Meantime the carriages, going at a good pace, rolled over bridges, skirted little lakes and flowery meads, and fine vineyards running with water and deserted; for it was Sunday, and all the peasants whom they met wore their gala costumes, the women with long braids of hair hanging down their backs and silver chainlets. They began at last to mount the road in zigzags among forests of oak and beech; little by little the marvellous horizon displayed itself on the left; at each turn of the zigzag, rivers, valleys with their spires pointing upward came into view, and far away in the distance, the hoary head of the Finsteraarhorn, whitening beneath an invisible sun. Soon the road became gloomy, the aspect savage. On one side, heavy shadows, a chaos of trees, twisted and gnarled on a steep slope, down which foamed a torrent noisily; to right, an enormous rock overhanging the road and bristling with branches that sprouted from its fissures. They laughed no more in the landau; but they all admired, raising their heads and trying to see the summit of this tunnel of granite. “The forests of Atlas!.. I seem to see them again...” said Tartarin, gravely, and then, as the remark passed unnoticed, he added: “Without the lion’s roar, however.” “You have heard it, monsieur?” asked Sonia. Heard the lion, he!.. Then, with an indulgent smile: “I am Tartarin of Tarascon, mademoiselle...” And just see what such barbarians are! He might have said, “My name is Dupont;” it would have been exactly the same thing to them. They were ignorant of the name of Tartarin! Nevertheless, he was not angry, and he answered the young lady, who wished to know if the lion’s roar had frightened him: “No, mademoiselle... My camel trembled between my legs, but I looked to my priming as tranquilly as before a herd of cows... At a distance their cry is much the same, like this, _té!_” To give Sonia an exact impression of the thing, he bellowed in his most sonorous voice a formidable “Meuh...” which swelled, spread, echoed and reechoed against the rock. The horses reared; in all the carriages the travellers sprang up alarmed, looking round for the accident, the cause of such an uproar; but recognizing the Alpinist, whose head and overwhelming accoutrements could be seen in the uncovered half of the landau, they asked themselves once more: “Who is that animal?” He, very calm, continued to give details: when to attack the beast, where to strike him, how to despatch him, and about the diamond sight he affixed to his carbines to enable him to aim correctly in the darkness. The young girl listened to him, leaning forward with a little panting of the nostrils, in deep attention. “They say that Bombonnel still hunts; do you know him?” asked the brother. “Yes,” replied Tartarin, without enthusiasm... “He is not a clumsy fellow, but we have better than he.”