Then, all around, uncultivated plain. Scorched grass. Bushes bare of leaves. Scrub. Cactus. Mastic trees... The granary of France?... A granary empty of grain and rich only in jackals and bugs. Abandoned villages. Bewildered tribesfolk who run they know not where, fleeing from famine and sowing corpses along the road. Here and there a French settlement, the houses dilapidated, the fields untilled and raging hordes of locusts who eat the very curtains from the windows, while the colonists are all in cafés, drinking absinthe and discussing projects for the reform of the constitution. That is what Tartarin could have seen, if he had taken the trouble, but obsessed with his fantasy the man from Tarascon marched straight ahead, his vision limited to searching for these monstrous felines, of which there was no trace. Since the bivouac tent obstinately refused to open and the pemmican tablets to dissolve, the hunting party was compelled to stop daily at tribal villages. Everywhere, thanks to the prince’s kepi, they were received with open arms. They were lodged by chieftains in strange palaces, great white buildings without windows, where were piled up hookahs and mahogany commodes, Smyrna carpets and adjustable oil lamps, cedar-wood chests full of Turkish sequins and clocks decorated in the style of Louis Phillipe. Everywhere Tartarin was treated to fêtes and official receptions. In his honour whole villages turned out, firing volleys in the air, their burnous gleaming in the sun: after which the good chieftain would come to present the bill. Nowhere, however, were there any more lions than there are on the Pont Neuf in Paris: but Tartarin was not discouraged, he pushed bravely on to the south. His days were spent scouring the scrub, rummaging among the dwarf palms with the end of his carbine and going “Frt!... Frt!” At each bush... Then every evening a stand-to of two or three hours... A wasted effort. No lions appeared. One evening, however, at about six o’clock, as they were going through a wood of mastic trees, where fat quail, made lazy by the heat were jumping up from the grass, Tartarin thought he heard... but so far off... so distorted by the wind... so faint, the wonderful roar which he had heard so many times back home in Tarascon, behind the menagerie Mitaine. At first he thought he had imagined it, but in a moment, still far distant, but now more distinct, the roaring began again, and this time one could hear, all around, the barking of village dogs; while, stricken by terror and rattling the boxes of arms and preserves, the camel’s hump trembled. There could be no more doubt.... It was a lion! Quick!... Quick! Into position! Not a moment to lose!