"Talking of that," said M. Zermatt, "I must admit that the range is not so far away as we supposed when we saw it for the first time from the heights above the Green Valley. Probably it was a haze that gave it its bluish tint, and I estimated the distance at more than thirty miles. It was an optical illusion. Ernest understands that, I expect."
"Quite, Papa; that day the distance looked twice what it really is. If we estimate the distance of that range from the Green Valley at eighteen or twenty miles we shall be pretty near the truth, I believe."
"I think so, too," said Mr. Wolston. "But is it actually the same range?"
"Oh, yes, it is the same," Ernest answered; "I do not think New Switzerland is large enough to contain another of that size."
"Why not?" Jack asked. "Why should not our island be as large as Sicily, or Madagascar, or New Zealand, or Australia?"
"And why should it not be a continent?" exclaimed Mr. Wolston, laughing.
"You seem to think that I always exaggerate everything," Jack retorted.
"You do, my boy," said M. Zermatt; "after all, that only means you are over-imaginative. But just think: if this island were as large as you suppose, and probably wish, it could hardly have escaped the observation of navigators."
"Of the old and the new world too," Ernest added. "Its position in this part of the Indian Ocean is much too valuable, and if it had been known, you may be quite sure that England, for example——"
"Don't stand upon ceremony, my dear Ernest," said Mr. Wolston good-humouredly. "We English are born colonisers, and claim a right to colonise everything we come across."