Tartarin de Tarascon

her like it in Europe. Not one indigenous tree grew there, not one French flower; nothing but exotic plants, gum trees, calabashes, cotton trees, coconut palms, mangos, bananas, cactuses, figs and a baobab. One might have thought oneself in the middle of Africa, thousands of miles from Tarascon. Of course none of these trees was fully grown, the coconut palm was about the size of a swede and the baobab (arbos gigantica) fitted comfortably into a pot full of earth and gravel. No matter....For Tarascon it was quite splendid, and those citizens who were admitted, on Sundays, to have the privilege of inspecting Tartarin's baobab went home full of admiration.

You may imagine my emotions as I walked through this remarkable garden...they were nothing, however, to what I felt on being admitted to the sanctum of the great man himself.

This building, one of the curiosities of the town, was at the end of the garden, to which it opened through a glass door. Picture a large room hung from floor to c