tarted at
daylight, about four a.m., well provisioned, and with "Begum" to
accompany me, for somehow I always felt safer with him beside me. A
light south-west wind was blowing, so we reached Sark by six a.m., and
mooring the boat at the foot of the Coupee, in a bay called Grand Greve,
I prepared coffee, and had a very leisurely breakfast, wondering at
man's capacity for stowage; but that is due to the salt breeze which
never yet put a man's liver wrong.

After enjoying the rocking in the bright warm sunshine, and watching the
tiny people crossing the Coupee (like the little men crossing a bridge
on a willow-patterned plate), three hundred feet overhead, off I started
again. I kept about two hundred yards from the precipitous sides of the
island, steering so close to the rock Moie de la Bretagne, which rises
ninety feet above the sea, that I touched it as we (my boat, dog, and I)
glided by.

Next, into the romantic little bay of Port Gorey (just a lovers'
paradise), where I let "Begum" have a run ashore while I sketched. Here
are situate the mines which were abandoned many years ago as a dismal
failure, leaving as a legacy to those fond of sketching some ruinous
cottages and huge chimney shafts, which look down on the little Bay of
Gorey, as Gog and Magog look down on the visitors to the London
Guildhall.

Leaving Gorey we had a good look at the rock called L'Etac de Sark with
its satellites, and gave them a wide berth, for their tooth-like
appearance is not at all pleasant when but an inch of wood lies between
one and a watery grave. L'Etac is the highest isolated rock round the
island, rising nearly two hundred feet above low water.

[Illustration: ROCKS AT SOUTH END OF SARK.]

To save time, instead of sweeping the bays we made a straight line, so
as to pass between Point Derrible and La Couchee, and quickly arrived
off what one may suppose the most picturesque spot in the Channel
Isles--Creux Harbour, with its stumpy little breakwater pier and cave
cutting which gives entrance to the island. The half-dozen fishermen on
the quay gave us a cheer as we passed, in answer to a wave from my
yellow cap.

On our right were the rocky islets, rising about one hundred feet above
the sea, called La Burons, and I passed just in time to see a sheep fall
with a plunge and splash into the sea, shot by a man in a boat. This
appeared to be the local way of slaughtering the sheep which are put on
the rocks to crop the sparse he