Nearly the whole of his time, however, he informed Captain Servadac, had been spent upon the sea, his real business being that of a merchant trading at all the ports of the Mediterranean.

A tartan, a small vessel of two hundred tons burden, conveyed his entire stock of merchandise, and, to say the truth, was a sort of floating emporium, conveying nearly every possible article of commerce, from a lucifer match to the radiant fabrics of Frankfort and Epinal.

Without wife or children, and having no settled home, Isaac Hakkabut lived almost entirely on board the _Hansa_, as he had named his tartan; and engaging a mate, with a crew of three men, as being adequate to work so light a craft, he cruised along the coasts of Algeria, Tunis, Egypt, Turkey, and Greece, visiting, moreover, most of the harbors of the Levant.

Careful to be always well supplied with the products in most general demand--coffee, sugar, rice, tobacco, cotton stuffs, and gunpowder--and being at all times ready to barter, and prepared to deal in secondhand wares, he had contrived to amass considerable wealth.
On the eventful night of the 1st of January the _Hansa_ had been at Ceuta, the point on the coast of Morocco exactly opposite Gibraltar.

The mate and three sailors had all gone on shore, and, in common with many of their fellow-creatures, had entirely disappeared; but the most projecting rock of Ceuta had been undisturbed by the general catastrophe, and half a score of Spaniards, who had happened to be upon it, had escaped with their lives.