■i !
c h a n n e l i s l a n d s : ,
Avhicli St. Helier stands. In all the views over the
bay of St. Aubin, whetlier from sea or land, this little
tOAvn is a great adorner of the landscape. To reach
St. Aubin, one must either cross the bay, from St
Helier’s pier, in a boat, wliich at high water, and
AEith every wind but a westerly wind, is practicable:
or else, drive round the bay : and even tins drived
admits of variation; for one may either choose the
road,-which runs all the way witliin a hundred yards
of high water m a rk ,-o r the fine hard sand, which
stretches almost the whole distance between St. Helier
and St Aubin, and which is always passable except-
ing at high water.
Tlirs IS a beautiful drive,—for it presents the union
of a sea Uew and a rich landscape; a union rarely
met with in England, where open downs, and sand
iillocks, almost invariably mark the neighbourhood of
tlie sea. All the-way to St. Aubin, the road is skirted
by a range of beautiful heights, covered witli wood,
and meadows, aud everywl.ere presentiug the aspect
of perfect fertility. A little before reaching St. Aubin,
tlie road leaves the sea shore, and ascends the
eminence on the other side of which St. Aubin is
situated; and at the top of this eminence, one has
reached the entrance of the town, and of the steep
irregular street which descends on the otl.er side to
the sea.
Nothing can be more pleasing than the situation of
M. Aubin; partly skirting the shore, and partly ly in f f
on tlie rocky and well-wooded heights, that from the
backs of the houses descend perpendicularly into the
sea; and backed, and surrounded on three sides, by a
JERSEY. 3 1
very fertile, and yet a picturesque country. To the
lover of quiet and seclusion, St. Aubin is just such a
place as might be chosen among a thousand. There
are many good houses in this little town; for be it
known, that St. Aubin was not always the quiet little
nook it now is. Once it was the chief town for trade;
and here resided the principal merchants: but like
other great revolutions, St. Helier rose, and St. Aubin
fell; and its population now consists of those old residents,
who have still their houses and a little property
there,—and who, with the surgeon, and a few shopkeepers,
and some ten or twelve English families who
rent houses, or live in lodgings, eke out the vegetative
population of this retreat from the world. Besides
the flux and reflux of the tide, St. Aubin has
other little events to mark the progress of time; there
is the rattling of the car over the ill-paved street,
going every day to and from St. Helier; and, during
the summer and autumn, there are parties almost daily
passing through to visit the neighbouring country:
then, it happens occasionally, that in neap tides, a
vessel of too large dimensions to enter St. Helier’s
harbour, casts anchor near St. Aubin, in the big
roads, as they are called in Jersey: and this, also, is
an event.
St. Aubin, too, has its inn, and its market place;
and it also boasts its pier, projecting from a rock,
surmounted by a fortress, mounting fourteen guns.
At low water, the rock and harbour are left dry;
but, at high water, there is a depth of thirty feet
within the pier. There are several handsome villas
in the neighbourhood of St. Aubin, inhabited mostly