ling his
moustache with so silly and conquering a look at Sonia, that Tartarin
began to ask himself whether, after all, they were not mere tourists,
and he a genuine tenor.

Meantime the carriages, going at a good pace, rolled over bridges,
skirted little lakes and flowery meads, and fine vineyards running with
water and deserted; for it was Sunday, and all the peasants whom they
met wore their gala costumes, the women with long braids of hair hanging
down their backs and silver chainlets. They began at last to mount the
road in zigzags among forests of oak and beech; little by little the
marvellous horizon displayed itself on the left; at each turn of the
zigzag, rivers, valleys with their spires pointing upward came
into view, and far away in the distance, the hoary head of the
Finsteraarhorn, whitening beneath an invisible sun.

Soon the road became gloomy, the aspect savage. On one side, heavy
shadows, a chaos of trees, twisted and gnarled on a steep slope, down
which foamed a torrent noisily; to right, an enormous rock overhanging
the road and bristling with branches that sprouted from its fissures.

They laughed no more in the landau; but they all admired, raising their
heads and trying to see the summit of this tunnel of granite.

"The forests of Atlas!.. I seem to see them again..." said Tartarin,
gravely, and then, as the remark passed unnoticed, he added: "Without
the lion's roar, however."

"You have heard it, monsieur?" asked Sonia.

Heard the lion, he!.. Then, with an indulgent smile: "I am Tartarin of
Tarascon, mademoiselle..."

And just see what such barbarians are! He might have said, "My name is
Dupont;" it would have been exactly the same thing to them. They were
ignorant of the name of Tartarin!

Nevertheless, he was not angry, and he answered the young lady,
who wished to know if the lion's roar had frightened him: "No,
mademoiselle... My camel trembled between my legs, but I looked to my
priming as tranquilly as before a herd of cows... At a distance their
cry is much the same, like this, _te!_"

To give Sonia an exact impression of the thing, he bellowed in his most
sonorous voice a formidable "Meuh..." which swelled, spread, echoed and
reechoed against the rock. The horses reared; in all the carriages the
travellers sprang up alarmed, looking round for the accident, the
cause of such an uproar; but recognizing the Alpinist, whose head and
overwhelming accoutrements could be seen in the