beating their way in and seeming in the sunshine to be floating on air.

Then, all the time the most fearsome racket. The rumbling of cart
wheels, the cries of the sailors, oaths, songs, the sirens of
steam-boats, the drums and bugles of Fort St. Jean and Fort St. Nicolas,
the bells of nearby churches and, up above, the mistral, which took all
of these sounds, rolled them together, shook them up and mingled
them with its own voice to make mad, wild, heroic music, like a great
fanfare, urging one to set sail for distant lands, to spread one's wings
and go. It was to the sound of this fine fanfare that Tartarin embarked
for the country of lions.




Chapter 12.

I wish that I was a painter, a really good painter, so that I could
present to you a picture of the different positions adopted by
Tartarin's chechia during the three days of the passage from France to
Algeria.

I would show it to you first at the departure, proud and stately as it
was then, crowning that noble Tarascon head. I would show it next when,
having left the harbour, the Zouave began to lift on the swell. I would
show it fluttering and astonished, as if feeling the first premonitions
of distress.

Then, in the gulf of Lion, when the Zouave was further offshore and
the sea a little rougher, I would present it at grips with the storm,