Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
For the last fortnight Servadac had not been occupying his proper lodgings in the military quarters; having been appointed to make a local levy, he had been living in a gourbi, or native hut, on the Mostaganem coast, between four and five miles from the Shelif.
The circuit of the island had been now completed, and the explorers, after a period of sixty hours, found themselves once more beside the ruins of their gourbi.
"I entirely concur with you," said Count Timascheff. "I quite think we ought to make our survey of the confines of this new basin as complete as possible before we withdraw." Servadac, although he acknowledged the justness of these observations, could not help pleading that the explorations might be deferred until after a visit had been paid to Gourbi Island.
Then, after a pause, he added: "That is to say, if there is to be a to-morrow; for if I were to be put to the torture, I could not tell what has become of the sun." "May I ask, sir, what we are to do now?" put in Ben Zoof. "Stay where we are for the present; and when daylight appears if it ever does appear we will explore the coast to the west and south, and return to the gourbi.
Even after the turning-point in their career, they knew that at least nine months would have to elapse before the sea would be open to navigation; but at the very first arrival of summer they would be bound to arrange for the Dobryna and the Hansa to retransport themselves and all their animals to the shores of Gourbi Island, where they would have to commence their agricultural labors to secure the crops that must form their winter store.
His next thought was to wonder what had happened; and in order to find an answer, he pushed aside the broken thatch, so that his head appeared above the debris. "The gourbi leveled to the ground!" he exclaimed, "surely a waterspout has passed along the coast." He felt all over his body to perceive what injuries he had sustained, but not a sprain nor a scratch could he discover.
"But supposing that to be the case," persisted the captain, "my seconds would have waited, and not seeing me, would have come on towards the gourbi. I can only conclude that they have been unable to get here; and as for Count Timascheff " Without finishing his sentence.
No attempt had been made to rebuild the gourbi, but the captain and Ben Zoof managed to make up quarters sufficiently comfortable in the principal apartment of the adjoining structure, where the stone walls, that at first afforded a refuge from the torrents of rain, now formed an equally acceptable shelter from the burning sun.
"Your complexion isn't the fairest in the world, but you are not black yet." "Well, I had much sooner be a white Friday than a black one," rejoined Ben Zoof. Still no ship appeared; and Captain Servadac, after the example of all previous Crusoes, began to consider it advisable to investigate the resources of his domain. The new territory of which he had become the monarch he named Gourbi Island.
See, how circumscribed is the horizon!" Servadac replied that he had noticed the same circumstance from the top of the cliffs of Gourbi Island. "Yes," said the count; "it becomes more and more obvious that ours is a very tiny world, and that Gourbi Island is the sole productive spot upon its surface.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking