The big vessel, with reefed sails and yards crossed over her masts, drawn
by a tug from Marseilles, rocking over a sweep of rolling waves which
subsided gently on becoming calm, passed in front of the Chateau d'If,
then under all the gray rocks of the roadstead, which the setting sun
covered with a golden vapor; and she entered the ancient port, in which
are packed together, side by side, ships from every part of the world,
pell mell, large and small, of every shape and every variety of rigging,
soaking like a "bouillabaise" of boats in this basin too limited in
extent, full of putrid water, where shells touch each other, rub against
each other, and seem to be pickled in the juice of the vessels.

_Notre Dame des Vents_ took up her station between an Italian brig and an
English schooner, which made way to let this comrade slip in between
them; then, when all the formalities of the custom-house and of the port
had been complied with, the captain authorized the two-thirds of his crew
to spend the night on shore.

It was already dark. Marseilles was lighted up. In the heat of this
summer's evening a flavor of cooking with garlic floated over the noisy
city, filled with the clamor of voices, of rolling vehicles, of the
crackling of whips, and of southern mirth.

As soon as they felt themselves on shore, the ten men, whom the sea had
been tossing about for some months past, proceeded along quite slowly
with the hesitating steps of persons who are out of their element,
unaccustomed to cities, two by two, procession.

They swayed from one side to another as they walked, looked about them,
smelling out the lanes opening out on the harbor, rendered feverish by
the amorous appetite which had been growing to maturity in their bodies
during their last sixty-six days at sea. The Normans strode on in front,
led by Celestin Duclos, a tall young fellow, sturdy and waggish, who
served as a captain for the others every time they set forth on land. He
divined the places worth visiting, found out by-ways after a fashion of
his own, and did not take much part in the squabbles so frequent among
sailors in seaport towns. But, once he was caught in one, he was afraid
of nobody.

After some hesitation as to which of the obscure streets which lead down
to the waterside, and from which arise heavy smells, a sort of exhalation
from closets, they ought to enter, Celestin gave the preference to a kind
of winding passage, where gleamed over t