is hands. Another Negro took the oars. Both
laughingly eyed Tartarin, and showed their white teeth.

Standing in the stern-sheets, making that terrifying face which had
daunted his fellow-countrymen, the great Tarasconian feverishly fumbled
with his hunting-knife haft; for, despite what Barbassou had told
him, he was only half at ease as regarded the intention of these
ebony-skinned porters, who so little resembled their honest mates of
Tarascon.

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

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

O MIGUEL CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, if what is asserted be true, to wit,
that wherever great men have dwelt some emanation of their spirits
wanderingly hovers until the end of ages, then what remained of your
essence on the Barbary coast must have quivered with glee on beholding
Tartarin of Tarascon disembark, that marvellous type of the French
Southerner, in whom was embodied both heroes of your work, Don Quixote
and Sancho Panza.

The air was sultry on this occasion. On the wharf, ablaze with sunshine,
were half a dozen revenue officers, some Algerians expecting news from
France, several squatting Moors who drew at long pipes, and some Maltese
mariners dragging large nets, between the meshes of which thousands of
sardines glittered like small silver coins.

But hardly had Tartarin set foot on earth before the quay sprang into
life and changed its aspect. A horde of savages, still more hideous than
the pirates upon the steamer, rose between the stones on the strand and
rushed upon the new-comer. Tall Arabs were there, nude under woollen
blankets, little Moors in tatters, Negroes, Tunisians, Port Mahonese,
M'zabites, hotel servants in white aprons, all yelling and shouting,
hooking on his clothes, fighting over his luggage, one carrying away the
provender, another his medicine-chest, and pelting him in one fantastic
medley with the names 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 not knowing how
to make these barbarians understand him, speechified them in