CHAPTER XIV.

THE BEST TO DO.

So then, after a voyage long delayed by calms, then favored by winds
from the northwest and from the southwest--a voyage which had not
lasted less than seventy-four days--the "Pilgrim" had just run aground!

However, Mrs. Weldon. and her companions thanked Providence, because
they were in safety. In fact, it was on a continent, and not on one of
the fatal isles of Polynesia, that the tempest had thrown them. Their
return to their country, from any point of South America on which they
should land, ought not, it seemed, to present serious difficulties.

As to the "Pilgrim," she was lost. She was only a carcass without
value, of which the surf was going to disperse the _debris_ in a few
hours. It would be impossible to save anything. But if Dick Sand had
not that joy of bringing back a vessel intact to his ship-owner, at
least, thanks to him, those who sailed in her were safe and sound on
some hospitable coast, and among them, the wife and child of James W.
Weldon.

As to the question of knowing on what part of the American coast the
schooner had been wrecked, they might dispute it for a long time. Was
it, as Dick Sand must suppose, on the shore of Peru? Perhaps, for he
knew, even by the bearings of the Isle of Paques, that the "Pilgrim"
had been thrown to the northeast under the action of the winds; and
also, without doubt, under the influence of the currents of the
equatorial zone. From the forty-third degree of latitude, it had,
indeed, been possible to drift to the fifteenth.

It was then important to determine, as soon as possible, the precise
point of the coast where the schooner had just been lost. Granted that
this coast was that of Peru, ports, towns and villages were not
lacking, and consequently it would be easy to gain some inhabited
place. As to this part of the coast, it seemed deserted.

It was a narrow beach, strewed with black rocks, shut off by a cliff of
medium height, very irregularly cut up by large funnels due to the
rupture of the rock. Here and there a few gentle declivities gave
access to its crest.

In the north, at a quarter of a mile from the stranding place, was the
mouth of a little river, which could not have been perceived from the
offing. On its banks hung numerous _rhizomas_, sorts of mangroves,
essentially distinct from their congeners of India.

The crest of the cliff--that was soon discovered--was overhung by a
thick forest, whose ver