miserable in the course of the journey. Worst of all, while he was groaning in his stuffy bunk, he knew that a very merry party of passengers were enjoying themselves in the saloon. He was still in his bunk when the ship came to her moorings at Algiers, and he got up with a sudden jerk, under the impression that the Zouave was sinking. Seizing his many weapons, he rushed on deck, to find it was not foundering, but only arriving.

Soon after Tartarin had set foot on shore, following a great negro porter, he was almost stupefied by the babel of tongues; but, fortunately, a policeman took him in hand and had him directed, together with his enormous collection of luggage, to the European hotel.

On arriving at his hotel, he was so fatigued that his marvellous collection of weapons had to be taken from him, and he had to be carried to bed, where he snored very soundly until it was striking three o'clock. He had slept all the evening, through the night and morning, and well into the next afternoon!

He awakened refreshed, and the first thought in his mind was, "I'm in lion-land at last!" But the thought sent a cold shiver through him, and he dived under the bedclothes. A moment later he determined to be up. Exclaiming, "Now for the lions!" he jumped on the floor and began his preparations.

His plan was to get out at once into the country, take ambush for the night, shoot the first lion that came along, and then back to the hotel for breakfast. So off he went, carrying not only his usual arsenal, but the marvellous patent tent strapped to his back. He attracted no little attention as he trudged along, and catching sight of a very fine camel, his heart beat fast, for he thought the lions could not be far off now.

It was quite dark by the time he had got only a little way beyond the outskirts of the town, scrambling over ditches and bramble-hedges. After much hard work of this kind, the mighty hunter suddenly stopped, whispering to himself, "I seem to smell a lion hereabouts." He sniffed keenly in all directions. To his excited imagination, it seemed a likely place for a lion; so, dropping on one knee, and laying one of his guns in front of him, he waited.

He waited very patiently. One hour, two hours; but nothing stirred. Then he suddenly remembered that great lion-hunters take a little young goat with them to attract the lion by its bleating. Having forgotten to supply himself with one, Tartarin conceived the happy idea of bleating like a kid. He started softly, calling, "Meh, meh!" He was really afraid that a lion might hear him, but as no lion seemed to be paying attention, he became bolder in his "mehs," until the noise he made was more like the bellowing of a bull.

But hush! What was that? A huge black object had for the moment loomed up against the dark blue sky. It stooped, sniffing the ground; then seemed to move away again, only to return suddenly. It must be the lion at last; so, taking a steady aim, bang went the gun of Tartarin, and a terrible howling came in response. Clearly his shot had told; the wounded lion had made off. He would now wait for the female to appear, as he had read in books.

But two or more hours passed, and she did not come; and the ground was damp, and the night air cold, so the hunter thought he would camp for the night. After much struggling, he could not get his patent tent to open. Finally, he threw it on the ground in a rage, and lay on the top of it. Thus he slept until the bugles in the barracks near by wakened him in the morning. For behold, instead of finding himself out on the Sahara, he was in the kitchen garden of some suburban Algerian!

"These people are mad," he growled to himself, "to plant their artichokes where lions are roaming about. Surely I have been dreaming. Lions do come here; there's proof positive."

From artichoke to artichoke, from field to field, he followed the thin trail of blood, and came at length to a poor little donkey he had wounded!

Tartarin's first feeling was one of vexation. There is such a difference between a lion and an ass, and the poor little creature looked so innocent. The great hunter knelt down and tried to stanch the donkey's wounds, and it seemed grateful to him, for it feebly flapped its long ears two or three times before it lay still for ever.

Suddenly a voice was heard calling, "Noiraud! Noiraud!" It was "the female." She came in the form of an old French woman with a large red umbrella, and it would have been better for Tartarin to have faced a female lion.

When the unhappy man tried to explain how he had mistaken her little donkey for a lion, she thought he was making fun of her, and belaboured him with her umbrella. When her husband came on the scene the matter was soon adjusted by Tartarin agreeing to pay eight pounds for the damage he had done, the price of the donkey being really something like eight shillings. The donkey owner was an inn-keeper, and the sight of Tartarin's money made him quite friendly. He invited the lion-hunter to have some food at the inn with him before he left. And as they walked thither he was amazed to be told by the inn-keeper that he had never seen a lion there in twenty years!

Clearly, the lions were to be looked for further south. "I'll make tracks for the south, too," said Tartarin to himself. But he first of all returned to his hotel in an omnibus. Think of it! But before he was to go south on the high adventure, he loafed about the city of Algiers for some time, going to the theatres and other places of amusement, where he met Prince Gregory of Montenegro, with whom he made friends.

One day the captain of the Zouave came across him in the town, and showed him a note about himself in a Tarascon newspaper. This spoke of the uncertainty that prevailed as to the fate of the great hunter, and wound up with these words:

"Some Negro traders state, however, that they met in the open desert a European whose description answers to that of Tartarin, and who was making tracks for Timbuctoo. May Heaven guard for us our hero!"

Tartarin went red and white by turns as he read this, and realised that he was in for it. He very much wished to return to his beloved Tarascon, but to go there without having shot some lions--one at least--was impossible, and so it was Southward ho!

III.--Tartarin's Adventures in the Desert

The lion-hunter was keenly disappointed, after a very long journey in the stage-coach, to be told that there was not a lion left in all Algeria, though a few panthers might still be found worth shooting.

He got out at the town of Milianah, and let the coach go on, as he thought he might as well take things easily if, after all, there were no lions to be shot. To his amazement, however, he came across a real live lion at the door of a café.

"What made them say there were no more lions?" he cried, astounded at the sight. The lion lifted in its mouth a wooden bowl from the pavement, and a passing Arab threw a copper in the bowl, at which the lion wagged its tail. Suddenly the truth dawned on Tartarin. He was a poor, blind, tame lion, which a couple of negroes were taking through the streets, just like a performing dog. His blood was up at the very idea. Shouting, "You scoundrels, to humiliate these noble beasts so!" he rushed and took the degrading bowl from the royal jaws of the lion. This led to a quarrel with the negroes, at the height of which Prince Gregory of Montenegro came upon the scene.

The prince told him a most untrue story about a convent in the north of Africa where lions were kept, to be sent out with priests to beg for money. He also assured him that there were lots of lions in Algeria, and that he would join him in his hunt.

Thus it was in the company of Prince Gregory, and with a following of half a dozen negro porters, that Tartarin set off early next morning for the Shereef Plain; but they very soon had trouble, both with the porters and with the provisions Tartarin had brought for his great journey. The prince suggested