coconut palm was about the size of
a swede and the baobab (arbos gigantica) fitted comfortably into a
pot full of earth and gravel. No matter.... For Tarascon it was quite
splendid, and those citizens who were admitted, on Sundays, to have the
privilege of inspecting Tartarin's baobab went home full of admiration.

You may imagine my emotions as I walked through this remarkable
garden... they were nothing, however, to what I felt on being admitted to
the sanctum of the great man himself.

This building, one of the curiosities of the town, was at the end of the
garden, to which it opened through a glass door. Picture a large room
hung from floor to ceiling with firearms and swords; weapons from every
country in the world. Guns, carbines, rifles, blunderbusses,
knives, spears, revolvers, daggers, arrows, assegais, knobkerries,
knuckledusters and I know not what.

The brilliant sunlight glittered on the steel blades of sabres and the
polished butts of firearms. It was really quite a menacing scene... what
was a little reassuring was the good order and discipline which ruled
over this arsenal. Everything was neat tidy and dusted. Here and there a
simple notice, reading "Poison arrows, Do not touch." or "Beware. Loaded
firearms." made one feel it safe to approach.

In the middle of the room was a table. On the table was a flagon of
rum, a turkish tobacco pouch, The voyages of Captain Cook, stories
of adventure, treatises on falconry, descriptions of big-game hunts
etc... and finally seated at the table was the man himself. Forty
to forty-five years of age, short, fat, stocky and ruddy, clad in
shirt-sleeves and flannel trousers, with a close-clipped wiry beard
and a flamboyant eye. In one hand he held a book and with the other he
brandished an enormous pipe, its bowl covered by a metal cap; and as
he read some stirring tale of the pursuit of hairy creatures, he made,
pushing out his lower lip, a fierce grimace which gave his features,
those of a comfortable Tarascon "Rentier", the same air of hearty
ferocity which was evident throughout the whole house. This man was
Tartarin... Tartarin de Tarascon... the intrepid, great and incomparable
Tartarin de Tarascon.

At that time Tartarin was not the Tartarin which he is today, the great
Tartarin de Tarascon who is so popular throughout the Midi of France,
however, even at this epoch, he was already the king of Tarascon.

Let us examine how he acquired his crown. You will be