but a desert of brown, bare sand, with ripple-marks lying across it, and
with shallow, ankle-deep pools of salt water here and there. Afar off
on the western sky-line a silver fringe of foam, glistening in the
sunshine, marks the distant boundary to which the sea has retreated. On
every other side of the horizon rises a belt of low cliffs, bending into
a semicircle, with sweeping outlines of curves miles in length, drawn
distinctly against the clear sky.

The only way to approach the Mont is across the sands. Each time the
tide recedes a fresh track must be made, like the track along snowy
roads; and every traveller, whether on foot or in carriage, must direct
his steps by this scarcely beaten path. Now and then he passes a high,
strong post, placed where there is any dangerous spot upon the plain;
for there are perilous quicksands, imperceptible to any eye, lurking in
sullen and patient treachery for any unwary footstep. The river itself,
which creeps sluggishly in a straight black line across the brown
desert, has its banks marked out by rows of these high stakes, with
a bush of leafless twigs at the top of each. A dreary, desolate, and
barren scene it is, with no life in it except the isolated life upon the
Mont.

This little family of human beings, separated from the great tide of
life like one of the shallow pools which the ebbing sea has left upon
its sands, numbers scarcely a hundred and a half. The men are fishers,
for there is no other occupation to be followed on the sterile rock.
Every day also the level sweep of sands is wandered over by the women
and children, who seek for cockles in the little pools; the babble of
whose voices echoes far through the quiet air, and whose shadows fall
long and unbroken on the brown wilderness. Now and then the black-robed
figure of a priest, or of one of the brothers dwelling in the monument