Godfrey, whom the encounter with
Tartlet had imbued with some hope, was to see if they too were the only
survivors of the _Dream_.

A quarter of an hour after the explorers had left the edge of the reef
they had climbed a dune about sixty or eighty feet high, and stood on
its crest. Thence they looked on a large extent of coast, and examined
the horizon in the east, which till then had been hidden by the hills on
the shore.

Two or three miles away in that direction a second line of hills formed
the background, and beyond them nothing was seen of the horizon.

Towards the north the coast trended off to a point, but it could not be
seen if there was a corresponding cape behind. On the south a creek ran
some distance into the shore, and on this side it looked as though the
ocean closed the view. Whence this land in the Pacific was probably a
peninsula, and the isthmus which joined it to the continent would have
to be sought for towards the north or north-east.

The country, however, far from being barren, was hidden beneath an
agreeable mantle of verdure; long prairies, amid which meandered many
limpid streams, and high and thick forests, whose trees rose above one
another to the very background of hills. It was a charming landscape.

But of houses forming town, village, or hamlet, not one was in sight! Of
buildings grouped and arranged as a farm of any sort, not a sign! Of
smoke in the sky, betraying some dwelling hidden among the trees, not a
trace. Not a steeple above the branches, not a windmill on an isolated
hill. Not even in default of houses a cabin, a hut, an ajoupa, or a
wigwam? No! nothing. If human beings inhabited this unknown land, they
must live like troglodytes, below, and not above the ground. Not a road
was visible, not a footpath, not even a track. It seemed that the foot
of man had never trod either a rock of the beach or a blade of the grass
on the prairies.

"I don't see the town," remarked Tartlet, who, however, remained on
tiptoe.

"That is perhaps because it is not in this part of the province!"
answered Godfrey.

"But a village?"

"There's nothing here."

"Where are we then?"

"I know nothing about it."

"What! You don't know! But Godfrey, we had better make haste and find
out."

"Who is to tell us?"

"What will become of us then?" exclaimed Tartlet, rounding his arms and
lifting them to the sky.

"Become a couple of Crusoes!"

At this answer the professor gave a bound suc