the first river. My Avranches guide here quitted me; but I had been told
that the ferryman himself usually supplied his place in piloting
strangers across the quicksands, which, owing to the shifting of the
course of the rivers, are in constant change, and of the most dangerous
character. Horses and their riders, venturing to select their own path
over the sands, have been swallowed up together, and vessels, stranded
here in a tempest, have in a short time sunk and disappeared entirely.
The depth of what may perhaps be termed the unsolid soil, is hitherto
unknown, though various attempts have been made to ascertain it. In one
instance, a small mast, forty feet high, was fixed up in the sands, with
a piece of granite of considerable weight upon the top of it; but mast,
granite, and all, rapidly disappeared, leaving no trace behind. It is
across several leagues of a beach of this nature that one has to
approach the Mont St. Michel.

The scene which now presented itself was singular and beautiful. On the
right the land, running out boldly into the sea, offered, with its rich
verdure, a striking contrast to the pale yellow sands beneath. In front,
the sea, blue, calm, waveless, and studded in the distance with a few
white sails, glittering in the sun, ran in a straight line along the
yellow plain, which was, moreover, intersected in various directions by
numerous small rivers, whose shining waters looked like molten silver.
To add to the effect of the landscape, silence the most absolute brooded
over it, except when the scream of a seamew, wheeling about drowsily in
the sunny air, broke upon the ear. The mount itself, with its ancient
monastic towers, rearing their grey pinnacles towards heaven, in the
midst of stillness and solitude, appeared to be formed by nature to be
the abode of peace, and a soft and religious melancholy.

For some time I rode on musing, gazing delightedly at the scene, and