help finding some hole into which we can stow ourselves."

"That's it!" cried Pencroff. "Let us be off."

So away they went along the foot of the gigantic wall, and over the beach, which the falling waters had widely uncovered. But instead of going north, they took a southerly course. Some hundred 'feet below the place where they had landed Pencroff had observed a fissure in the coast line. According to his reckoning, this ought to be the outlet of some stream or river. Now, it was most important that they should establish themselves near a stream of drinkable water; and also it was possible that the current had driven Cyrus Smith in that direction. As before mentioned, the lofty wall was three hundred feet in height, but it was in a solid block, and even at its base, scarcely wave-washed; as it was, there was not the slightest fissure which might serve as a temporary abode. It was a precipitous cliff of an exceedingly hard granite, which the floods had never worn away. Near the top whole colonies of sea-birds flew and fluttered, especially the several species of web-feet, with their long, compressed and pointed bills; a screaming mass of fowl, hardly frightened at all by the presence of man, who, probably, for the first time, disturbed their solitudes. Among these web-feet Pencroff recognized several labbes, a species of gull, to which the name of stercoraire is sometimes given; and also the little greedy sea-mews, which made their nests in the seams of the granite. One gun-shot in the midst of this assemblage would have brought any number to the ground; but to fire a shot one must have a gun, and neither Pencroff nor Harbert possessed one. For the matter of that, however, these sea-birds are scarcely eatable, and even their eggs have an odious flavor.

Meanwhile, Harbert, who had turned to the left on his walk, soon observed some sea-weed-covered rocks, which the flood tide would hide in the course of a few hours. Upon these rocks, in the midst of the slippery sea-plants, grew bivalves, which no hungry man would disdain to eat. Harbert called to Pencroff, who hastened towards him.

"Ah, these are mussels!" cried the sailor. "Here is something instead of the eggs we were wishing for."

"These are not mussels!" said Harbert,

attentively examining the shell-fish; "they are lithodomes.”

"Are they eatable ?" asked Pencroff. "Perfectly so."

"Then let us eat lithodomes."

The sailor could rely upon Harbert's opinion, for the youth had always had a passion for natural history, and was strong in the science. His father had encouraged this taste by making him follow the lectures of the best Boston professors, and they were all deeply attached to their intelligent and industrious pupil. Moreover, the instinct proper to the naturalist, which he possessed, was destined to be of use hereafter on more than one occasion. And in this first instance it did not deceive him.

The lithodomes were oblong shells, attached tightly in bunches to the rocks. They belonged to that species of boring mollusks which perforate the very hardest rocks, and their shell is rounded at the ends, unlike that of the common mussel.

Pencroff and Harbert made a good meal of the lithodomes. They ate them as if they were oysters, and found them to taste strongly of pepper. This consoled them for the absence of that and all other condiments. Thus their hunger was, for the moment, appeased. Not so their thirst, which redoubled after their consumption of mollusks, furnished with spice by nature. It was necessary, therefore, to find fresh water, and it was hardly probable that it should not exist in such a strange formation of cliff and sand. After taking the precaution to fill their pockets and handkerchiefs with an ample provision of lithodomes, Harbert and Pencroff regained the foot of the high land. Two hundred feet beyond, they reached the indentation in the land which Pencroff had fancied must be the bed of a small, flowing river. Here the wall of rocks seemed to have been separated by some violent volcanic convulsion. At the base of the cliffs a little bay was hollowed out, the bottom forming an acute angle. The water-course there measured a hundred feet in width, and its two banks scarcely twenty feet each. The river-course penetrated directly inwards between the two walls of granite, which seemed to become lower above the outlet; then the stream turned abruptly, and was lost to sight amid some underbrush at a distance of half a mile.

"Here is water! Yonder is wood!" cried Pencroff. "Now, Harbert, nothing is wanting but a shelter."

The river water was clear. The sailor

knew that at this moment, namely, at the ebb of the tide, it was free from the salt of the sea. Having settled this important point, Harbert sought for some cave which might do for a shelter, but he looked about in vain. Everywhere the rock wall seemed flat and smooth. Nevertheless, at the outlet of the river, and above the line of refuse cast up by high water, the falling cliffs had formed, not a grotto, it is true, but a mass of enormous crags, such as are often met with in granite countries, and are there known as "chimneys."

Pencroff and Harbert wandered through sandy corridors deep into the masses of rock, where light was not wanting, since it penetrated the spaces between the blocks of granite. Many of these kept their places only by a miracle of equilibrium. But with the light came the wind-a perfect blast; and with the wind came the piercing outer cold. Still the sailor thought that by stopping up some parts of the entries, and by securing some of the openings with a mixture of stones and sand, they might be able to make the Chimneys habitable. Their ground plan was in the shape of this typographical sign: &-et cætera abbreviated. Now, by cutting off the upper opening of the sign, by which the southerly and westerly winds were driven in, it would, doubtless, be possible to make the lower part of the dwelling fit to live in.

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"We can do it my boy," said the sailor, and these Chimneys (that was the name Pencroff had settled on for their temporary home) will do our work finely. But in the first place, let us go and get in a stock of firing. It seems to me the wood won't be amiss in stopping up those holes, through which the very devil seems to be blowing his trumpet."

Harbert and Pencroff left the Chimneys and turning a corner, began to ascend the left bank of the river. The current was pretty swift, and was carrying several fallen trees along with it. The rising tide, which was already beginning to make itself felt,

was sure to throw back the logs to a considerable distance. It occured to the sailor that this ebb and flow might be utilized for the transporting of heavy objects.

After walking a quarter of an hour the sailor and the young man reached the abrupt angle which the river made in turning to the left. From this point the stream passed through a forest of superb trees. They had kept their verdure in spite of the advanced season, for they belonged to the family of conifers, which is spread over the whole surface of the globe, from the arctic and antarctic regions to the tropics. The young naturalist recognized especially the "deodars," common to the Himalayan zone, and peculiar for the delicious odor they emit.

Between these fine trees grew clumps of pines, whose dense parasols of limbs were opened wide. In the midst of the high grass Pencroff felt the snapping of dry twigs under his feet like so many fire-crackers.

"All right, my boy," said he to Harbert, "if I am ignorant of the names of these trees, at any rate I know how to classify them in the category of 'fire-wood,' and just now that's the only kind we want."

"Let us lay in our store, then," answered Harbert, who set himself at once to the task.

Gathering was easy work. It was not even necessary to break the branches off the trees, for vast quantities of dry wood lay on the ground. But, if the needful material was not wanting, the means of transportation was not the best in the world. The wood, being very dry, would be sure to burn up fast; hence, the necessity of transporting a great quantity to the Chimneys, and the load of two men would not be sufficient. This remark was made by Harbert.

"Well, now, wait a moment, my boy,” said the sailor, "there must be some way of moving this wood. There is always a way to do everything. If we had a cart or a boat, it would be altogether too easy."

"But we have the river!" said Harbert. "Hit it!" answered Pencroff, “the river shall be a highway which walks of itself-and rafts were not invented for nothing."

"Except," remarked Harbert, "that our highway advances at present in a contrary direction-because the tide rises."

"Well, we will get the better of that by waiting until it falls," replied the sailor, "and then it will undertake to transport

The sailor, followed by Harbert, turned towards the angle which the edge of the forest made with the river. They each carried, according to his strength, a load of wood tied together in fagots. On the shore, also, were quantities of dead branches, lying in the grass upon which the foot of man had probably never pressed. Pencroff began at once to construct his raft.

In a sort of eddy, produced by a point of the shore, which broke the force of the current, the sailor and the young boy placed large pieces of wood, which they lashed together with dried vines. They thus made a sort of raft upon which they piled up all their gathered wood, at least

finished, and the raft, anchored to the bank, waited for the turn of the tide.

They had, therefore, several hours free, and, following the same impulse, Harbert and Pencroff resolved to reach the upper table-land in order to get a more extended view of the country.

Precisely two hundred feet behind the angle formed by the river, the wall, closing with a mass of fallen rocks, sloped away gently to the border of the forest. It was like a natural staircase, consequently Harbert and the sailor began their ascent. Thanks to the strength of their legs, they reached the crest of the hill in a few moments, and stationed themselves at the angle above the river's mouth.

Their first impulse was to gaze upon that ocean which they had lately crossed under such terrible circumstances. It was not without emotion that they looked northward upon that part of the coast where the catastrophe had taken place. There Cyrus Smith had disappeared. They strained their eyes in vain to see if some portion of their balloon, to which a man could have clung, might not yet be afloat. Nothing! the sea was one vast watery desert. As for the coast, it too was utterly forsaken! Neither the reporter nor Neb was to be seen. It was possible that they were there, but at too great a distance to be perceived. "Something tells me," said Harbert, "that a man as energetic as Mr. Cyrus can never have allowed himself to be drowned

sharp point closed the horizon, and one could not discern whether the land extended further in the same direction, or whether it turned south-east and southwest, in which case the coast would form a kind of long peninsula. At the northern. extremity of the bay the outline of the coast extended a great distance, with a more rounded line. There the coast was low and flat, without cliffs, with long banks of sand which the low tide left exposed to view.

Pencroff and Harbert now faced towards the west. The view was stopped in that direction by the snow-topped mountain which rose at a distance of six or seven miles. From its lower hills to within two miles of the coast were vast forests, spotted with great green patches, produced by groups of evergreen trees. Then from the edge of the forest to the very shore lay a table-land, diversified by groups of trees distributed about in capricious irregularity.

To the left one had occasional glimpses of the sparkling water-course, and its sinuous course seemed to be traceable to the rocky mountains, which appeared to give it birth. At the point where the sailor had left his wood-raft it began to flow between two lofty walls of granite. But if on its left bank the sides remained sharp and abrupt, on the right bank, on the contrary, it sank little by little, the solid crag changing into isolated rocks, the rocks into stones, the stones into gravel, down to the extremity of the point.

"Are we on an island?" said the sailor. "Whatever it is, it appears large enough." "An island, be it never so large, is still an island," observed Pencroff.

But this important question could not yet be answered. The solution of the mystery must be deferred. As for the land itself, whether island or continent, it appeared to be fertile, agreeable to the eye, and varied in its products.

"This is fortunate," remarked Pencroff, "and in our misery we should not fail to give thanks to Providence."

"God be praised!" answered Harbert, heartily.

For a long while Harbert and Pencroff examined the country upon which fate had cast their lot. But it was difficult to imagine after such an inspection what the future had in store for them.

Then they returned, following the south crest of the granite plateau which was out

lined by rocks, that had fashioned themselves into all manner of fantastic forms. Here some hundreds of birds dwelt and nestled in the holes, and Harbert, in springing upon the rocks, scared up a perfect cloud of these feathered creatures. "Holloa," cried he, these are neither gulls nor sea-mews."

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'What are they then?" asked Pencroff. 'Bless me, I believe they are pigeons!" "Yes, they are," said Harbert. "But they are wild pigeons, or rock pigeons. I know them by the double black band on their wings, their white breasts and their ashy-blue plumage. And since the rock pigeon is very good eating, their eggs must be delicious, if they have only left some in their nests!"

"We will not give them time to hatch, except in the shape of an omelette," cried Pencroff gaily.

"But what will you make your omelette in," asked Harbert; "in your hat?"

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Ah, ha!" replied the sailor. "I am not enough of a sorcerer to do that. We must fall back upon eggs boiled in the shell, my boy, and I will promise to dispatch the hardest of them."

Pencroff and the boy sought attentively in the seams of the granite, and really found some eggs in some of the cavities. They gathered several dozens in their handkerchiefs, and, as the time was near for the tide to reach the full, Harbert and Pencroff began to re-descend to the water.

When they arrived at the bend of the river it was one o'clock. The current had already turned. It was necessary to use the ebb at once to float their raft to the river's mouth. Pencroff did not intend to allow this raft to go down with the current without any guiding, nor did he yet intend to embark upon it himself. But a sailor is never at a loss for ropes and cables, and Pencroff soon braided a long rope of dried vines. The vegetable cable was attached to the back of the raft, and the sailor held it in his hand, while Harbert, pushing off the raft with a long pole, kept it out in the current.