Coming out on the Digue one night, soon after my arrival, I was brought to a stand-still by the appearance of the sea. It was low water, so that I was about 200 yards off, and at first I could scarcely believe my eyes, which seemed to tell me that every breaker was a flood of pale fire. I went down close to the water to confirm or disenchant myself, and found it more beautiful the nearer I got. Of course one has seen the ordinary phosphorescence of the sea in a hundred places, but this was quite a different affair. The sand under one’s feet even was molten silver. The scientific doctor says it is simply the effect of the constant presence on this coast of great numbers of an animalcule which can only be seen through a microscope, called the _Noctiluca miliaris_. It looked on that evening as if huge fiery serpents were constantly rising and dashing along. People here say that they have it always, but this is certainly not so. On several other evenings the breaking waves were slightly luminous, but scarcely enough to attract attention. If you could only make sure of seeing sea and shore ablaze as it was on that particular night, you ought at once, sir, to pack traps and off, notwithstanding these abominably high winds. I cannot help thinking that, besides a monster gathering--probably a Reform League meeting--of the Noctiluca miliaris, there must have been something very unusual in the atmosphere on that particular night. It was a kind of “eldritch” night, in which you felt as if you had got into the atmosphere of Tennyson’s _Morte d’Arthur_, and a great hand might come up out of the water without giving you a start. There was light right up in the sky above one’s head, a succession of half luminous rain clouds were drifting rapidly across at a very low elevation from the northwest, not fifty yards high, as it seemed, while the smoke of my cigar floated away slowly almost in the opposite direction. Luckily, sir, my American friend was with me on the night in question, to whom I can appeal as to the truth of my facts, and we had had nothing but one bottle of very moderately strong _vin ordinaire_ at the _table d’hote_. If your scientific readers say that the thing is impossible, I can only answer that so it was.