EFTSOON arrived the great and solemn day. From dawn all
Tarascon had been on foot, encumbering the Avignon road and the
approaches to Baobab Villa. People were up at the windows, on
the roofs, and in the trees; the Rhone bargees, porters, dredgers,
shoeblacks, gentry, tradesfolk, warpers and weavers, taffety-
workers, the club members, in short the whole town; moreover,
people from Beaucaire had come over the bridge, market-gardeners
from the environs, carters in their huge carts with ample tilts,
vinedressers upon handsome mules, tricked out with ribbons,
streamers, bells, rosettes, and jingles, and even, here and there, a
few pretty maids from Arles, come on the pillion behind their
sweethearts, with bonny blue ribbons round the head, upon little
iron-grey Camargue horses.

All this swarm squeezed and jostled before our good Tartarin's
door, who was going to slaughter lions in the land of the Turks.

For Tarascon, Algeria, Africa, Greece, Persia, Turkey, and
Mesopotamia, all form one great hazy country, almost a myth,
called the land of the Turks. They say "Tur's," but that's a linguistic
digression.

In the midst of all this throng, the cap-poppers bustled to and fro,
proud of their captain's triumph, leaving glorious wakes where they
had passed.

In front of the Indian fig-tree house were two large trucks. From
time to time the door would open, and allow several persons to be
spied, gravely lounging about the little garden. At every new box