an object of respect and adoration. This is a sacred beast who
belongs to a great monastery of lions, founded three hundred years
ago by Mahomet Ben Aouda, a kind of fierce and forbidding La
Trappe, full of roarings and wild-beastly odours, where strange
monks rear and feed lions by hundreds, and send them out all over
Northern Africa, accompanied by begging brothers. The alms they
receive serve for the maintenance of the monastery and its
mosques; and the two Negroes showed so much displeasure just
now because it was their conviction that the lion under their charge
would forthwith devour them if a single penny of their collection
were lost or stolen through any fault of theirs."

On hearing this incredible and yet veracious story Tartarin of
Tarascon was delighted, and sniffed the air noisily. "What pleases
me in this," he remarked, as the summing up of his opinion, "is that,
whether Monsieur Bombonnel likes it or not, there are still lions in
Algeria." --

"I should think there were!" ejaculated the prince enthusiastically.
"We will start to-morrow beating up the Shelliff Plain, and you will
see lions enough!"

"What, prince! have you an intention to go a-hunting, too?"

"Of course! Do you think I am going to leave you to march by
yourself into the heart of Africa, in the midst of ferocious tribes of
whose languages and usages you are ignorant! No, no, illustrious
Tartarin, I shall quit you no more. Go where you will, I shall make
one of the party."