The Enchanted Rock. (From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.)
About four miles west-northwest of Cape Clear Island and lighthouse, on the south-west coast of Ireland, a singularly-shaped rock, called the Fastnett, rises abruptly and perpendicularly a height of ninety feet above the sea level in the Atlantic Ocean. It is about nine miles from the mainland, and the country-people say it is nine miles from every part of the coast.
The Fastnett for ages has been in the undisturbed possession of the cormorant, sea-gull, and various other tribes of sea-fowl, and was also a noted place for large conger eels, bream, and pollock; but from a superstitious dread of the place, the fishermen seldom fished near it. During foggy weather, and when the rock is partially enveloped in mist, it has very much the appearance of a large vessel under sail—hence no doubt the origin of all the wonderful tales and traditions respecting the Fastnett being enchanted, and its celebrated feats. The old people all along the sea-coast are under the impression that the Fastnett hoists sails before sunrise on the 1st of May in every year, and takes a cruise toward the Dursey Islands, at the north entrance of Bantry Bay, a distance of some forty miles; and that, after dancing several times round the rocks known to mariners as the Bull, Cow, and Calf, it then shapes its homeward course, drops anchor at the spot from whence it sailed, and remains stationary during the remainder of the year.
The Fastnett, however, it appears, is not the only enchanted spot in that locality; for at the head of Schull Harbor, about nine miles north of the rock, on the top of Mount Gabriel—about 1400 feet above the sea-level—is a celebrated lake, which the people say is so deep, that the longest line ever made would not reach its bottom. It is also stoutly asserted that a gentleman once dropped his walking-stick into the lake, and that it was afterward found by a fisherman near the Fastnett. On another occasion, a female wishing to get some water from the lake to perform a miraculous cure on one of her friends, accidentally let fall the jug into the water, and after several months, the identical jug—it could not be mistaken, part of the lip being broken off—was also picked up near the Fastnett. For such reasons the people imagine that there is some mysterious connection between the rock and the lake, and that they have a subterranean passage or means of communication. Captain Wolfe, indeed, during his survey of the coast in 1848, sounded the mysterious pool, and found the bottom with a line seven feet long; but the people shake their heads at the idea, and say it was all freemasonry on the part of the captain, and ask how he accounts for the affair of the stick and jug? It will be some time, I presume, before this puzzling question can be solved to the satisfaction of all parties; and the traditions of the stick and jug, and many other extraordinary occurrences, are likely to be handed down to succeeding generations. The lake, or bog-hole, must therefore be left alone in its glory; but, alas! not so with the Fastnett.
No more will it hoist sail for its Walpurgie trip, and cruise to the Durseys, for it is now firmly moored; and in the hands of man the wonderful Fastnett is reduced to a simple isolated rock in the Atlantic Ocean. During the awful shipwrecks in the winters of 1846 and 1847, but little assistance was derived from the Cape Clear light, which is too elevated, and is often totally obscured by fog, and this drew attention to the Fastnett Rock as a more eligible site for a pharos, being in the immediate route of all outward and homeward-bound vessels: but the great difficulty was to effect a landing, and make the necessary surveys; its sides being almost perpendicular, and continually lashed by a heavy surge or surf. After many attempts. Captain Wolfe did effect a landing; and having made the necessary survey, and reported favorably as to its advantages, it was determined by the Ballast Board to erect on it a lighthouse forthwith. Operations were commenced in the summer of 1847, by sinking or excavating a circular shaft about twelve feet deep in the solid rock; holes were then drilled, in which were fixed strong iron shafts for the framework of the house; and then the masons began to rear the edifice. The workmen found it pleasant enough during the summer and autumn of 1847, and lived in tents on the summit of the rock, and looked over the mainland with the aid of a glass, like so many of their predecessors—the cormorants.
In the spring of 1848, however, when operations were resumed, after a cessation of the works for the winter, the scene changed. It began to blow very hard from the northwest; and the men secured their building, which was now several feet above the rocks, as well as they could, and covered it over with strong and heavy beams of timber, leaving a small aperture for ingress and egress, and then awaited in silence the result. During the night the wind increased, and the sea broke with such fury over the whole rock, that the men imagined every succeeding wave to be commissioned to sweep them into the abyss. It only extinguished their fire, however, and carried off most of their provisions, [pg 640] together with sundry heavy pieces of cast-iron, a large blacksmith's anvil, and the crane with which the building materials were lifted on the rock. The storm lasted upward of a week, during which time no vessel or boat could approach; and the crew of this island-ship remained drenched with water, and nearly perished with cold in a dark hole, with nothing to relieve their hunger but water-soaked biscuit. But the wind at length suddenly shifted, the sea moderated, and they were enabled eventually to crawl out of their hole more dead than alive. In a few days a boat approached as near as possible, and by the aid of ropes fastened round their waists, they were drawn one by one from the rock through the boiling surf. The men speedily recovered, and have since raised the building some twenty feet above the ground: the extreme height is to be sixty feet. This is the last adventure of the Enchanted Rock; but we trust a brilliant history is before it, in which, instead of expending its energies in idle cruises, it will act the part of the beneficent preserver of life and property.