The eminent French naturalist, M. de Quatrefages, has given us an admirable description(59) of a visit paid by him to the lighthouse of Héhaux, on a rock near the Isles of Bréhat, off the coast of Brittany. He says, after some very beautiful remarks on the contemplation of nature, and its alleviation of the worst heart-sorrows: “Twilight often surprised me in the midst of my reveries, and often, too, the shades of night fell around me while I lay stretched beneath the star-bespangled deep azure canopy of heaven. I could then see another star shining in the far distance, which had been lighted by the hand of man. From the position I had chosen I could recognise the beacon-towers of Héhaux, of which the seamen of the islands had spoken to me with the liveliest expressions of enthusiasm, and which I had frequently watched by day as it stood out like a black line drawn along the whitish background of the sky. I would not leave Bréhat without visiting it. A few slight services had secured me the good-will of the officers of customs, who willingly consented to take me to Héhaux. Accordingly, one splendid day in October we left the harbour of La Corderie in a pinnace, manned by six sturdy seamen. The weather was splendid; not a cloud obscured the sky, which was reflected on the mirror-like surface of the ocean, whose depths it seemed to double. Impelled by the combined action of a light wind, which swelled out two small square sails, and of the rapid current imparted to the waters of Kerpont by the force of the tide, our pinnace shot across the waves as a sledge glides over the snow. Sometimes, indeed, we passed through a whirling eddy, which shook every part of our frail craft, and betrayed the vicinity of some submarine rock; but we soon regained the unruffled sea, and without having taken cognisance of the rapid rate at which we were moving, we saw Bréhat sink below the distant horizon behind us, whilst rock after rock and islet after islet seemed at every moment to emerge from the waves towards which we were advancing.... The nearer we drew to Héhaux the taller seemed the beacon-tower, which stood forth from the tower, with its lofty granite column and glass lantern, protected by that magical rod which is able to attract and safely conduct to earth the destructive force of the thunderbolt. We landed, and at once began our inspection of this colossal block, which has been upreared by the hand of man on the Epées de Tréguier, which, once the dread of the seaman, have become his protecting guides through the storms and darkness of night.