, above all, to avoid any droppings from windows, ashappens after dark in Tarascon and the Old Town of Edinburgh. On seeing so much prudence in Tartarin, pray do not conclude thatTartarin had any fear -- dear, no! he only was on his guard. 

The best proof that Tartarin was not scared is, that instead of goingto the club by the shortest cut, he went over the town by thelongest and darkest way round, through a mass of vile, paltry alleys, at the mouth of which the Rhone could be seen ominouslygleaming. The poor knight constantly hoped that, beyond the turnof one of these cut-throats' haunts, "they" would leap from theshadow and fall on his back. I warrant you, "they" would havebeen warmly received, though; but, alack! by reason of some nastymeanness of destiny, never indeed did Tartarin of Tarascon enjoythe luck to meet any ugly customers -- not so much as a dog or adrunken man -- nothing at all!

Still, there were false alarms somewhiles. He would catch a soundof steps and muffled voices. 

"Ware hawks!" Tartarin would mutter, and stop short, as if takingroot on the spot, scrutinising the gloom, sniffing the wind, evenglueing his ear to the ground in the orthodox Red Indian mode. The steps would draw nearer, and the voices grow more distinct, till no more doubt was possible. "They" were coming -- in fact, here "they" were!

Steady, with eye afire and heaving breast, Tartarin would gatherhimself like a jaguar in readiness to spring forward whilst utteringhis war-cry, when, all of a sudden, out of the thick of themurkiness, he would hear honest Tarasconian voices quitetranquilly hailing him with:

"Hullo! you, by Jove! it's Tartarin! Good night, old fellow!"

Maledictions upon it! It was the chemist Bezuquet, with his family, coming from singing their family ballad at Costecalde's. 

"Oh, good even, good even!" Tartarin would growl, furious at hisblunder, and plunging fiercely into the gloom with his cane wavedon high. 

On arriving in the street where stood his club-house, the dauntlessone would linger yet a moment, walking up and down before theportals ere entering. But, finally, weary of awaiting "them, " andcertain "they" would not show "themselves, " he would fling a lastglare of defiance into the shades and snarl wrathfully:

"Nothing, nothing at all! there never is nothing!"

Upon which double negation, which he meant as a strongeraffirmative, the worthy champion would walk in to play his game ofbezique with the commandant. 

VI. The two Tartarins. 

ANSWER me, you will say, how the mischief is it that Tartarin ofTarascon never left Tarascon with all this mania for adventure, needof powerful sensations, and folly about travel, rides, and journeysfrom the Pole to the Equator?

For that is a fact: up to the age of five-and-forty, the dreadlessTarasconian had never once slept outside his own room. He hadnot even taken that obligatory trip to Marseilles which every soundProvencal makes upon coming of age. The most of his knowledgeincluded Beaucaire, and yet that's not far from Tarascon, therebeing merely the bridge to go over. Unfortunately, this rascallybridge has so often been blown away by the gales, it is so long andfrail, and the Rhone has such a width at this spot that -- well, faith!you understand! Tartarin of Tarascon preferred terra firma. 

We are afraid we must make a clean breast of it: in our hero therewere two very distinct characters. Some Father of the Church hassaid: "I feel there are two men in me. " He would have spoken trulyin saying this about Tartarin, who carried in his frame the soul ofDon Quixote, the same chivalric impulses, heroic ideal, andcrankiness for the grandiose and romantic; but, worse is the luck!he had not the body of the celebrated hidalgo, that thin and meagreapology for a body, on which material life failed to take a hold; onethat could get through twenty nights without its breast-plate beingunbuckled off, and forty-eight hours on a handful of rice. On thecontrary, Tartarin's body was a stout honest bully of a body, veryfat, very weighty, most sensual and fond of coddling, highly touchy, full of low-class appetite and homely requirements -- the short, paunchy body on stumps of the immortal Sancho Panza. 

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the one same man! you willreadily comprehend what a cat-and-dog couple they made! whatstrife! what clapperclawing! Oh, the fine dialogue for Lucian orSaint-Evremond to write, between the two Tartarins -- Quixote-Tartarin and Sancho-Tartarin! Quixote-Tartarin firing up on thestories of Gustave Aimard, and shouting: "Up and at 'em!" andSancho-Tartarin thinking only of the rheumatics ahead, andmurmuring: "I mean to stay at home. "

THE DUET. 

 QUIXOTE-TARTARIN. SANCHO-TARTARIN. (Highly excited. ) (Quite calmly. ) Cover yourself with glory, Tartarin, cover yourself Tartarin. With flannel. 

 (Still more excitedly. ) (Still more calmly. ) O for the terrible double- O for the thick knitted barrelled rifle! O for waistcoats! and warm bowie-knives, lassoes, knee-caps! O for the and moccasins! welcome padded caps with ear-flaps!

 (Above all self-control. ) (Ringing up the maid. ) A battle-axe! fetch me a Now, then, Jeannette, do battle-axe! bring up that chocolate!

Whereupon Jeannette would appear with an unusually good cup ofchocolate, just right in warmth, sweetly smelling, and with the playof light on watered silk upon its unctuous surface, and withsucculent grilled steak flavoured with anise-seed, which would setSancho-Tartarin off on the broad grin, and into a laugh thatdrowned the shouts of Quixote-Tartarin. 

Thus it came about that Tartarin of Tarascon never had leftTarascon. 

VII. Tartarin -- The Europeans at Shanghai -- Commerce -- The Tartars-- Can Tartarin of Tarascon be an Impostor? -- The Mirage. 

UNDER one conjunction of circumstances, Tartarin did, however, once almost start out upon a great voyage. 

The three brothers Garcio-Camus, relatives of Tarascon, established in business at Shanghai, offered him the managership ofone of their branches there. This undoubtedly presented the kind oflife he hankered after. Plenty of active business, a whole army ofunder-strappers to order about, and connections with Russia, Persia, Turkey in Asia -- in short, to be a merchant prince!

In Tartarin's mouth, the title of Merchant Prince thundered out assomething stunning!

The house of Garcio-Camus had the further advantage ofsometimes being favoured with a call from the Tartars. Then thedoors would be slammed shut, all the clerks flew to arms, up ranthe consular flag, and zizz! phit! bang! out of the windows uponthe Tartars. 

I need not tell you with what enthusiasm Quixote-Tartarin clutchedthis proposition; sad to say, Sancho-Tartarin did not see it in thesame light, and, as he was the stronger party, it never came toanything. But in the town there was much talk about it. Would hego or would he not? "I'll lay he will!" -- and "I'll wager he won't!"It was the event of the week. In the upshot, Tartarin did notdepart, but the matter redounded to his credit none the less. Goingor not going to Shanghai was all one to Tarascon. Tartarin'sjourney was so much talked about that people got to believe he haddone it and returned, and at the club in the evening members wouldactually ask for information on life at Shanghai, the manners andcustoms and climate, about opium, and commerce. 

Deeply read up, Tartarin would graciously furnish the particularsdesired, and, in the end, the good fellow was not quite sure himselfabout not having gone to Shanghai, so that, after relating for thehundredth time how the Tartars came down on the trading post, itwould most naturally happen him to add:

"Then I made my men take up arms and hoist the consular flag, andzizz! phit! bang! out of the windows upon the Tartars. "

On hearing this, the whole club would quiver. 

"But according to that, this Tartarin of yours is an awful liar. "

"No, no, a thousand times over, no! Tartarin was no liar. "

"But the man ought to know that he has never been to Shanghai" --

"Why, of course, he knows that; but still" --

"But still, " you see -- mark that! It is high time for the law to belaid down once for all on the reputation as drawers of the long bowwhich Northerners fling at Southerners. There are no BaronMunchausens in the south of France, neither at Nimes norMarseilles, Toulouse nor Tarascon. The Southerner does notdeceive but is self-deceived. He does not always tell the cold-drawntruth, but he believes he does. His falsehood is not any such thing, but a kind of mental mirage. 

Yes, purely mirage! The better to follow me, you should actuallyfollow me into the South, and you will see I am right. You haveonly to look at that Lucifer's own country, where the suntransmogrifies everything, and magnifies it beyond life-size. Thelittle hills of Provence are no bigger than the Butte Montmartre, but they will loom up like the Rocky Mountains; the Square Houseat Nimes -- a mere model to put on your sideboard -- will seemgrander than St. Peter's. You will see -- in brief, the only exaggeratorin the South is Old Sol, for he does enlarge everything he touches. What was Sparta in its days of splendour? a pitiful hamlet. Whatwas Athens? at the most, a second-class town; and yet in historyboth appear to us as enormous cities. This is a sample of what thesun can do. 

Are you going to be astonished after this that the same sun fallingupon Tarascon should have made of an ex-captain in the ArmyClothing Factory, like Bravida, the "brave commandant;" of asprout an Indian fig-tree; and of a man who had missed going toShanghai one who had been there?

VIII. Mitaine's Menagerie -- A Lion from the Atlas atTarascon -- A Solemn and Fearsome Confrontation. 

EXHIBITING Tartarin of Tarascon, as we are, in his private life, before Fame kissed his brow and garlanded him with her well-wornlaurel wreath, and having narrated his heroic existence in a modeststate, his delights and sorrows, his dreams and his hopes, let ushurriedly skip to the grandest pages of his story, and to the singularevent which was to give the first flight to his incomparable career. 

It happened one evening at Costecalde the gunmaker's, whereTartarin was engaged in showing several sportsmen the working ofthe needle-gun, then in its first novelty. The door suddenly flewopen, and in rushed a bewildered cap-popper, howling "A lion, alion!" General was the alarm, stupor, uproar and tumult. Tartarinprepared to resist cavalry with the bayonet, whilst Costecalde ran toshut the door. The sportsman was surrounded and pressed andquestioned, and here follows what he told them: Mitaine'sMenagerie, returning from Beaucaire Fair, had consented to stayover a few days at Tarascon, and was just unpacking, to set up theshow on the Castle-green, with a lot of boas, seals, crocodiles, anda magnificent lion from the Atlas Mountains. 

An African lion in Tarascon?

Never in the memory of living man had the like been seen. Henceour dauntless cap-poppers looked at one another how proudly!What a beaming on their sunburned visages! and in every nook ofCostecalde's shop what hearty congratulatory grips of the handwere silently exchanged! The sensation was so great andunforeseen that nobody could find a word to say -- not even Tartarin. 

Blanched and agitated, with the needle-gun still in his fist, hebrooded, erect before the counter. A lion from the Atlas Range atpistol range from him, a couple of strides off? a lion, mind you -- thebeast heroic and ferocious above all others, the King of the BruteCreation, the crowning game of his fancies, something like theleading actor in the ideal company which played such splendidtragedies in his mind's eye. A lion, heaven be thanked! and fromthe Atlas, to boot! It was more than the great Tartarin could bear. 

Suddenly a flush of blood flew into his face. His eyes flashed. Withone convulsive movement he shouldered the needle-gun, andturning towards the brave Commandant Bravida (formerly captainin the Army Clothing Department, please to remember), hethundered to him --

"Let's go have a look at him, commandant. "

"Here, here, I say! that's my gun -- my needle-gun you are carryingoff, " timidly ventured the wary Costecalde; but Tartarin had alreadygot round the corner, with all the cap-poppers proudly lock-stepping behind him. 

When they arrived at the menagerie, they found a goodly number ofpeople there. Tarascon, heroic but too long deprived of sensationalshows, had rushed upon Mitaine's portable theatre, and had taken itby storm. Hence the voluminous Madame Mitaine was highlycontented. In an Arab costume, her arms bare to the elbow, ironanklets on, a whip in one hand and a plucked though live pullet inthe other, the noted lady was doing the honours of the booth to theTarasconians; and, as she also had "double muscles, " her successwas almost as great as her animals. 

The entrance of Tartarin with the gun on his shoulder was adamper. 

All our good Tarasconians, who had been quite tranquilly strollingbefore the cages, unarmed and with no distrust, without even anyidea of danger, felt momentary apprehension, naturally enough, onbeholding their mighty Tartarin rush into the enclosure with hisformidable engine of war. There must be something to fear when ahero like he was, came weaponed; so, in a twinkling, all the spacealong the cage fronts was cleared. The youngsters burst outsqualling for fear, and the women looked round for the nearest wayout. The chemist Bezuquet made off altogether, alleging that hewas going home for his gun. 

Gradually, however, Tartarin's bearing restored courage. With headerect, the intrepid Tarasconian slowly and calmly made the circuitof the booth, passing the seal's tank without stopping, glancingdisdainfully on the long box filled with sawdust in which the boawould digest its raw fowl, and going to take his stand before thelion's cage. 

A terrible and solemn confrontation, this! The lion of Tarascon andthe lion of Africa face to face!

On the one part, Tartarin erect, with his hamstrings in tension, andhis arms folded on his gun barrel; on the other, the lion, a giganticspecimen, humped up in the straw, with blinking orbs and brutishmien, resting his huge muzzle and tawny full-bottomed wig on hisforepaws. Both calm in their gaze. 

Singular thing! whether the needle-gun had given him "the needle, "if the popular idiom is admissible, or that he scented an enemy ofhis race, the lion, who had hitherto regarded the Tarasconians withsovereign scorn, and yawned in their faces, was all at once affectedby ire. At first he sniffed; then he growled hollowly, stretching outhis claws; rising, he tossed his head, shook his mane, opened acapacious maw, and belched a deafening roar at Tartarin. 

A yell of fright responded, as Tarascon precipitated itself madlytowards the exit, women and children, lightermen, cap-poppers, even the brave Commandant Bravida himself. But, alone, Tartarinof Tarascon had not budged. There he stood, firm and resolute, before the cage, lightnings in his eyes, and on his lip that gruesomegrin with which all the town was familiar. In a moment's time, when all the cap-poppers, some little fortified by his bearing and thestrength of the bars, re-approached their leader, they heard himmutter, as he stared Leo out of countenance:

"Now, this is something like a hunt!"

All the rest of that day, never a word farther could they draw fromTartarin of Tarascon. 

IX. Singular effects of Mental Mirage. 

CONFINING his remarks to the sentence last recorded, Tartarinhad unfortunately still said overmuch. 

On the morrow, there was nothing talked about through town butthe near-at-hand departure of Tartarin for Algeria and lion-hunting. You are all witness, dear readers, that the honest fellow had notbreathed a word on that head; but, you know, the mirage had itsusual effect. In brief, all Tarascon spoke of nothing but thedeparture. 

On the Old Walk, at the club, in Costecalde's, friends accosted oneanother with a startled aspect:

"And furthermore, you know the news, at least?"

"And furthermore, rather? Tartarin's setting out, at least?"

For at Tarascon all phrases begin with "and furthermore, " andconclude with "at least, " with a strong local accent. Hence, on thisoccasion more than upon others, these peculiarities rang out till thewindows shivered. 

The most surprised of men in the town on hearing that Tartarin wasgoing away to Africa, was Tartarin himself. But only see whatvanity is! Instead of plumply answering that he was not going atall, and had not even had the intention, poor Tartarin, on the first ofthem mentioning the journey to him, observed with a neat littleevasive air, "Aha! maybe I shall -- but I do not say as much. " Thesecond time; a trifle more familiarised with the idea, he replied, "Very likely;" and the third time, "It's certain. "

Finally, in the evening, at Costecalde's and the club, carried away bythe egg-nogg, cheers, and illumination; intoxicated by theimpression that bare announcement of his departure had made onthe town, the hapless fellow formally declared that he was sick ofbanging away at caps, and that he would shortly be on the trail ofthe great lions of the Atlas. A deafening hurrah greeted thisassertion. Whereupon more egg-nogg, bravoes, handshaking, slappings of the shoulder, and a torchlight serenade up to midnightbefore Baobab Villa. 

It was Sancho-Tartarin who was anything but delighted. This ideaof travel in Africa and lion-hunting made him shudder beforehand;and when the house was re-entered, and whilst the complimentaryconcert was sounding under the windows, he had a dreadful "row"with Quixote-Tartarin, calling him a cracked head, a visionary, imprudent, and thrice an idiot, and detailing by the card all thecatastrophes awaiting him on such an expedition -- shipwreck, rheumatism, yellow fever, dysentery, the black plague, elephantiasis, and the rest of them. 

In vain did Quixote-Tartarin vow that he had not committed anyimprudence -- that he would wrap himself up well, and take evensuperfluous necessaries with him. Sancho-Tartarin would listen tonothing. The poor craven saw himself already torn to tatters by thelions, or engulfed in the desert sands like his late royal highnessCambyses, and the other Tartarin only managed to appease him alittle by explaining that the start was not immediate, as nothingpressed. 

It is clear enough, indeed, that none embark on such an enterprisewithout some preparations. A man is bound to know whither hegoes, hang it all! and not fly off like a bird. Before anything else, the Tarasconian wanted to peruse the accounts of great Africantourists, the narrations of Mungo Park, Du Chaillu, Dr. Livingstone, Stanley, and so on. 

In them, he learnt that these daring explorers, before donning theirsandals for distant excursions, hardened themselves well beforehandto support hunger and thirst, forced marches, and all kinds ofprivation. Tartarin meant to act like they did, and from that dayforward he lived upon water broth alone. The water broth ofTarascon is a few slices of bread drowned in hot water, with aclove of garlic, a pinch of thyme, and a sprig of laurel. Strict diet, at which you may believe poor Sancho made a wry face. 

To the regimen of water broth Tartarin of Tarascon joined otherwise practices. To break himself into the habit of long marches, heconstrained himself to go round the town seven or eight timesconsecutively every morning, either at the fast walk or run, hiselbows well set against his body, and a couple of white pebbles inthe mouth, according to the antique usage. 

To get inured to fog, dew, and night coolness, he would go downinto his garden every dusk, and stop out there till ten or eleven, alone with his gun, on the lookout, behind the baobab. 

Finally, so long as Mitaine's wild beast show tarried in Tarascon, the cap-poppers who were belated at Costecalde's might spy in theshadow of the booth, as they crossed the Castle-green, a mysteriousfigure stalking up and down. It was Tartarin of Tarascon, habituating himself to hear without emotion the roarings of the lionin the sombre night. 

X. Before the Start. 

PENDING Tartarin's delay of the event by all sorts of heroicmeans, all Tarascon kept an eye upon him, and nothing else wasbusied about. Cap-popping was winged, and ballad-singing dead. The piano in Bezuquet's shop mouldered away under a greenfungus, and the Spanish flies dried upon it, belly up. Tartarin'sexpedition had a put a stopper on everything. 

Ah, you ought to have seen his success in the parlours. He wassnatched away by one from another, fought for, loaned andborrowed, ay, stolen. There was no greater honour for the ladiesthan to go to Mitaine's Menagerie on Tartarin's arms, and have itexplained before the lion's den how such large game are hunted, where they should be aimed at, at how many paces off; if theaccidents were numerous, and the like of that. 

Tartarin furnished all the elucidation desired. He had read "TheLife of Jules Gerard, the Lion-Slayer, " and had lion-hunting at hisfinger ends, as if he had been through it himself. Hence he oratedupon these matters with great eloquence. 

But where he shone the brightest was at dinner at Chief JudgeLadeveze's, or brave Commandant Bravida's (the former captain inthe Army Clothing Factory, you will keep in mind), when coffeecame in, and all the chairs were brought up closer together, whilstthey chatted of his future hunts. 

Thereupon, his elbow on the cloth, his nose over his Mocha, ourhero would discourse in a feeling tone of all the dangers awaitinghim thereaway. He spoke of the long moonless night lyings-in-wait, the pestilential fens, the rivers envenomed by leaves ofpoison-plants, the deep snow-drifts, the scorching suns, thescorpions, and rains of grasshoppers; he also descanted on thepeculiarities of the great lions of the Atlas, their way of fighting, their phenomenal vigour; and their ferocity in the mating season. 

Heating with his own recital, he would rise from table, bounding tothe middle of the dining-room, imitating the roar of a lion and thegoing off of a rifle crack! bang! the zizz of the explosive bullet --gesticulating and roaring about till he had overset the chairs. 

Everybody turned pale around the board: the gentlemen looking atone another and wagging their heads, the ladies shutting their eyeswith pretty screams of fright, the elderly men combativelybrandishing their canes; and, in the side apartments, the little boys, who had been put to bed betimes, were greatly startled by thesudden outcries and imitated gun-fire, and screamed for lights. Meanwhile, Tartarin did not start. 

XI. "Let's have it out with swords gentleman, not pins!"

A DELICATE question: whether Tartarin really had any intentionof going, and one which the historian of Tartarin would be highlyembarrassed to answer. In plain words, Mitaine's Menagerie hadleft Tarascon over three months, and still the lion-slayer had notstarted. After all, blinded by a new mirage, our candid hero mayhave imagined in perfectly good faith that he had gone to Algeria. On the strength of having related his future hunts, he may havebelieved he had performed them as sincerely as he fancied he hadhoisted the consular flag and fired on the Tartars, zizz, phit, bang!at Shanghai. 

Unfortunately, granting Tartarin was this time again dupe of anillusion, his fellow-townsfolk were not. When, after the quarter'sexpectation, they perceived that the hunter had not packed even acollar-box, they commenced murmuring. 

"This is going to turn out like the Shanghai expedition, " remarkedCostecalde, smiling. 

The gunsmith's comment was welcomed all over town, for nobodybelieved any longer in their late idol. The simpletons and poltroons-- all the fellows of Bezuquet's stamp, whom a flea would put toflight, and who could not fire a shot without closing their eyes --were conspicuously pitiless. In the club-rooms or on the esplanade, they accosted poor Tartarin with bantering mien:

"And furthermore, when is that trip coming off?"

In Costecalde's shop, his opinions gained no credence, for the cap-poppers renounced their chief!

Next, epigrams dropped into the affair. Chief Judge Ladevese, whowillingly paid court in his leisure hours to the native Muse, composed in local dialect a song which won much success. It toldof a sportsman called "Master Gervais, " whose dreaded rifle wasbound to exterminate all the lions in Africa to the very last. Unluckily, this terrible gun was of a strange kind: "though loadeddaily, it never went off. "

"It never went off" -- you will catch the drift. 

In less than no time, this ditty became popular; and when Tartarincame by, the longshoremen and the little shoeblacks before his doorsang in chorus --

 "Muster Jarvey's roifle Allus gittin' chaarged; Muster Jarvey's roifle 'il hev to git enlaarged; Muster Jarvey's roifle's Loaded oft -- don't scoff; Muster Jarvey's roifle Nivver do go off!"

But it was shouted out from a safe distance, on account of thedouble muscles. 

Oh, the fragility of Tarascon's fads!

The great object himself feigned to see and hear nothing; but, underthe surface, this sullen and venomous petty warfare much afflictedhim. He felt aware that Tarascon was slipping out of his grip, andthat popular favour was going to others; and this made him sufferhorribly. 

Ah, the huge bowl of popularity! it's all very well to have a seat infront of it, but what a scalding you catch when it is overturned!

Notwithstanding his pain, Tartarin smiled and peacefully jogged onin the same life as if nothing untoward had happened. Still, themask of jovial heedlessness glued by pride on his face wouldsometimes be suddenly detached. Then, in lieu of laughter, one sawgrief and indignation. Thus it was that one morning, when the littleblackguards yelped "Muster Jarvey's Roifle" beneath his window, the wretches' voices rose even into the poor great man's room, where he was shaving before the glass. (Tartarin wore a full beard, but as it grew very thick, he was obliged to keep it trimmedorderly. )

All at once the window was violently opened, and Tartarinappeared in shirt-sleeves and nightcap, smothered in lather, flourishing his razor and shaving-brush, and roaring with aformidable voice:

"Let's have it out with swords, gentlemen, not pins!"

Fine words, worthy of history's record, with only the blemish thatthey were addressed to little scamps not higher than their boot-boxes, and who were quite incapable of holding a smallsword. 

XII. A memorable Dialogue in the little Baobab Villa. 

AMID the general falling off, the army alone stuck out firmly forTartarin. Brave Commandant Bravida (the former captain in theArmy Clothing Department) continued to show him the sameesteem as ever. "He's game!" he persisted in saying -- an assertion, I beg to believe, fully worth the chemist Bezuquet's. Not once didthe brave officer let out any allusion to the trip to Africa; but whenthe public clamour grew too loud, he determined to have his say. 

One evening the luckless Tartarin was in his study, in a brown studyhimself, when he saw the commandant stride in, stern, wearingblack gloves, buttoned up to his ears. 

"Tartarin, " said the ex-captain authoritatively, "Tartarin, you'll haveto go!"

And there he dwelt, erect in the doorway frame, grand and rigid asembodied Duty. Tartarin of Tarascon comprehended all the sense in"Tartarin, you'll have to ago!"

Very pale, he rose and looked around with a softened eye upon thecosy snuggery, tightly closed in, full of warmth and tender light --upon the commodious easy chair, his books, the carpet, the whiteblinds of the windows, beyond which trembled the slender twigs ofthe little garden. Then, advancing towards the brave officer, hetook his hand, grasped it energetically, and said in a voicesomewhat tearful, but stoical for all that:

"I am going, Bravida. "

And go he did, as he said he would. Not straight off though, for ittakes time to get the paraphernalia together. 

To begin with, he ordered of Bompard two large boxes bound withbrass, and an inscription to be on them:

 ----------------------------------------- I TARTARIN, OF TARASCON I I Firearms, &c. I -----------------------------------------

The binding in brass and the lettering took much time. He alsoordered at Tastavin's a showy album, in which to keep a diary andhis impressions of travel; for a man cannot help having an idea ortwo strike him even when he is busy lion-hunting. 

Next, he had over from Marseilles a downright cargo of tinnedeatables, pemmican compressed in cakes for making soup, a newpattern shelter-tent, opening out and packing up in a minute, sea-boots, a couple of umbrellas, a waterproof coat, and blue spectaclesto ward off ophthalmia. To conclude, Bezuquet the chemist madehim up a miniature portable medicine chest stuffed with diachylonplaister, arnica, camphor, and medicated vinegar. 

Poor Tartarin! he did not take these safeguards on his own behalf;but he hoped, by dint of precaution and delicate attentions, to allaySancho-Tartarin's fury, who, since the start was fixed, never left offraging day or night. 

XIII. The Departure. 

EFTSOON arrived the great and solemn day. From dawn allTarascon had been on foot, encumbering the Avignon road and theapproaches to Baobab Villa. People were up at the windows, onthe roofs, and in the trees; the Rhone bargees, porters, dredgers, shoeblacks, gentry, tradesfolk, warpers and weavers, taffety-workers, the club members, in short the whole town; moreover, people from Beaucaire had come over the bridge, market-gardenersfrom the environs, carters in their huge carts with ample tilts, vinedressers upon handsome mules, tricked out with ribbons, streamers, bells, rosettes, and jingles, and even, here and there, afew pretty maids from Arles, come on the pillion behind theirsweethearts, with bonny blue ribbons round the head, upon littleiron-grey Camargue horses. 

All this swarm squeezed and jostled before our good Tartarin'sdoor, who was going to slaughter lions in the land of the Turks. 

For Tarascon, Algeria, Africa, Greece, Persia, Turkey, andMesopotamia, all form one great hazy country, almost a myth, called the land of the Turks. They say "Tur's, " but that's a linguisticdigression. 

In the midst of all this throng, the cap-poppers bustled to and fro, proud of their captain's triumph, leaving glorious wakes where theyhad passed. 

In front of the Indian fig-tree house were two large trucks. Fromtime to time the door would open, and allow several persons to bespied, gravely lounging about the little garden. At every new boxthe throng started and trembled. The articles were named in a loudvoice:

"That there's the shelter-tent; these the potted meats; that's thephysic-chest; these the gun-cases, " -- the cap-poppers givingexplanations. 

All of a sudden, about ten o'clock, there was a great stir in themultitude, for the garden gate banged open. 

"Here he is! here he is!" they shouted. 

It was he indeed. When he appeared upon the threshold, twooutcries of stupefaction burst from the assemblage:

"He's a Turk!" "He's got on spectacles!"

In truth, Tartarin of Tarascon had deemed it his duty, on going toAlgeria, to don the Algerian costume. Full white linen trousers, small tight vest with metal buttons, a red sash two feet wide aroundthe waist, the neck bare and the forehead shaven, and a vast red fez, or chechia, on his head, with something like a long blue tasselthereto. Together with this, two heavy guns, one on each shoulder, a broad hunting-knife in the girdle, a bandolier across the breast, arevolver on the hip, swinging in its patent leather case -- that is all. No, I cry your pardon, I was forgetting the spectacles -- apantomimically large pair of azure barnacles, which came in partly totemper what was rather too fierce in the bearing of our hero. 

"Long life to Tartarin! hip, hip, hurrah for Tartarin!" roared thepopulace. 

The great man smiled, but did not salute, on account of the firearmshindering him. Moreover, he knew now on what popular favourdepends; it may even be that in the depths of his soul he cursed histerrible fellow-townsfolk, who obliged him to go away and leavehis pretty little pleasure-house with whitened walls and greenvenetians. But there was no show of this. 

Calm and proud, although a little pallid, he stepped out on thefootway, glanced at the hand-carts, and, seeing all was right, lustilytook the road to the railway-station, without even once lookingback towards Baobab Villa. Behind him marched the braveCommandant Bravida, Ladevese the Chief Judge, Costecalde thegunsmith next, and then all the sportsmen who pop at caps, preceding the hand-carts and the rag, tag, and bobtail. 

Before the station the station-master awaited them, an old Africanveteran of 1830, who shook Tartarin's hand many times withfervency. 

The Paris-to-Marseilles express was not yet in, so Tartarin and hisstaff went into the waiting-rooms. To prevent the place beingoverrun, the station-master ordered the gates to be closed. 

During a quarter of an hour, Tartarin promenaded up and down inthe rooms in the midst of his brother marksmen, speaking to themof his journey and his hunting, and promising to send them skins;they put their names down in his memorandum-book for a lionskinapiece, as waltzers book for a dance. 

Gentle and placid as Socrates on the point of quaffing the hemlock, the intrepid Tarasconian had a word and a smile for each. He spokesimply, with an affable mien; it looked as if, before departing, hemeant to leave behind him a wake of charms, regrets, and pleasantmemories. On hearing their leader speak in this way, all thesportsmen felt tears well up, and some were stung with remorse, towit, Chief Judge Ladevese and the chemist Bezuquet. The railwayemployees blubbered in the corners, whilst the outer public squintedthrough the bars and bellowed: "Long live Tartarin!"

At length the bell rang. A dull rumble was heard, and a piercingwhistle shook the vault. 

"The Marseilles express, gen'lemen!"

"Good-bye, Tartarin! Good luck, old fellow!"

"Good-bye to you all!" murmured the great man, as, with his armsaround the brave Commandant Bravida, he embraced his dearnative place collectively in him. Then he leaped out upon theplatform, and clambered into a carriage full of Parisian ladies, whowere ready to die with fright at sight of this stranger with so manypistols and rifles. 

XIV. The Port of Marseilles -- "All aboard, all aboard!"

UPON the 1st of December 18--, in clear, brilliant, splendidweather, under a south winter sun, the startled inhabitants ofMarseilles beheld a Turk come down the Canebiere, or their RegentStreet. A Turk, a regular Turk -- never had such a one been seen;and yet, Heaven knows, there is no lack of Turks at Marseilles. 

The Turk in question -- have I any necessity of telling you it wasthe great Tartarin of Tarascon? -- waddled along the quays, followed by his gun-cases, medicine-chest, and tinned comestibles, to reach the landing-stage of the Touache Company and the mailsteamer the Zouave, which was to transport him over the sea. 

With his ears still ringing with the home applause, intoxicated bythe glare of the heavens and the reek of the sea, Tartarin fairlybeamed as he stepped out with a lofty head, and between his gunson his shoulders, looking with all his eyes upon that wondrous, dazzling harbour of Marseilles, which he saw for the first time. Thepoor fellow believed he was dreaming. He fancied his name wasSinbad the Sailor, and that he was roaming in one of those fantasticcities abundant in the "Arabian Nights. " As far as eye could reachthere spread a forest of masts and spars, cris-crossing in every way. 

Flags of all countries floated -- English, American, Russian, Swedish, Greek and Tunisian. 

The vessels lay alongside the wharves -- ay, head on, so that theirbowsprits stuck up out over the strand like rows of bayonets. Overit, too, sprawled the mermaids, goddesses, madonnas, and otherfigure-heads in carved and painted wood which gave names to theships -- all worn by sea-water, split, mildewed, and dripping. Everand anon, between the hulls, a patch of harbour like watered silksplashed with oil. In the intervals of the yards and booms, whatseemed swarms of flies prettily spotted the blue sky. These werethe shipboys, hailing one another in all languages. 

On the waterside, amidst thick green or black rivulets coming downfrom the soap factories loaded with oil and soda, bustled a mass ofcustom-house officers, messengers, porters, and truckmen withtheir bogheys, or trolleys, drawn by Corsican ponies. 

There were shops selling quaint articles, smoky shanties wheresailors were cooking their own queer messes, dealers in pipes, monkeys, parrots, ropes, sailcloth, fanciful curios, amongst whichwere mingled higgledy-piggledy old culverins, huge gilded lanterns, worn-out pulley-blocks, rusty flukeless anchors, chafed cordage, battered speaking-trumpets, and marine glasses almostcontemporary with the Ark. Sellers of mussels and clams squattedbeside their heaps of shellfish and yawped their goods. Seamenrolled by with tar-pots, smoking soup-bowls, and big baskets full ofcuttlefish, from which they went to wash the ink in the milky watersof the fountains. 

Everywhere a prodigious collection of all kinds of goods: silks, minerals, wood in stacks, lead in pigs, cloths, sugars, caruba woodlogs, colza seed, liquorice sticks, sugar-canes. The East and theWest cheek by jowl, even to pyramids of Dutch cheeses which theGenoese were dyeing red by contact with their hands. 

Yonder was the corn market: porters discharging sacks down theshoots of lofty elevators upon the pier, and loose grain rolling as agolden torrent through a blonde dust. Men in red skullcaps weresifting it as they caught it in large asses'-skin sieves, and loading itupon carts which took their millward way, followed by a regimentof women and youngsters with wisps and gleaning baskets. Fartheron, the dry docks, where large vessels were laid low on their sidestill their yards dipped in the water; they were singed with thorn-bushes to free them of sea weed; there rose an odour of pitch, andthe deafening clatter of the sheathers coppering the bottoms withbroad sheets of yellow metal. 

At whiles a gap in between the masts, in which Tartarin could seethe haven mouth, where the vessels came and went: a British frigateoff for Malta, dainty and thoroughly washed down, with the officerin primrose gloves, or a large home-port brig hauling out in themidst of uproar and oaths, whilst the fat captain, in a high silk hatand frockcoat, ordered the operations in Provencal dialect. Othercraft were making forth under all sail, and, still farther out, morewere slowly looming up in the sunshine as if they were sailing in theair. 

All the time a frightful riot, the rumbling of carts, the "Haul all, haulaway!" of the shipmen, oaths, songs, steamboat whistles, the buglesand drums in Forts Saint Jean and Saint Nicolas, the bells of theMajor, the Accoules, and Saint Victor; with the mistral atop of all, catching up the noises and clamour, and rolling them up togetherwith a furious shaking, till confounded with its own voice, whichintoned a mad, wild, heroic melody like a grand charging tune --one that filled hearers with a longing to be off, and the farther thebetter -- a craving for wings. 

It was to the sound of this splendid blast that the intrepid TartarinTarasco of Tarascon embarked for the land of lions. 

EPISODE THE SECONDAMONG "THE TURKS"

I. The Passage -- The Five Positions of the Fez --The Third Evening Out -- Mercy upon us!

JOYFUL would I be, my dear readers, if I were a painter -- a greatartist, I mean -- in order to set under your eyes, at the head of thissecond episode, the various positions taken by Tartarin's red cap inthe three days' passage it made on board of the Zouave, betweenFrance and Algeria. 

First would I show you it at the steaming out, upon deck, arrogantand heroic as it was, forming a glory round that handsomeTarasconian head. Next would I show you it at the harbour-mouth, when the bark began to caper upon the waves; I would depict it foryou all of a quake in astonishment, and as though alreadyexperiencing the preliminary qualms of sea-sickness. Then, in theGulf of the Lion, proportionably to the nearing the open sea, wherethe white caps heaved harder, I would make you behold it wrestlingwith the tempest, and standing on end upon the hero's cranium, with its mighty mane of blue wool bristling out in the spray andbreeze. Position Fourth: at six in the afternoon, with the Corsicancoast in view; the unfortunate chechia hangs over the ship's side, and lamentably stares down as though to plumb the depths ofocean. Finally and lastly, the Fifth Position: at the back of anarrow state-room, in a box-bed so small it seemed one drawer in anest of them, something shapeless rolled on the pillow with moansof desolation. This was the fez -- the fez so defiant at the sailing, now reduced to the vulgar condition of a nightcap, and pulled downover the very ears of the head of a pallid and convulsed sufferer. 

How the people of Tarascon would have kicked themselves forhaving constrained the great Tartarin to leave home, if they had butseen him stretched in the bunk in the dull, wan gleam through thedead-light, amid the sickly odour of cooking and wet wood -- theheart-heaving perfume of mail-boats; if they had but heard himgurgle at every turn of the screw, wail for tea every five minutes, and swear at the steward in a childish treble!

On my word of honour as a story-teller, the poor Turk would havemade a paste-board dummy pity him. Suddenly, overcome by thenausea, the hapless victim had not even the power to undo theAlgerian girdle-cloth, or lay aside his armoury; the lumpy-handledhunting-sword pounded his ribs, and the leather revolver-casemade his thigh raw. To finish him arose the taunts of Sancho-Tartarin, who never ceased to groan and inveigh:

"Well, for the biggest kind of imbecile, you are the finest specimen!I told you truly how it would be. Ha, ha! you were bound to go toAfrica, of course! Well, old merriman, now you are going toAfrica, how do you like it?"

The cruellest part of it was that, from the retreat where he wasmoaning, the hapless invalid could hear the passengers in the grandsaloon laughing, munching, singing, and playing at cards. On boardthe Zouave the company was as jolly as numerous, composed ofofficers going back to join their regiments, ladies from theMarseilles Alcazar Music Hall, strolling-players, a rich Mussulmanreturning from Mecca, and a very jocular Montenegrin prince, whofavoured them with imitations of the low comedians of Paris. Notone of these jokers felt the sea-sickness, and their time was passedin quaffing champagne with the steamer captain, a good fat bornMarseillais, who had a wife and family as well at Algiers as athome, and who answered to the merry name of Barbassou. 

Tartarin of Tarascon hated this pack of wretches; their mirthfulnessdeepened his ails. 

At length, on the third afternoon, there was such an extraordinaryhullabaloo on the deck that our hero was roused out of his longtorpor. The ship's bell was ringing and the seamen's heavy bootsran over the planks. 

"Go ahead! Stop her! Turn astern!" barked the hoarse voice ofCaptain Barbassou; and then, "Stop her dead!"

There was an abrupt check of movement, a shock, and no more, save the silent rolling of the boat from side to side like a balloon inthe air. This strange stillness alarmed the Tarasconian. 

"Heaven ha' mercy upon us!" he yelled in a terrifying voice, as, recovering his strength by magic, he bounded out of his berth, andrushed upon deck with his arsenal. 

II. "To arms! to arms"

ONLY the arrival, not a foundering. 

The Zouave was just gliding into the roadstead -- a fine one ofblack, deep water, but dull and still, almost deserted. On elevatedground ahead rose Algiers, the White City, with its little houses of adead cream-colour huddling against one another lest they slid intothe sea. It was like Meudon slope with a laundress's washing hungout to dry. Over it a vast blue satin sky -- and such a blue!

A little restored from his fright, the illustrious Tartarin gazed on thelandscape, and listened with respect to the Montenegrin prince, who stood by his side, as he named the different parts of thecapital, the Kasbah, the upper town, and the Rue Bab-Azoon. Avery finely-brought-up prince was this Montenegrin; moreover, knowing Algeria thoroughly, and fluently speaking Arabic. HenceTartarin thought of cultivating his acquaintance. 

All at once, along the bulwark against which they were leaning, theTarasconian perceived a row of large black hands clinging to itfrom over the side. Almost instantly a Negro's woolly head shot upbefore him, and, ere he had time to open his mouth, the deck wasoverwhelmed on every side by a hundred black or yellowdesperadoes, half naked, hideous, and fearsome. Tartarin knew whothese pirates were -- "they, " of course, the celebrated "they" whohad too often been hunted after by him in the by-ways of Tarascon. At last they had decided to meet him face to face. At the outsetsurprise nailed him to the spot. But when he saw the outlaws fallupon the luggage, tear off the tarpaulin covering, and actuallycommence the pillage of the ship, then the hero awoke. Whippingout his hunting-sword, "To arms! to arms!" he roared to thepassengers; and away he flew, the foremost of all, upon thebuccaneers. "Ques aco? What's the stir? What's the matter withyou?" exclaimed Captain Barbassou, coming out of the'tweendecks. 

"About time you did turn up, captain! Quick, quick, arm your men!"

"Eh, what for? dash it all!"

"Why, can't you see?"

"See what?"

"There, before you, the corsairs"

Captain Barbassou stared, bewildered. At this juncture a tallblackamoor tore by with our hero's medicine-chest upon his back. 

"You cut-throat! just wait for me!" yelled the Tarasconer as he ranafter, with the knife uplifted. 

But Barbassou caught him in the spring, and holding him by thewaist-sash, bade him be quiet. 

"Tron de ler! by the throne on high! they're no pirates. It's longsince there were any pirates hereabout. Those dark porters are lightporters. Ha, ha!"

"P--p-porters?"

"Rather, only come after the luggage to carry it ashore. So put upyour cook's galley knife, give me your ticket, and walk off behindthat nigger -- an honest dog, who will see you to land, and eveninto a hotel, if you like. "

A little abashed, Tartarin handed over his ticket, and falling inbehind the representative of the Dark Continent, clambered downby the hanging-ladder into a big skiff dancing alongside. All hiseffects were already there -- boxes, trunks, gun-cases, tinned food, -- so cramming up the boat that there was no need to wait for anyother passengers. The African scrambled upon the boxes, andsquatted there like a baboon, with his knees clutched by his hands. Another Negro took the oars. Both laughingly eyed Tartarin, andshowed their white teeth. 

Standing in the stern-sheets, making that terrifying face which haddaunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishlyfumbled with his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassouhad told him, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention ofthese ebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honestmates of Tarascon. 

Five minutes afterwards the skiff landed Tartarin, and he set footupon the little Barbary wharf, where, three hundred years before, aSpanish galley-slave yclept Miguel Cervantes devised, under thecane of the Algerian taskmaster, a sublime romance which was tobear the title of "Don Quixote. "

III. An Invocation to Cervantes -- The Disembarkation -- Whereare the Turks? -- Not a sign of them -- Disenchantment

O MIGUEL CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, if what is asserted betrue, to wit, that wherever great men have dwelt some emanation oftheir spirits wanderingly hovers until the end of ages, then whatremained of your essence on the Barbary coast must have quiveredwith glee on beholding Tartarin of Tarascon disembark, thatmarvellous type of the French Southerner, in whom was embodiedboth heroes of your work, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. 

The air was sultry on this occasion. On the wharf, ablaze withsunshine, were half a dozen revenue officers, some Algeriansexpecting news from France, several squatting Moors who drew atlong pipes, and some Maltese mariners dragging large nets, between the meshes of which thousands of sardines glittered likesmall silver coins. 

But hardly had Tartarin set foot on earth before the quay spranginto life and changed its aspect. A horde of savages, still morehideous than the pirates upon the steamer, rose between the stoneson the strand and rushed upon the new-comer. Tall Arabs werethere, nude under woollen blankets, little Moors in tatters, Negroes, Tunisians, Port Mahonese, M'zabites, hotel servants in whiteaprons, all yelling and shouting, hooking on his clothes, fightingover his luggage, one carrying away the provender, another hismedicine-chest, and pelting him in one fantastic medley with thenames of preposterously-entitled hotels. 

Bewildered by all this tumult, poor Tartarin wandered to and fro, swore and stormed, went mad, ran after his property, and notknowing how to make these barbarians understand him, speechifiedthem in French, Provencal, and even in dog Latin: "Rosa, the rose;bonus, bona, bonum!" -- all that he knew -- but to no purpose. Hewas not heeded. Happily, like a god in Homer, intervened a littlefellow in a yellow-collared tunic, and armed with a long running-footman's cane, who dispersed the whole riff-raff with cudgel-play. He was a policeman of the Algerian capital. Very politely, hesuggested Tartarin should put up at the Hotel de l'Europe, and heconfided him to its waiters, who carted him and his impedimentathither in several barrows. 

At the first steps he took in Algiers, Tartarin of Tarascon openedhis eyes widely. Beforehand he had pictured it as an Oriental city --a fairy one, mythological, something between Constantinople andZanzibar; but it was back into Tarascon he fell. Cafes, restaurants, wide streets, four-storey houses, a little market-place, macadamised, where the infantry band played Offenbachian polkas, whilst fashionably clad gentlemen occupied chairs, drinking beerand eating pancakes, some brilliant ladies, some shady ones, andsoldiers -- more soldiers -- no end of soldiers, but not a solitaryTurk, or, better to say, there was a solitary Turk, and that was he. 

Hence he felt a little abashed about crossing the square, foreverybody looked at him. The musicians stopped, the Offenbachianpolka halting with one foot in the air. 

With both guns on his shoulders, and the revolver flapping on hiship, as fierce and stately as Robinson Crusoe, Tartarin gravelypassed through the groups; but on arriving at the hotel his powersfailed him. All spun and mingled in his head: the departure fromTarascon, the harbour of Marseilles, the voyage, the Montenegrinprince, the corsairs. They had to help him up into a room anddisarm and undress him. They began to talk of sending for amedical adviser; but hardly was our hero's head upon the pillowthan he set to snoring, so loudly and so heartily that the landlordjudged the succour of science useless, and everybody consideratelywithdrew. 

IV. The First Lying in Wait. 

THREE o'clock was striking by the Government clock whenTartarin awoke. He had slept all the evening, night, and morning, and even a goodish piece of the afternoon. It must be granted, though, that in the last three days the red fez had caught it prettyhot and lively!

Our hero's first thought on opening his eyes was, "I am in the landof the lions!" And -- well, why should we not say it? -- at the ideathat lions were nigh hereabouts, within a couple of steps, almost athand's reach, and that he would have to disentangle a snarled skeinwith them, ugh! a deadly chill struck him, and he dived intrepidlyunder the coverlet. 

But, before a moment was over, the outward gaiety, the blue sky, the glowing sun that streamed into the bedchamber, a nice littlebreakfast that he ate in bed, his window wide open upon the sea, the whole flavoured with an uncommonly good bottle of Cresciawine -- it very speedily restored him his former pluckiness. 

"Let's out and at the lion!" he exclaimed, throwing off the clothesand briskly dressing himself. 

His plan was as follows: he would go forth from the city withoutsaying a word to a soul, plunge into the great desert, await nightfallto ambush himself, and bang away at the first lion who walked up. Then would he return to breakfast in the morning at the hotel, receive the felicitations of the natives, and hire a cart to bring in thequarry. 

So he hurriedly armed himself, attached upright on his back theshelter-tent (which, when rolled up, left its centre pole sticking outa clear foot above his head), and descended to the street as stiffly asthough he had swallowed it. Not caring to ask the way of anybody, from fear of letting out his project, he turned fairly to the right, andthreaded the Bab-Azoon arcade to the very end, where swarms ofAlgerian Jews watched him pass from their corner ambushes like somany spiders; crossing the Theatre place, he entered the outerward, and lastly came upon the dusty Mustapha highway. 

Upon this was a quaint conglomeration: omnibuses, hackneycoaches, corricolos, the army service waggons, huge hay-cartsdrawn by bullocks, squads of Chasseurs d'Afrique, droves ofmicroscopic asses, trucks of Alsatian emigrants, spahis in scarletcloaks -- all filed by in a whirlwind cloud of dust, amidst shouts, songs, and trumpetcalls, between two rows of vile-looking booths, at the doors of which lanky Mahonnais women might be seen doingtheir hair, drinking-dens filled with soldiers, and shops of butchersand knackers. 

"What rubbish, to din me about the Orient!" grumbled the greatTartarin; "there are not even as many Turks here as at Marseilles. "

All of a sudden he saw a splendid camel strut by him quite closely, stretching its long legs and puffing out its throat like a turkey-cock, and that made his heart throb. Camels already, eh? Lions could notbe far Off now; and, indeed, in five minutes' time he did see a wholeband of lion-hunters coming his way under arms. 

"Cowards!" thought our hero as he skirted them; "downrightcowards, to go at a lion in companies and with dogs!"

For it never could occur to him that anything but lions were objectsof the chase in Algeria. For all that, these Nimrods wore suchcomplacent phizzes of retired tradesmen, and their style of lion-hunting with dogs and game-bags was so patriarchal, that theTarasconian, a little perplexed, deemed it incumbent to questionone of the gentlemen. 

"And furthermore, comrade, is the sport good?"

"Not bad, " responded the other, regarding the speaker's imposingwarlike equipment with a scared eye. 

"Killed any?"

"Rather! Not so bad -- only look. " Whereupon the Algeriansportsman showed that it was rabbits and woodcock stuffing outthe bag. 

"What! do you call that your bag? Do you put such-like in yourbag?"

"Where else should I put 'em?"

"But it's such little game. "

"Some run small and some run large, " observed the hunter. 

In haste to catch up with his companions, he joined them withseveral long strides. The dauntless Tartarin remained rooted in themiddle of the road with stupefaction. "Pooh!" he ejaculated, after amoment's reflection, "these are jokers. They haven't killed anythingwhatever, " and he went his way. 

Already the houses became scarcer, and so did the passengers. Dark came on and objects were blurred, though Tartarin walked onfor half an hour more, when he stopped, for it was night. Amoonless night, too, but sprinkled with stars. On the highroadthere was nobody. The hero concluded that lions are not stage-coaches, and would not of their own choice travel the main ways. So he wheeled into the fields, where there were brambles andditches and bushes at every step, but he kept on nevertheless. 

But suddenly he halted. 

"I smell lions about here!" said our friend, sniffing right and left. 

V. Bang, bang!

CERTAINLY a great wilderness, bristling with odd plants of thatOriental kind which look like wicked creatures. Under the feeblestarlight their magnified shadows barred the ground in every way. On the right loomed up confusedly the heavy mass of a mountain --perhaps the Atlas range. On the heart-hand, the invisible seahollowly rolling. The very spot to attract wild beasts. 

With one gun laid before him and the other in his grasp, Tartarin ofTarascon went down on one knee and waited an hour, ay, a goodcouple, and nothing turned up. Then he bethought him how, in hisbooks, the great lion-slayers never went out hunting without havinga lamb or a kid along with them, which they tied up a space beforethem, and set bleating or baa-ing by jerking its foot with a string. Not having any goat, the Tarasconer had the idea of employing animitation, and he set to crying in a tremulous voice:

"Baa-a-a!"

At first it was done very softly, because at bottom he was a littlealarmed lest the lion should hear him; but as nothing came, he baa-ed more loudly. Still nothing. Losing patience, he resumed manytimes running at the top of his voice, till the "Baa, baa, baa!" cameout with so much power that the goat began to be mistakable for abull. 

Unexpectedly, a few steps in front, some gigantic black thingappeared. He was hushed. This thing lowered its head, sniffed theground, bounded up, rolled over, and darted off at the gallop, butreturned and stopped short. Who could doubt it was the lion? fornow its four short legs could plainly be seen, its formidable maneand its large eyes gleaming in the gloom. 

Up went his gun into position. Fire's the word! and bang, bang! itwas done. And immediately there was a leap back and the drawingof the hunting-knife. To the Tarasconian's shot a terrible roaringreplied. 

"He's got it!" cried our good Tartarin as, steadying himself on hissturdy supporters, he prepared to receive the brute's charge. 

But it had more than its fill, and galloped off; howling. He did notbudge, for he expected to see the female mate appear, as the story-books always lay it down she should. 

Unhappily, no female came. After two or three hours' waiting theTarasconian grew tired. The ground was damp, the night wasgetting cool, and the sea-breeze pricked sharply. 

"I have a good mind to take a nap till daylight, " he said to himself. 

To avoid catching rheumatism, he had recourse to his patent tent. But here's where Old Nick interfered! This tent was of so veryingenious a construction that he could not manage to open it. Invain did he toil over it and perspire an hour through -- theconfounded apparatus would not come unfolded. There are someumbrellas which amuse themselves under torrential rains with justsuch tricks upon you. Fairly tired out with the struggle, the victimdashed down the machine and lay upon it, swearing like the regularSouthron he was. "Tar, tar, rar, tar! tar, rar, tar!"

"What on earth's that?" wondered Tartarin, suddenly aroused. 

It was the bugles of the Chasseurs d'Afrique sounding the turn-outin the Mustapha barracks. The stupefied lion-slayer rubbed his eyes, for he had believed himself out in the boundless wilderness; and doyou know where he really was? -- in a field of artichokes, betweena cabbage-garden and a patch of beets. His Sahara grew kitchenvegetables. 

Close to him, on the pretty verdant slope of Upper Mustapha, thesnowy villas glowed in the rosy rising sun: anybody would believehimself in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, amongst its bastidesand bastidons. 

The commonplace and kitchen-gardenish aspect of this sleep-steepedcountry much astonished the poor man, and put him in bad humour. 

"These folk are crazy, " he reasoned, "to plant artichokes in theprowling-ground of lions; for, in short, I have not been dreaming. Lions have come here, and there's the proof"

What he called the proof was blood-spots left behind the beast in itsflight. Bending over this ruddy trail with his eye on the lookoutand his revolver in his fist, the valiant Tarasconian went fromartichoke to artichoke up to a little field of oats. In the trampledgrass was a pool of blood, and in the midst of the pool, lying on itsflank, with a large wound in the head, was a -- guess what?

"A lion, of course!"

Not a bit of it! An ass! -- one of those little donkeys so common inAlgeria, where they are called bourriquots. 

VI. Arrival of the Female -- A Terrible Combat --"Game Fellows Meet Here!"

LOOKING on his hapless victim, Tartarin's first impulse was one ofvexation. There is such a wide gap between a lion and poor Jack!His second feeling was one of pity. The poor bourriquot was sopretty and looked so kindly. The hide on his still warm sidesheaved and fell like waves. Tartarin knelt down, and strove withthe end of his Algerian sash to stanch the blood; and all you canimagine in the way of touchingness was offered by the picture ofthis great man tending this little ass. 

At the touch of the silky cloth the donkey, who had nottwopennyworth of life in him, opened his large grey eye and winkedhis long ears two or three times, as much as to say, "Oh, thankyou!" before a final spasm shook it from head to tail, whereafter itstirred no more. 

"Noiraud! Blackey!" suddenly screamed a voice, choking withanguish, as the branches in a thicket hard by moved at the sametime. 

Tartarin had no more than enough time to rise and stand uponguard. This was the female!

She rushed up, fearsome and roaring, under form of an old Alsatianwoman, her hair in a kerchief, armed with large red umbrella, andcalling for her ass, till all the echoes of Mustapha rang. It certainlywould have been better for Tartarin to have had to deal with alioness in fury than this old virago. In vain did the lucklesssportsman try to make her understand how the blunder hadoccurred, and he had mistaken "Noiraud" for a lion. The harridanbelieved he was making fun of her, and uttering energetical "DerTeufels!" fell upon our hero to bang him with the gingham. A littlebewildered, Tartarin defended himself as best he could, wardingoff the blows with his rifle, streaming with perspiration, panting, jumping about, and crying out:

"But, Madame, but" --

Much good his buts were! Madame was dull of hearing, and herblows continued hard as ever. 

Fortunately a third party arrived on the battlefield, the Alsatian'shusband, of the same race; a roadside innkeeper, as well as a verygood ready-reckoner, which was better. When he saw what kind ofa customer he had to deal with -- a slaughterer who only wanted topay the value of his victim -- he disarmed his better-half, and theycame to an understanding. 

Tartarin gave two hundred francs, the donkey being worth aboutten -- at least that is the current price in the Arab markets. Thenpoor Blackey was laid to rest at the root of a fig-tree, and theAlsatian, raised to joviality by the colour of the Tarascon ducats, invited the hero to have a quencher with him in his wine-shop, which stood only a few steps off on the edge of the highway. EverySunday the sportsmen from the city came there to regale of amorning, for the plain abounded with game, and there was no betterplace for rabbits for two leagues around. 

"How about lions?" inquired Tartarin. 

The Alsatian stared at him, greatly astounded. 

"Lions!"

"Yes, lions. Don't you see them sometimes?" resumed the poorfellow, with less confidence. 

The Boniface burst out in laughter. 

"Ho, ho! bless us! lions! What would we do with lions here?"

"Are there, then, none in Algeria?"

"'Pon my faith, I never saw any, albeit I have been twenty years inthe colony. Still, I believe I have heard tell of such a thing --leastwise, I fancy the newspapers said -- but that is ever so muchfarther inland -- down South, you know" --

At this point they reached the hostelry, a suburban pothouse, with awithered green bough over the door, crossed billiard-cues paintedon the wall, and this harmless sign over a picture of wild rabbits, feeding:

 "GAME FELLOWS MEET HERE. "

"Game fellows!" It made Tartarin think of Captain Bravida. 

VII. About an Omnibus, a Moorish Beauty, and a Wreath of Jessamine. 

COMMON people would have been discouraged by such a firstadventure, but men of Tartarin's mettle do not easily get cast down. 

"The lions are in the South, are they?" mused the hero. "Very well, then. South I go. "

As soon as he had swallowed his last mouthful he jumped up, thankedhis host, nodded good-bye to the old hag without any ill-will, dropped a final tear over the hapless Blackey, and quickly returnedto Algiers, with the firm intention of packing up and startingthat very day for the South. 

The Mustapha highroad seemed, unfortunately, to have stretchedsince overnight; and what a sun and dust there were, and what aweight in that shelter-tent! Tartarin did not feel to have the courageto walk to the town, and he beckoned to the first omnibus comingalong, and climbed in. 

Oh, our poor Tartarin of Tarascon! how much better it would havebeen for his name and fame not to have stepped into that fatal arkon wheels, but to have continued on his road afoot, at the risk offalling suffocated beneath the burden of the atmosphere, the tent, and his heavy double-barrelled rifles. 

When Tartarin got in the 'bus was full. At the end, with his nose inhis prayer-book, sat a large and black-bearded vicar from town;facing him was a young Moorish merchant smoking coarsecigarettes, and a Maltese sailor and four or five Moorish womenmuffled up in white cloths, so that only their eyes could be spied. 

These ladies had been to offer up prayers in the Abdel Kadercemetery; but this funereal visit did not seem to have muchsaddened them, for they could be heard chuckling and chatteringbetween themselves under their coverings whilst munching pastry. Tartarin fancied that they watched him narrowly. One in particular, seated over against him, had fixed her eyes upon his, and nevertook them off all the drive. Although the dame was veiled, theliveliness of the big black eyes, lengthened out by k'hol; adelightfully slender wrist loaded with gold bracelets, of which aglimpse was given from time to time among the folds; the sound ofher voice, the graceful, almost childlike, movements of the head, allrevealed that a young, pretty, and loveable creature bloomedunderneath the veil. The unfortunate Tartarin did not know where toshrink. The fond, mute gaze of these splendrous Oriental orbsagitated him, perturbed him, and made him feel like dying withflushes of heat and fits of cold shivers. 

To finish him, the lady's slipper meddled in the onslaught: he felt thedainty thing wander and frisk about over his heavy hunting bootslike a tiny red mouse. What could he do? Answer the glance andthe pressure, of course. Ay, but what about the consequences? Aloving intrigue in the East is a terrible matter! With his romanticsouthern nature, the honest Tarasconian saw himself already fallinginto the grip of the eunuchs, to be decapitated, or better -- wemean, worse -- than that, sewn up in a leather sack and sunk in thesea with his head under his arm beside him. This somewhat cooledhim. In the meantime the little slipper continued its proceedings, and the eyes, widely open opposite him like twin black velvetflowers, seemed to say:

"Come, cull us!"

The 'bus stopped on the Theatre place, at the mouth of the RueBab-Azoon. One by one, embedded in their voluminous trousers, and drawing their mufflers around them with wild grace, theMoorish women alighted. Tartarin's confrontatress was the last torise, and in doing so her countenance skimmed so closely to ourhero's that her breath enveloped him -- a veritable nosegay of youthand freshness, with an indescribable after-tang of musk, jessamine, and pastry. 

The Tarasconian stood out no longer. Intoxicated with love, andready for anything, he darted out after the beauty. At the rumplingsound of his belts and boots she turned, laid a finger on her veiledmouth, as one who would say, "Hush!" and with the other hand quicklytossed him a little wreath of sweet-scented jessamine flowers. Tartarin of Tarascon stooped to pick it up; but as he was ratherclumsy, and much overburdened with implements of war, theoperation took rather long. When he did straighten up, with thejessamine garland upon his heart, the donatrix had vanished. 

VIII. Ye Lions of the Atlas, repose in peace!

LIONS of the Atlas, sleep! -- sleep tranquilly at the back of yourlairs amid the aloes and cacti. For a few days to come, any way, Tartarin of Tarascon will not massacre you. For the time being, allhis warlike paraphernalia, gun-cases, medicine chest, alimentarypreserves, dwelt peacefully under cover in a corner of room 36 inthe Hotel de l'Europe. 

Sleep with no fear, great red lions, the Tarasconian is engaged inlooking up that Moorish charmer. Since the adventure in theomnibus, the unfortunate swain perpetually fancied he felt thefidgeting of that pretty red mouse upon his huge backwoodstrapper's foot; and the sea-breeze fanning his lips was ever scented, do what he would, with a love-exciting odour of sweet cakes andpatchouli. 

He hungered for his indispensable light of the harem! and he meantto behold her anew. 

But it was no joke of a task. To find one certain person in a city ofa hundred thousand souls, only known by the eyes, breath, andslipper, -- none but a son of Tarascon, panoplied by love, would becapable of attempting such an adventure. 

The plague is that, under their broad white mufflers, all the Moorishwomen resemble one another; besides, they do not go about much, and to see them, a man has to climb up into the native or uppertown, the city of the "Turks, " and that is a regular cut-throat's den. 

Little black alleys, very narrow, climbing perpendicularly upbetween mysterious house-walls, whose roofs lean to touching andform a tunnel; low doors, and sad, silent little casements well barredand grated. Moreover, on both hands, stacks of darksome stalls, wherein ferocious "Turks" smoked long pipes stuck betweenglittering teeth in piratical heads with white eyes, and mumbled inundertones as if hatching wicked attacks. 

To say that Tartarin traversed this grisly place without any emotionwould be putting forth falsehood. On the contrary, he was muchaffected, and the stout fellow only went up the obscure lanes, where his corporation took up all the width, with the utmostprecaution, his eye skinned, and his finger on his revolver trigger, inthe same manner as he went to the clubhouse at Tarascon. At anymoment he expected to have a whole gang of eunuchs andjanissaries drop upon his back, yet the longing to behold that darkdamsel again gave him a giant's strength and boldness. 

For a full week the undaunted Tartarin never quitted the high town. Yes; for all that period he might have been seen cooling his heelsbefore the Turkish bath-houses, awaiting the hour when the ladiescame forth in troops, shivering and still redolent of soap and hotwater; or squatting at the doorways of mosques, puffing andmelting in trying to get out of his big boots in order to enter thetemples. 

Betimes at nightfall, when he was returning heart-broken at nothaving discovered anything at either bagnio or mosque, our manfrom Tarascon, in passing mansions, would hear monotonoussongs, smothered twanging of guitars, thumping of tambourines, and feminine laughter-peals, which would make his heart beat. 

"Haply she is there!" he would say to himself. 

Thereupon, granting the street was unpeopled, he would go up toone of these dwellings, lift the heavy knocker of the low postern, and timidly rap. The songs and merriment would instantly cease. There would be audible behind the wall nothing excepting low, dullflutterings as in a slumbering aviary. 

"Let's stick to it, old boy, " our hero would think. "Something willbefall us yet. "

What most often befell him was the contents of the cold-water jugon the head, or else peel of oranges and Barbary figs; neveranything more serious. 

Well might the lions of the Atlas Mountains doze in peace. 

IX. Prince Gregory of Montenegro. 

IT was two long weeks that the unfortunate Tartarin had beenseeking his Algerian flame, and most likely he would have beenseeking after her to this day if the little god kind to lovers had notcome to his help under the shape of a Montenegrin nobleman. 

It happened as follows. 

Every Saturday night in winter there is a masked ball at the GrandTheatre of Algiers, just as at the Paris Opera-House. It is theundying and ever-tasteless county fancy dress ball -- very fewpeople on the floor, several castaways from the Parisian students'ballrooms or midnight dance-houses, Joans of Arc following thearmy, faded characters out of the Java costume-book of 1840, andhalf-a-dozen laundress's underlings who are aiming to make loftierconquests, but still preserve a faint perfume of their former life --garlic and saffron sauce. The real spectacle is not there, but in thegreen-room, transformed for the nonce into a hall of green cloth orgaming saloon. 

An enfevered and motley mob hustle one another around the longgreen table-covers: Turcos out for the day and staking their doublehalfpence, Moorish traders from the native town, Negroes, Maltese, colonists from the inland, who have come forty leagues in order torisk on a turning card the price of a plough or of a yoke of oxen; alla-quivering, pale, clenching their teeth, and with that singular, wavering, sidelong look of the gamester, become a squint fromalways staring at the same card in the lay-out. 

A little apart are the tribes of Algerian Jews, playing amongacquaintances. The men are in the Oriental costume; hideouslyvaried with blue stockings and velvet caps. The puffy and flabbywomen sit up stiffly in tight golden bodices. Grouped around thetables, the whole tribe wail, squeal, combine, reckon on the fingers, and play but little. Now and anon, however, after long conferences, some old patriarch, with a beard like those of saints by the OldMasters, detaches himself from the party and goes to risk the familyduro. As long as the game lasted there would be a scintillation ofHebraic eyes directed on the board -- dreadful black diamonds, which made the gold pieces shiver, and ended by gently attractingthem, as if drawn by a thread. Then arose wrangles, quarrels, battles, oaths of every land, mad outcries in all tongues, knivesflashing out, the guard marching in, and the money disappearing. 

It was into the thick of this saturnalia that the great Tartarin camestraying one evening to find oblivion and heart's ease. 

He was roving alone through the gathering, brooding about hisMoorish beauty, when two angered voices arose suddenly from agaming-table above all the clamour and chink of coin. 

"I tell you, M'sieu, that I am twenty francs short!"

"Stuff, M'sieu!"

"Stuff yourself; M'sieu!"

"You shall learn whom you are addressing, M'sieu!"

"I am dying to do that, M'sieu!"

"I am Prince Gregory of Montenegro, M'sieu. "

Upon this title Tartarin, much excited, cleft the throng and placedhimself in the foremost rank, proud and happy to find his princeagain, the Montenegrin noble of such politeness whoseacquaintance he had begun on board of the mail steamer. Unfortunately the title of Highness, which had so dazzled theworthy Tarasconian, did not produce the slightest impression uponthe Chasseurs officer with whom the noble had his dispute. 

"I am much the wiser!" observed the military gentleman sneeringly;and turning to the bystanders he added: "'Prince Gregory ofMontenegro' -- who knows any such a person? Nobody!"

The indignant Tartarin took one step forward. 

"Allow me. I know the prince, " said he, in a very firm voice, andwith his finest Tarasconian accent. 

The light cavalry officer eyed him hard for a moment, and then, shrugging his shoulders, returned:

"Come, that is good! Just you two share the twenty francs lackingbetween you, and let us talk no more on the score. "

Whereupon he turned his back upon them and mixed with thecrowd. The stormy Tartarin was going to rush after him, but theprince prevented that. 

"Let him go. I can manage my own affairs. "

Taking the interventionist by the arm, he drew him rapidly out ofdoors. When they were upon the square, Prince Gregory ofMontenegro lifted his hat off; extended his hand to our hero, and ashe but dimly remembered his name, he began in a vibrating voice:

"Monsieur Barbarin -- "

"Tartarin!" prompted the other, timidly. 

"Tartarin, Barbarin, no matter! Between us henceforward it is aleague of life and death!"

The Montenegrin noble shook his hand with fierce energy. Youmay infer that the Tarasconian was proud. 

"Prince, prince!" he repeated enthusiastically. 

In a quarter of an hour subsequently the two gentlemen wereinstalled in the Platanes Restaurant, an agreeable late supper-house, with terraces running out over the sea, where, before a heartyRussian salad, seconded by a nice Crescia wine, they renewed thefriendship. 

You cannot image any one more bewitching than this Montenegrinprince. Slender, fine, with crisp hair curled by the tongs, shaved "aweek under" and pumice-stoned on that, bestarred with out-of-the-way decorations, he had the wily eye, the fondling gestures, andvaguely the accent of an Italian, which gave him an air of CardinalMazarin without his chin-tuft and moustaches. He was deeplyversed in the Latin tongues, and lugged in quotations from Tacitus, Horace, and Caesar's Commentaries at every opening. 

Of an old noble strain, it appeared that his brothers had had himexiled at the age of ten, on account of his liberal opinions, sincewhich time he had roamed the world for pleasure and instruction asa philosophical noble. A singular coincidence! the prince had spentthree years in Tarascon; and as Tartarin showed amazement atnever having met him at the club or on the esplanade, His Highnessevasively remarked that he never went about. Through delicacy, theTarasconian did not dare to question further. All great existenceshave such mysterious nooks. 

To sum up, this Signor Gregory was a very genial aristocrat. Whilst sipping the rosy Crescia juice he patiently listened toTartarin's expatiating on his lovely Moor, and he even promised tofind her speedily, as he had full knowledge of the native ladies. 

They drank hard and lengthily in toasts to "The ladies of Algiers"and "The freedom of Montenegro!"

Outside, upon the terrace, heaved the sea, and its rollers slappedthe strand in the darkness with much the sound of wet sailsflapping. The air was warm, and the sky full of stars. 

In the plane-trees a nightingale was piping. 

It was Tartarin who paid the piper. 

X. "Tell me your father's name, and I will tell you the nameof that flower. "

PRINCES of Montenegro are the ones to find the love-bird. 

On the morrow early after this evening at the Platanes, PrinceGregory was in the Tarasconian's bedroom. 

"Quick! Dress yourself quickly! Your Moorish beauty is found, Her name is Baya. She's scarce twenty -- as pretty as a love, andalready a widow. "

"A widow! What a slice of luck!" joyfully exclaimed Tartarin, whodreaded Oriental husbands. 

"Ay, but woefully closely guarded by her brother. "

"Oh, the mischief!"

"A savage chap who vends pipes in the Orleans bazaar. "

Here fell a silence. 

"A fig for that!" proceeded the prince; "you are not the man to hedaunted by such a trifle; and, anyhow, this old corsair can bepacified, I daresay, by having some pipes bought of him. But bequick! On with your courting suit, you lucky dog!"

Pale and agitated, with his heart brimming over with love, theTarasconian leaped out of his couch, and, as he hastily buttoned uphis capacious nether garment, wanted to know how he should act. 

"Write straightway to the lady and ask for a tryst. "

"Do you mean to say she knows French?" queried the Tarasconiansimpleton, with the disappointed mien of one who had believedthoroughly in the Orient. 

"Not one word of it, " rejoined the prince imperturbably; "but youcan dictate the billet-doux, and I will translate it bit by bit. "

"O prince, how kind you are!"

The lover began striding up and down the bedroom in silentmeditation. 

Naturally a man does not write to a Moorish girl in Algiers in thesame way as to a seamstress of Beaucaire. It was a very luckything that our hero had in mind his numerous readings, whichallowed him, by amalgamating the Red Indian eloquence of GustaveAimard's Apaches with Lamartine's rhetorical flourishes in the"Voyage en Orient, " and some reminiscences of the "Song ofSongs, " to compose the most Eastern letter that you could expectto see. It opened with:

"Like unto the ostrich upon the sandy waste" --

and concluded by:

"Tell me your father's name, and I will tell you the name of thatflower. "

To this missive the romantic Tartarin would have much liked to joinan emblematic bouquet of flowers in the Eastern fashion; but PrinceGregory thought it better to purchase some pipes at the brother's, which could not fail to soften his wild temper, and would certainlyplease the lady a very great deal, as she was much of a smoker. 

"Let's be off at once to buy them!" said Tartarin, full of ardour. 

"No, no! Let me go alone. I can get them cheaper. "

"Eh, what? Would you save me the trouble? O prince, prince, youdo me proud!"

Quite abashed, the good-hearted fellow offered his purse to theobliging Montenegrin, urging him to overlook nothing by which thelady would be gratified. 

Unfortunately the suit, albeit capitally commenced, did not progressas rapidly as might have been anticipated. It appeared that theMoorish beauty was very deeply affected by Tartarin's eloquence, and, for that matter, three-parts won beforehand, so that she wishednothing better than to receive him; but that brother of hers hadqualms, and to lull them it was necessary to buy pipes by thedozens; nay, the gross -- well, we had best say by the shipload atonce. 

"What the plague can Baya do with all these pipes?" poor Tartarinwanted to know more than once; but he paid the bills all the same, and without niggardliness. 

At length, after having purchased a mountainous stack of pipes andpoured forth lakes of Oriental poesy, an interview was arranged. Ihave no need to tell you with what throbbings of the heart theTarasconian prepared himself; with what carefulness he trimmed, brilliantined, and perfumed his rough cap-popper's beard, and howhe did not forget -- for everything must be thought of -- to slip aspiky life-preserver and two or three six-shooters into his pockets. 

The ever-obliging prince was coming to this first meeting in theoffice of interpreter. 

The lady dwelt in the upper part of the town. Before her doorwaya boy Moor of fourteen or less was smoking cigarettes; this was thebrother in question, the celebrated Ali. On seeing the pair ofvisitors arrive, he gave a double knock on the postern gate anddelicately glided away. 

The door opened. A negress appeared, who conducted thegentlemen, without uttering a word, across the narrow innercourtyard into a small cool room, where the lady awaited them, reclining on a low ottoman. At first glance she appeared smaller andstouter than the Moorish damsel met in the omnibus by theTarasconian. In fact, was it really the same? But the doubt merelyflashed through Tartarin's brain like a stroke of lightning. 

The dame was so pretty thus, with her feet bare, and plump fingers, fine and pink, loaded with rings. Under her bodice of gilded clothand the folds of her flower-patterned dress was suggested a lovablecreature, rather blessed materially, rounded everywhere, and niceenough to eat. The amber mouthpiece of a narghileh smoked at herlips, and enveloped her wholly in a halo of light-coloured smoke. 

On entering, the Tarasconian laid a hand on his heart and bowed asMoorlike as possible, whilst rolling his large impassioned eyes. 

Baya gazed on him for a moment without making any answer; butthen, dropping her pipe-stem, she threw her head back, hid it in herhands, and they could only see her white neck rippling with a wildlaugh like a bag full of pearls. 

XI. Sidi Tart'ri Ben Tart'ri. 

SHOULD you ever drop into the coffee-houses of the Algerianupper town after dark, even at this day, you would still hear thenatives chatting among themselves, with many a wink and slightlaugh, of one Sidi Tart'ri Ben Tart'ri, a rich and good-humouredEuropean, who dwelt, a few years back, in that neighbourhood, with a buxom witch of local origin, named Baya. 

This Sidi Tart'ri, who has left such a merry memory around theKasbah, is no other than our Tartarin, as will be guessed. 

How could you expect things otherwise? In the lives of heroes, ofsaints, too, it happens the same way -- there are moments ofblindness, perturbation, and weakness. The illustrious Tarasconianwas no more exempt from this than another, and that is the reasonduring two months that, oblivious of fame and lions, he revelled inOriental amorousness, and dozed, like Hannibal at Capua, in thedelights of Algiers the white. 

The good fellow took a pretty little house in the native style in theheart of the Arab town, with inner courtyard, banana-trees, coolverandahs, and fountains. He dwelt, afar from noise, in companywith the Moorish charmer, a thorough woman to the manner born, who pulled at her hubble-bubble all day when she was not eating. 

Stretched out on a divan in front of him, Baya would drone himmonotonous tunes with a guitar in her fist; or else, to distract herlord and master, favour him with the Bee Dance, holding a hand-glass up, in which she reflected her white teeth and the faces shemade. 

As the Esmeralda did not know a word of French, and Tartarinnone in Arabic, the conversation died away sometimes, and theTarasconian had plenty of leisure to do penance for the gush oflanguage of which he had been guilty in the shop of Bezuquet thechemist or that of Costecalde the gunmaker. 

But this penance was not devoid of charm, for he felt a kind ofenjoyable sullenness in dawdling away the whole day withoutspeaking, and in listening to the gurgling of the hookah, thestrumming of the guitar, and the faint splashing of the fountain onthe mosaic pavement of the yard. 

The pipe, the bath, and caresses filled his entire life. They seldomwent out of doors. Sometimes with his lady-love upon a pillion, Sidi Tart'ri would ride upon a sturdy mule to eat pomegranates in alittle garden he had purchased in the suburbs. But never, withoutexception, did he go down into the European quarter. This kind ofAlgiers appeared to him as ugly and unbearable as a barracks athome, with its Zouaves in revelry, its music-halls crammed withofficers, and its everlasting clank of metal sabre-sheaths under thearcades. 

The sum total is, that our Tarasconian was very happy. 

Sancho-Tartarin particularly, being very sweet upon Turkish pastry, declared that one could not be more satisfied than by this newexistence. Quixote-Tartarin had some twinges at whiles onthinking of Tarascon and the promises of lion-skins; but thisremorse did not last, and to drive away such dampening ideas theresufficed one glance from Baya, or a spoonful of those diabolicaldizzying and odoriferous sweetmeats like Circe's brews. 

In the evening Gregory came to discourse a little about a free BlackMountain. Of indefatigable obligingness, this amiable noblemanfilled the functions of an interpreter in the household, or those of asteward at a pinch, and all for nothing for the sheer pleasure of it. Apart from him, Tartarin received none but "Turks. " All thosefierce-headed pirates who had given him such frights from thebacks of their black stalls turned out, when once he made theiracquaintance, to be good inoffensive tradesmen, embroiderers, dealers in spice, pipe-mouthpiece turners -- well-bred fellows, humble, clever, close, and first-class hands at homely card games. Four or five times a week these gentry would come and spend theevening at Sidi Tart'ri's, winning his small change, eating his cakesand dainties, and delicately retiring on the stroke of ten with thanksto the Prophet. 

Left alone, Sidi Tart'ri and his faithful spouse by the broomstickwedding would finish the evening on their terrace, a broad whiteroof which overlooked the city. 

All around them a thousand of other such white flats, placidbeneath the moonshine, were descending like steps to the sea. Thebreeze carried up tinkling of guitars. 

Suddenly, like a shower of firework stars, a full, clear melodywould be softly sprinkled out from the sky, and on the minaret ofthe neighbouring mosque a handsome muezzin would appear, hisblanched form outlined on the deep blue of the night, as he chantedthe glory of Allah with a marvellous voice, which filled the horizon. 

Thereupon Baya would let go her guitar, and with her large eyesturned towards the crier, seem to imbibe the prayer deliciously. Aslong as the chant endured she would remain thrilled there inecstasy, like an Oriental saint. The deeply impressed Tartarinwould watch her pray, and conclude that it must be a splendid andpowerful creed that could cause such frenzies of faith. 

Tarascon, veil thy face! here is a son of thine on the point ofbecoming a renegade!

XII. The Latest Intelligence from Tarascon. 

PARTING from his little country seat, Sidi Tart'ri was returningalone on his mule on a fine afternoon, when the sky was blue andthe zephyrs warm. His legs were kept wide apart by ample saddle-bags of esparto cloth, swelled out with cedrats and water-melons. Lulled by the ring of his large stirrups, and rocking his body to theswing and swaying of the beast, the good fellow was thustraversing an adorable country, with his hands folded on his paunch, three-quarters gone, through heat, in a comfortable doze. All atonce, on entering the town, a deafening appeal aroused him. 

"Ahoy! What a monster Fate is! Anybody'd take this for MonsieurTartarin. "

On this name, and at the jolly southern accent, the Tarasconianlifted his head, and perceived, a couple of steps away, the honesttanned visage of Captain Barbassou, master of the Zouave, whowas taking his absinthe at the door of a little coffee-house. 

"Hey! Lord love you, Barbassou!" said Tartarin, pulling up hismule. 

Instead of continuing the dialogue, Barbassou stared at him for aspace ere he burst into a peal of such hilarity that Sidi Tart'ri satback dumbfounded on his melons. 

"What a stunning turban, my poor Monsieur Tartarin! Is it true, what they say of your having turned Turk? How is little Baya? Isshe still singing 'Marco la Bella'?"

"Marco la Bella!" repeated the indignant Tartarin. "I'll have you toknow, captain, that the person you mention is an honourableMoorish lady, and one who does not know a word of French. "

"Baya does not know French! What lunatic asylum do you hailfrom, then?"

The good captain broke into still heartier laughter; but, seeing thechops of poor Sidi Tart'ri fall he changed his course. 

"Howsoever, may happen it is not the same lass. Let's reckon that Ihave mixed 'em up. Still, mark you, Monsieur Tartarin, you will dowell, nonetheless, to distrust Algerian Moors and Montenegrinprinces. "

Tartarin rose in the stirrups, making a wry face. 

"The prince is my friend, captain. "

"Come, come, don't wax wrathy. Won't you have some bitters tosweeten you? No? Haven't you anything to say to the folks athome, neither? Well, then, a pleasant journey. By the way, mate, Ihave some good French 'bacco upon me, and if you would like tocarry away a few pipefuls, you have only to take some. Take it, won't you? It's your beastly Oriental 'baccoes that have befoggedyour brain. "

Upon this the captain went back to his absinthe, whilst the moodyTartarin trotted slowly on the road to his little house. Although hisgreat soul refused to credit anything, Barbassou's insinuations hadvexed him, and the familiar adjurations and home accent hadawakened vague remorse. 

He found nobody at home, Baya having gone out to the bath. Thenegress appeared sinister and the dwelling saddening. A prey toinexpressible melancholy, he went and sat down by the fountain toload a pipe with Barbassou's tobacco. It was wrapped up in a pieceof the Marseilles Semaphore newspaper. On flattening it out, thename of his native place struck his eyes. 

"Our Tarascon correspondent writes: --

"The city is in distress. There has been no news for several monthsfrom Tartarin the lion-slayer, who set off to hunt the great felinetribe in Africa. What can have become of our heroic fellow-countryman? Those hardly dare ask who know, as we do, how hot-headed he was, and what boldness and thirst for adventures werehis. Has he, like many others, been smothered in the sands, or hashe fallen under the murderous fangs of one of those monsters of theAtlas Range of which be had promised the skins to themunicipality? What a dreadful state of uncertainty! It is true someNegro traders, come to Beaucaire Fair, assert having met in themiddle of the deserts a European whose description agreed withhis; he was proceeding towards Timbuctoo. May Heaven preserveour Tartarin!"

When he read this, the son of Tarascon reddened, blanched, andshuddered. All Tarascon appeared unto him: the club, the cap-poppers, Costecalde's green arm-chair, and, hovering over all like aspread eagle, the imposing moustaches of brave CommandantBravida. 

At seeing himself here, as he was, cowardly lolling on a mat, whilsthis friends believed him slaughtering wild beasts, Tartarin ofTarascon was ashamed of himself, and could have wept had he notbeen a hero. 

Suddenly he leaped up and thundered:

"The lion, the lion! Down with him!"

And dashing into the dusty lumber-hole where mouldered theshelter-tent, the medicine-chest, the potted meats, and the gun-cases, he dragged them out into the middle of the court. 

Sancho-Tartarin was no more: Quixote-Tartarin occupied the fieldof active life. 

Only the time to inspect his armament and stores, don his harness, get into his heavy boots, scribble a couple of words to confideBaya to the prince, and slip a few bank-notes sprinkled with tearsinto the envelope, and then the dauntless Tarasconian rolled awayin the stage-coach on the Blidah road, leaving the house to thenegress, stupor-stricken before the pipe, the turban, and babooshes-- all the Moslem shell of Sidi Tart'ri which sprawled piteouslyunder the little white trefoils of the gallery. 

EPISODE THE THIRDAMONG THE LIONS

I. What becomes of the Old Stage-coaches. 

COME to look closely at the vehicle, it was an old stage-coach all ofthe olden time, upholstered in faded deep blue cloth, with thoseenormous rough woollen balls which, after a few hours' journey, finally establish a raw spot in the small of your back. 

Tartarin of Tarascon had a corner of the inside, where he installedhimself most free-and-easily: and, preliminarily to inspiring the rankemanations of the great African felines, the hero had to contenthimself with that homely old odour of the stage-coach, oddlycomposed of a thousand smells, of man and woman, horses andharness, eatables and mildewed straw. 

There was a little of everything inside -- a Trappist monk, someJew merchants, two fast ladies going to join their regiment, theThird Hussars, a photographic artist from Orleansville, and so on. But, however charming and varied was the company, theTarasconian was not in the mood for chatting; he remained quitethoughtful, with an arm in the arm-rest sling-strap and his gunsbetween his knees. All churned up his wits -- the precipitatedeparture, Baya's eyes of jet, the terrible chase he was about toundertake, to say nothing of this European coach; with its Noah'sArk aspect, rediscovered in the heart of Africa, vaguely recallingthe Tarascon of his youth, with its races in the suburbs, jolly dinnerson the river-side -- a throng of memories, in short. 

Gradually night came on. The guard lit up the lamps. The rustydiligence danced creakingly on its old springs; the horses trottedand their bells jangled. From time to time in the boot arose adreadful clank of iron: that was the war material. 

Tartarin of Tarascon, nearly overcome, dwelt a moment scanningthe fellow-passengers, comically shaken by the jolts, and dancingbefore him like the shadows in galanty-shows, till his eyes grewcloudy and his mind befogged, and only vaguely he heard thewheels grind and the sides of the conveyance squeak complainingly. 

Suddenly a voice called Tartarin by his name, the voice of an oldfairy godmother, hoarse, broken, and cracked. 

"Monsieur Tartarin!" three times. 

"Who's calling me?"

"It's I, Monsieur Tartarin. Don't you recognise me? I am the oldstage-coach who used to do the road betwixt Nimes and Tarascontwenty year agone. How many times I have carried you and yourfriends when you went to shoot at caps over Joncquieres orBellegarde way! I did not know you again at the first, on accountof your Turk's cap and the flesh you have accumulated; but as soonas you began snoring -- what a rascal is good-luck! -- I twiggedyou straight away. "

"All right, that's all right enough!" observed the Tarasconian, ashade vexed; but softening, he added, "But to the point, my poorold girl; whatever did you come out here for?"

"Pooh! my good Monsieur Tartarin, I assure you I never came ofmy own free will. As soon as the Beaucaire railway was finished Iwas considered good for nought, and shipped away into Algeria. And I am not the only one either! Bless you, next to all the oldstage-coaches of France have been packed off like me. We wereregarded as too much the conservative -- 'the slow-coaches' -- d'yesee, and now we are here leading the life of a dog. This is what youin France call the Algerian railways. "

Here the ancient vehicle heaved a long-drawn sigh beforeproceeding. "My wheels and linchpin! Monsieur Tartarin, how Iregret my lovely Tarascon! That was the good time for me, when Iwas young! -- You ought to have seen me starting off in themorning, washed with no stint of water and all a-shine, with mywheels freshly varnished, my lamps blazing like a brace of suns, andmy boot always rubbed up with oil! It was indeed lovely when thepostillion cracked his whip to the tune of 'Lagadigadeou, theTarasque! the Tarasque!' and the guard, his horn in its sling andlaced cap cocked well over one ear, chucking his little dog, alwaysin a fury, upon the top, climbed up himself with a shout: 'Right-away!'

"Then would my four horses dash off to the medley of bells, barks, and horn-blasts, and the windows fly open for all Tarascon to lookwith pride upon the royal mail coach dart over the king's highway. 

"What a splendid road that was, Monsieur Tartarin, broad and wellkept, with its mile-stones, its little heaps of road-metal at regulardistances, and its pretty clumps of vines and olive-trees on eitherhand! Then, again, the roadside inns so close together, and thechanges of horses every five minutes! And what jolly, honest chapsmy patrons were! -- village mayors and parish priests going up toNimes to see their prefect or bishop, taffety-weavers returningopenly from the Mazet, collegians out on holiday leave, peasants inworked smock-frocks, all fresh shaven for the occasion thatmorning; and up above, on the top, you gentlemen-sportsmen, always in high spirits, and singing each your own family ballad tothe stars as you came back in the dark. 

"Deary me! it's a change of times now! Lord knows what rubbish Iam carting here, come from nobody guesses where! They fill mewith small deer, these negroes, Bedouin Arabs, swashbucklers, adventurers from every land, and ragged settlers who poison mewith their pipes, and all jabbering a language that the Tower ofBabel itself could make nothing of! And, furthermore, you shouldsee how they treat me -- I mean, how they never treat me: never abrush or a wash. They begrudge me grease for my axles. Instead ofmy good fat quiet horses of other days, little Arab ponies, with thedevil in their frames, who fight and bite, caper as they run like somany goats, and break my splatterboard all to smithereens withtheir lashing out behind. Ouch! ouch! there they are at it again!

"And such roads! Just here it is bearable, because we are near thegovernmental headquarters; but out a bit there's nothing, Monsieur-- not the ghost of a road at all. We get along as best we can overhill and dale, over dwarf palms and mastic-trees. Ne'er a fixedchange of horses, the stopping being at the whim of the guard, nowat one farm, again at another. 

"Somewhiles this rogue goes a couple of leagues out of the way tohave a glass of absinthe or champoreau with a chum. After which, 'Crack on, postillion!' to make up for the lost time. Though the sunbe broiling and the dust scorching, we whip on! We catch in thescrub and spill over, but whip on! We swim rivers, we catch cold, we get swamped, we drown, but whip! whip! whip! Then in theevening, streaming -- a nice thing for my age, with my rheumatics --I have to sleep in the open air of some caravanseral yard, open toall the winds. In the dead o' night jackals and hyaenas come sniffingof my body; and the marauders who don't like dews get into mycompartment to keep warm. 

"Such is the life I lead, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, and that I shalllead to the day when -- burnt up by the sun and rotted by the dampnights until unable to do anything else, I shall fall in some spot ofbad road, where the Arabs will boil their kouskous with the bonesof my old carcass" --

"Blidah! Blidah!" called out the guard as he opened the door. 

II. A little gentleman drops in and "drops upon" Tartarin. 

VAGUELY through the mud-dimmed glass Tartarin of Tarasconcaught a glimpse of a second-rate but pretty town market-place, regular in shape, surrounded by colonnades and planted withorange-trees, in the midst of which what seemed toy leaden soldierswere going through the morning exercise in the clear roseate mist. The cafes were shedding their shutters. In one corner there was avegetable market. It was bewitching, but it did not smack of lionsyet. 

"To the South! farther to the South!" muttered the good olddesperado, sinking back in his corner. 

At this moment the door opened. A puff of fresh air rushed in, bearing upon its wings, in the perfume of the orange-blossoms, alittle person in a brown frock-coat, old and dry, wrinkled andformal, his face no bigger than your fist, his neckcloth of black silkfive fingers wide, a notary's letter-case, and umbrella -- the verypicture of a village solicitor. 

On perceiving the Tarasconian's warlike equipment, the littlegentleman, who was seated over against him, appeared excessivelysurprised, and set to studying him with burdensome persistency. 

The horses were taken out and the fresh ones put in, whereupon thecoach started off again. The little weasel still gazed at Tartarin, who in the end took snuff at it. 

"Does this astonish you?" he demanded, staring the little gentlemanfull in the face in his turn. 

"Oh, dear, no! it only annoys me, " responded the other, verytranquilly. 

And the fact is, that, with his shelter-tent, revolvers, pair of guns intheir cases, and hunting-knife, not to speak of his naturalcorpulence, Tartarin of Tarascon did take up a lot of room. 

The little gentleman's reply angered him. 

"Do you by any chance fancy that I am going lion-hunting withyour umbrella?" queried the great man haughtily. 

The little man looked at his umbrella, smiled blandly, and still withthe same lack of emotion, inquired:

"Oho, then you are Monsieur" --

"Tartarin of Tarascon, lion-killer!"

In uttering these words the dauntless son of Tarascon shook theblue tassel of his fez like a mane. 

Through the vehicle was a spell of stupefaction. 

The Trappist brother crossed himself, the dubious women utteredlittle screams of affright, and the Orleansville photographer bentover towards the lion-slayer, already cherishing the unequalledhonour of taking his likeness. 

The little gentleman, though, was not awed. 

"Do you mean to say that you have killed many lions, MonsieurTartarin?" he asked, very quietly. 

The Tarasconian received his charge in the handsomest manner. 

"Is it many have I killed, Monsieur? I wish you had only as manyhairs on your head as I have killed of them. "

All the coach laughed on observing three yellow bristles standingup on the little gentleman's skull. 

In his turn, the Orleansville photographer struck in:

"Yours must he a terrible profession, Monsieur Tartarin. You mustpass some ugly moments sometimes. I have heard that poorMonsieur Bombonnel" -- "Oh, yes, the panther-killer, " saidTartarin, rather disdainfully. 

"Do you happen to be acquainted with him?" inquired theinsignificant person. 

"Eh! of course! Know him? Why, we have been out on the huntover twenty times together. "

The little gentleman smiled. 

"So you also hunt panthers, Monsieur Tartarin?" he asked. 

"Sometimes, just for pastime, " said the fiery Tarasconian. "But, " headded, as he tossed his head with a heroic movement that inflamedthe hearts of the two sweethearts of the regiment, "that's not worthlion-hunting. "

"When all's said and done, " ventured the photographer, "a pantheris nothing but a big cat. "

"Right you are!" said Tartarin, not sorry to abate the celebratedBombonnel's glory a little, particularly in the presence of ladies. 

Here the coach stopped. The conductor came to open the door, and addressed the insignificant little gentleman most respectfully, saying:

"We have arrived, Monsieur. "

The little gentleman got up, stepped out, and said, before the doorwas closed again:

"Will you allow me to give you a bit of advice, Monsieur Tartarin?"

"What is it, Monsieur?"

"Faith! you wear the look of a good sort of fellow, so I would, rather than not, let you have it. Get you back quickly to Tarascon, Monsieur Tartarin, for you are wasting your time here. There doremain a few panthers in the colony, but, out upon the big cats!they are too small game for you. As for lion-hunting, that's allover. There are none left in Algeria, my friend Chassaing havinglately knocked over the last. "

Upon which the little gentleman saluted, closed the door, andtrotted away chuckling, with his document-wallet and umbrella. 

"Guard, " asked Tartarin, screwing up his face contemptuously, "who under the sun is that poor little mannikin?"

"What! don't you know him? Why, that there's MonsieurBombonnel!"

III. A Monastery of Lions. 

AT Milianah, Tartarin of Tarascon alighted, leaving the stage-coachto continue its way towards the South. 

Two days' rough jolting, two nights spent with eyes open to spy outof window if there were not discoverable the dread figure of a lionin the fields beyond the road -- so much sleeplessness well deservedsome hours repose. Besides, if we must tell everything, since hismisadventure with Bombonnel, the outspoken Tartarin felt ill atease, notwithstanding his weapons, his terrifying visage, and his redcap, before the Orleansville photographer and the two ladies fondof the military. 

So he proceeded through the broad streets of Milianah, full of finetrees and fountains; but whilst looking up a suitable hotel, the poorfellow could not help musing over Bombonnel's words. Supposethey were true! Suppose there were no more lions in Algeria? Whatwould be the good then of so much running about and fatigue?

Suddenly, at the turn of a street, our hero found himself face to facewith -- with what? Guess! "A donkey, of course!" A donkey? Asplendid lion this time, waiting before a coffee-house door, royallysitting up on his hind-quarters, with his tawny mane gleaming in thesun. 

"What possessed them to tell me that there were no more of them?"exclaimed the Tarasconian, as he made a backward jump. 

On hearing this outcry the lion lowered his head, and taking up inhis mouth a wooden bowl that was before him on the footway, humbly held it out towards Tartarin, who was immovable withstupefaction. A passing Arab tossed a copper into the bowl, and thelion wagged his tail. Thereupon Tartarin understood it all. He sawwhat emotion had prevented him previously perceiving: that thecrowd was gathered around a poor tame blind lion, and that twostalwart Negroes, armed with staves, were marching him throughthe town as a Savoyard does a marmot. 

The blood of Tarascon boiled over at once. 

"Wretches that you are!" he roared in a voice of thunder, "thus todebase such noble beasts!"

Springing to the lion, he wrenched the loathsome bowl frombetween his royal jaws. The two Africans, believing they had a thiefto contend with, rushed upon the foreigner with uplifted cudgels. There was a dreadful conflict: the blackamoors smiting, the womenscreaming, and the youngsters laughing. An old Jew cobblerbleated out of the hollow of his stall, "Dake him to the shustish ofthe beace!" The lion himself; in his dark state, tried to roar as hishapless champion, after a desperate struggle, rolled on the groundamong the spilt pence and the sweepings. 

At this juncture a man cleft the throng, made the Negroes standback with a word, and the women and urchins with a wave of thehand, lifted up Tartarin, brushed him down, shook him into shape, and sat him breathless upon a corner-post. 

"What, prince, is it you?" said the good Tartarin, rubbing his ribs. 

"Yes, indeed, it is I, my valiant friend. As soon as your letter wasreceived, I entrusted Baya to her brother, hired a post-chaise, flewfifty leagues as fast as a horse could go, and here I am, just in timeto snatch you from the brutality of these ruffians. What have youdone, in the name of just Heaven, to bring this ugly trouble uponyou?"

"What done, prince? It was too much for me to see thisunfortunate lion with a begging-bowl in his mouth, humiliated, conquered, buffeted about, set up as a laughing-stock to all thisMoslem rabble" --

"But you are wrong, my noble friend. On the contrary, this lion isan object of respect and adoration. This is a sacred beast whobelongs to a great monastery of lions, founded three hundred yearsago by Mahomet Ben Aouda, a kind of fierce and forbidding LaTrappe, full of roarings and wild-beastly odours, where strangemonks rear and feed lions by hundreds, and send them out all overNorthern Africa, accompanied by begging brothers. The alms theyreceive serve for the maintenance of the monastery and itsmosques; and the two Negroes showed so much displeasure justnow because it was their conviction that the lion under their chargewould forthwith devour them if a single penny of their collectionwere lost or stolen through any fault of theirs. "

On hearing this incredible and yet veracious story Tartarin ofTarascon was delighted, and sniffed the air noisily. "What pleasesme in this, " he remarked, as the summing up of his opinion, "is that, whether Monsieur Bombonnel likes it or not, there are still lions inAlgeria. " --

"I should think there were!" ejaculated the prince enthusiastically. "We will start to-morrow beating up the Shelliff Plain, and you willsee lions enough!"

"What, prince! have you an intention to go a-hunting, too?"

"Of course! Do you think I am going to leave you to march byyourself into the heart of Africa, in the midst of ferocious tribes ofwhose languages and usages you are ignorant! No, no, illustriousTartarin, I shall quit you no more. Go where you will, I shall makeone of the party. "

"O Prince! prince!"

The beaming Tartarin hugged the devoted Gregory to his breast atthe proud thought of his going to have a foreign prince toaccompany him in his hunting, after the example of Jules Gerard, Bombonnel, and other famous lion-slayers. 

IV. The Caravan on the March. 

LEAVING Milianah at the earliest hour next morning, the intrepidTartarin and the no less intrepid Prince Gregory descended towardsthe Shelliff Plain through a delightful gorge shaded with jessamine, carouba, tuyas, and wild olive-trees, between hedges of little nativegardens and thousands of merry, lively rills which scampered downfrom rock to rock with a singing splash -- a bit of landscape meetfor the Lebanon. 

As much loaded with arms as the great Tartarin, Prince Gregoryhad, over and above that, donned a queer but magnificent militarycap, all covered with gold lace and a trimming of oak-leaves insilver cord, which gave His Highness the aspect of a Mexicangeneral or a railway station-master on the banks of the Danube. 

This plague of a cap much puzzled the beholder; and as he timidlycraved some explanation, the prince gravely answered:

"It is a kind of headgear indispensable for travel in Algeria. "

Whilst brightening up the peak with a sweep of his sleeve, heinstructed his simple companion in the important part which themilitary cap plays in the French connection with the Arabs, and theterror this article of army insignia alone has the privilege ofinspiring, so that the Civil Service has been obliged to put all itsemployees in caps, from the extra-copyist to the receiver-general. To govern Algeria (the prince is still speaking) there is no need of astrong head, or even of any head at all. A military cap does it alone, if showy and belaced, and shining at the top of a non-human pole, like Gessler's. 

Thus chatting and philosophising, the caravan proceeded. Thebarefooted porters leaped from rock to rock with ape-like screams. The guncases clanked, and the guns themselves flashed. Thenatives who were passing, salaamed to the ground before the magiccap. Up above, on the ramparts of Milianah, the head of the ArabDepartment, who was out for an airing with his wife, hearing theseunusual noises, and seeing the weapons gleam between thebranches, fancied there was a revolt, and ordered the drawbridge tobe raised, the general alarm to be sounded, and the whole town putunder a state of siege. A capital commencement for the caravan!

Unfortunately, before the day ended, things went wrong. Of theblack luggage-bearers, one was doubled up with atrocious colicsfrom having eaten the diachylon out of the medicine-chest: anotherfell on the roadside dead drunk with camphorated brandy; the third, carrier of the travelling-album, deceived by the gilding on the claspsinto the persuasion that he was flying with the treasures of Mecca, ran off into the Zaccar on his best legs. 

This required consideration. The caravan halted, and held a councilin the broken shadow of an old fig-tree. 

"It's my advice that we turn up Negro porters from this eveningforward, " said the prince, trying without success to melt a cake ofcompressed meat in an improved patent triple-bottomed sauce-pan. "There is, haply, an Arab trader quite near here. The bestthing to do is to stop there, and buy some donkeys. "

"No, no; no donkeys, " quickly interrupted Tartarin, becomingquite red at memory of Noiraud. "How can you expect, " he added, hypocrite that he was, "that such little beasts could carry all ourapparatus?"

The prince smiled. 

"You are making a mistake, my illustrious friend. However weaklyand meagre the Algerian bourriquot may appear to you, he has solidloins. He must have them so to support all that he does. Just askthe Arabs. Hark to how they explain the French colonialorganisation. 'On the top, ' they say, 'is Mossoo, the Governor, with a heavy club to rap the staff; the staff, for revenge, canes thesoldier; the soldier clubs the settler, and he hammers the Arab; theArab smites the Negro, the Negro beats the Jew, and he takes it outof the donkey. The poor bourriquot having nobody to belabour, arches up his back and bears it all. ' You see clearly now that he canbear your boxes. "

"All the same, " remonstrated Tartarin, "it strikes me thatjackasses will not chime in nicely with the effect of our caravan. I want something more Oriental. For instance, if we could onlyget a camel" --

"As many as you like, " said His Highness; and off they started forthe Arab mart. 

It was held a few miles away, on the banks of the Shelliff. Therewere five or six thousand Arabs in tatters here, grovelling in thesunshine and noisily trafficking, amid jars of black olives, pots ofhoney, bags of spices; and great heaps of cigars; huge fires wereroasting whole sheep, basted with butter; in open air slaughter-houses stark naked Negroes, with ruddy arms and their feet in gore, were cutting up kids hanging from crosspoles, with small knives. 

In one corner, under a tent patched with a thousand colours, aMoorish clerk of the market in spectacles scrawled in a large book. Here was a cluster of men shouting with rage: it was a spinning-jenny game, set on a corn-measure, and Kabyles were ready to cutone another's throats over it. Yonder were laughs and contortionsof delight: it was a Jew trader on a mule drowning in the Shelliff. Then there were dogs, scorpions, ravens, and flies -- rather fliesthan anything else. 

But a plentiful lack of camels abounded. They finally unearthedone, though, of which the M'zabites were trying to get rid -- thereal ship of the desert, the classical, standard camel, bald, woe-begone, with a long Bedouin head, and its hump, become limp inconsequence of unduly long fasts, hanging melancholically on oneside. 

Tartarin considered it so handsome that he wanted the entire partyto get upon it. Still his Oriental craze!

The beast knelt down for them to strap on the boxes. 

The prince enthroned himself on the animal's neck. For the sake ofthe greater majesty, Tartarin got them to hoist him on the top of thehump between two boxes, where, proud, and cosily settled down, he saluted the whole market with a lofty wave of the hand, andgave the signal of departure. 

Thunderation! if the people of Tarascon could only have seen him!

The camel rose, straightened up its long knotty legs, and steppedout. 

Oh, stupor! At the end of a few strides Tartarin felt he was losingcolour, and the heroic chechia assumed one by one its formerpositions in the days of sailing in the Zouave. This devil's owncamel pitched and tossed like a frigate. 

"Prince! prince!" gasped Tartarin pallid as a ghost, as he clung tothe dry tuft of the hump, "prince, let's get down. I find -- I feel thatI m-m-must get off; or I shall disgrace France. "

A deal of good that talk was -- the camel was on the go, andnothing could stop it. Behind it raced four thousand barefootedArabs, waving their hands and laughing like mad, so that they madesix hundred thousand white teeth glitter in the sun. 

The great man of Tarascon had to resign himself to circumstances. He sadly collapsed on the hump, where the fez took all thepositions it fancied, and France was disgraced. 

V. The Night-watch in a Poison-tree Grove. 

SWEETLY picturesque as was their new steed, our lion-huntershad to give it up, purely out of consideration for the red cap, ofcourse. So they continued the journey on foot as before, thecaravan tranquilly proceeding southwardly by short stages, theTarasconian in the van, the Montenegrin in the rear, and the camel, with the weapons in their cases, in the ranks. 

The expedition lasted nearly a month. 

During that seeking for lions which he never found, the dreadfulTartarin roamed from douar to douar on the immense plain of theShelliff, through the odd but formidable French Algeria, where theold Oriental perfumes are complicated by a strong blend of absintheand the barracks, Abraham and "the Zouzou" mingled, somethingfairy-tale-like and simply burlesque, like a page of the OldTestament related by Tommy Atkins. 

A curious sight for those who have eyes that can see. 

A wild and corrupted people whom we are civilising by teachingthem our vices. The ferocious and uncontrolled authority ofgrotesque bashaws, who gravely use their grand cordons of theLegion of Honour as handkerchiefs, and for a mere yea or nayorder a man to be bastinadoed. It is the justice of theconscienceless, bespectacled cadis under the palm-tree, Maw-worms of the Koran and Law, who dream languidly of promotionand sell their decrees, as Esau did his birthright, for a dish of lentilsor sweetened kouskous. Drunken and libertine cadis are they, formerly servants to some General Yusuf or the like, who getintoxicated on champagne, along with laundresses from PortMahon, and fatten on roast mutton, whilst before their tents thewhole tribe waste away with hunger, and fight with the harriers forthe bones of the lordly feast. 

All around spread the plains in waste, burnt grass, leafless shrubs, thickets of cactus and mastic -- "the Granary of France!" -- agranary void of grain, alas! and rich alone in vermin and jackals. Abandoned camps, frightened tribes fleeing from them and famine, they know not whither, and strewing the road with corpses. Atlong intervals French villages, with the dwellings in ruins, the fieldsuntilled, the maddened locusts gnawing even the window-blinds, and all the settlers in the drinking-places, absorbing absinthe anddiscussing projects of reform and the Constitution. 

This is what Tartarin might have seen had he given himself thetrouble; but, wrapped up entirely in his leonine-hunger, the son ofTarascon went straight on, looking to neither right nor left, his eyessteadfastly fixed on the imaginary monsters which never reallyappeared. 

As the shelter-tent was stubborn in not unfolding, and thecompressed meat-cakes would not dissolve, the caravan wasobliged to stop, morn and eve, at tribal camps. Everywhere, thanksto the gorgeous cap of Prince Gregory, our hunters were welcomedwith open arms. They lodged in the aghas' odd palaces, large whitewindowless farmhouses, where they found, pell-mell, narghilehsand mahogany furniture, Smyrna carpets and moderator lamps, cedar coffers full of Turkish sequins, and French statuette-deckedclocks in the Louis Philippe style. 

Everywhere, too, Tartarin was given splendrous galas, diffas, andfantasias, which, being interpreted, mean feasts and circuses. In hishonour whole goums blazed away powder, and floated theirburnouses in the sun. When the powder was burnt, the agha wouldcome and hand in his bill. This is what is called Arab hospitality. 

But always no lions, no more than on London Bridge. 

Nevertheless, the Tarasconian did not grow disheartened. Everbravely diving more deeply into the South, he spent the days inbeating up the thickets, probing the dwarf-palms with the muzzle ofhis rifle, and saying "Boh!" to every bush. And every evening, before lying down, he went into ambush for two or three hours. Useless trouble, however, for the lion did not show himself. 

One evening, though, going on six o'clock, as the caravanscrambled through a violet-hued mastic-grove, where fat quailstumbled about in the grass, drowsy through the heat, Tartarin ofTarascon fancied he heard though afar and very vague, and thinneddown by the breeze -- that wondrous roaring to which he had sooften listened by Mitaine's Menagerie at home. 

At first the hero feared he was dreaming; but in an instant furtherthe roaring recommenced more distinct, although yet remote; andthis time the camel's hump shivered in terror, and made the tinnedmeats and arms in the cases rattle, whilst all the dogs in the campswere heard howling in every corner of the horizon. 

Beyond doubt this was the lion. 

Quick, quick! to the ambush. There was not a minute to lose. 

Near at hand there happened to be an old marabout's, or saint's, tomb, with a white cupola, and the defunct's large yellow slippersplaced in a niche over the door, and a mass of odd offerings -- hemsof blankets, gold thread, red hair -- hung on the wall. 

Tartarin of Tarascon left his prince and his camel and went insearch of a good spot for lying in wait. Prince Gregory wanted tofollow him, but the Tarasconian refused, bent on confronting Leoalone. But still he besought His Highness not to go too far away, and, as a measure of foresight, he entrusted him with his pocket-book, a good-sized one, full of precious papers and bank-notes, which he feared would get torn by the lion's claws. This done, ourhero looked up a good place. 

A hundred steps in front of the temple a little clump of rose-laurelshook in the twilight haze on the edge of a rivulet all but dried up. There it was that Tartarin went and ensconced himself, one knee onthe ground, according to the regular rule, his rifle in his hand, andhis huge hunting-knife stuck boldly before him in the sandy bank. 

Night fell. 

The rosy tint of nature changed into violet, and then into dark blue. A pretty pool of clear water gleamed like a hand-glass over theriver-pebbles; this was the watering-place of the wild animals. 

On the other slope the whitish trail was dimly to be discerned whichtheir heavy paws had traced in the brush -- a mysterious path whichmade one's flesh creep. Join to this sensation that from the vagueswarming sound in African forests, the swishing of branches, thevelvety-pads of roving creatures, the jackal's shrill yelp, and up inthe sky, two or three hundred feet aloft, vast flocks of cranespassing on with screams like poor little children having theirweasands slit. You will own that there were grounds for a manbeing moved. 

Tartarin was so, and even more than that, for the poor fellow'steeth chattered, and on the cross-bar of his hunting-knife, plantedupright in the bank, as we repeat, his rifle-barrel rattled like a pairof castanets. Do not ask too much of a man! There are times whenone is not in the mood; and, moreover, where would be the merit ifheroes were never afraid?

Well, yes, Tartarin was afraid, and all the time, too, for the matterof that. Nevertheless, he held out for an hour; better, for two; butheroism has its limits. Nigh him, in the dry part of the rivulet-bed, the Tarasconian unexpectedly heard the sound of steps and ofpebbles rolling. This time terror lifted him off the ground. Hebanged away both barrels at haphazard into the night, and retreatedas fast as his legs would carry him to the marabout's chapel-vault, leaving his knife standing up in the sand like a crosscommemorative of the grandest panic that ever assailed the soul ofa conqueror of hydras. 

"Help! this Way, prince; the lion is on me!"

There was silence. "Prince, prince, are you there?"

The prince was not there. On the white moonlit wall of the fane thecamel alone cast the queer-shaped shadow of his protuberance. Prince Gregory had cut and run with the wallet of bank-notes. HisHighness had been for the month past awaiting this opportunity. 

VI. Bagged him at Last. 

IT was not until early on the morrow of this adventurous anddramatic eve that our hero awoke, and acquired assurance doublysure that the prince and the treasure had really gone off, withoutany prospect of return. When he saw himself alone in the littlewhite tombhouse, betrayed, robbed, abandoned in the heart ofsavage Algeria, with a one-humped camel and some pocket-moneyas all his resources, then did the representative of Tarascon for thefirst time doubt. He doubted Montenegro, friendship, glory, andeven lions; and the great man blubbered bitterly. 

Whilst he was pensively seated on the sill of the sanctuary, holdinghis head between his hands and his gun between his legs, with thecamel mooning at him, the thicket over the way was divided, andthe stupor-stricken Tartarin saw a gigantic lion appear not a dozenpaces off. It thrust out its high head and emitted powerful roars, which made the temple walls shake beneath their votivedecorations, and even the saint's slippers dance in their niche. 

The Tarasconian alone did not tremble. 

"At last you've come!" he shouted, jumping up and levelling therifle. 

Bang, bang! went a brace of shells into its head. 

It was done. For a minute, on the fiery background of the Africansky, there was a dreadful firework display of scattered brains, smoking blood, and tawny hair. When all fell, Tartarin perceivedtwo colossal Negroes furiously running towards him, brandishingcudgels. They were his two Negro acquaintances of Milianah!

Oh, misery!

This was the domesticated lion, the poor blind beggar of theMohammed Monastery, whom the Tarasconian's bullets hadknocked over. 

This time, spite of Mahound, Tartarin escaped neatly. Drunk withfanatical fury, the two African collectors would have surely beatenhim to pulp had not the god of chase and war sent him a deliveringangel in the shape of the rural constable of the Orleansvillecommune. By a bypath this garde champetre came up, his swordtucked under his arm. 

The sight of the municipal cap suddenly calmed the Negroes'choler. Peaceful and majestic, the officer with the brass badge drewup a report on the affair, ordered the camel to be loaded with whatremained of the king of beasts, and the plaintiffs as well as thedelinquent to follow him, proceeding to Orleansville, where all wasdeposited with the law-courts receiver. 

There issued a long and alarming case!

After the Algeria of the native tribes which he had overrun, Tartarinof Tarascon became thence acquainted with another Algeria, notless weird and to be dreaded -- the Algeria in the towns, surchargedwith lawyers and their papers. He got to know the pettifogger whodoes business at the back of a cafe -- the legal Bohemian withdocuments reeking of wormwood bitters and white neckclothsspotted with champoreau; the ushers, the attorneys, all the locustsof stamped paper, meagre and famished, who eat up the colonistbody and boots -- ay, to the very straps of them, and leave himpeeled to the core like an Indian cornstalk, stripped leaf by leaf. 

Before all else it was necessary to ascertain whether the lion hadbeen killed on the civil or the military territory. In the former casethe matter regarded the Tribunal of Commerce; in the second, Tartarin would be dealt with by the Council of War: and at themere name the impressionable Tarasconian saw himself shot at thefoot of the ramparts or huddled up in a casemate-silo. 

The puzzle lay in the limitation of the two territories being veryhazy in Algeria. 

At length, after a month's running about, entanglements, andwaiting under the sun in the yards of Arab Departmental offices, itwas established that, whereas the lion had been killed on themilitary territory, on the other hand Tartarin was in the civilterritory when he shot. So the case was decided in the civil courts, and our hero was let off on paying two thousand five hundredfrancs damages, costs not included. 

How could he pay such a sum?

The few piashtres escaped from the prince's sweep had long sincegone in legal documents and judicial libations. The unfortunatelion-destroyer was therefore reduced to selling the store of guns byretail, rifle by rifle; so went the daggers, the Malay kreeses, and thelife-preservers. A grocer purchased the preserved aliments; anapothecary what remained of the medicaments. The big bootsthemselves walked off after the improved tent to a dealer ofcuriosities, who elevated them to the dignity of "rarities fromCochin-China. "

When everything was paid up, only the lion's skin and the camelremained to Tartarin. The hide he had carefully packed, to be sentto Tarascon to the address of brave Commandant Bravida, and, later on, we shall see what came of this fabulous trophy. As for thecamel, he reckoned on making use of him to get back to Algiers, not by riding on him, but by selling him to pay his coach-fare -- thebest way to employ a camel in travelling. Unhappily the beast wasdifficult to place, and no one would offer a copper for him. 

Still Tartarin wanted to regain Algiers by hook or crook. He was inhaste again to behold Baya's blue bodice, his little snuggery and hisfountains, as well as to repose on the white trefoils of his littlecloister whilst awaiting money from France. So our hero did nothesitate; distressed but not downcast, he undertook to make thejourney afoot and penniless by short stages. 

In this enterprise the camel did not cast him off. The strange animalhad taken an unaccountable fancy for his master, and on seeing himleave Orleansville, he set to striding steadfastly behind him, regulating his pace by this, and never quitting him by a yard. 

At the first outset Tartarin found this touching; such fidelity anddevotion above proof went to his heart, all the more because thecreature was accommodating, and fed himself on nothing. Nevertheless, after a few days, the Tarasconian was worried byhaving this glum companion perpetually at his heels, to remind himof his misadventures. Ire arising, he hated him for his sad aspect, hump and gait of a goose in harness. To tell the whole truth, heheld him as his Old Man of the Sea, and only pondered on how toshake him off; but the follower would not be shaken off. Tartarinattempted to lose him, but the camel always found him; he tried tooutrun him, but the camel ran faster. He bade him begone, andhurled stones at him. The camel stopped with a mournful mien, butin a minute resumed the pursuit, and always ended by overtakinghim. Tartarin had to resign himself. 

For all that, when, after eight full days of tramping, the dusty andharassed Tarasconian espied the first white housetops of Algiersglimmer from afar in the verdure, and when he got to the city gateson the noisy Mustapha Avenue, amid the Zouaves, Biskris, andMahonnais, all swarming around him and staring at him trudging bywith his camel, overtasked patience escaped him. 

"No! no!" he growled, "it is not likely! I cannot enter Algiers withsuch an animal!"

Profiting by a jam of vehicles, he turned off into the fields andjumped into a ditch. In a minute or so he saw over his head on thehighway the camel flying off with long strides and stretching hisneck with a wistful air. 

Relieved of a great weight thereby, the hero sneaked out of hiscovert, and entered the town anew by a circuitous path whichskirted the wall of his own little garden. 

VII. Catastrophes upon Catastrophes. 

ENTIRELY astonished was Tartarin before his Moorish dwellingwhen he stopped. 

Day was dying and the street deserted. Through the low pointed-arch doorway which the negress had forgotten to close, laughterwas heard; and the clink of wine-glasses, the popping of champagnecorks; and, floating over all the jolly uproar, a feminine voicesinging clearly and joyously:

"Do you like, Marco la Bella, to dance in the hall hung withbloom?"

"Throne of heaven!" ejaculated the Tarasconian, turning pale, as herushed into the enclosure. 

Hapless Tartarin! what a sight awaited him! Beneath the arches ofthe little cloister, amongst bottles, pastry, scattered cushions, pipes, tambourines, and guitars, Baya was singing "Marco la Bella" with aship captain's cap over one ear. She had on no blue vest or bodice;indeed, her only wear was a silvery gauze wrapper and full pinktrousers. At her feet, on a rug, surfeited with love and sweetmeats, Barbassou, the infamous skipper Barbassou, was bursting withlaughter at hearing her. 

The apparition of Tartarin, haggard, thinned, dusty, his flamingeyes, and the bristling up fez tassel, sharply interrupted this tenderTurkish-Marseillais orgie. Baya piped the low whine of afrightened leveret, and ran for safety into the house. But Barbassoudid not wince; he only laughed the louder, saying:

"Ha, ha, Monsieur Tartarin! What do you say to that now? Yousee she does know French. "

Tartarin of Tarascon advanced furiously, crying:

"Captain!"

"Digo-li que vengue, moun bon! -- Tell him what's happened, olddear!" screamed the Moorish woman, leaning over the first floorgallery with a pretty low-bred gesture!

The poor man, overwhelmed, let himself collapse upon a drum. Hisgenuine Moorish beauty not only knew French, but the French ofMarseilles!

"I told you not to trust the Algerian girls, " observed CaptainBarbassou sententiously! "They're as tricky as your Montenegrinprince. "

Tartarin lifted his head

"Do you know where the prince is?"

"Oh, he's not far off. He has gone to live five years in thehandsome prison of Mustapha. The rogue let himself be caughtwith his hand in the pocket. Anyways, this is not the first time hehas been clapped into the calaboose. His Highness has alreadydone three years somewhere, and -- stop a bit! I believe it was atTarascon. "

"At Tarascon!" cried out her worthiest son, abruptly enlightened. "That's how he only knew one part of the Town. "

"Hey? Of course. Tarascon -- a jail bird's-eye view from the stateprison. I tell you, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, you have to keepyour peepers jolly well skinned in this deuce of a country, or beexposed to very disagreeable things. For a sample, there's themuezzin's game with you. "

"What game? Which muezzin?"

"Why your'n, of course! The chap across the way who is making upto Baya. That newspaper, the Akbar, told the yarn t'other day, andall Algiers is laughing over it even now. It is so funny for thatsteeplejack up aloft in his crow's-nest to make declarations of loveunder your very nose to the little beauty whilst singing out hisprayers, and making appointments with her between bits of theKoran. "

"Why, then, they're all scamps in this country!" howled the unluckyTarasconian. 

Barbassou snapped his fingers like a philosopher. 

"My dear lad, you know, these new countries are 'rum!' But, anyhow, if you'll believe me, you'd best cut back to Tarascon at fullspeed. "

"It's easy to say, 'Cut back. ' Where's the money to come from?Don't you know that I was plucked out there in the desert?"

"What does that matter?" said the captain merrily. "The Zouavesails tomorrow, and if you like I will take you home. Does that suityou, mate? Ay? Then all goes well. You have only one thing to do. There are some bottles of fizz left, and half the pie. Sit you downand pitch in without any grudge. "

After the minute's wavering which self-respect commanded, theTarasconian chose his course manfully. Down he sat, and theytouched glasses. Baya, gliding down at that chink, sang the finaleof "Marco la Bella, " and the jollification was prolonged deep intothe night. 

About 3 A. M. , with a light head but a heavy foot, our goodTarasconian was returning from seeing his friend the captain offwhen, in passing the mosque, the remembrance of his muezzin andhis practical jokes made him laugh, and instantly a capital idea ofrevenge flitted through his brain. 

The door was open. He entered, threaded long corridors hung withmats, mounted and kept on mounting till he finally found himself ina little oratory, where an openwork iron lantern swung from theceiling, and embroidered an odd pattern in shadows upon theblanched walls. 

There sat the crier on a divan, in his large turban and white pelisse, with his Mostaganam pipe, and a bumper of absinthe before him, which he whipped up in the orthodox manner, whilst awaiting thehour to call true believers to prayer. At view of Tartarin, hedropped his pipe in terror. 

"Not a word, knave!" said the Tarasconian, full of his project. "Quick! Off with turban and coat!"

The Turkish priest-crier tremblingly handed over his outergarments, as he would have done with anything else. Tartarindonned them, and gravely stepped out upon the minaret platform. 

In the distance the sea shone. The white roofs glittered in themoonbeams. On the sea breeze was heard the strumming of a fewbelated guitars. The Tarasconian muezzin gathered himself up forthe effort during a space, and then, raising his arms, he set tochanting in a very shrill voice:

"La Allah il Allah! Mahomet is an old humbug! The Orient, theKoran, bashaws, lions, Moorish beauties -- they are all not worth afly's skip! There is nothing left but gammoners. Long liveTarascon!"

Whilst the illustrious Tartarin, in his queer jumbling of Arabic andProvencal, flung his mirthful maledictions to the four quarters, sea, town, plain and mountain, the clear, solemn voices of the othermuezzins answered him, taking up the strain from minaret tominaret, and the believers of the upper town devoutly beat theirbosoms. 

VIII. Tarascon again!

MID-DAY has come. 

The Zouave had her steam up, ready to go. Upon the balcony ofthe Valentin Cafe, high above, the officers were levellingtelescopes, and, with the colonel at their head, looking at the luckylittle craft that was going back to France. This is the maindistraction of the staff. On the lower level, the roads glittered. Theold Turkish cannon breaches, stuck up along the waterside, blazedin the sun. The passengers hurried, Biskris and Mahonnais piledtheir luggage up in the wherries. 

Tartarin of Tarascon had no luggage. Here he comes down the Ruede la Marine through the little market, full of bananas and melons, accompanied by his friend Barbassou. The hapless Tarasconian lefton the Moorish strand his gun-cases and his illusions, and now hehad to sail for Tarascon with his hands in his otherwise emptypockets. He had barely leaped into the captain's cutter before abreathless beast slid down from the heights of the square andgalloped towards him. It was the faithful camel, who had beenhunting after his master in Algiers during the last four-and-twentyhours. 

On seeing him, Tartarin changed countenance, and feigned not toknow him, but the camel was not going to be put off. Hescampered along the quay; he whinnied for his friend, and regardedhim with affection. 

"Take me away, " his sad eyes seemed to say, "take me away in yourship, far, far from this sham Arabia, this ridiculous Land of theEast, full of locomotives and stage coaches, where a camel is sosorely out of keeping that I do not know what will become of me. You are the last real Turk, and I am the last camel. Do not let uspart, O my Tartarin!"

"Is that camel yours?" the captain inquired. 

"Not a bit of it!" replied Tartarin, who shuddered at the idea ofentering Tarascon with that ridiculous escort; and, impudentlydenying the companion of his misfortunes, he spurned the Algeriansoil with his foot, and gave the cutter the shoving-off start. Thecamel sniffed of the water, extended its neck, cracked its joints, and, jumping in behind the row-boat at haphazard, he swamtowards the Zouave with his humpback floating like a bladder, andhis long neck projecting over the wave like the beak of a galley. 

Cutter and camel came alongside the mail steamer together. 

"This dromedary regularly cuts me up, " observed CaptainBarbassou, quite affected. "I have a good mind to take him aboardand make a present of him to the Zoological Gardens atMarseilles. "

And so they hauled up the camel with many blocks and tacklesupon the deck, being increased in weight by the brine, and theZouave started. 

Tartarin spent the two days of the crossing by himself in hisstateroom, not because the sea was rough, or that the red fez hadtoo much to suffer, but because the deuced camel, as soon as hismaster appeared above decks, showed him the most preposterousattentions. You never did see a camel make such an exhibition of aman as this. 

From hour to hour, through the cabin portholes, where he stuck outhis nose now and then, Tartarin saw the Algerian blue sky paleaway; until one morning, in a silvery fog, he heard with delightMarseilles bells ringing out. The Zouave had arrived and castanchor. 

Our man, having no luggage, got off without saying anything, hastily slipped through Marseilles for fear he was still pursued bythe camel, and never breathed till he was in a third-class carriagemaking for Tarascon. 

Deceptive security!

Hardly were they two leagues from the city before every head wasstuck out of window. There were outcries and astonishment. Tartarin looked in his turn, and what did he descry! the camel, reader, the inevitable camel, racing along the line behind the train, and keeping up with it! The dismayed Tartarin drew back and shuthis eyes. 

After this disastrous expedition of his he had reckoned on slippinginto his house incognito. But the presence of this burdensomequadruped rendered the thing impossible. What kind of a triumphalentry would he make? Good heavens! not a sou, not a lion, nothingto show for it save a camel!

"Tarascon! Tarascon!"

He was obliged to get down. 

O amazement!

Scarce had the hero's red fez popped out of the doorway before aloud shout of "Tartarin for ever!" made the glazed roof of therailway station tremble. "Long life to Tartarin, the lion-slayer!"And out burst the windings of horns and the choruses of the localmusical societies. 

Tartarin felt death had come: he believed in a hoax. But, no! allTarascon was there, waving their hats, all of the same way ofthinking. Behold the brave Commandant Bravida, Costecalde thearmourer, the Chief Judge, the chemist, and the whole noble corpsof cap-poppers, who pressed around their leader, and carried him intriumph out through the passages. 

Singular effects of the mirage! -- the hide of the blind lion sent toBravida was the cause of all this riot. With that humble furexhibited in the club-room, the Tarasconians, and, at the back ofthem, the whole South of France, had grown exalted. TheSemaphore newspaper had spoken of it. A drama had beeninvented. It was not merely a solitary lion which Tartarin had slain, but ten, nay, twenty -- pooh! a herd of lions had been mademarmalade of. Hence, on disembarking at Marseilles, Tartarin wasalready celebrated without being aware of it, and an enthusiastictelegram had gone on before him by two hours to his native place. 

But what capped the climax of the popular gladness was to see afancifully shaped animal, covered with foam and dust, appearbehind the hero, and stumble down the station stairs. 

Tarascon for an instant believed that its dragon was come again. 

Tartarin set his fellow-citizens at ease. 

"This is my camel, " he said. 

Already feeling the influence of the splendid sun of Tarascon, whichmakes people tell "bouncers" unwittingly, he added, as he fondledthe camel's hump:

"It is a noble beast! It saw me kill all my lions!"

Whereupon he familiarly took the arm of the commandant, whowas red with pleasure; and followed by his camel, surrounded bythe cap-hunters, acclaimed by all the population, he placidlyproceeded towards the Baobab Villa; and, on the march, thuscommenced the account of his mighty hunting:

"Once upon an evening, you are to imagine that, out in the depthsof the Sahara" --

APPENDIX

Obituary of Alphonse Daudet. 

17th December 1897DEATH OF A FRENCH NOVELIST. ALPHONSE DAUDET. 

M. Alphonse Daudet, the eminent French novelist and playwright, died suddenly yesterday evening while at dinner The cause of deathwas syncope due to failure of the heart. 

Alphonse Daudet was born of poor parents at Nimes in 1840. Hestudied in the Lyons Lyceum, and then became usher in a school atAlais. Going to Paris to seek his fortune in literature in 1858, hesucceeded in publishing a book of verses entitled Les Amoreuses, which led to his employment by several newspapers. He publishedmany novels and tales, and about half a dozen plays. His mostpopular work is "Les Morticoles. " His son, Leon Daudet, is alitterateur of promise.