a mystery as ever.

The precocity of vegetation caused some embarrassment.
The time for the corn and fruit harvest had fallen simultaneously
with that of the haymaking; and as the extreme heat precluded
any prolonged exertions, it was evident "the population"
of the island would find it difficult to provide the necessary
amount of labor. Not that the prospect gave them much concern:
the provisions of the gourbi were still far from exhausted,
and now that the roughness of the weather had so happily subsided,
they had every encouragement to hope that a ship of some sort
would soon appear. Not only was that part of the Mediterranean
systematically frequented by the government steamers that watched
the coast, but vessels of all nations were constantly cruising
off the shore.

In spite, however, of all their sanguine speculations, no ship appeared.
Ben Zoof admitted the necessity of extemporizing a kind of parasol
for himself, otherwise he must literally have been roasted to death
upon the exposed summit of the cliff.

Meanwhile, Servadac was doing his utmost--it must be acknowledged,
with indifferent success--to recall the lessons of his school-days. He
would plunge into the wildest speculations in his endeavors to unravel
the difficulties of the new situation, and struggled into a kind of conviction
that if there had been a change of manner in the earth's rotation on her axis,
there would be a corresponding change in her revolution round the sun,
which would involve the consequence of the length of the year being either
diminished or increased.