them facing up-channel, and one down-channel
—yet the power of the whole would also be
visible for a considerable extent, horizontally,
out at sea. On passing near the tower, the
individual lamps and reflectors are visible in
each face, or set; but at sea this individuality
is all merged in a general effect.

Knocking at the door of the entrance, at
the base of the tower, and producing his
' order,' our visitor was at once admitted to
a little stone ante-room, where the paper
underwent a careful scrutiny. Its authenticity
being ascertained, he was conducted
onwards, and upwards, admiring as he went
the various utensils and apparatus that were
hung upon walls or deposited on shelves— oil
cans, oil measures, spare reflectors, cotton for
wicks, glass lamp-chimneys, leathers, cloths,
spare window-panes, storm-plates, chamois-
skins, bottles of spirits of wine, and many
odd-shaped things in shining copper, brass,
glass, zinc, iron or tin. Likewise, a thick
woollen night-cap, standing upright in a dark
corner, and having a thoughtful appearance.

The visitor now found the stone stair-case,
he was ascending, had become much narrower,
and he was cautioned not to speak loud or be
otherwise noisy, lest he should wake the head
light-keeper, who had gone to bed early, as it
was his turn for the next watch. The visitor,
therefore, with a softened boot, and a face of
increased seriousness, renewed his toiling
ascent between the narrow, spiral, white,
vault-like stone walls, leading up to the
"light-room," at the summit of the tower.

"Hush! " murmured the light-keeper every
now and then, by way of preventing the visitor
from speaking. All was silent, with the
exception of the hollow sound of the ascending
footsteps.

At length, after a wearisome spiral journey,
the broad landing-place below the light-room
was attained. Several more steps led up to a
dusky closed door, that had an ominous
appearance—as of the entrance to a chamber of
mysterious treasures, at the top of a tower in
some eastern tale. The visitor thought he
could distinguish a bright gleam, edging the
bottom of the door. Being told to ascend, he
prepared his mind, and did so;—then laying
his hand with becoming awe upon the door,
he slowly pushed it open.

He found himself in a small chamber full
of light, in shape very much like a hand-
frame for cucumbers, only taller. Upon a
platform of bright copper, about four feet
liigh, stood the back part of an apparatus, on
which were arranged a series of lamps, each
having a glass chimney over it, and a reflector
behind it, circular, concave, larger than the
top of the largest warming-pan, made of
copper at the back, with a pure silver face,
and polished, in this face, to the highest
degree of brilliancy, so that it could not be
looked at directly in front. The lamps and
reflectors were ranged in a double row, and
behind each were pipes, and other apparatus,
for a constant, graduated, supply of oil; for air-
currents, smoke-tubes, &c. The copper platform
was of semicircular shape, and broad enough
to admit of one person at a time walking in
front of the lamps, between them and the glass
window. The visitor was now informed that
he might do this. After a little hesitation,
with a reverential foot he accordingly
ascended a few steps at one side, and made a slow
and cautious passage in front of the lamps
with their great, glaring, silver, planet-eyes of
reflectors, that made him contract his body to
its most attenuated dimensions, and gaze
upon its dense bit of darkness with a strange
recollection of the story of the fly that got
into the philosopher's microscope. He felt
like that fly, and was heartily glad to arrive
at the other end of the platform, and humbly
descend the steps. He had scarcely done so,
when buff came something against one of the
windows, and fell outside! The window
being of thick plate-glass, no injury was done,
but the new-comer, whatever it was, had
evidently got the worst of it.

A little balcony runs outside the window,
into which the visitor now went, and there he
found—lying flat on its back— wings expanded
—beak open—and dead—a huge muff-faced
owl! " Ah," said the light-keeper, " our gun
can reach further out to sea, and over land,
than any you can handle. We often have this
balcony strewed with sea gulls and other
birds that have struck themselves dead. In
the game season, lots of partridges, and
pheasants too, fly at the light—they can't resist it
—and most of them are killed, or taken.
Sometimes we find nearly a bushel of larks
lying all about."

The visitor fell into a train of reflections on
these fatal instances of irresistible attraction,
which lasted him all the way down stairs, and
after he had left the lighthouse; in which
meditation there passed in rapid succession
before his imagination, numerous flights of
poems about the moth and the candle; and
Cupid and Psyche ('specially Psyche); and
sea-birds rushing across the homeless brine
to El Dorado, and finding Death; and Antony
and Cleopatra; and Icarus; and Macbeth;
and Napoleon; and wild-ducks; and par-
tridges—many of them roasted— and owls,
whom nobody can eat; and sailors' night-
telescopes; and Herrick's songs about birds,
and his own bird-like songs; and Shelley's
exquisite Ode to a Skylark. By this time the
visitor found himself on the verge of the cliff,
and his steps were, luckily, stopped at the
same time with his train of reflections.

But although to a sailor anxiously " shooting"
the dark horizon with his night-glass,
the interest in all lighthouses is nearly the
same, and varies only with the circumstances
of the moment, to a passenger the interest in
any fixed " light " is seldom to be compared
to that which he experiences in watching the
appearance and disappearance of a revolving
"light." Suppose a dark night, with few