diff --git a/travis.sh b/travis.sh
index bd226a8d..24a557e9 100755
--- a/travis.sh
+++ b/travis.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,25 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env sh
 set -evx
+
+# if possible, ask for the precise number of processors,
+# otherwise take 2 processors as reasonable default; see
+# https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/speeding-up-the-build/#Makefile-optimization
+if [ -x /usr/bin/getconf ]; then
+    NPROCESSORS=$(/usr/bin/getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN)
+else
+    NPROCESSORS=2
+fi
+# as of 2017-09-04 Travis CI reports 32 processors, but GCC build
+# crashes if parallelized too much (maybe memory consumption problem),
+# so limit to 4 processors for the time being.
+if [ $NPROCESSORS -gt 4 ] ; then
+	echo "$0:Note: Limiting processors to use by make from $NPROCESSORS to 4."
+	NPROCESSORS=4
+fi
+# Tell make to use the processors. No preceding '-' required.
+MAKEFLAGS="j${NPROCESSORS}"
+export MAKEFLAGS
+
 env | sort
 
 mkdir build || true