LIGHTHOUSE ON THE INCHCAPE ROCK.
The actual construction of the lighthouse had no very remarkable points of difference with the works of Smeaton or Rennie. Stevenson built a rather novel structure on the rock as a temporary barrack for the workmen. It consisted of a wooden tower perched upon a triangular framework, under which was an open gallery, the floor of which was removed at the end of each season, so as to allow free space for the passage of the sea during the storms of winter, but on which, during summer, they kept the stock of coals, the tool-chest, the beef and beer casks, and other smaller material, which they could not, even at that season of the year, leave on the rock itself. Next came the kitchen and provision-store, a six-sided apartment about twelve feet in diameter, and somewhat more than seven feet high, in which small space—curtailed as it was by the seven beams which passed through it—stood a caboose, capable of cooking for forty men, and various cupboards and lockers lined with tin, for holding biscuits, meal and flour, &c. The next storey held two apartments: one for Mr. Stevenson, in which he had his hammock, desk, chair and table, books and instruments. The top storey was surmounted by a pyramidal roof, and was lined with four tiers of berths, capable of accommodating thirty people. The framework was erected on a part of the rock as far removed as possible from the proposed foundation of the lighthouse tower; but in a great gale which occurred on the 3rd of November it was entirely destroyed and swept from the rock, nothing remaining to point out its site but a [pg 176]few broken and twisted iron stanchions, and attached to one of them a piece of a beam, so shaken and rent by dashing against the rock as literally to resemble a bunch of laths. Thus did one night obliterate the traces of a season’s toil, and blast the hopes which the workmen fondly cherished of a stable dwelling on the rock, and of refuge from the miseries of sea-sickness, which the experience of the season had taught many of them to dread more than death itself. A more successful attempt was subsequently made, and the second erection braved the storm for several years after the works were finished. “Perched forty feet above the wave-beaten rock,” says Stevenson, “in this singular abode, the writer of this little volume[58] has spent many a weary day and night at those times when the sea prevented any one going down to the rock, anxiously looking for supplies from the shore, and earnestly longing for a change of weather favourable to the re-commencement of the works. For miles around nothing could be seen but white foaming breakers, and nothing heard but howling winds and lashing seas. At such seasons most of our time was spent in bed; for there alone we had effectual shelter from the winds and the spray, which searched every cranny in the walls of the barrack. Our slumbers, too, were at times fearfully interrupted by the sudden pouring of the sea over the roof, the rocking of the house on its pillars, and the spirting of water through the seams of the doors and windows: symptoms which, to one suddenly aroused from sound sleep, recalled the appalling fate of the former barrack, which had been engulfed in the foam not twenty yards from our dwelling, and for a moment seemed to summon us to a similar fate. On two occasions, in particular, [pg 177]those sensations were so vivid as to cause almost every one to spring out of bed; and some of the men flew from the barrack by a temporary gangway to the more stable but less comfortable shelter afforded by the bare wall of the lighthouse tower, then unfinished, where they spent the remainder of the night in the darkness and the cold.”
Yet life on the Skerryvore was by no means destitute of its peculiar pleasures. The grandeur of the ocean’s rage, the deep murmur of the waves, the hoarse cry of the sea-birds, were varied by peaceful hours, when the sea was glassy and the deep blue vault of heaven was studded with a thousand stars. “Among the many wonders of the ‘great deep,’ ” says Stevenson, “which we witnessed at the Skerryvore, not the least is the agility and power displayed by the unshapely seal. I have often seen half a dozen of these animals round the rock, playing on the surface or riding on the crests of curling waves, come so close as to permit us to see their eyes and head, and lead us to expect that they would be thrown high and dry at the foot of the tower; when suddenly they performed a somersault within a few feet of the rock, and diving into the flaky and wreathing foam, disappeared, and as suddenly re-appeared a hundred yards off, uttering a strange low cry.”
On one occasion the tender could not come off to the poor people on the rock for seven weeks. The seamen passed a most dreary time. Their provisions and fuel were short; their clothes were worn to rags; and, what was to them of more importance still, they were out of tobacco!
One of the great difficulties experienced was landing the stones on the rock from the lighters, which, towed out by a steamer, were cast off as near the landing-place as possible and then towed in by boats. The landing service throughout the whole progress of the works was one of danger and anxiety, and many narrow escapes were made. On many occasions the men who steered the lighters ran great risks, and it was often found necessary to lash them to the rails, to prevent them being thrown overboard by the sudden bounds of the vessels, or being carried away by the weight of water which swept their decks as they were towed through a heavy sea. Sometimes they were forced, owing to the heavy seas which threatened to throw the vessels on the top of the rock, to draw out the lighters from the wharf without landing a single stone, after they had been towed through a stormy passage of thirteen miles. One day, during the very best part of the season, so sudden were the jerks of the vessel before the sea, that eight large warps, or cables, were snapped like threads, and the lighter was carried violently before a crested wave which rolled unexpectedly upon her. Those who stood on deck were thrown flat on their faces, and imagined that the vessel had been laid high and dry on the top of the rock. Yet, in spite of the short season and great difficulties of the work, no less than 120 lighters were towed out and discharged in the summer and autumn of 1841. During the progress of building the lighthouse, cranes and other materials were swept away by the waves, and daily risks were run in blasting the splintery gneiss, or by the falling of heavy bodies from the tower on the narrow space below, to which so many persons were necessarily confined. Yet no loss of life or limb occurred; and “our remarkable preservation was viewed,” says Stevenson, “as in a peculiar manner the gracious work of Him by whom ‘the very hairs of our head are all numbered.’ ”
The light was first exhibited on the 1st of February, 1844. It is a revolving apparatus, [pg 178]and the light appears at its brightest state once in every minute. The lantern is no less than 150 feet above the sea, and its flashes may be seen from the deck of a vessel eighteen miles off. It is frequently seen from the high land of Barra, distant thirty-eight miles. The mass of stonework is double that of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, and five times that of the Eddystone; it measures 58,580 cubic feet. The Skerryvore Light-tower was erected at a cost of £86,977 17s. 7d.
THE SKERRYVORE LIGHTHOUSE.
The eminent French naturalist, M. de Quatrefages, has given us an admirable description[59] of a visit paid by him to the lighthouse of Héhaux, on a rock near the Isles of Bréhat, [pg 179]off the coast of Brittany. He says, after some very beautiful remarks on the contemplation of nature, and its alleviation of the worst heart-sorrows: “Twilight often surprised me in the midst of my reveries, and often, too, the shades of night fell around me while I lay stretched beneath the star-bespangled deep azure canopy of heaven. I could then see another star shining in the far distance, which had been lighted by the hand of man. From the position I had chosen I could recognise the beacon-towers of Héhaux, of which the seamen of the islands had spoken to me with the liveliest expressions of enthusiasm, and which I had frequently watched by day as it stood out like a black line drawn along the whitish background of the sky. I would not leave Bréhat without visiting it. A few slight services had secured me the good-will of the officers of customs, who willingly consented to take me to Héhaux. Accordingly, one splendid day in October we left the harbour of La Corderie in a pinnace, manned by six sturdy seamen. The weather was splendid; not a cloud obscured the sky, which was reflected on the mirror-like surface of the ocean, whose depths it seemed to double. Impelled by the combined action of a light wind, which swelled out two small square sails, and of the rapid current imparted to the waters of Kerpont by the force of the tide, our pinnace shot across the waves as a sledge glides over the snow. Sometimes, indeed, we passed through a whirling eddy, which shook every part of our frail craft, and betrayed the vicinity of some submarine rock; but we soon regained the unruffled sea, and without having taken cognisance of the rapid rate at which we were moving, we saw Bréhat sink below the distant horizon behind us, whilst rock after rock and islet after islet seemed at every moment to emerge from the waves towards which we were advancing.... The nearer we drew to Héhaux the taller seemed the beacon-tower, which stood forth from the tower, with its lofty granite column and glass lantern, protected by that magical rod which is able to attract and safely conduct to earth the destructive force of the thunderbolt. We landed, and at once began our inspection of this colossal block, which has been upreared by the hand of man on the Epées de Tréguier, which, once the dread of the seaman, have become his protecting guides through the storms and darkness of night.
“The Héhaux Lighthouse would be regarded as a most remarkable monument even in our principal towns, but standing, as it does, alone in the midst of the ocean, it acquires by its very isolation a character of severe grandeur, which impresses the mind most powerfully. Figure to yourself a wall of granite, where the current and the storm do not even permit the hardiest ferns to take root, with here and there a twisted and deeply wave-worn mass projecting beyond the rest of the rocky ledge. It is here that the architect has laid the foundation of the tower. The base, which is of a conical form, is surmounted by a circular gallery. The lower portion curves gracefully outwards, spreading over the ground like the root of some colossal marine plant springing up from the foundation stones, which have been inserted far within the rock. On this base, which measures about twenty yards across, rises a column twenty-six feet in diameter, surmounted by a second gallery, whose supports and stone balustrades call to mind the portcullis and battlements of some feudal donjon. From the summit to the base this part of the edifice is composed of large blocks of whitish granite, arranged in regular strata, and carefully dove-tailed into one another. As far as a third of the height of the building the rows of stones [pg 180]are bound together by granite joggles, which at the same time penetrate into the two superposed stones. The stones have been cut and arranged with such precision that there has been hardly any reason for using cement, which has only been employed in filling up a few imperceptible voids: and hence the lighthouse, from the base to the summit, seems to form one solid block, which is more homogeneous and probably more compact than the rocks which support it. The platform which crowns this magnificent column, at an elevation of more than 140 feet above high tide watermark, is surmounted by a stone cupola, at once solid and graceful, supported by pillars which are separated by large panes of glass. It is within this frame of glass that the beacon is lighted, which may be distinctly seen from every direction at a distance of twenty-seven miles.