Herbert was not mistaken:  he broke the stem of a cycas, which was composed of a glandulous tissue, containing a quantity of floury pith, traversed with woody fiber, separated by rings of the same substance, arranged concentrically.  With this fecula was mingled a mucilaginous juice of disagreeable flavor, but which it would be easy to get rid of by pressure.  This cellular substance was regular flour of a superior quality, extremely nourishing; its exportation was formerly forbidden by the Japanese laws.

Cyrus Harding and Herbert, after having examined that part of the Far West where the cycas grew, took their bearings, and returned to Granite House, where they made known their discovery.

The next day the settlers went to collect some, and returned to Granite House with an ample supply of cycas stems.  The engineer constructed a press, with which to extract the mucilaginous juice mingled with the fecula, and he obtained a large quantity of flour, which Neb soon transformed into cakes and puddings.  This was not quite real wheaten bread, but it was very like it.

Now, too, the onager, the goats, and the sheep in the corral furnished daily the milk necessary to the colony.  The cart, or rather a sort of light carriole which had replaced it, made frequent journeys to the corral, and when it was Pencroft’s turn to go he took Jup, and let him drive, and Jup, cracking his whip, acquitted himself with his customary intelligence.

Everything prospered, as well in the corral as in Granite House, and certainly the settlers, if it had not been that they were so far from their native land, had no reason to complain.  They were so well suited to this life, and were, besides, so accustomed to the island, that they could not have left its hospitable soil without regret!

And yet so deeply is the love of his country implanted in the heart of man, that if a ship had unexpectedly come in sight of the island, the colonists would have made signals, would have attracted her attention, and would have departed!

It was the 1st of April, a Sunday, Easter Day, which Harding and his companions sanctified by rest and prayer.  The day was fine, such as an October day in the Northern Hemisphere might be.

All, towards the evening after dinner, were seated under the veranda on the edge of Prospect Heights, and they were watching the darkness creeping up from the horizon.  Some cups of the infusion of elder-berries, which took the place of coffee, had been served by Neb.  They were speaking of the island and of its isolated situation in the Pacific, which led Gideon Spilett to say,—­

“My dear Cyrus, have you ever, since you possessed the sextant found in the case, again taken the position of our island?”

“No,” replied the engineer.

“But it would perhaps be a good thing to do it with this instrument, which is more perfect than that which you before used.”