The Visitor's Hand-Book for Holyhead / Comprising a History of the Town, the Antiquities and Sublime Scenery of the Mountain

by Thomas Jackson

REFLECTIONS ON THE THREE LIGHT-HOUSES.

Light-houses, beacons, warning-bells, and the like, are among the most indispensable adjuncts of maritime conveyance; without them, indeed, it would be utterly impossible to conduct it with anything like regularity or safety; and if there be one thing more than another that has given me pleasure while writing these pages, it is that of recording three light-houses (viz., South Stack, Skerries, and Holyhead) connected with the thriving Port of Holyhead. If it would not be deemed too figurative and fanciful, I should denominate these light-houses—BRILLIANT EYES LOOKING OUT FOR THE RETURN OF THE WEATHER-BEATEN SONS OF THE OCEAN. What vast improvements have been made in this, as well as in other departments of nautical affairs! Humanity, as well as interest, led to the adoption of light-houses, both as beacons and guides; and it speaks well for the sympathy and benevolence of Britons that there are on and about the British coasts upwards of 200 light-houses, which are classed as “harbour lights” and “general lights.”

The first attempts were rude; common fires, first of wood, and then of coals, were originally used to furnish light. A coal fire was employed for this purpose in the Isle of Man for 180 years (as late as the year 1816). Tallow candles succeeded;—candles fastened on wooden rods were burnt in the Eddystone light-house for 40 years after it was completed by Smeaton; then came lamps with twisted cotton wicks. The glimmering lamps of by-gone days have disappeared, and are superseded by Argand lamps, with lenses and reflecting prisms. The hand of science has extinguished the faint splendours of the last century, and lighted up midnight suns, fixing them in their furbished orbits, on elegant structures, high in aerial heaven, whose reflected rays mingle together, so as to form one concentrated blaze of light, intense and beautiful, illuminating and adorning the shore and rock.

One of the most remarkable light-houses in England is the Eddystone, erected on a solitary rock, opposite the coast of Plymouth: it has withstood many a terrific tempest, and appears likely to stand firm amid the elemental wars for years to come. Not unfrequently, at the mouth of harbours, as at Harwich, two light-houses are erected, one more elevated than the other; one to guide the vessels in their approach to the coast, and the other to direct them in their entrance to the harbour.

Not far from the room where I am now writing, break the waves of St. George’s Channel. I hear the roar—it is, indeed, a stormy night—wild blows the wind,—

I think of the mariner tossed on the billow,
Afar from the home of his childhood and youth;
No mother to watch o’er his sleep-broken pillow,
No father to counsel—no sister to soothe! [33]

A tide of joy rises in my soul at the thought that, close to my own door, I can gaze upon two light-houses, one of which is, mid the foaming deep, presenting a brilliant point of light—a distinct and striking object—though some nine miles of waters are rolling between us. It is the Skerries Light-house. I love to look at it. Its constancy and fixedness interest me. No sooner are the last rays of the sun retiring from land and sea, than the watchful keeper hastens to kindle the beacon. If to the midnight hour I protract my musings, and cast a glance upon the sea, there shines the light. If long before the dawn of day I have arisen to my labours, there it still shines. The week, the month, the year rolls round, and there is no failure. What deeply interesting facts are announced by that brilliant light; it is as if an angel of mercy, with a voice of thunder, stood and announced what part it was of a dangerous coast to which the mariner was most contiguous, and in which direction he must look for shoal and breaker. He is kindly told when there is peril, and when safety. There is language in that radiance which streams far forth upon the dark, deep sea. Facts of highest moment are announced by it. The whole surrounding region of shore and sea is suggested to the sailor by that welcome light. There it stands—a beacon against danger, and a guide to the desired haven. For the erection and maintenance of light-houses, a rate is levied on all vessels passing them within certain limits, this rate varying from one farthing to one penny per ton for each light so passed.

Let the reader picture to himself the advantage of light-houses, when the storm is up—when the bright beacons send forth their refulgent beams through the blackness of tempest, on the dark winter night. Who can say how many mariners owe their lives to their friendly warnings. The vessels that are wrecked through want of light-houses are recorded; but there is no record of the greater number which, no doubt, light-houses have saved. Melancholy indeed would be the consequences were all the lighthouses to be extinguished. What would become of our ships and our sailors? How dreary a scene would be presented,—the hope of the sailor would be wrecked, and dismal despair would sit on the countenances of the navigators of the sea. The swift ship approaches—the mariner looks for the friendly beacon; but it is gone! There is no voice to announce the presence of peril, and, for want of it, the noble vessel strikes the rock, and all the horrors of shipwreck ensue. Shine on, thou brilliant beacon of the perilous path of the mariner! Thou canst not rival the bright luminary of the sky, but a noble office canst thou do for seafaring men.

I love the light that streams afar to save
The storm-tossed seaman from the ’whelming wave;
The ocean-beacon and the river-ranger,
That lures from evil, and that warns from danger.