The “code,” so to speak, from which we borrow these details is nearly the same among all maritime nations. It indicates to the keepers their duties, and prescribes to them the nature of their daily work. As for their mode of life, it is much the same everywhere, only more or less agreeable according to the stations. In France the lighthouses served by a single keeper are intrusted to married men, who live in the establishment with their family. Not only does such an arrangement ameliorate their lot, but it also gives the assurance that in case of need they will immediately be replaced in attendance on the lamp—a task so easy that it can be discharged by a woman or even by a child. The habitation allotted to them consists of one or two apartments, with a chimney, an outhouse, and sometimes a cellar. A green and a small garden are invariably attached. In some lighthouses the keeper’s house is so placed with reference to the tower that the lamp is visible from one of the windows; but in most the house is annexed to the tower, in such a manner that if the keeper is compelled to rise and attend to the lamp, at least he is not exposed, immediately after leaving his couch, to the rigour, it may be, of a winter night.
In lenticular lights of the first, second, and third class, whose flame requires surveillance throughout the night, several keepers are needed, who take their watch in turn. Formerly the keepers and their families lodged together. But, unfortunately, those dissensions which seem inevitable when a colony is numerous, and not amenable to a strict discipline, were found to break out at very short intervals, and in an exceedingly disagreeable manner. The authorities, therefore, resolved only to admit their own servants into the interior of the lighthouses, leaving to them, if married, the care of securing suitable lodgings for their wives and children. To each keeper a room was allotted, and the kitchen was common to all.
The result they had in view was thus obtained. But it was soon perceived that to separate the keepers from their families was to impose a heavy tax upon men whose pay was not too liberal; that to deprive them of the sweet domestic joys which are the legitimate reward of the cares and anxieties of paternity, was to increase the gloominess of their isolation, by rendering it more complete; and, finally, to expose them to the strong temptation of absenting themselves from the lighthouse at the hours their presence was most necessary. These inconveniences have been remedied by allotting to each keeper a separate house for himself and his family.
It is, of course, impossible that a keeper’s family should be accommodated in a sea lighthouse, which consists of a single tower. They are, therefore, lodged on shore, near the port which keeps up the communication between the lighthouse and the mainland. In such a station life to many minds would be wearisome and monotonous. The wind sometimes blows with so much violence that the keepers can with difficulty breathe. They are then compelled to shut themselves up, as closely as possible, in a tower darkened by the wreathing fog, or by the foam of swelling waves, which envelopes it like a rent veil. On fine summer days, like the English light-keepers, they amuse themselves with fishing. If their abode is not encircled by rocks on which they can stretch their lines, they knot around the lighthouse tower, at a certain height, and immediately above the entrance, a stout rope, suspending some forty or fifty lines, each about four feet long. When the sea rises, the fish crawl along the wall, and snapping at the bait, are immediately hooked. The tide goes down, and lo, the tower is wreathed round with a complete festoon of fish!
Thus, then, the life of a lighthouse-keeper varies little, whether his post be situated on the English or the French shore, on a rock washed by English or by French waters, in the Mediterranean or the North Atlantic. It is a life not free from heavy shadows; but it is one eminently calculated to develop the patient and enduring qualities of a man, and to cultivate in him a habit of self-reflection. I do not think it should be stigmatized as dismal, though it is the fashion so to speak of it; but surely no life can be dismal which is spent in the service of humanity, in steadfast devotion to the interests of others; no life can be dismal which passes in constant contemplation of all the glories of the sky and all the splendours of the sea—in constant contemplation of the mightiest and sublimest of God’s works under their grandest and most solemn aspects!