Firth, flocks of islands, flocks of reefs, many of them uncharted.
The aid of steam was not yet. At first in random coasting sloop,
and afterwards in the cutter belonging to the service, the engineer
must ply and run amongst these multiplied dangers, and sometimes
late into the stormy autumn. For pages together my grandfather's
diary preserves a record of these rude experiences; of hard winds
and rough seas; and of 'the try-sail and storm-jib, those old
friends which I never like to see.' They do not tempt to
quotation, but it was the man's element, in which he lived, and
delighted to live, and some specimen must be presented. On Friday,
September 10th, 1830, the Regent lying in Lerwick Bay, we have this
entry: 'The gale increases, with continued rain.' On the morrow,
Saturday, 11th, the weather appeared to moderate, and they put to
sea, only to be driven by evening into Levenswick. There they lay,
'rolling much,' with both anchors ahead and the square yard on
deck, till the morning of Saturday, 18th. Saturday and Sunday they
were plying to the southward with a 'strong breeze and a heavy
sea,' and on Sunday evening anchored in Otterswick. 'Monday, 20th,
it blows so fresh that we have no communication with the shore. We
see Mr. Rome on the beach, but we cannot communicate with him. It
blows "mere fire," as the sailors express it.' And for three days
more the diary goes on with tales of davits unshipped, high seas,
strong gales from the southward, and the ship driven to refuge in
Kirkwall or Deer Sound. I have many a passage before me to
transcribe, in which my grandfather draws himself as a man of
minute and anxious exactitude about details. It must not be
forgotten that these voyages in the tender were the particular
pleasure and reward of his existence; that he had in him a reserve
of romance which carried him delightedly over these hardships and
perils; that to him it was 'great gain' to be eight nights and