I 



OLD WHALING DAYS. 179 



little annoyance. Our captain was now in his usual health, 

 and our thoughts were again turned to the whaling. The 

 crew was reduced to fifty men, and if more had been 

 allowed to leave we should have been short-handed. One 

 boat's crew makes a vast difference when fishing. We had 

 a fine passage, and sighted a very peculiar rock, called 

 Rockall, which lies in lat. 57036 N. and long. 13 41 W. 



This island or rock is little known, and thousands of 

 people in this country may be asked where it is, and the 

 answer will be : "I have never heard of such a place," 

 although it is adjacent to the British Isles. It is a lonely 

 rock situated in the Atlantic, about 184 miles to the west- 

 ward of St. Kilda in the Hebrides. 



At a distance it has the appearance of a vessel under full 

 sail, owing to its whitened appearance, which is supposed 

 to be sea birds' dung. It has been so little visited that 

 its formation is indifferently known. Several fishermen 

 from Hull have fished on the banks around it, and have 

 obtained good catches of cod, which attain to a great size, 

 but, owing to the wild state of the weather, that part of the 

 sea for fishing is not often frequented. 



If the truth was known, I dare say that many a stout 

 vessel has been lost upon the rock and reef adjacent, and 

 not a vestige or a soul left to tell the tale. It is so situated 

 that vessels in former days bound east from America, 

 and driven by a continuance of southerly winds, have 

 frequently seen it in the daytime, but there is nothing to 

 denote its situation by night. Thus it was a source of 

 great anxiety for masters of sailing ships in those days. 



I believe that only two or ' three persons have 

 ever landed on Rockall, and these have only 

 stayed for a very short period ; so it appears that 

 such places near our coast are so little known, yet rocks, 

 shoals, and small islands, thousands of miles away and 

 seldom seen, are accurately marked on the charts, and 



