d formed a sharp bend. We
climbed a little hill, in order to locate ourselves, but the horizon
either ended abruptly, enclosed by another hill, or else stretched out
over new plains. We did not lose courage, however, and continued to
advance, while we thought of the travellers on desert islands who climb
on promontories in the hope of sighting some vessel setting sail towards
them.

The soil was growing less moist, and the grass less high; presently the
ocean came in view, ensconced in a narrow bay, and soon the shore,
strewn with debris of shells and madrepores, crunched beneath our
footsteps. We let ourselves drop to the ground and as we were exhausted,
we soon fell asleep. An hour later the cold woke us up, and we started
homeward without any fear of losing our way this time. We were on the
coast facing France, and Palay was on our left. It was here, the day
before, that we had discovered the grotto we admired so much. It did not
take us long to find others, higher and deeper even than the first one.

They always opened through large, pointed arches which were either
upright or inclined, their bold columns supporting enormous pieces of
rock. Black, veined with purple, fiery red, or brown streaked with
white, these beautiful grottoes displayed for their visitors the
infinite variety of their shapes and colouring, their graces and their
grand caprices. There was one all of silver veined with deep red; in
another, tufts of flowers resembling periwinkles had grown on glazings
of reddish granite, and drops of water fell from the ceiling on the fine
sand with never-ceasing regularity. In the background of another grotto,
beneath a long semi-circle, a bed of polished white gravel, which the
tide no doubt turns and makes fresh every day, seemed to be waiting to
receive the body of a mermaid; but the bed is empty and has lost her
forever! Only the moist seaweed remains on which she used to stretch her
delicate nude limbs when she was tired of swimming, and on which she
reclined till daybreak, in the pale light of the moon.

The sun was setting, and the tide was coming in over the rocks that
melted in the blue evening mist, which was blanched on the level of the
ocean by the foam of the tumbling waves. In the other part of the
horizon, the sky streaked with orange stripes looked as if it had been
swept by a gale. Its light reflected on the waters and spread a gleaming
sheen over them, and projected on the sand, giving it a b