Robert Taylor Pritchett

“ Approaching Sark for the first time by steamer, it seems hopeless to try to land. The sea is deep, clear, and green, close up to the foot of rocks, which, like the fiords of Norway, of precipitous granite, rise before us; their height is grand to a degree; their form grander still. A heavy sea dashing against them, as it wrings and twists the seaweed clinging to their bases—the water itself effervescent, foaming, and boiling—seems to defy us ”

“ Happily for human nature, no human voice, recommending tea-gardens, shrimps, or hot water at twopence per head, “salutes the ear:” not even the simple luxury of a sanded floor at a little road-side public-house is there to welcome the stranger. This is indeed a treat, a place to be taken note of. One thing in going you must do, take your own lunch. Having obtained some information previously about the place, we immediately started for that part of the island called the “Coupée.” A ground plan of Sark would be somewhat like an hour-glass in shape, with the western lobe smaller than the eastern. ”

“ Great and majestic as this scene was, the subtlety of its beauty and grandeur was unfortunately far beyond the reach of art: although it fills the spectator with admiration, delight, and a certain awe, yet it convinces him of the very finite power he has of representing to others phases of nature which he perhaps most deeply feels himself. Working round the island to the Guernsey Bide we come to more fantastic forms of rocks—some, like the Needles at the Isle of Wight, but larger, are very striking ”