The uninhabited island of Annette, one of the Scilly group, is literally surrounded with reefs and rocks, each of which is associated with some melancholy tale of suffering and death. It has been well said that they are the “dogs” of Scilly, and fierce as those which, according to the old fable, howled round the monster of the Italian seas:—
“But Scylla crouches in the gloom,
Deep in a cavern’s monstrous womb;
Thence darts her ravening mouth, and drags
The helpless vessel on the crags.”[48]
On the Gilstone Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the gallant old sea-captain of Queen Anne’s reign, was wrecked in 1707; on the Crebawethan perished the “Douro,” and all hands, in 1843; and on Jacky’s Rock, in 1841, the “Thames” steamer went to pieces, and out of sixty-five on board only three were saved. The westernmost of those terrible rocks is the Bishop Rock, and here a lighthouse was erected in 1858, from the design of Mr. James Walker. It is built of granite, and the vane is 147 feet above high water mark. The first stone, one of the fifth course, was laid on the 16th of July 1852; and on the 30th of the same month was laid the lowest stone, one foot below the level of low water spring-tides, in the chasm of the rock. The stone-work of the tower was finished on the 28th of August 1857; and the light, a fixed bright dioptric light of the first order, illuminating the entire circle, and visible, in clear weather, at a distance of fourteen miles, was exhibited on the 1st of September 1858.
BISHOP ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.
It is satisfactory to add, that this difficult enterprise was carried to a successful termination without loss of life or serious accident to any person employed.
