Tartarin of Tarascon by Alphonse Daudet (best historical fiction books of all time .TXT) 📖

begging bowl from the royal jaws.... The two negroes, believing they were dealing with a thief, threw themselves on Tartarin with raised cudgels. It was a terrible set-to. Women were screeching children laughing there were calls for the police and the lion in its darkness joined in with a fearsome roar. The unhappy Tartarin after a desperate struggle, rolled on the ground among copper coins and road sweepings.
At this moment a man pushed through the crowd. He dismissed the negroes with a word and the women and children with a gesture. He helped Tartarin to his feet, brushed him down and seated him, out of breath, on a bollard. "Good heavens... prince... Is it really you?" Said Tartarin, rubbing his ribs. "Indeed yes my valiant friend... it is I. As soon as I received your letter I confided Baia to her brother, hired a post-chaise, came fifty leagues flat out and here I am just in time to save you from the brutality of these louts.... For God's sake what have you been doing to get yourself dragged into a mess like this?" "What could you expect me to do, prince, when I saw this unfortunate lion with the begging bowl in its teeth, humiliated, enslaved, ridiculed, serving as a laughing stock for this unsavoury rabble...?" "But you are mistaken my noble friend." Said the prince, "This lion on the contrary is an object of respect and adoration. It is a sacred beast, a member of a great convent of lions founded three centuries ago by Mahommed-ben-Aouda, a sort of wild fierce monastry where strange monks rear and tame hundreds of lions and send them throughout all north Africa, accompanied by mendicant brothers. The alms which these brothers receive serve to maintain the monastry and its mosque, and if those two negroes were in such a rage just now, it is because they are convinced that if one sou, one single sou, of their takings is lost through any fault of theirs, the lion which that are leading will immediately devour them."
On hearing this unlikely but plausible tale, Tartarin recovered his spirits. "It seems evident after all," He said "That in spite of what M. Bombonnel said, there are still lions in Algeria." "To be sure there are," said the prince, "And tomorrow we shall begin to search the plains by the river Cheliff and you shall see." "What!... prince. Do you mean to join in the hunt yourself?" "Of course" Said the prince "Do you think I would leave you to wander alone in the middle of Africa, among all those savage tribes, of whose language and customs you know nothing? No! No! My dear Tartarin. I shall not leave you again. Wherever you go I shall accompany you." "Oh!... prince!... prince!" And Tartarin clasped the valiant Gregory in a warm embrace.


Chapter 27.
Very early the next morning the intrepid Tartarin and the no less intrepid prince Gregory, followed by half a dozen negro porters, left Milianah and descended towards the plain of the Chetiff by a steep pathway, delightfully shaded by jasmine, carobs and wild olives, between the hedges of little native gardens where a thousand bubbling springs trickled melodiously from rock to rock, a veritable Eden.
Carrying as much in the way of arms as the great Tartarin, the prince was further adorned by a magnificent and colourful kepi, covered with gold braid and decorated with oak leaves embroidered in silver thread, which gave his highness the appearance of a Mexican General, or a Middle-European Station-Master. This fantastic kepi greatly intrigued Tartarin and he asked humbly for an explanation.
"An indispensable form of headgear for the traveller in Africa." The prince replied gravely; and while polishing the peak on his coat-sleeve he instructed his innocent companion on the important role played by the kepi in colonial administration, and the deference which its appearance inspires. This to such an extent that the government has been obliged to issue kepis to everyone from the canteen worker to the registrar-general. In fact, according to the prince, to govern the country there was no necessity for an elaborate regime. All that was needed was a fine gold-braided kepi glittering on the end of a big stick.
Thus conversing and philosophising, they went there way. The bare-footed porters leapt from rock to rock, shouting and chattering. The armaments rattled in their case. The guns glittered in the sun.. The locals who passed bowed deeply before the magical kepi.... Up on the ramparts of Milianah, the chief of the Arab bureau, who was walking with his lady in the cool of the morning, hearing these unusual noises and seeing between the branches the flash of sunlight on the weapons, feared a surprise attack; whereupon he lowered the portcullis, beat the alarm and put the town in a state of siege.
This was a good start to the expedition. Regrettably, before the end of the day, the situation deteriorated. One of the negroes was taken with the most fearful colic, having eaten the plasters in the medicine chest. Another fell, dead drunk, by the wayside, as a result of swigging spirits of camphor. A third, in charge of the log-book, deceived by the gold lettering on the cover, thought he had hold of the treasures of Mecca and made off with it at top speed.... Clearly some planning was needed, so the party halted and took council in the shade of an old fig tree. "In my opinion" Said the prince, trying unsuccessfully to dissolve a tablet of pemmican in a cooking pot, "In my opinion, after this evening we should get rid of these negro porters. There is an Arab market near here and our best plan would be to go there and buy some bourriquots." "No!... No!... No bourriquots!" Interrupted Tartarin, who had become very red at the memory of Noiraud, adding hypocritically, "How can these little creatures carry all our equipment?"
The prince smiled, "You are mistaken my illustrious friend," He said, "The bourriquot may seem to you a poor weak creature, but it has a great heart... It needs it to support all it has to bear... ask the Arabs. This is their idea of our administration. On top they say, is the governor with a big stick which he uses to thump his staff. The staff in turn thump the soldiers. The soldiers thump the colonist. The colonist thumps the Arab, the Arab the negro, and the Negro thumps the bourriquot. The poor little bourriquot having no one to thump, bares its back and puts up with it. So you can see it is well able to carry all our gear."
"That's all very well." Replied Tartarin, "But I don't think that donkeys add much colour to the general appearance of our caravan. Now if we could have a camel...!"
"Just as you wish." Said his highness, and they set off for the market.
The market was held some distance away on the bank of the Cheliff. There were five or six thousand Arabs milling around in the sun, trading noisily among piles of olives, pots of honey, sacks of spices and heaps of cigars. There were fires at which whole sheep were roasting, dripping with butter. There were open air butcheries where almost naked negroes, their feet paddling in blood and their arms red to the elbow, were cutting up the carcases of goats hanging from hooks... In one corner, in a tent repaired in a thousand different colours, was a Moorish official with a big book and spectacles. Over there is a crowd. There are cries of rage. It is a roulette game that has been set up on a corn bin and the tribesmen gathered about it have started fighting with knives. Elsewhere, there are cheers, laughter and stamping of feet, a merchant and his mule have fallen into the river and are in danger of drowning.... There are scorpions, crows, dogs and flies, millions of flies, but no camels.
Eventually a camel was discovered which some nomads were trying to dispose of. This was a real desert camel, with little hair, a sad expression and a hump which through long shortage of fodder hung flaccidly to one side. Tartarin was so taken with it that he wanted the two partners to be mounted. This proved to be a mistake.
The camel knelt, the trunks were strapped on, the prince installed himself on the creature's neck and Tartarin was hoisted up to the top of the hump, between two cases, from where he proudly saluted the assembled market and gave the signal for departure.... Heavens above!.... If only Tarascon could see him now!
The camel rose, stretched out its long legs and took off. Calamity! The camel pitched and rolled like a frigate in a rough sea and the chechia responded to the motion as it had on the Zouave. "Prince... prince" Murmured Tartarin, ashen-faced, and clutching the scanty hair of the hump, "Prince... let us get down, I feel... I feel I am going to disgrace France." But the camel was in full flight and nothing was going to stop it. Four thousand Arabs were running behind, bare-footed, waving, laughing like idiots, six hundred thousand white teeth glistening in the sun.... The great man of Tarascon had to resign himself to the inevitable, and France was disgraced.


Chapter 28.
Despite the picturesque nature of their new mode of transport our lion hunters were forced to dismount, out of regard for the chechia. They continued their journey as before, on foot, and the caravan proceeded tranquilly toward the south with Tartarin in front, the prince in the rear and between them the camel with the baggage.
The expedition lasted for a month. For a whole month, Tartarin, hunting for non-existent lions, wandered from village to village in the immense plain of the Chetiff, across this extraordinary, cock-eyed French Algeria, where the perfumes of ancient Araby are mingled with a powerful stink of Absinthe and barrack-room; Abraham and Zouzou combined, a strange mixture like a page of the Old Testament rewritten by Sergeant Le Ramee or Corporal Pitou.... A curious spectacle for those who would care to look.... A savage and decadent people whom we are civilising by giving them our own vices. The cruel and uncontrolled authority of Pashas, inflated with self-importance in their cordons of the legion of honour, who at their whim have people beaten on the soles of their feet. The so-called justice of bespectacled Cadis, traitors to the koran and to the law, who sell their judgements as did Esau his birthright for a plate of cous-cous. Drunken and libertine headmen, former batmen to General Yussif someone or other, who guzzle champagne in the company of harlots, and indulge in feasts of roast mutton, while before their tents the whole tribe is starving and disputes with the dogs the leavings of the seigniorial banquet.
Then, all around, uncultivated plain. Scorched grass. Bushes bare of leaves. Scrub. Cactus. Mastic trees... The granary of France?... A granary empty of grain and rich only in jackals and bugs. Abandoned villages. Bewildered tribesfolk who run they know not where, fleeing from famine and sowing corpses along the road. Here and there a French settlement, the houses dilapidated, the fields untilled and raging hordes of locusts who eat the very curtains from the windows, while the colonists are all in cafes, drinking absinthe and discussing projects for the reform of the constitution.
That is what Tartarin could have seen, if he had taken the trouble, but obsessed with his fantasy the man from Tarascon marched straight ahead, his vision limited to searching for these monstrous felines, of which there was no trace.
Since the bivouac tent obstinately refused to open and the pemmican tablets to dissolve, the hunting party was compelled to stop daily at tribal villages. Everywhere, thanks to the prince's kepi, they were received with open arms. They