Guernsey pictorial directory and stranger's guide : $b embellished with numerous wood-cutsBellamy, Thomas, of Guernsey
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Guernsey pictorial directory and stranger's guide : $b embellished with numerous wood-cuts
Bellamy, Thomas, of Guernsey
Guernsey (Channel Islands) -- Guidebooks
Taking the road to Petit-Bo bay, about mid-way, the artist will catch a
lively picture, such as bold and majestic crags in the front;--a streak of
the ocean, the deep ravine beneath, with a foaming little waterfall,
rivulet and mill, beautified with a cove of silver sand, all tending to
elevate the idea, and reduce into the mind a fit assemblage for the finest
picture, such as "beauty in the lap of horror." An ill-formed paper-mill
and an artificial mud pond may be said to overthrow the quietude and
seclusion of the spot. However, it is so much like that where Napoleon
rests in St Helena, only in a lesser form, that a correspondent of the
local press, who had evidently visited the Emperor's tomb, wrote thus:
"When you descend the road from the Forest church, keep to your right and
proceed directly on to the brow of the cliff overlooking the small battery.
A ravine there presents itself. If you will be kind enough next to look
towards the cliff immediately opposite, you will observe a pretty lofty
eminence. On that height, in imagination, I placed Madame Montholon's
house, which you must remember is described by many travellers as looking
down upon the Emperor's tomb. About an hundred feet below this, picture to
your imagination a beautiful green sward, sloping in graceful declivity
down the valley. Next on the left hand, place a small cottage, the
residence of the old sentinel at St Helena, and at the foot of his little
garden, a sentry box, where a record is kept for the entry of visitors'
names; beside this, bursting out from a crevice in the rock, you may fancy
the celebrated spring, out of which the departed warrior was accustomed to
drink. The water is the purest and most refreshing to be found in the
island. Carry your eye a little further down, and the sacred tomb is seen
surrounded by an iron railing. A large willow tree waves its graceful
foliage over this romantic spot. A plain stone, with the awful word
"Napoleon," rests on the grave. Immediately beneath the tomb, a natural bed
of scarlet geraniums, intermingled with myrtles and evergreens, extend to
the rocks beneath, over whose rugged heads the sea breaks, thus terminating
one of the most picturesque and romantic scenes to be found on the
terrestrial globe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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