visible on our larboard bow--a lofty precipitous coast. Wind and tide
were in our favour, and we swept smoothly and rapidly round the cape;
but the jagged summits of the reefs that environ it, and the impetuosity
of the currents, bore incontestable evidence to the verity of the tales
of misfortune which our captain associated with its name. The rock
which bears the appellation of the Corbiére, is close in shore, and
so grotesque in form, as to be readily singled out from the adjacent
cliffs. A reef, visible only at low water, shoots from it a considerable
distance into the sea, and another ledge of the same aspect, lies still
farther seaward; consequently the course of a careful pilot, is to hold
his way free through the channel between them. If a lands-*man may be
permitted to make an observation on a nautical point, I would say that
our steersman kept the peak of the Corbiére exactly on a level with the
adjacent precipices, till we were directly abreast of the headland, and
then stood abruptly in-shore till within a few fathoms of the cliffs,
under the shadow of which he afterwards held a steady course till
we opened the bay of St. Aubin.

The fantastic and inconstant outline of the Corbiére, as we were
hurried swiftly past it, was a subject of surprise and admiration.
When first seen through the haze of morning, it resembled a huge
elephant supporting an embattled tower; a little after, it assumed
the similitude of a gigantic warrior in a recumbent posture, armed
_cap-a-pie;_ anon, this apparition vanished, and in its stead rose a
fortalice in miniature, with pigmy sentinels stationed on its ramparts.
The precipices between the Corbiére and the bay of St. Aubin, are no
less worthy of notice than that promontory. They slope down to the
water-edge in enormous protuberances, resembling billows of frozen
lava, intersected by wide sinuous rifts, and present a most interesting
field for geological research.