WINTER AT AN OLD-WORLD HARBOUR 259 



I had long since sought shelter in the office at the 

 base of the lighthouse. Time after time the seas swept 

 in almost solid sheets against the rounded side, and the 

 little window by the desk was deluged. At intervals 

 there came a sea which smashed upon and over the East 

 Pier, with a force so terrific that the lighthouse positively 

 bumped. The shock came through the structure by way 

 of the booms connecting the outer breakwater with the 

 head of the Lighthouse Pier. Once upon a time not 

 many years ago there came a mass of water so tremend- 

 ous in its power that it cracked the head of the immense 

 mass of masonry on which the lighthouse stands. 



The door opened and in came the harbour-master 

 and the deputy. They were drenched with the sea and 

 the soft snow, and were numb with their exposure. 

 They would want, they said, "a dry shift from clew to 

 earring," and one proceeded to remove his " soul-and- 

 body-lashing," as he termed it in other words, a rope 

 which he had passed round his waist to keep his oil-frock 

 secure. 



I accompanied the deputy to the lantern, to light the 

 flashing apparatus. There I felt the lighthouse tremble 

 with the shocks of the charging seas. I looked through 

 the windows, too, towards the whitening hills. The 

 other panes were thick with snow and ice and there I 

 beheld a spectacle such as few residents had witnessed. 



The gale had reached its height, and it was the top 

 of the flood. The panorama was appalling in its grandeur. 

 Billow charged on billow, in one wild whirl, and with 

 resistless fury crashed against the massive breakwater. 

 There was the collision, the spouting high in the air of 

 the torn sea, and the sweeping over the two harbours 



