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by electricity-a special bridge arrangement carrying the charge up to that position each five minutes.

The walls at the base of the lighthouse are nine feet thick, and I noticed engraved above the entrance door, "1872." From the focus of the light to high-water mark is 110 feet.

This lighthouse is served by four men, three on the "house" and one on shore. Each spends six weeks on the island and two on the mainland.

The head keeper told me that often in the winter they never went out of those heavy gun-metal doors for sometimes as much as three weeks together, the waves all the time dashing over the island. The lantern of the lighthouse was once broken in during a fearful storm, and on that awful night the hair of one of the keepers is said to have turned grey.

One day in 1862 two black flags were seen hoisted on the top. It was a distress signal. Of the three men who then inhabited the tower, the one on duty at the time, in a fit of insanity, stabbed himself in the intestines. He was taken to the shore, where he died.

The same courteous custodian of the light said it was not unusual for the landing to be so bad that the exchangeman could only be taken off by swinging him through the water at a rope's end, and his homeward-bound comrade similarly treated.

The powerful beams of the incandescent oil burners seem to have a peculiar fascination for birds. The watchman on duty in the lantern tower at night has only to step out on the grating platform which encircles the glass structure to pick off as many birds as he wants.

He merely waits until the brilliant revolving rays are full on the creature, dazing it for the moment, and then quietly grasps it and wrings its neck.

These visitations are not uncommon in stormy weather, and bird-pie frequently varies the regular Trinity House rations of the Longships lightsmen.

Often the house, I learnt, was in dense mist when the land was clear, and all they could see was the masts of vessels rising above the banks of clouds below. Then, again, they could not see the Land's End or Sennen, because

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they were wrapped in a white shroud, whilst all around the rocky islets the sun was kissing the sea, which sent up sparkling sheets of dancing white foam. Such changes, over a small area of earth's surface, are very characteristic of the climate of Land's End.

One of the amusements of the men is fishing, and they catch large numbers of pollack, conger, chad. They use a barbed trident to stab at shoals of mullet as they pass. The instrument has a short handle, to which is tied a thin rope in order to enable it to be pulled back, on to the rocks, after its flight.

I was lucky enough to see as curious a bit of fishing as I suppose anyone ever witnessed. I saw one of the keepers catch a crab of about six inches across its back, in what was to me a remarkably novel way. He got the lighthouse kitchen poker, and put it down into a hole at the far end of one of the rocks, stretching out and leaning over a spot much frequented by these crustaceans. The kitchen poker was, he said, almost certain to take a crab at that spot after a little rest had been given to the hole. The crab, annoyed at the intrusion, pinched fiercely at the iron culinary instrument, and so met with its death. Truly, those who live hermit-lives on desert islands soon develop Robinson Crusoe habits.

The delightful cleanliness of every inch of granite step, every wall, and every tiny circular apartment and instrument in the lighthouse is most noticeable. And yet the keepers told me they were continually dusting, so that we who live in town houses are, in this respect, not alone unhappy. When one steps ashore on the islet it is like springing up the gangway of a well-kept yacht, and makes one long to spend, well, a week there. Probably after that period the confinement to such a small spot, in spite of the good fishing off the rocks and the scientific management of the light, and its careful nursing, might pall.

An artist, however, might find there material to keep him employed for a much longer period. The picturesque vicissitudes of light and shade; the vapours of morning and mists of purple floating like royal panoplies above the cliffs on shore when a light breeze rippling the surface of the sea dispersed them; the awful storms and terror

striking waves seen here in perfection, afford pictures which an artist would long to paint. But then, is not everything connected with the ocean full of wonder and strange delights, artistic combinations and marked contrasts ?

Fictions of melodramatic sensational character seem to fasten on lighthouses and lighthouse-men for their subjects. The custodians laugh at these sentimental stories in prose and stirring verse. But, nevertheless, the Longships has had a very sad past history. In the autumn of 1877 one of the men was washed off the rock and drowned, the same fate having befallen three at least of his predecessors. Another man died in the lighthouse, one became mad, and one, as I have already mentioned, committed suicide.

This is essentially a spot where many ships "pass in the night, and speak each other in passing." Intermittently the great light flashes forth from the tower's head, like the penetrating eye of some fabulous ogre or marine monster. Its brilliant beams drive angels' golden pathways through the darkness which has settled down over land and sea. The click, click overhead proclaims the fact that the simple and effective clockwork arrangement is performing with unfailing regularity its appointed functions, and spelling the name of this spot of land in plainly readable language for many miles out to sea. And steadily, unweariedly, the ships go by in a never-ending, stately procession. Day by day, night by night, year by year. They stream away east, bound up Channel, or west, heading for foreign lands, or closely shaving this watcher of the sea on a coasting voyage. In the sweet summer-time the fishing-boats float by or lazily anchor off the islets and try for wrasse and cod near the rocks. The brown-faced, weather-beaten men, smoking short clay pipes, shout up to the watchers above cheery words of greeting, which bring them down from their watch tower to hear all the news of the land. Yet the watchers are never lonely-in one sense. There is always something upon which ito turn the glass. A clumsy, old-fashioned tramp steamer-the distant beat of whose screw throbs in the stillness-flounders by, grimy and unwashed. Or, it maybe, a trim drawing-room yacht, spick and span in all the glory of snow-white sails, white paint,

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gilded scroll-work, and looking-glass brass, passes silently along like the sea dandy she is, making the hearts of the old salts in the tower beat a little quicker and cast envious glances. She makes no fuss or splutter, but like a well-bred and dressed lady, from hat to shoes, throws the knots behind her shapely hull at some eighteen to the hour.

Yes, variety these beacon-watchers certainly have. When fog shuts out the scene, then truly they become of even more importance than ever. Life depends upon their personal vigilance, for the fog demon knows not pity. Every five minutes the button has to be pressed, and the earsplitting roar up above has to be sent out in friendliest, kindliest warning. The sirens of old that sang their alluring songs from deadly rocks are reported to have beguiled mariners to their undoing. That was their deadly business. Nowadays the modern sailor is not allured, but avoids these noise-uttering rocks for practically the same reason as did his predecessors: that wailing note spells in capital letters, danger-perhaps death.

H

PEOPLE

CHAPTER XI

THE FIRST AND LAST OF ENGLAND

EOPLE will go out of their way to see anything odd, curious, eccentric. Barnum knew this well, and made a living out of it. Even the everyday showman at a fair gets more customers to see his faked mermaid than he would if he only showed real live fish in an aquarium. Monsters, dwarfs, giants, bearded ladies, skeleton men, elastic-skin people, tattooed ladies, and other monstrosities "draw." So you may describe and advertise the most beautiful scenes in the world, and it falls flat. The man in the street and his wife don't want to see fine views, lovely landscapes, or sparklingly bright seascapes. Tell them a beautiful picture is on view-they won't go to see it. Tell them a picture was painted by no human hand—say, a painting by the late Charles Félu, the armless artist of Antwerp-and they will flock in to gloat over it. A portrait, no matter how lovely or religious, is a failure as a show in Bond Street; but give out that it possesses some rare characteristic, some halo-like emanation, some mystic peculiarities, and that show at once jumps to the hill-top of commercial success. Human nature has always been like this. It always will be.

England's actual land's end-The Land's End, as it is called-is no more beautiful or remarkable than many other Cornish headlands, but because it is the land's end, the first and last of this island, people flock to see it, gaze on the extremity with dilated eyes and, it is hoped, much satisfaction. Each year more and more people visit this little bit of Cornwall simply because it is the end of the land, and for no other reason. Everything is made easy for them. The Great Western Railway, imbued with the true pushing, advertising spirit of the age, makes the journey comfortable and pleasant. Motor 'buses meet the "Cornish Riviera " expresses at Penzance, and whirl visitors away smoothly and

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