shoots of lofty elevators upon the pier, and loose grain rolling as a
golden torrent through a blonde dust. Men in red skullcaps were
sifting it as they caught it in large asses'-skin sieves, and loading it
upon carts which took their millward way, followed by a regiment
of women and youngsters with wisps and gleaning baskets. Farther
on, the dry docks, where large vessels were laid low on their sides
till their yards dipped in the water; they were singed with thorn-
bushes to free them of sea weed; there rose an odour of pitch, and
the deafening clatter of the sheathers coppering the bottoms with
broad sheets of yellow metal.

At whiles a gap in between the masts, in which Tartarin could see
the haven mouth, where the vessels came and went: a British frigate
off for Malta, dainty and thoroughly washed down, with the officer
in primrose gloves, or a large home-port brig hauling out in the
midst of uproar and oaths, whilst the fat captain, in a high silk hat
and frockcoat, ordered the operations in Provencal dialect. Other
craft were making forth under all sail, and, still farther out, more
were slowly looming up in the sunshine as if they were sailing in the
air.

All the time a frightful riot, the rumbling of carts, the "Haul all, haul
away!" of the shipmen, oaths, songs, steamboat whistles, the bugles
and drums in Forts Saint Jean and Saint Nicolas, the bells of the
Major, the Accoules, and Saint Victor; with the mistral atop of all,
catching up the noises and clamour, and rolling them up together
with a furious shaking, till confounded with its own voice, which
intoned a mad, wild, heroic melody like a grand charging tune --
one that filled hearers with a longing to be off, and the farther the
better -- a craving for wings.