With this reflection, the two men silently descended the mountain and remounted their horses.

Before evening they had reached the Mediterranean.

On their road they failed to discern a vestige of the little town of Montenotte; like Tenes, of which not so much as a ruined cottage was visible on the horizon, it seemed to be annihilated.
On the following day, the 6th of January, the two men made a forced march along the coast of the Mediterranean, which they found less altered than the captain had at first supposed; but four villages had entirely disappeared, and the headlands, unable to resist the shock of the convulsion, had been detached from the mainland.
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.

Five days, or what, according to the established order of things, would have been two days and a half, had been occupied in tracing the boundaries of their new domain; and they had ascertained beyond a doubt that they were the sole human inhabitants left upon the island.
"Well, sir, here you are, Governor General of Algeria!" exclaimed Ben Zoof, as they reached the gourbi.
"With not a soul to govern," gloomily rejoined the captain.
"How so?
Do you not reckon me ?" "Pshaw! Ben Zoof, what are you ?" "What am I?
Why, I am the population." The captain deigned no reply, but, muttering some expressions of regret for the fruitless trouble he had taken about his rondo, betook himself to rest..