Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/278

542 tower, trembling amid the billows, and fifteen miles from Arbroath, the nearest shore. The fitting up within is not only handsome, but elegant. All work of wood (almost) is wainscot; all hammer-work brass; in short, exquisitely fitted up. You enter by a ladder of rope, with wooden steps, about thirty feet from the bottom, where the mason- work ceases to be solid, and admits of round apartments. The lowest is a storehouse for the people's provisions, water, &c.; above that a storehouse for the lights, of oil, &c.; then the kitchen of the people, three in number; then their sleeping chamber; then the saloon or parlour, a neat little room; above all, the lighthouse; all communicating by oaken ladders, with brass rails, most handsomely and conveniently executed. Breakfasted in the parlour." On being requested to inscribe his name in the album of the tower, Sir Walter, after breakfast, wrote the following lines, which Mr. Stevenson adopted for the motto of his work on the Bell Rock lighthouse:

The whole diary of this voyage in the northern seas, which the great poet and novelist has fully detailed, abounds with incidental notices, in which Mr. Stevenson's amiable disposition, as well as remarkable professional ability, diligence, and enterprise, are strikingly exemplified. It was one of those periodical voyages which Mr. Stevenson was wont to make in the erection of lighthouses, and the superintendence of northern lights; and besides three commissioners of the board, there were three pleasure tourists, of whom Sir Walter was one. The vessel in which they sailed was the lighthouse yacht, of six guns and ten men; for besides the storms of the Atlantic, lately a brush with a French cruizer, and even now with a Yankee privateer, might be no improbable contingency. The singular coasts that had to be surveyed, the strange places to be selected for the erection of lighthouses, and the difficulties that had to be overcome in such erections, will be best understood from the following quotation, which, therefore, notwithstanding its length, we give without curtailment:—

"August 27, 1814.—The wind, to which we resigned ourselves, proves exceedingly tyrannical, and blows squally the whole night, which, with the swell of the Atlantic, now unbroken by any islands to windward, proves a means of great combustion in the cabin. The dishes and glasses in the steward's cup-boards become locomotive—portmanteaus and writing-desks are more active than necessary—it is scarce possible to keep one's self within bed, and impossible to stand upright, if you rise. Having crept upon deck about four in the morning, I find we are beating to windward off the Isle of Tyree, with the determination on the part of Mr. Stevenson that his constituents should visit a reef of rocks called Skerry Vhor, where he thought it would be essential to have a lighthouse. Loud remonstrances on the part of the commissioners, who one and all declare they will subscribe to his opinion, whatever it may be, rather than continue this infernal buffeting. Quiet perseverance on the part of Mr. S., and great kicking, bouncing, and squabbling upon that of the yacht, who seems to