If by any chance the ghost of Micheal Cervantes was abroad on that bit
of the Barbary coast, it must have been delighted at the arrival of this
splendid specimen of a Frenchman from the Midi, in whom were combined
the two heroes of his book, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
It was a warm day. On the quay, bathed in sunshine, were five or
six customs officers, some settlers awaiting news from France, some
squatting Moors, smoking their long pipes, some Maltese fishermen,
hauling in a large net, in the meshes of which thousands of sardines
glittered like pieces of silver; but scarcely had Tartarin set
foot there when the quay sprang into life and changed entirely its
appearance.
A band of savages, more hideous even than the pirates of the boat,
seemed to rise from the very cobble-stones to hurl themselves on the
newcomer. Huge Arabs, naked beneath their long woolen garments, little
Moors dressed in rags, Negroes, Tunisians, hotel waiters in white
aprons, pushing and shouting, plucking at his clothes, fighting over his
luggage; one grabbing his preserves another his medicine chest and, in a
screeching babel of noise, throwing at his head the improbable names
of hotels.... Deafened by this tumult, Tartarin ran hither and
thither,struggling, fuming, and cursing after his baggage, and not
knowing how to communicate with these barbarians, harangued them in
French, Provencal and even what he could remember of Latin. It was a
wasted effort, no one was listening.... Happily, however, a little man
dressed in a tunic with a yellow collar and armed with a long cane
arrived on the scene and dispersed the rabble with blows from his stick.
He was an Algerian policeman. Very politely he arranged for Tartarin to
go to the Hotel de l’Europe, and confided him to the care of some locals
who led him away with all his baggage loaded on several barrows.
As he took his first steps in Algiers, Tartarin looked about him
wide-eyed. He had imagined beforehand a fairylike Arabian city,
something between Constantinople and Zanzibar... but here he was back
in Tarascon. Some cafés some restaurants, wide streets, houses of four
stories, a small tarmac square where a military band played Offenbach
polkas, men seated on chairs, drinking beer and nibbling snacks, a few
ladies, a sprinkling of tarts and soldiers, more soldiers, everywhere
soldiers... and not a single “Teur” in sight except for him... so he found
walking across the square a bit embarrassing. Everyone stared.... The
military band stopped playing and the Offenbach polka came to a halt
with one foot in the air.
With his two rifles on his shoulders, his revolver by his side,
unflinching and stately he passed through the throng, but on reaching
the hotel his strength deserted him. The departure from Tarascon. The
harbour at Marseille. The crossing. The Montenegrin prince. The pirates,
all whirled in confusion round his brain. He had to be taken up to his
room, disarmed and undressed... there was even talk of sending for a
doctor, but hardly had his head touched the pillow than he began to
snore so loudly and vigorously that the hotel manager decided that
medical assistance was not required, and everyone discreetly withdrew.