Fritz had been able to see part of it the day before, when it was a mile or so away. Viewed from that point it extended ten or twelve miles east and west. From the promontory at the foot of which the boat was moored, only a fifth of that, at most, could be seen, shut in between two angles with the sea beyond, clear and lucent on the right hand but still dark upon the left. The shore extended for a stretch of perhaps a mile, enclosed at each end by lofty bastions of rock, while a black cliff completely shut it in behind.
This cliff must have been eight or nine hundred feet in height, rising sheer from the beach, which sloped steeply up to its base. Was it higher still beyond? That could only be ascertained by scaling the crest by means of the bastions, one of which, the one to the east, running rather farther out to sea, presented an outline that was not so perpendicular. Even on that side, however, the ascent would be an uncommonly difficult one, if indeed it were not impracticable.
Captain Gould and his companions were first conscious of a feeling of utter discouragement as they beheld the wild desolation of this carpet of sand, with points of rock jutting out here and there. Not a tree, not a bush, not a trace of vegetation! Here were the melancholy and horror of the desert. The only verdure was that of scanty lichens, those rudimentary productions of nature, rootless, stalkless, leafless, flowerless, looking like scabby patches on the sides of the rocks, and of every tint from faded yellow to brilliant red. In some places, too, there was a kind of sticky mildew caused by the damp. At the edge of the cliff there was not a blade of grass; on its granite wall there was not a single one of those stone-crops or rock plants which need so very little soil.
Was it to be deduced that soil was lacking on the plateau above as well? Had the boat found nothing better than one of those desert islands undeserving of a name?
“It certainly isn’t what you might call a gay place,” the boatswain murmured in Fritz’s ear.
“Perhaps we should have had better luck if we had come ashore on the west or east.”
“Perhaps,” Block assented; “but at any rate we shall not run up against any savages here.”
For it was obvious that not even a savage could have existed on this barren shore.
Jenny, Frank, Dolly, James, and Susan sat in the boat, surveying the whole coast, so different from the verdant shores of the Promised Land. Even Burning Rock, gloomy of aspect as it was, had had its natural products to offer to Jenny Montrose, the fresh water of its stream and the game in its woods and plains. Here was nothing but stones and sand, a bank of shells on the left, and long trails of sea-weeds left high and dry by the tide. Verily, a land of desolation!
The animal kingdom was represented by a few sea-birds, gulls, black-divers, sea-mews, and swallows, which uttered deafening cries at finding their solitude disturbed by the presence of man. Higher up, great frigate-birds, halcyons and albatrosses sailed on powerful wings.