Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

296 wiiALi-s. •
ding- sails in a squall, launch guns overboard in a gale,
stand at the pumps for a week, or fight the ship ;
nor are
there any lee shores, or rocks, or shoals, or planks to start,
or short water, or weeviled biscuits, or captain, lieutenant,
midshipman, quarter-master, boatswain, or cat-o'nine-tails.
The odds are hollow. There is one piece, however, of
the natural and political history of a lighthouse, parti-
cularly if it should be the Edystone, which may assist in
solving- the problem. The men are all married, and they
leave their wives on shore. The records of the Edystone
most ungallantly show that no bachelor ever enlists on
that service. As to the reason why it should be a pecu-
liar and additional happiness to the happy state, thus to
part from all it holds dear, I must leave it to Plato to
solve ; hoping that some modern Platonist can derive it,
in some manner, as a corollary from the harmonic Theory
of the Triangle.
We were not, however, sorry to leave the lighthouse
and its politics, as there was a most insufferable smell of
oil; not that of the lamps, but of about 500 whales which
had been caught and boiled the week before. The shore
and the sea were covered with their vile carcases, of
which the very sea birds themselves had at last got a
surfeit. The grass smelt of oil, the flowers smelt of oil,
the sea smelt of oil, the very rocks smelt of oil. The
whale which is common here, is the bottle-nosed or piked
whale, which follows the herrings in large shoals. They
had often amused us with their gambols and their spouts;
but, on one occasion also, we had been indebted to one
of them for no small alarm. The abominable uxorious
beast had mistaken our boat for his wife, and made love
so rudely that he had nearly knocked one of the men
overboard with his tail. The mode of taking them is
simple enough, and argues much for their civilization
and good government. Like wild geese, they are under