It was impossible to behold, without a portion of romantic enthusiasm, the dazzling radiance of the orb of day, as it went down in splendour beyond the gleaming waves. A thousand affecting emotions are liable to be excited by the prospect of that mighty sea whose farther boundaries lie in another hemispherewhose waters have witnessed the noblest feats of maritime enterprise, and the fiercest conflicts of hostile fleets. Where shall we find the man to whom science is dear, who dreams not of Columbus, when he first feels himself rocked by the majestic billows of the Atlanticwho regards not the golden line of light, which the setting sun casts over the waste of waters, as a type of the intellectual illumination experienced by the ocean pilgrim, when he first steered his bark into its solitudes? Who can survey, even the hither strand of that vast sea, without reflecting that the waves that break at his feet have laved the palm-fringed shores of America; and that the bones of millionsthe pride, and pomp, and treasure of nationsrepose in the same capacious tomb?
Anxious to be a spectator of the perils that beset navigation among these islands, I repaired to the deck before day-break, at which time, according to our captain's calculation, we were likely to double the Corbiérea well-known promontory on the western side of Jerseywhich requires to be weathered with great circumspection. Jersey was already visible on our larboard bowa lofty precipitous coast. Wind and tide were in our favour, and we swept smoothly and rapidly round the cape; but the jagged summits of the reefs that environ it, and the impetuosity of the currents, bore incontestable evidence to the verity of the tales of misfortune which our captain associated with its name. The rock which bears the appellation of the Corbiére, is close in shore, and so grotesque in form, as to be readily singled out from the adjacent cliffs. A reef, visible only at low water, shoots from it a considerable distance into the sea, and another ledge of the same aspect, lies still farther seaward; consequently the course of a careful pilot, is to hold his way free through the channel between them. If a lands-*man may be permitted to make an observation on a nautical point, I would say that our steersman kept the peak of the Corbiére exactly on a level with the adjacent precipices, till we were directly abreast of the headland, and then stood abruptly in-shore till within a few fathoms of the cliffs, under the shadow of which he afterwards held a steady course till we opened the bay of St. Aubin.