The only traces of their existence now extant were the _nuraghs_ of Sardinia and the _talayots_ of the Balearic Islands,--gigantic tables formed with blocks, barbaric altars of enormous rocks which recalled the Celtic obelisks and sepulchral monuments of the Breton coast.

These obscure people had passed from isle to isle, from the extreme of the Mediterranean to the strait which is its door.
The captain could imagine their rude craft made from trunks of trees roughly planed, propelled by one oar, or rather by the stroke of a stick, with no other aid than a single rudimentary sail spread to the fresh breeze.

The navy of the first Europeans had been like that of the savages of the oceanic islands whose flotillas of tree trunks are still actually going from archipelago to archipelago.
Thus they had dared to sally forth from the coast, to lose sight of land, to venture forth into the blue desert, advised of the existence of islands by the vaporous knobs of the mountains which were outlined on the horizon at sunset.

Every advance of this hesitating marine over the Mediterranean had represented greater expenditure of audacity and energy than the discovery of America or the first voyage around the world....

These primitive sailors did not go forth alone to their adventures on the sea; they were nations _en masse_, they carried with them families and animals.