High and low water display contrasted aspects, both equally perfect. At high tide, the full bays and havens, like gigantic mirrors, are resplendent with the reflection of their beautiful shores. To the botanist, the geologist, and even the artist, low water is far more propitious, for the beach, cliffs, and rocks are profuse in weed and sea-flowers and pebbles and shells, and they thus give up their treasures for the seeking; the outlines and colours present a perfect charm for the pencil. Let us be off in pursuit of these temptations, scramble among the rocks, creep round the bays, or into the caves; for, like the violet, much of the more enduring beauty of the creation lies hid in the deep shades of the earth. We are about to make the circuit of the islet. It is high water, and we float over the wide bay to _St. Aubin’s_, or to _Noirmont_. It is low tide, and we walk round the shore of this marine crescent on the firm carpet of sand. (At a tiny rill at _Doet de Demigrave_ there is a very sudden transition from firm to soft.) There a group of girls are disporting like Nereids among the waves. It is at full tide, and at evening hour, however, that the bay of St. Aubin’s is perfect to the eye; the setting sun is flinging the most gorgeous colours on the little slate rocks and the walls of the fort: the hue is gold, with a shadow of bronze, while the more distant walls of Elizabeth Castle are bronze with shadows of deep grey, a scene special for the eccentric brush of Turner. [Illustration: ST. BRELADE’S BAY]