ONLY the arrival, not a foundering.
The Zouave was just gliding into the roadstead--a fine one of black,
deep water, but dull and still, almost deserted. On elevated ground
ahead rose Algiers, the White City, with its little houses of a dead
cream-colour huddling against one another lest they slid into the sea.
It was like Meudon slope with a laundress’s washing hung out to dry.
Over it a vast blue satin sky--and such a blue!
A little restored from his fright, the illustrious Tartarin gazed on
the landscape, and listened with respect to the Montenegrin prince, who
stood by his side, as he named the different parts of the capital, the
Kasbah, the upper town, and the Rue Bab-Azoon. A very finely-brought-up
prince was this Montenegrin; moreover, knowing Algeria thoroughly, and
fluently speaking Arabic. Hence Tartarin thought of cultivating his
acquaintance.
All at once, along the bulwark against which they were leaning, the
Tarasconian perceived a row of large black hands clinging to it from
over the side. Almost instantly a Negro’s woolly head shot up before
him, and, ere he had time to open his mouth, the deck was overwhelmed
on every side by a hundred black or yellow desperadoes, half naked,
hideous, and fearsome. Tartarin knew who these pirates were--“they,” of
course, the celebrated “they” who had 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 outset surprise nailed him to the spot. But when he saw
the outlaws fall upon the luggage, tear off the tarpaulin covering, and
actually commence the pillage of the ship, then the hero awoke. Whipping
out his hunting-sword, “To arms! to arms!” he roared to the passengers;
and away he flew, the foremost of all, upon the buccaneers. “Ques
aco? What’s the stir? What’s the matter with you?” 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 tall blackamoor
tore by with our hero’s medicine-chest upon his back.
“You cut-throat! just wait for me!” yelled the Tarasconer as he ran
after, with the knife uplifted.
But Barbassou caught him in the spring, and holding him by the
waist-sash, bade him be quiet.
“Tron de ler! by the throne on high! they’re no pirates. It’s long since
there were any pirates hereabout. Those dark porters are light porters.
Ha, ha!”
“P--p-porters?”
“Rather, only come after the luggage to carry it ashore. So put up
your cook’s galley knife, give me your ticket, and walk off behind that
nigger--an honest dog, who will see you to land, and even into a hotel,
if you like.”
A little abashed, Tartarin handed over his ticket, and falling in
behind the representative of the Dark Continent, clambered down by the
hanging-ladder into a big skiff dancing alongside. All his effects were
already there--boxes, trunks, gun-cases, tinned food,--so cramming up
the boat that there was no need to wait for any other passengers. The
African scrambled upon the boxes, and squatted there like a baboon,
with his knees clutched by his 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 French,
Provencal, and even in dog Latin: “Rosa, the rose; bonus, bona,
bonum!”--all that he knew--but to no purpose. He was not heeded.
Happily, like a god in Homer, intervened a little fellow 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, he suggested Tartarin should put up
at the Hotel de l’Europe, and he confided him to its waiters, who carted
him and his impedimenta thither in several barrows.
At the first steps he took in Algiers, Tartarin of Tarascon opened his
eyes widely. Beforehand he had pictured it as an Oriental city--a fairy
one, mythological, something between Constantinople and Zanzibar; 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 beer and eating pancakes, some
brilliant ladies, some shady ones, and soldiers--more soldiers--no end
of soldiers, but not a solitary Turk, or, better to say, there was a
solitary Turk, and that was he.
Hence he felt a little abashed about crossing the square, for everybody
looked at him. The musicians stopped, the Offenbachian polka halting
with one foot in the air.
With both guns on his shoulders, and the revolver flapping on his
hip, as fierce and stately as Robinson Crusoe, Tartarin gravely passed
through the groups; but on arriving at the hotel his powers failed
him. All spun and mingled in his head: the departure from Tarascon, the
harbour of Marseilles, the voyage, the Montenegrin prince, the corsairs.
They had to help him up into a room and disarm and undress him. They
began to talk of sending for a medical adviser; but hardly was our
hero’s head upon the pillow than he set to snoring, so loudly and so
heartily that the landlord judged the succour of science useless, and
everybody considerately withdrew.