PASSAGIUM REGINAE The - Royal Dunfermline

family, several of whom came over to Scotland and settled in Fifeshire about
the time of the Irish Rebellion, circa 1689. She died in 1820. Anderson had
two daughters, Helen and Betty, and since his wife‟s name was Helen also,
and the two Helens would probably be called Nelly, it looks as if he
christened his brig after his three nearest female relations. The younger
Helen, who died in 1874, was married to John Reid, shipmaster of Limekilns,
father of the John Reid already referred to, and great-grandfather of Lord
Wavertree. The old water-colour is particularly interesting on account of the
„two exact views‟ in the one picture of this typical merchant brig of the latter
part of the eighteenth century. We can see her stern so well in the side
drawing, and can read her name there in large black Georgian letters.
It would be a difficult matter now to get the names of all those captains who
sailed vessels from Limekilns from the beginning of last century, and the
following is but an imperfect list of those who resided there and were
connected in one way and another, as shipmasters and shipowners, with the
Fifeshire trade of the nineteenth century: The Lawsons; the Baynes; the
Clarks; Mr. Harley; the Wilsons of Academy Square, or Close; Mr.
Stenhouse, father of the present sea-captain who, though he has lived in
retirement there for a considerable time, never sailed from Limekilns; the
Fotheringhams; the Monros (two families); Messrs. Gifford, Reid, Potter (two
families), Young, Liddell, Poole, Whitehead, M‟Laren, and Bryce. When
many of these gave up going to sea or owning vessels, their sons proved
themselves splendid sailors, and got the command of ships sailing over the
whole world, and some of those ships amongst the most seaworthy and fastest
afloat.
Captain Stenhouse, now in his eightieth year, lives in a curious little grey
house wedged in between larger ones in Red Row. He possesses a map of
great interest showing the three journeys he had made round the Horn. In one
of these it took the barque nine weeks to double the point, a matter of 500
miles only, but she kept drifting back owing to headwinds and too little
ballast. On this voyage she was at one moment actually 240 miles south of
the Horn – in Antarctic regions. The period covered by the struggle was 25th
September to 26th November 1889, which is of course spring in those
latitudes. A year later Captain Stenhouse sailed round the Horn in eleven
days – a very different story.
A close examination of the two harbours of Limekilns and Brucehaven
should at once show that the former is the older of the two. To begin with, it
is a very natural one, with protection against the winds from the west and
north, whereas Brucehaven is more exposed. It is true that the entrance in the
reef of rock bounding the ancient harbour on its south side is very narrow –
the rock, in very old times, was cut through and the passage is known as the
„ghauts‟ – sometimes wrongly spelt „gatts‟ – but when once a vessel was
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