ome nomads were trying to
dispose of. This was a real desert camel, with little hair, a sad
expression and a hump which through long shortage of fodder hung
flaccidly to one side. Tartarin was so taken with it that he wanted the
two partners to be mounted. This proved to be a mistake.

The camel knelt, the trunks were strapped on, the prince installed
himself on the creature's neck and Tartarin was hoisted up to the top of
the hump, between two cases, from where he proudly saluted the assembled
market and gave the signal for departure.... Heavens above!.... If only
Tarascon could see him now!

The camel rose, stretched out its long legs and took off. Calamity! The
camel pitched and rolled like a frigate in a rough sea and the chechia
responded to the motion as it had on the Zouave. "Prince... prince"
Murmured Tartarin, ashen-faced, and clutching the scanty hair of the
hump, "Prince... let us get down, I feel... I feel I am going to disgrace
France." But the camel was in full flight and nothing was going to
stop it. Four thousand Arabs were running behind, bare-footed, waving,
laughing like idiots, six hundred thousand white teeth glistening in
the sun.... The great man of Tarascon had to resign himself to the
inevitable, and France was disgraced.

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 Ramee 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 kor