----------------------------------------- I Poisoned Arrows! I I Do Not Touch! I ----------------------------------------- Or, ----------------------------------------- I Loaded! I I Take care, please! I ----------------------------------------- If it had not been for these cautions I never should have dared venture in. In the middle of the room was an occasional table, on which stood a decanter of rum, a siphon of soda-water, a Turkish tobacco-pouch, “Captain Cook’s Voyages,” the Indian tales of Fenimore Cooper and Gustave Aimard, stories of hunting the bear, eagle, elephant, and so on. Lastly, beside the table sat a man of between forty and forty-five, short, stout, thick-set, ruddy, with flaming eyes and a strong stubbly beard; he wore flannel tights, and was in his shirt sleeves; one hand held a book, and the other brandished a very large pipe with an iron bowl-cap. Whilst reading heaven only knows what startling adventure of scalp-hunters, he pouted out his lower lip in a terrifying way, which gave the honest phiz of the man living placidly on his means the same impression of kindly ferocity which abounded throughout the house. This man was Tartarin himself--the Tartarin of Tarascon, the great, dreadnought, incomparable Tartarin of Tarascon. II. A general glance bestowed upon the good town of Tarascon, and a particular one on “the cap-poppers.” AT the time I am telling of, Tartarin of Tarascon had not become the present-day Tartarin, the great one so popular in the whole South of France: but yet he was even then the cock of the walk at Tarascon. Let us show whence arose this sovereignty. In the first place you must know that everybody is shooting mad in these parts, from the greatest to the least. The chase is the local craze, and so it has ever been since the mythological times when the Tarasque, as the county dragon was called, flourished himself and his tail in the town marshes, and entertained shooting parties got up against him. So you see the passion has lasted a goodish bit. It follows that, every Sunday morning, Tarascon flies to arms, lets loose the dogs of the hunt, and rushes out of its walls, with game-bag slung and fowling-piece on the shoulder, together with a hurly-burly of hounds, cracking of whips, and blowing of whistles and hunting-horns. It’s splendid to see! Unfortunately, there’s a lack of game, an absolute dearth. Stupid as the brute creation is, you can readily understand that, in time, it learnt some distrust.