CHAPTER V.
ALLOTMENT OF QUARTERS--A HORSE MARINE--TRAVELLING PLANTS--CHANGE OF DYNASTY IN ENGLAND--A WOMAN'S KINGDOM--SHEEP CONVERTED INTO CHOPS--RESURRECTION OF THE FRIED FISH--A SECRET.
After some days more of anxious but fruitless expectation, it was finally concluded that either the _Nelson_ had sailed for the Cape, or, as Willis would have it, she had gone to that unexplored and dread land where there were neither poles nor equator, and whence no mariner was ever known to return.

It was necessary, therefore, to make arrangements for the surplus population of the colony--whether for a time or for ever, it was then impossible to say.

At first sight, it might appear easy enough to provide accommodation for the eleven individuals that constituted the colony of New Switzerland.

It is true that land might have been marked off, and each person made sovereign over a territory as large as some European kingdoms; but these sovereignties would have resembled the republic of St.Martin--there would have been no subjects.

What, then, would they have governed?
it may be asked.