and when the house was re-entered, and whilst the complimentary
concert 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 the
catastrophes 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 any
imprudence -- that he would wrap himself up well, and take even
superfluous necessaries with him. Sancho-Tartarin would listen to
nothing. The poor craven saw himself already torn to tatters by the
lions, or engulfed in the desert sands like his late royal highness
Cambyses, and the other Tartarin only managed to appease him a
little by explaining that the start was not immediate, as nothing
pressed.

It is clear enough, indeed, that none embark on such an enterprise
without some preparations. A man is bound to know whither he
goes, hang it all! and not fly off like a bird. Before anything else,
the Tarasconian wanted to peruse the accounts of great African
tourists, the narrations of Mungo Park, Du Chaillu, Dr.
Livingstone, Stanley, and so on.

In them, he learnt that these daring explorers, before donning their
sandals for distant excursions, hardened themselves well beforehand
to support hunger and thirst, forced marches, and all kinds of
privation. Tartarin meant to act like they did, and from that day
forward he lived upon water broth alone. The water broth of
Tarascon is a few slices of bread drowned in hot water, with a