-- not the ghost of a road at all. We get along as best we can over
hill and dale, over dwarf palms and mastic-trees. Ne'er a fixed
change of horses, the stopping being at the whim of the guard, now
at one farm, again at another.

"Somewhiles this rogue goes a couple of leagues out of the way to
have a glass of absinthe or champoreau with a chum. After which,
'Crack on, postillion!' to make up for the lost time. Though the sun
be broiling and the dust scorching, we whip on! We catch in the
scrub and spill over, but whip on! We swim rivers, we catch cold,
we get swamped, we drown, but whip! whip! whip! Then in the
evening, streaming -- a nice thing for my age, with my rheumatics --
I have to sleep in the open air of some caravanseral yard, open to
all the winds. In the dead o' night jackals and hyaenas come sniffing
of my body; and the marauders who don't like dews get into my
compartment to keep warm.

"Such is the life I lead, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, and that I shall
lead to the day when -- burnt up by the sun and rotted by the damp
nights until unable to do anything else, I shall fall in some spot of
bad road, where the Arabs will boil their kouskous with the bones
of my old carcass" --

"Blidah! Blidah!" called out the guard as he opened the door.



II.
A little gentleman drops in and "drops upon" Tartarin.