THE PRINCE'S TOWER.

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had taken place at this spot. A chapel was then erected on the mound, and finally the tower was built over the old chapel towards the close of the last century.

The view from the Prince's Tower is rather pleasing than strikingly beautiful. On three sides the sea is seen, and the numerous rocks that bristle up round the island form a curious fringe to the green clothing of its surface. The breaking up of the surface into hills, and the numerous little resulting valleys and gorges which form the real beauty of the island, are hardly perceived, and the eye wanders from point to point, over an alternation of wooded and cultivated patches, which towards the west form a fine horizon. Towards the north the rocks called the Dirouilles are clearly made out, and to the south-east and south, the line of the French coast is distinguished readily enough, the Chaussey Islands and Minquiers, in those directions, marking the peculiar dangers of the navigation of these waters. The adjacent bays stretching from St. Catherine's, round the south-east point of the island, to St. Aubin's and Noirmont Point, may be traced, and the old fortress of Mont Orgeuil is recognised as a landmark.

SECTION THROUGH THE MINQUIERS ROCKS AND THE CHAUSSEY ARCHIPELAGO.

THIS Southern group contains but little land permanently above the level of the water; but it includes a vast extent of shoals, broken rocky islets, ledges of rocks, and reefs, producing an exceedingly dangerous sea, traversed by a few channels of small width. Together, these rocks form a broken line ranging about W.N.W., extending from near Granville to the outermost group, called the Roches Douvres. The part nearest Granville and the French land is the highest out of the water, but the middle portion, including the great bank of the Minquiers, is the largest and the most dangerous. For thirty miles out from the French coast, in the direction of these rocks, there is no water ten fathoms deep, and there are few safe passages even for small ships. Beyond this is an open space of about twenty miles, ter

6 MINQUIERS' ROCKS.

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minating with the outlying groups of rock, which rise abruptly from tolerably deep water.

The "Plateau des Minquiers," is the name of a group of rude, irregular, dreary, dangerous rocks, rising like needles out of the sea, and connected by ledges of shingle and sand, and beds of mud, the whole occupying a space nearly nineteen miles from east to west, and nearly ten from north to south. This bank connects eastwards by shoals and shallow water with the Chaussey Islands and the French coast, there being nowhere ten fathoms of water in the interval. The extreme distance from the east end of the Minquiers bank to the French coast, a little north of Granville, is eighteen miles. The north side of the bank lies about twelve miles south of St. Helier's, and the south side eighteen miles north of St. Malo.

The highest rock of the Minquiers, called the "Maitresse Ile," lies in a direct line between St. Helier's and St. Malo. It is the largest of the group, measuring about 200 yards by fifty, and is seventy-two feet above high water neap tides. There are several huts on it, and some traces of vegetation; but it is only used as a resort for fishermen, and during the vraicking season. There is no spring of fresh water on it. A small cove near it affords partial shelter for small vessels.

The rocks called "Les Maisons," at the western part of the group, are nearly as lofty as the Maitresse Ile, but are smaller.

A large extent of low rocks, called "Les Faucheurs," ranging nearly three miles from north-east to south-west, and a mile and a-half wide, occupies the central position among the Minquiers, but none of the rocks have any considerable elevation. Round the outer margin of the area of the plateau are a number of rocks and shoals, rising out of water nearly ten fathoms deep. They form long and very dangerous rocky ledges. There are also numerous sand and shingle banks, some of which are well known, and much resorted to for turbot and other fish. It would be tedious and useless to describe the multitude of inter

ruptions to navigation that occur in this complicated shoal. Another very dangerous range of banks and rocks occupies nearly the middle of the passage between the Minquiers and the Chaussey Islands. The principal of these are called "the Ardents" in the English charts. They are visible only at low

water.

Two small groups of the Channel Islands and banks that we next refer to, occupy nearly the same position with reference to the Minquiers, that the island of Guernsey does to Jersey. One group is called "Les Douvres." It is a dangerous rocky ledge, with twelve rocky heads always uncovered, the whole within an area measuring about four miles by three. The highest rock is in the centre, and is nearly fifty feet above the water. About three miles south of the Douvres is another similar ledge, called the "Barnouic," of about the same area, but lower, and even more dangerous, as the sea sometimes breaks over its whole extent. It lies rather more than twelve miles from the French coast.

The Douvres rocks are sometimes seen from Guernsey, and an abandoned ship, drifting near them, was lately discovered and brought into St. Peter's Port. A view of this wreck, and of the rocks, forms a tail-piece to the present chapter.

The Chaussey Islands lie about eight miles west of the Rock of Granville, and nine miles north of Cancale. The distance of the principal island from Jersey is about twenty-eight miles; but that, and others of the group, are seen from the cliffs near the Corbières, where they form with the Minquiers a singular fringing reef on the horizon. The whole group of rocks and islands occupy an irregular area, measuring six and a-half miles from east to west, and five miles from north to south. The largest island, called La Grande Ile, is the furthest to the south, and is the only one of any importance.

Approaching the group from Granville the effect is very singular. At first one is inclined to imagine that a nearly continuous wall of rock forms a kind of natural break water, parallel

to the coast of the Cotentin. A nearer approach dissipates this impression.

The rocks and islands are not lofty, and they are so regularly broken, as to give them an appearance of battlements in a ruined state. Advancing near them, openings are seen in the apparent wall, which resolves itself soon into a chain of islets, so closely grouped as to admit of little more interval than would be sufficient for a boat to pass. They stretch along in a nearly straight line, and deep water is found immediately beyond this line; so that one may sail almost close to them, paying due attention to tides and currents.

All the islands are broken masses of granite rising a little above the highest sea level, and worn by water and weather, so as to have picturesque and even grotesque forms. On some of them are little towers, striped so as to be recognised; on others are masts; and on others, again, heaps of stones; all these artificial objects being important sea marks. On two or three of the larger islands are huts-miserable habitations enoughserving as a temporary shelter for one or two herdsmen, who in summer resort here to pasture a few sheep or cows, on the tufty, wiry grass that grows on them. A large proportion of brambles, furze and broom seems to be mixed with the coarse herbage.

Nearing the principal island (the Grande Ile), several of the smaller ones are seen picturesquely grouped to the east; and the appearance of these becomes very striking, when the channel is entered that separates this larger island from the others. They seem dotted about in a semicircle like some vast Druidical monument rising out of the sea and stopping further approach. A narrow and concealed passage exists to a small cove (the Sound of Chaussey); but there was at the end of the last year (1861), no landing-place, pier or port of any kind. A pier and good harbour are, however, in course of construction.

The Grande Ile de Chaussey is rather less than two miles in length, but its form is exceedingly irregular; and its greatest