Anxious to be a spectator of the perils that beset navigation among these islands, I repaired to the deck before day-break, at which time, according to our captain’s calculation, we were likely to double the Corbiere—­a well-known promontory on the western side of Jersey—­which requires to be weathered with great circumspection.  Jersey was already visible on our larboard bow—­a lofty precipitous coast.  Wind and tide were in our favour, and we swept smoothly and rapidly round the cape; but the jagged summits of the reefs that environ it, and the impetuosity of the currents, bore incontestable evidence to the verity of the tales of misfortune which our captain associated with its name.  The rock which bears the appellation of the Corbiere, is close in shore, and so grotesque in form, as to be readily singled out from the adjacent cliffs.  A reef, visible only at low water, shoots from it a considerable distance into the sea, and another ledge of the same aspect, lies still farther seaward; consequently the course of a careful pilot, is to hold his way free through the channel between them.  If a lands-man may be permitted to make an observation on a nautical point, I would say that our steersman kept the peak of the Corbiere exactly on a level with the adjacent precipices, till we were directly abreast of the headland, and then stood abruptly in-shore till within a few fathoms of the cliffs, under the shadow of which he afterwards held a steady course till we opened the bay of St. Aubin.

The fantastic and inconstant outline of the Corbiere, as we were hurried swiftly past it, was a subject of surprise and admiration.  When first seen through the haze of morning, it resembled a huge elephant supporting an embattled tower; a little after, it assumed the similitude of a gigantic warrior in a recumbent posture, armed cap-a-pie; anon, this apparition vanished, and in its stead rose a fortalice in miniature, with pigmy sentinels stationed on its ramparts.  The precipices between the Corbiere and the bay of St. Aubin, are no less worthy of notice than that promontory.  They slope down to the water-edge in enormous protuberances, resembling billows of frozen lava, intersected by wide sinuous rifts, and present a most interesting field for geological research.

The bay of St. Aubin is embraced by a crescent of smiling eminences thickly sprinkled with villas and orchards.  St. Helier crouches at the base of a lofty rock that forms the eastern cape:  the village of St. Aubin is similarly placed near Noirmont Point, the westward promontory, and between the two, stretches a sandy shelving beach, studded with martello towers.  The centre of the bay is occupied by Elizabeth Castle—­a fortress erected on a lofty insulated rock, the jagged pinnacles of which shoot up in grotesque array round the battlements.  The harbour is artificial, but capacious and safe, and so completely commanded by the castle, as to be nearly inaccessible to an enemy.