how to proceed. The complaint preferred against me was "that

I had examined the Longships Lighthouse with the most minute
attention, and was no less particular in my inquiries at the

keepers of the lighthouseregarding the sunk rocks lying off
the Land's End, with the sets of the currents and tides along

the coast: that I seemed particularly to regret the situation
of the rocks called the Seven Stones, and the loss of a beacon

which the Trinity Board had caused to be fixed on the Wolf
Rock; that I had taken notes of the bearings of several sunk

rocks, and a drawing of the lighthouse, and of Cape Cornwall.
Further, that I had refused the honour of Lord Edgecombe's

invitation to dinner, offering as an apology that I had some
particular business on hand." '

My grandfather produced in answer his credentials and
letter of credit; but the justice, after perusing them, `very

gravely observed that they were "musty bits of paper," ' and
proposed to maintain the arrest. Some more enlightened

magistrates at Penzance relieved him of suspicion and left him
at liberty to pursue his journey, - `which I did with so much

eagerness,' he adds, `that I gave the two coal lights on the
Lizard only a very transient look.'

Lighthouse operations in Scotland differed essentially in
character from those in England. The English coast is in

comparison a habitable, homely place, well supplied with
towns; the Scottish presents hundreds of miles of savage

islands and desolate moors. The Parliamentary committee of
1834, profoundlyignorant of this distinction, insisted with

my grandfather that the work at the various stations should be
let out on contract `in the neighbourhood,' where sheep and

deer, and gulls and cormorants, and a few ragged gillies,
perhaps crouching in a bee-hive house, made up the only

neighbours. In such situations repairs and improvements could
only be overtaken by collecting (as my grandfather expressed

it) a few `lads,' placing them under charge of a foreman, and
despatching them about the coast as occasion served. The

particular danger of these seas increased the difficulty. The
course of the lighthouse tender lies amid iron-bound coasts,

among tide-races, the whirlpools of the Pentland Firth, flocks
of islands, flocks of reefs, many of them uncharted. The aid

of steam was not yet. At first in random coasting sloop, and
afterwards in the cutter belonging to the service, the

engineer must ply and run amongst these multiplied dangers,
and sometimes late into the stormy autumn. For pages together

my grandfather's diary preserves a record of these rude
experiences; of hard winds and rough seas; and of `the try-

sail and storm-jib, those old friends which I never like to
see.' They do not tempt to quotation, but it was the man's

element, in which he lived, and delighted to live, and some
specimen must be presented. On Friday, September 10th, 1830,

the REGENT lying in Lerwick Bay, we have this entry: `The gale
increases, with continued rain.' On the morrow, Saturday,

11th, the weather appeared to moderate, and they put to sea,
only to be driven by evening into Levenswick. There they lay,

`rolling much,' with both anchors ahead and the square yard on
deck, till the morning of Saturday, 18th. Saturday and Sunday

they were plying to the southward with a `strong breeze and a
heavy sea,' and on Sunday evening anchored in Otterswick.

`Monday, 20th, it blows so fresh that we have no communication
with the shore. We see Mr. Rome on the beach, but we cannot

communicate with him. It blows "mere fire," as the sailors
express it.' And for three days more the diary goes on with

tales of davits unshipped, high seas, strong gales from the
southward, and the ship driven to refuge in Kirkwall or Deer

Sound. I have many a passage before me to transcribe, in
which my grandfather draws himself as a man of minute and

anxious exactitude about details. It must not be forgotten
that these voyages in the tender were the particular pleasure

and reward of his existence; that he had in him a reserve of
romance which carried him delightedly over these hardships and

perils; that to him it was `great gain' to be eight nights and
seven days in the savage bay of Levenswick - to read a book in

the much agitated cabin - to go on deck and hear the gale
scream in his ears, and see the landscape dark with rain and

the ship plunge at her two anchors - and to turn in at night
and wake again at morning, in his narrow berth, to the

glamorous and continued voices of the gale.
His perils and escapes were beyond counting. I shall

only refer to two: the first, because of the impression made
upon himself; the second, from the incidental picture it

presents of the north islanders. On the 9th October 1794 he
took passage from Orkney in the sloop ELIZABETH of Stromness.

She made a fair passage till within view of Kinnaird Head,
where, as she was becalmed some three miles in the offing, and

wind seemed to threaten from the south-east, the captain
landed him, to continue his journey more expeditiously ashore.

A gale immediately followed, and the ELIZABETH was driven back
to Orkney and lost with all hands. The second escape I have

been in the habit of hearingrelated by an eye-witness, my own
father, from the earliest days of childhood. On a September

night, the REGENT lay in the Pentland Firth in a fog and a
violent and windless swell. It was still dark, when they were

alarmed by the sound of breakers, and an anchor was
immediately let go. The peep of dawn discovered them swinging

in desperate proximity to the Isle of Swona (1) and the surf
bursting close under their stern. There was in this place a

hamlet of the inhabitants, fisher-folk and wreckers; their
huts stood close about the head of the beach. All slept; the

doors were closed, and there was no smoke, and the anxious
watchers on board ship seemed to contemplate a village of the

dead. It was thought possible to launch a boat and tow the
REGENT from her place of danger; and with this view a signal

of distress was made and a gun fired with a red-hot poker from
the galley. Its detonation awoke the sleepers. Door after

door was opened, and in the grey light of the morning fisher
after fisher was seen to come forth, yawning and stretching

himself, nightcap on head. Fisher after fisher, I wrote, and
my pen tripped; for it should rather stand wrecker after

wrecker. There was no emotion, no animation, it scarce seemed
any interest; not a hand was raised; but all callously awaited

the harvest of the sea, and their children stood by their side
and waited also. To the end of his life, my father remembered

that amphitheatre of placid spectators on the beach; and with
a special and natural animosity, the boys of his own age. But

presently a light air sprang up, and filled the sails, and
fainted, and filled them again; and little by little the

REGENT fetched way against the swell, and clawed off shore
into the turbulent firth.

(1) This is only a probable hypothesis; I have tried to
identify my father's anecdote in my grandfather's diary, and

may very well have been deceived. - [R. L. S.]
The purpose of these voyages was to effect a landing on

open beaches or among shelving rocks, not for persons only,
but for coals and food, and the fragile furniture of light-

rooms. It was often impossible. In 1831 I find my
grandfather `hovering for a week' about the Pentland Skerries

for a chance to land; and it was almost always difficult.
Much knack and enterprise were early developed among the

seamen of the service; their management of boats is to this
day a matter of admiration; and I find my grandfather in his

diary depicting the nature of their excellence in one happily
descriptive phrase, when he remarks that Captain Soutar had

landed `the small stores and nine casks of oil WITH ALL THE
ACTIVITY OF A SMUGGLER.' And it was one thing to land,

another to get on board again. I have here a passage from the
diary, where it seems to have been touch-and-go. `I landed at

Tarbetness, on the eastern side of the point, in a MERE GALE
OR BLAST OF WIND from west-south-west, at 2 p.m. It blew so