Chapter 28.

Despite the picturesque nature of their new mode of transport our lion
hunters were forced to dismount, out of regard for the chechia. They
continued their journey as before, on foot, and the caravan proceeded
tranquilly toward the south with Tartarin in front, the prince in the
rear and between them the camel with the baggage.

The expedition lasted for a month. For a whole month, Tartarin, hunting
for non-existent lions, wandered from village to village in the immense
plain of the Chetiff, across this extraordinary, cock-eyed French
Algeria, where the perfumes of ancient Araby are mingled with a powerful
stink of Absinthe and barrack-room; Abraham and Zouzou combined, a
strange mixture like a page of the Old Testament rewritten by Sergeant
Le Ramée or Corporal Pitou.... A curious spectacle for those who would
care to look.... A savage and decadent people whom we are civilising
by giving them our own vices. The cruel and uncontrolled authority of
Pashas, inflated with self-importance in their cordons of the legion of
honour, who at their whim have people beaten on the soles of their feet.
The so-called justice of bespectacled Cadis, traitors to the koran and
to the law, who sell their judgements as did Esau his birthright for
a plate of cous-cous. Drunken and libertine headmen, former batmen to
General Yussif someone or other, who guzzle champagne in the company of
harlots, and indulge in feasts of roast mutton, while before their tents
the whole tribe is starving and disputes with the dogs the leavings of
the seigniorial banquet.

Then, all around, uncultivated plain. Scorched grass. Bushes bare of
leaves. Scrub. Cactus. Mastic trees... The granary of France?... A granary