e to pure chance.

Now I turn my attention to the lake and observe that it is a
very small one, measuring not more than four hundred yards in
circumference. It is, properly speaking, a lagoon, the rocky sides of
which are perpendicular. It is large enough for the tug to work about
in it, and holds enough water too, for it must be one hundred and
twenty-five feet deep.

It goes without saying that this crypt, given its position and
structure, belongs to the category of those which are due to the
encroachments of the sea. It is at once of Neptunian and Plutonian
origin, like the grottoes of Crozon and Morgate in the bay of
Douarnenez in France, of Bonifacio on the Corsican coast, Thorgatten
in Norway, the height of which is estimated at over three hundred
feet, the catavaults of Greece, the grottoes of Gibraltar in Spain,
and Tourana in Cochin China, whose carapace indicates that they are
all the product of this dual geological labor.

The islet of Back Cup is in great part formed of calcareous rocks,
which slope upwards gently from the lagoon towards the sides and are
separated from each other by narrow beaches of fine sand. Thick layers
of seaweed that have been swept through the tunnel by the tide and
thrown up around the lake have been piled into heaps, some of which
are dry and some still wet, but all of which exhale the strong odor of
the briny ocean. This, however, is not the only combustible employed
by the inhabitants of Back Cup, for I see an enormous store of coal
that must have been brought by the schooner and the tug. But it is the
incineration of masses of dried seaweed that causes the smoke vomited
forth by the crater of the mountain.

Continuing my walk I perceive on the northern side of the lagoon the
habitations of this colony of troglodytes--do they not merit the
appellation? This part of the cavern, which is known as the Beehive,
fully justifies its name, for it is honeycombed by cells excavated
in the limestone rock and in which these human bees--or perhaps they
should rather be called wasps--reside.

The lay of the cavern to the east is very different. Here hundreds of
pillars of all shapes rise to the dome, and form a veritable forest of
stone trees through the sinuous avenues of which one can thread one's
way to the extreme limit of the place.

By counting the cells of the Beehive I calculate that Count d'Artigas'
companions number from eighty to one hundred.

As my eye wanders over the pl