CHAPTER X.
SAINT-MALO.
Saint-Malo, which is built right on the ocean and is enclosed by ramparts, looks like a crown of stones, the gems of which are the machicolations.

The breakers dash against its walls, and when the tide is low they gently unfurl on the sand.

Little rocks covered with sea-weed dot the beach and look like black spots on its light surface.
The larger ones, which are upright and smooth, support the fortifications, thus making them appear higher than they really are.
Above this straight line of walls, broken here and there by a tower or the pointed ogive of a door, rise the roofs of the houses with their open garret-windows, their gyrating weather-cocks, and their red chimneys from which issue spirals of bluish smoke that vanishes in the air.
Around Saint-Malo are a number of little barren islands that have not a tree nor a blade of grass, but only some old crumbling walls, great pieces of which are hurled into the sea by each succeeding storm.
On the other side of the bay, opposite the city and connected with dry land by a long pier, which separates the port from the ocean, is Saint-Servan, a large, empty, almost deserted locality, which lies peacefully in a marshy meadow.

At the entrance to Saint-Servan rise the four towers of the Chateau de Solidor, which are connected by curtains and are perfectly black from top to bottom.

These alone are sufficient compensation for having made that extended circuit on the beach, under the broiling July sun, among the dock-yards and tar-pots and fires.
A walk around the city, over the ramparts, is one of the finest that can be taken.