on the top of the rock, may be seen slowly pacing along the same dead
level, and skirting the quicksands where the warning posts are erected.
In the summer months bands of pilgrims are also to be seen marching in a
long file like travellers across the desert; but in winter these
visits cease almost wholly, and the inhabitants of the Mont are left to
themselves.

Having so little intercourse with the outer world, and living on a
rock singled out by supernatural visitants, the people remain more
superstitious than even the superstitious Germans and Bretons who are
their neighbours. Few of them can read or write. The new thoughts,
opinions, and creeds of the present century do not reach them. They are
contented with the old faith, bound up for them in the history of their
patron, the archangel St. Michel, and with the minute interest taken in
every native of the rock. Each person knows the history of every other
inhabitant, but knows little else.

From Pontorson to the Mont the road lies along the old Bay of St.
Michel, with low hedge-rows of feathery tamarind-trees on each side
as far as the beach. It is not at all a solitary road, for hundreds of
long, heavy carts, resembling artillery waggons, encumber it, loaded
with a gray shaly deposit dug out of the bay: a busy scene of men and
women digging in the heavy sand, while the shaggy horses stand by,
hanging their heads patiently under the blue-stained sheepskins about
their necks.

Two or three persons are at work at every cart; one of them, often a
woman, standing on the rising pile, and beating it flat with a spade,
while a cheerful clatter of voices is heard on every hand.