The gentle ripple of water on the sandy shore, or on the rocky granite affects and moves me, and the joy that fills me as I feel myself driven forward by the wind, and carried along by the waves, proceeds from the abandonment of myself, to the brutal and natural forces of creation, from my return to a primitive state.
When the weather is beautiful as it is to-day, I feel in my veins the blood of the lascivious and vagabond fauns of olden times. I am no longer the brother of mankind, but the brother of all creatures and all nature!
The sun mounts above the horizon. The breeze dies away as it did the day before yesterday; but the west wind foretold by Bernard, does not rise any more than the easterly one, announced by Raymond.
Till ten o'clock, we float motionless like a wreck, then a little breath from the open sea starts us on our road, falls, rises again, seems to mock us, glancing across the sail, promising at each moment a breeze that does not come. It is nothing, a mere whiff, a flutter of a fan; nevertheless it is sufficient to prevent our being stationary. The porpoises, those clowns of the sea, play about around us, dashing out of the water with rapid bounds, as though they would take flight, striking into the air like lightning, then plunging and rising again further off.
At about one o'clock, as we lay broadside on to Agay, the breeze completely gave way, and I realized that I should sleep out at sea if I did not man the boat to tow the yacht and take shelter in the bay.
I therefore made the two men get into the dingy, and when at a distance of some thirty yards or so, they began to tug me along. A fierce sun was glaring on the water, and its burning rays beat down upon the decks.
The two sailors rowed in slow and regular fashion like worn-out cranks, which, though working with difficulty, ceaselessly continue their mechanical labour.
The bay of Agay forms a very pretty dock, well sheltered and closed on one side by upright, red rocks, overlooked by the semaphore on the summit of the mountain, and prolonged towards the open sea by the _Ile d'Or,_ so called on account of its colour; while on the other side is a line of sunken rocks, and a small headland level with the surface of the water, bearing a lighthouse to mark the entry.