class="it">Les Ras de Blansharde, between that islet and Cape la Hogue, and even those of the Swinge between the islet and the porphyritic rock of Berhou are proverbial, and in very foul weather the boat may roll and ship heavy seas in the passage of the Ortac within the crags of the Caskets.

Through the Race run the boats from the Thames: those from Southampton chiefly through the Swinge or the Ortac: those from Weymouth direct in the open channel to Porte St. Pierre in Guernsey, the most rapid and pacific course for the languid and the delicate.

The geologic arrangement of the islets is in three pairs. Jersey and Guernsey are inclined planes, shelving from magnificent cliffs to a flat beach studded with rocklets; Jersey trending southward, Guernsey northward; the granite rocks of Jersey enclosing one-half, those of Guernsey one-third.

Alderney and Serque are table-lands, raised on bases of rock; Alderney irregularly belted—Serque completely framed. Herm and Jedthou are mounds isolated by the waves. Satellite blocks and ledges are lying in profusion in the channels, some overwhelmed at high water. These groups are exquisitely bold in outline and deep and rich in colour, from the incessant play of wind and wave, the pencils and the washes with which elemental art is still heightening the wildness and the beauty of the creation.

The valleys and downs are prolific in bloom, and flowers of the brightest and deepest colours adorn the more cultivated parterres. In the deep, deep caverns, with which the cliff and the bays are darkened, sport in their almost sacred solitude the acephalæ and the actiniæ. In the watery bosom of the cave, the male syngnathus may nurse its infant brood in safety, and the delicate comatula unfold its feathery tentaculæ. In the hollow cups scooped in the granite and glittering with brine, the daisy actinia, that Clytie of the rocks so loving of the light, may unfold her enamoured florets to the sun. Then what profusion and what variety in form and colour of deep sea-weeds are thrown by the billows on the pebbles and the sand; a spot richer both in these cast-away treasures of the deep and in the living botany of the ocean, may not be found than the caverned bays of eccentric Serque.

ALDERNEY

ALDERNEY:

This lies nearest to the shore of Albion, within its belt of shoals, and difficult of access in stormy weather, even in its new haven of Braye la Ville, or Brayer. The access was still more perilous in Crab Bay, or in the more ancient port of Longy. We are landed. How quiet the people, how social and primitive, how wedded to old customs. It is probable, however, that in a few years the harbour of Braye will display a busier scene, much of the sterile land of the Giffoine be fertilized, the petty farms multiplied, and the treasures of its fisheries realized: but Alderney will never be admired, for dulness reigns around, and the sea spray seems to excite cutaneous maladies, and the salt and fish diet to induce dyspepsia. There is, however, with its sterile aspect and its dearth of foliage, a prominent and novel character in Alderney. About its elevated centre is the quaint old ville of St. Anne, possessing a new church (the ancient fane being despoiled), a new court house, the Government house, the gaol, the female school, and chapels of dissent.

Of the ancient town on the south-eastern coast, of which the oblong granite blocks of Les Rochers, near the cemetery, are believed to be the debris, very solemn legends are recorded. Its destruction is referred to the judgment of the Deity on the crimes of a gang of wreckers, who plundered and murdered the crew of a Spanish vessel wrecked on the coast. This infliction, according to the record, had its parallel in Jersey.

The Court consists of judge, jurats, attorney and solicitor-general, greffier, sheriff, and his depute and serjeant.

The ecclesiastical history is not without interest, and there are seriously romantic legends of the mission of Geunal, Vignalor, or St. Vignalis, the patron saint of Aurigny. He was a scion of a noble family in Bretagne, a proselyte of St. Magloire, and he resigned his abbacy of Landenec, and became a missionary to Sark. From thence he wended to Alderney, and converted the catchers of fish and the tillers of ground, before this the most desperate wreckers in the Channel.

From the outlying rocks on the eastern height stands the ruined castle (La Chatte) of Essex, built, it is said, by Robert Devereux, for the detention of his queen. Below it, on the lower shore of Longis is a Roman cist, noted by Holinshed; and Castrum Longini. Les murs des bas, or the Nunnery, is a very antique square, with corner towers, constructed with the Roman tiles of the dilapidated ville. Here and also at Corbelets were discovered antique vessels and coins and relics, and monumental stones of porphyry and sienite.

On the coast heights there are batteries and watchtowers and beacons, and a telegraph for Guernsey, all dismantled in time of peace.

LA PENDENTE, ALDERNEY

The coast is one of the wildest belts of cliffs and rocklets; those eastward of a line from Braye to L’Etat are of ruddy grit, those westward of porphyry or hornstone. The eastern group, more exposed to disintegrating forces, assumes the columnar form, or that of hanging blocks, as at Pendente; but the porphyry of the west is of the wildest fashion. Between these strata is a narrow black belt of hornblende and quartz, running north and south across the islet. On the south-west point is La Nashe Fourchie, the cones of Les Rochers des Sœurs, and the secluded Chaise de l’Emauve, the Lovers Chair, a record of the passion of Jacquine Le Mesurier for one far lower than herself in rank. Of this romance the story and catastrophe are just as interesting as the common run of these love tales. Below the ridge of the Giffoine there is the bold Tête de Jugemaine, and the fine bays of La Platte Saline and La Clanque. On its outlying rock is still celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, by youths and maidens, the ancient festa of Les Brandons, the wild gambols being peculiar to the islet. After dancing in the ring and kisses round, the corps de ballet return to Braye in procession, waving aloft their blazing firebrands, displaying all the wild gambols of Comus. The islet is most exposed; it is therefore bracing, yet the Cape Alctris and other exotics thrive in the open