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than probable that a
similar fate had overtaken the larger towns beyond the Shelif.
    In the evening the explorers encamped, as previously, in a nook of the
shore which here abruptly terminated their new domain, not far from
where they might have expected to find the important village of
Memounturroy; but of this, too, there was now no trace. "I had quite
reckoned upon a supper and a bed at Orleansville to-night," said
Servadac, as, full of despondency, he surveyed the waste of water.
    "Quite impossible," replied Ben Zoof, "except you had gone by a boat.
But cheer up, sir, cheer up; we will soon devise some means for getting
across to Mostaganem."
    "If, as I hope," rejoined the captain, "we are on a peninsula, we are
more likely to get to Tenes; there we shall hear the news."
    "Far more likely to carry the news ourselves," answered Ben Zoof, as he
threw himself down for his night's rest.
    Six hours later, only waiting for sunrise, Captain Servadac set himself
in movement again to renew his investigations. At this spot the shore,
that hitherto had been running in a southeasterly direction, turned
abruptly to the north, being no longer formed by the natural bank of the
Shelif, but consisting of an absolutely new coast-line. No land was in
sight. Nothing could be seen of Orleansville, which ought to have been
about six miles to the southwest; and Ben Zoof, who had mounted the
highest point of view attainable, could distinguish sea, and nothing but
sea, to the farthest horizon.
    Quitting their encampment and riding on, the bewildered explorers kept
close to the new shore. This, since it had ceased to be formed by the
original river bank, had considerably altered its aspect. Frequent
landslips occurred, and in many places deep chasms rifted the ground;
great gaps furrowed the fields, and trees, half uprooted, overhung the
water, remarkable by the fantastic distortions of their gnarled trunks,
looking as though they had been chopped by a hatchet.
    The sinuosities of the coast line, alternately gully and headland,
had the effect of making a devious progress for the travelers, and at
sunset, although they had accomplished more than twenty miles, they had
only just arrived at the foot of the Merdeyah Mountains, which, before
the cataclysm, had formed the extremity of the chain of the Little
Atlas. The ridge, however, had been violently ruptured, and now rose
perpendicularly from the water.
    On the following morning Servadac and Ben Zoof traversed one of the
mountain gorges; and next, in order to make a more thorough acquaintance
with the limits and condition of the section of Algerian territory of
which they seemed to be left as the sole occupants, they dismounted, and
proceeded on foot to the summit of one of the highest peaks. From this
elevation they ascertained that from the base of the Merdeyah to the
Mediterranean, a distance of about eighteen miles, a new coast line had
come into existence; no land was visible in any direction; no isthmus
existed to form a connecting link with the territory of Tenes, which had
entirely disappeared. The result was that Captain Servadac was driven
to the irresistible conclusion that the tract of land which he had been
surveying was not, as he had at first imagined, a peninsula; it was
actually an island.
    Strictly speaking, this island was quadrilateral, but the sides were so
irregular that it was much more nearly a triangle, the comparison of the
sides exhibiting these proportions: The section of the right bank of the
Shelif, seventy-two miles; the southern boundary from the Shelif to the
chain of the Little Atlas, twenty-one miles; from the Little Atlas to
the Mediterranean, eighteen miles; and sixty miles of the shore of the
Mediterranean itself, making in all an entire circumference of about 171
miles.
    "What does it all mean?" exclaimed the captain, every hour growing more
and more bewildered.
    "The will of Providence, and we must submit," replied Ben Zoof, calm and
undisturbed. With this