224 



THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE. 



PART VTI. 



commerce of Scotland, and the large number of vessels 

 wrecked there, had the effect of directing public attention 

 to the subject. As in the case of the Eddystone reef, the 

 sailors' fear of it was such, that in order to avoid its 

 dangers, they hugged the land so close as very frequently 

 to run ashore. 1 



A Board of Commissioners had been appointed, under 

 the powers of an Act passed in 1786, for the purpose of 

 erecting lighthouses at the most dangerous parts of the 

 coast of Scotland ; and by the end of the century several 

 had been built, one on the Isle of May at the entrance 

 to the Frith of Forth, another on the Cumbraes at the 

 mouth of the Frith of Clyde, and others on rocky pro- 

 montories on the eastern and western coasts, including 

 the Orkneys. The lights exhibited were of a rude kind, 

 and consisted of coal fires in chauffers ; though, all that 

 was needed being a light, they probably answered their 

 purpose, but in a clumsy way. The most dangerous 

 reef of all, however, was still left without any protection ; 

 and doubtless the delay in providing a light upon the 

 Bell Rock arose from the great difficulty and expense of 

 erecting a suitable structure on such a site. 



In the winter of 1799, a tempest, memorable for its 

 violence and fatal effects, ravaged the coasts, and drove 

 from their anchors all the ships lying in Yarmouth 



1 Captain Basil Hall relates that, 

 when a boy, he was constantly hear- 

 ing of vessels getting wrecked through 

 fear of that terrible Bell Bock, which 

 lay about ten leagues due north of 

 the house in which he was born at 

 Dunglass, on the borders of East 

 Lothian, not far from the bold pro- 

 montory on which Fast-Castle stands, 

 overlooking the German Ocean; and 

 he relates that " ships bound for the 

 Forth, in their constant terror of the 

 dangerous reef, were not content with 

 giving it ten or even twenty miles of 

 elbow-room, but must needs edge off 

 a little more to the south, so as to 

 hug the shore, in such a way that, 



when the wind chopped round to the 

 northward, as it often did, these over- 

 cautious navigators were apt to get 

 embayed in a deep bight to the west- 

 ward of Fast-Castle. If the breeze 

 freshened before they could work out, 

 they paid dearly for their apprehen- 

 sions of the Bell Bock, by driving 

 upon ledges fully as sharp, and far 

 more extensive and inevitable. Thus," 

 he says, " at that time, from three to 

 four, and sometimes half-a-dozen ves- 

 sels used to be wrecked every winter, 

 within a mile or two of our very 

 door." * Fragments of Voyages and 

 Travels,' vol. i., p. 15, 16. Edin- 

 burgh, 1831. 



