CHAP. vn.J ANOTHER STORM DESCRIBED. 327 



tions of the Coast Guard watch-house. On the pier the water 

 fell so heavily that it was often some feet deep, and the spray 

 from the waves mounted to a height of about forty feet above 

 the lighthouse. The people kept watching on the shore till 

 daybreak, but no sign of any of the other boats was visible, 

 and as no known casualty had occurred to the boats that 

 made for Buckie and Portgordon, keen hopes were entertained 

 that the remainder of the boats had found shelter on the 

 opposite side of the Firth, or would be able to ride out the 

 storm. The anxiety in Buckie continued during Thursday, 

 and was rather intensified towards the afternoon when the 

 wind, veering round to W.N.W., again heightened almost to 

 the pitch it had reached during the previous night. Several 

 people from the villages on both sides of Buckie came into 

 that town in the afternoon to ascertain whether the post 

 should bring tidings from their missing friends. With great 

 consideration the captain of one of the boats that got into 

 Cromarty wrote by first post to say that no casualty had oc- 

 curred within his knowledge, and that a number of boats 

 (some eight or nine) had entered Cromarty in safety, and 

 others were approaching the harbour. 



I was a witness to some of the effects of the previous great 

 storms that had raged in the Moray Firth about the close of 

 the year 1857. A number of fishing-boats and their crews 

 were lost at that time, Buckie again coming in for a large 

 share of the desolation. I have preserved a few scraps de- 

 scriptive of the storm, cut, I think, from the Banffshire 

 Journal ; and these, supplemented by what I gathered per- 

 sonally from the descriptions of those engaged in the contest, 

 will give my readers a good idea of the scene at Buckie. Pre- 

 mising that before the storm attained its culminating point 

 one or two of the boats had got safely into the harbour, I may 

 state that as the sea increased in anger and the waves lashed 

 the shore in ever-augmenting fury, the excitement of those on 



