a
bulging rock. And a half two!"

"Fifteen feet; that looks more like it. There ought to be about three
feet ebb and flow here, and your sounding gave about double that, Flix."

"It was the fault of the rock on the bottom, Captain;" but the leadsman
heaved the line all around the steamer with the same result.

There was nothing to do except to observe the Fatime; but she did
nothing, and there was no appearance of any movement on her deck.

"I think we had better attend to that lesson now, as we have nothing
else to do," said the captain after they had looked about them for a
time. "I don't care to have the pirate suppose we are on the anxious
seat."

"All right," replied Louis, as he seated himself on the rail by the bow
flag-pole. "I have studied my lesson, and I am all ready."

"Blaze away, then," replied the captain.

"If any of you have not yet found it out, I will begin by informing you
that the land on three sides of us belongs to the island of Cyprus, and
you are again on Turkish territory. The owners of the island call it
Kebris, written by them G'br's, if you can make anything of that
combination of consonants," Louis began, spelling out the strange names
he introduced. "The Greeks call it Kupros, and the French, Chypre. Venus
was the original goddess of spring among the Romans, but became the
goddess of love, the Aphrodite of the Greeks, and was worshipped as such
in this island by the Phoenicians and other ancients.

"One of this lady's names was Cypris, or Cypria; and that is why the
island happens to be called Cyprus. It is in about the same latitude as
South Carolina. It is about 35 to 50 miles from Asia Minor on the south
and Syria on the east. It is 140 miles long by 60 in breadth, containing
3,707 square miles, or larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware
united.

"It has two ranges of mountains extending east and west, the highest
peak being 6,352 feet. It has plenty of rivers, with no water in them
except after heavy rains, or when the snow melts on the mountains. There
is no room for lakes of any size, though there is a small one on the
east coast, which dries up completely in summer, like the rivers, but
has an abundance of fish in winter. This is rather remarkable, and the
fact is not doubted, though the phenomenon has not been explained."

"The fish must go down where the water goes," laughed Felix. "If there
are any volcanoes here, I suppose they come up in the winter all boiled
or