Making a circuitous bend, you pass through a low, flat, kind of valley, or immediately under the residence of Mr Augustus Dobrée, whose house is situated on a mound or height, that can scarce fail to be recognized, as it is the only one of importance in the neighbourhood. The country, in this part, still continues marshy, subject to damps and inundations, and yielding but scanty crops of potatoes, parsnips and beet, which latter rarely attains a bulk beyond three inches in thickness and thirteen in length. The botanist will be amused with a variety of specimens of aquatic plants and by an unbounded quantity of cotyledon umbilicus which shrouds every old wall. The artist will find a picture combining wood, hill, vale and rustic buildings, completed by a brilliant gleam of inland waters.
Continuing the road to Grande Rocque, the gardens on either side continue to increase in beauty, until they break out into full bloom at the Friquet and other richer parts of the Câtel parish. On this rout the botanist will fall in with the Queen's meadow, which in the months of July and August, literally speaking, is a sheet of camomile flower.
From Grande Rocque the views are very excellent; to the right, on an eminence at the Western point of the bay, is Roc-du-Guet, or Watch-Rock, a small battery that in war time was a telegraphic station.
Straight a-head is a small, but neat cottage, standing alone on the sand plains, the residence of a Mr Saunders; behind are the sloping uplands of Câtel, which, as they approach the town, are diversified with sylvan beauty and elegant houses.
To the left, on some distant sand plains, and on a gentle rising is a curious old rock, technically called the "Giant's Head," from its vast resemblance to that fancied form. It is the resting place of the cormorant and other wild birds of prey, and the hollow on the top of the head is filled with half digested fish bones and beetles. In summer it is generally the resort of pic-nic parties, whose groups form a very quaint appearance at this curious place. Between this and Grande Rocque is Grande Mare, which was formerly a noble sheet of water abounding with carp and other fish. At present only a vestige of it can be seen during the winter months, as it has been drained off at a considerable expence.
