Off on a Comet by Jules Verne — Read

Upon re-embarking, the bewildered explorers began to discuss the / question whether it would not now be desirable to make their way back / to Gourbi Island, which was apparently the only spot in their new world / from which they could hope to derive their future sustenance. Captain / Servadac tried to console himself with the reflection that Gourbi Island / was, after all, a fragment of a French colony, and as such almost like / a bit of his dear France; and the plan of returning thither was on the / point of being adopted, when Lieutenant Procope remarked that they ought / to remember that they had not hitherto made an entire circuit of the new / shores of the sea on which they were sailing.

"We have," he said, "neither investigated the northern shore from the / site of Cape Antibes to the strait that brought us to Gibraltar, nor / have we followed the southern shore that stretches from the strait to / the Gulf of Cabes. It is the old coast, and not the new, that we have / been tracing; as yet, we cannot say positively that there is no outlet / to the south; as yet, we cannot assert that no oasis of the African / desert has escaped the catastrophe. Perhaps, even here in the north, / we may find that Italy and Sicily and the larger islands of the / Mediterranean may still maintain their existence."