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CHAPTER V.
AFTER the repose of a few days, we held a council, to decide on our future
movements. Our first plan had been to quit our wintry native latitude, and
seek for our diminished numbers the luxuries and delights of a southern
climate. We had not fixed on any precise spot as the termination of our
wanderings; but a vague picture of perpetual spring, fragrant groves, and
sparkling streams, floated in our imagination to entice us on. A variety of
causes had detained us in England, and we had now arrived at the middle of
February; if we pursued our original project, we should find ourselves in a
worse situation than before, having exchanged our temperate climate for the
intolerable heats of a summer in Egypt or Persia. We were therefore obliged
to modify our plan, as the season continued to be inclement; and it was
determined that we should await the arrival of spring in our present abode,
and so order our future movements as to pass the hot months in the icy
vallies of Switzerland, deferring our southern progress until the ensuing
autumn, if such a season was ever again to be beheld by us.
The castle and town of Versailles afforded our numbers ample accommodation,
and foraging parties took it by turns to supply our wants. There was a
strange and appalling motley in the situation of these the last of the
race. At first I likened it to a colony, which borne over the far seas,
struck root for the first time in a new country. But where was the bustle
and industry characteristic of such an assemblage; the rudely constructed
dwelling, which was to suffice till a more commodious mansion could be
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