arty of pilgrims or tourists pass through them, ushered by a
guide. Still lower down the rock, along its eastern and southern face,
there winds a dark and narrow street, with odd, antique houses on either
side. The only conveyance that can pass along it is the water-cart which
supplies the town with fresh water from the mainland. The whole place
is guarded by a strong and high rampart, with bastions and battlemented
walls; and the only entrance is through three gateways, one immediately
behind the other, with a small court between. The second of these strong
gateways is protected by two old cannon, taken from the English in 1423,
and still pointed out to visitors with inextinguishable pride by the
natives of Mont. St. Michel.

A great plain of sand stretches around the Mont for miles every way--of
sand or sea, for the water covers it at flood-tides, beating up against
the foot of the granite rocks and the granite walls of the ramparts. But
at neap tides and _eaux mortes_, as the French say, there is nothing
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