Now this little Serque was the cell of St. Magloire, an Armorican or Brittany bishop, and here he prayed and fasted himself into fitness for the conversion of the Channel islets. This cell, in the reign of Edward III., was still a ruined relic, and the islet was then a nest of corsairs: it still assumes a sort of wild or neutral aspect. In the reign of Edward VI. or that of Mary, the Flemings took it by stratagem, but in 1565 it was securely colonized by Hilary or Helier de Carteret, Lord of St. Ouen’s, under a grant from Mary and from Elizabeth of _fief en Hubert_, a guerdon for knight’s service. There are monumental stones indicating its association with the Britons, and the Romans we believe were not ignorant of Serque. The _plan_ of this little gem is highly eccentric: a table-land, four miles long, two miles its greatest breadth, and five feet! at the narrowest, spread on a majestic pile of rocks deeply indented with bays and coves and clefts, and fringed by groups of rocklets and ledges, in all the fantastic fashioning of the elements. These outposts, by increasing the difficulty of access, impart a deeper interest to the islet, scarcely alloyed by the slight sense of peril, for we are confident of being safely wafted, D. V., by the superior skill of the Serque boatmen, even among breakers and conflicting currents, into the tiny cove of _Le Creux_. So our _Lady of Sark_ is safe at her moorings, and we are rowed into this puddle of a harbour, completely overhung by perpendicular cliffs, 200 feet high, and richly clothed with velvet mosses and lichens, a complete study for Salvator or our own Pyne. This is the only point for landing in certain states of current or surf, although in very calm weather there is an available cove to eastward, and the daring may be run ashore in the bays. But even from this beach we have no natural mode of escape. A tunnel in the cliff opens by an arch, over which is the date 1688, the year of its construction by the Carterets; and so we walk out and up between green hills chequered with heath and rock, with triumphant pride at thus carrying the mighty earthworks which the Gnome and the Triton have raised around their granite home. And so we seek our hostelry, and find it in a capital farm-house, and we are soon engaged with Madame Vaudin in a cosy chat, in which come out, so unexpectedly, records of our lamented friend, Sir John Franklin, who years ago sojourned in our very chamber, and slumbered within those green curtains; and all this while the fish and the ducks and the puddings, bathed in exquisite cream, are being prepared for our luxurious and most economic feasting. And then, in the kitchen, we discuss the statistics, the poetry, and the government of the islet with this ancient, clever dame. Of this it is enough to record, that there are about forty yeomen, tillers of the land, in Serque, the magistracy of the isle, quite a Venetian Senate;