they would dart down and fight with eager voracity for the prize.
Their extreme avidity was recognized as a proof that any land where they
could obtain a sustenance must be far remote.

Onwards thus for several days the _Dobryna_ followed the contour of
the inhospitable coast, of which the features would occasionally change,
sometimes for two or three miles assuming the form of a simple arris,
sharply defined as though cut by a chisel, when suddenly the prismatic
lamellae soaring in rugged confusion would again recur; but all along
there was the same absence of beach or tract of sand to mark its base,
neither were there any of those shoals of rock that are ordinarily found
in shallow water. At rare intervals there were some narrow fissures, but not
a creek available for a ship to enter to replenish its supply of water;
and the wide roadsteads were unprotected and exposed to well-nigh every
point of the compass.

But after sailing two hundred and forty miles, the progress of the _Dobryna_
was suddenly arrested. Lieutenant Procope, who had sedulously inserted
the outline of the newly revealed shore upon the maps, announced that it
had ceased to run east and west, and had taken a turn due north,
thus forming a barrier to their continuing their previous direction.
It was, of course, impossible to conjecture how far this barrier extended;
it coincided pretty nearly with the fourteenth meridian of east longitude;
and if it reached, as probably it did, beyond Sicily to Italy, it was certain
that the vast basin of the Mediterranean, which had washed the shores
alike of Europe, Asia, and Africa, must have been reduced to about half
its original area.

It was resolved to proceed upon the same plan as heretofore, following
the boundary of the land at a safe distance. Accordingly, the head