THE ARCHIPELAGO OF BREHAT. 121 



sublime spectacle of creation, which leads us back 

 to God. 



Twilight often surprised me in the midst of my 

 reveries, and often, too, the shades of night fell 

 around me, while I lay stretched beneath the star- 

 bespangled deep azure canopy of heaven. I could 

 then see another star shining in the far distance, 

 which had been lighted by the hand of man. From 

 the position I had chosen I could recognise the 

 beacon towers of Hehaux, of which the seamen of 

 the islands had spoken to me with the liveliest ex- 

 pressions of enthusiasm, and which I had frequently 

 watched by day, as it stood out like a black line 

 drawn along the whitis^h background of the sky. I 

 would not leave Brehat without visiting it. A 

 few slight services had secured me the good-will of 

 the officer of customs, who willingly consented to 

 take me to Hehaux. Accordingly, one splendid 

 day in October, we left the harbour of La Corderie 

 in a pinnace manned by six sturdy seamen. The 

 weather was splendid ; not a cloud obscured the sky, 

 which was reflected on the mirror-like surface of the 

 ocean, whose depths it seemed to double. Impelled 

 by the combined action of a light wind, which swelled 

 our two small square sails, and of the rapid current im- 

 parted to the waters of Kerpont by the force of the 

 tide, our pinnace shot across the waves as a sledge 

 glides over the snow. Sometimes, indeed, we passed 

 through a whirling eddy, which shook every part of 

 our frail craft, and betrayed the vicinity of some 

 submarine rock ; but we soon regained the unruffled 

 sea, and without having taken cognisance of the 



