Lightships and Lighthouses

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

The lighthouses in the Red Sea are, perhaps, among the most unenviable and trying in the world. This stretch of water, lying between two blistered coasts of sand, is no more or less than an oven, where even the strongest constitution finds it difficult to hold out for long. Moreover, the absence of civilization, owing to the extreme aridity of the country, renders the life exceptionally depressing. In the summer the heat is wellnigh intolerable. The thermometer hovers between 95° and 110° F. in the shade throughout the twenty-four hours, so that night brings no relief to the oppressiveness.

At some of the stations the men seek a little diversion, and incidentally add occasionally to their pocket-money, by shark-catching, which is a tolerably profitable pursuit, since these waters are thickly infested with this fish. The jawbone and backbone invariably find ready purchasers, the former being mounted as a curiosity, while the backbone forms a novel and serviceable walking-stick.

One method of trapping these monsters which affords keen delight was related to me. The requirements are an electric battery, some rope, a few feet of electric wire, a cartridge, and an empty box, with a chunk or two of bad meat. The cartridge is fitted with an electric primer, the wire of which stretches to the battery. This cartridge is buried in a hunk of meat, the whole being dangled from a box—an empty cask is better—which serves as a float, while a rope is stretched from the box to the shore, with the electric wire spirally wound round it. A short length of chain is preferable, if available, to attach the bait to the float, but a short piece of rope will do. This novel line is thrown into the water, and the man keeps his eye on the float, with one finger on the battery. The hungry shark, espying the tempting morsel, makes a grab and swallows it, but the chain prevents him tearing away with it. The pull causes the float to disappear, the man’s finger presses the button, and the trick is done. There is an explosion, and pieces of shark and showers of water fly into the air. The incident is all over too quickly for the fish to marvel about the strange indigestibility of the tainted meat he grabbed so greedily. The men enjoy this sport hugely when it can be followed, as they regard the shark with intense detestation.

By permission of the “Syren and Shipping.”

KEEPER CLEANING THE LAMP AFTER IT HAS COOLED DOWN.

Despite the vigilance of the various Powers, slave-running is still a lucrative business on these forbidding coasts. Now and again a forced labourer gets away from his taskmaster, and comes panting into the lighthouse territory. This is sanctuary to the hapless wretch, and although the keepers invariably receive a call from the runaway’s master, he meets with scant courtesy, while his demand for the surrender of the fugitive is answered by a point-blank refusal. The slave-driver may storm, threaten, and abuse, to his heart’s content, and, as he is generally a past-master in Arabian invective, the keepers have to listen to a pretty tune. But the slave is kept in the lighthouse until the relief-tender makes its periodical call, when he is taken back to Suez and liberated.

Fortunately, owing to the extreme care that is manifested by the authorities, mishaps at a lighthouse are few and far between. The men are supplied with rules and regulations which are drawn up with an eye for every possible emergency. Yet accidents will happen, due in the majority of instances to familiarity bred of contempt. The majority of these calamities occur in connection with the explosive fog-signalling apparatus, although every device is adopted to safeguard the men. At one of the Scottish stations a keeper was manipulating the fog-signal, but, flying in the face of instructions, he caused the charge to explode prematurely. The man escaped injury, but the detonation shattered several panes of glass in the lantern.

One of the keepers of the Rathlin light, on Altacarry Head, was not so fortunate. The White Star Canadian liner Megantic was rounding the corner of Ireland to enter the last lap of the homeward journey one Saturday evening, when the captain’s attention was arrested by a signal of distress flying from the lighthouse. The interpretation of the signal revealed the fact that a doctor was wanted, so, easing up the ship, he lowered a boat, and the doctor was sent away to the island. Upon landing he found one of the men in dire straits. He had been cleaning the fog-gun, when a charge, which had been left in the weapon inadvertently upon the last occasion it was used, exploded. The man’s arm had been wrenched off, and he was burned terribly. It was a stroke of luck that the liner hove in sight at the moment she did. There was no chance of extending succour to the injured man on the spot, and he would have died before a doctor could have been summoned by boat from Ballycastle, nine miles away. The surgeon bound up the man’s injuries, lowered him into his boat, and, on regaining the liner, placed him in the hospital, where he was tended until the vessel’s arrival in Liverpool, where he was landed and placed in hospital.