rock called the Cloak, which our captain consulted as a landmark in
steering through the Race. There is only one village in Alderney--a
paltry place, named St. Anne, or in common parlance La Ville; and there
a detachment of troops is generally stationed. Small vessels only can
enter the harbour, which is shelterless, and rendered difficult of
access by a sunken reef. At sunset Alderney was far astern, and three
of its sister islands, Sark, Herm, and Jethau, were in view ahead.

It was impossible to behold, without a portion of romantic enthusiasm,
the dazzling radiance of the orb of day, as it went down in splendour
beyond the gleaming waves. A thousand affecting emotions are liable to
be excited by the prospect of that mighty sea whose farther boundaries
lie in another hemisphere--whose waters have witnessed the noblest feats
of maritime enterprise, and the fiercest conflicts of hostile fleets.
Where shall we find the man to whom science is dear, who dreams not of
Columbus, when he first feels himself rocked by the majestic billows
of the Atlantic--who regards not the golden line of light, which
the setting sun casts over the waste of waters, as a type of the
intellectual illumination experienced by the ocean pilgrim, when he
first steered his bark into its solitudes? Who can survey, even the
hither strand of that vast sea, without reflecting that the waves that
break at his feet have laved the palm-fringed shores of America; and
that the bones of millions--the pride, and pomp, and treasure of
nations--repose in the same capacious tomb?

Anxious to be a spectator of the perils that beset navigation among
these islands, I repaired to the deck before day-break, at which time,
according to our captain's calculation, we were likely to double the
Corbiére--a well-known promontory on the western side of Jersey--which
requires to be weathered with great circumspection. Jersey was already