_31st August._--The last day of August was one of considerable discomfort. Our landing at four in the morning was attended with great difficulty and some danger; and throughout the day we were a good deal incommoded by a thick drizzling rain, which continued without intermission. About mid-day the sea rose so much as to render it no longer prudent to delay leaving the Rock, and we therefore embarked. After lying at our moorings until half-past two, in what, to landsmen, was a most distressing sea, we slipped and ran for Hynish Bay, which we reached at 5¹⁄₂ P.M. The weather continued boisterous until next evening (1st September), when the wind went round to the north, and at eight all the men were summoned on board; but although we sailed at daybreak, we could not reach the moorings with daylight; and it was not till the morning of the 4th September, about four o’clock, that we could again land on the Rock. We succeeded, in spite of a very unfavourable day, in remaining till three o’clock, during which time we fixed the whole of the horizontal braces, and got everything which we had not been able to secure in its place firmly lashed to the ring-bolts on the Rock, after which we were forced to leave it for Mull. The gale continued to blow very hard, without any intermission, for some days; and on the 6th, some wreck-timber, covered with goose-barnacles, came ashore among the surf at the beach at Hynish, but no trace of its history was ever found, nor did any rumour reach us of a shipwreck having occurred on this coast. It was not till the 8th that we could again attempt to reach the Skerryvore; when, sailing from Mull with a fair wind, and taking on board at Hynish nine masons, and Mr C. Barclay, foreman of the quarriers, we again landed on it at 2¹⁄₂ P.M. We succeeded in getting up the mortar gallery (see Plate V.), and in fixing some of the diagonal braces, and left the Rock about eight. A marrot perched on the vessel’s side this afternoon, much fatigued and evidently desirous to get on board; but the sailors, from some superstitious dread, would not admit the poor bird. _10th September._--We landed at four o’clock, and had a long and good day’s work until daylight left us. We were now within twenty-four hours at most of completing all that could be expected to be done this season; and it was with no small anxiety that I observed a change of wind from N.E. to S.S.W., accompanied by a fall of the sympiesometer; as in the event of a change of weather at that season, it seemed very uncertain when we might again land, and still more uncertain whether our work, in its incomplete state, could resist the winter’s seas. ~Last day’s work on Rock this season.~ ~Precaution for the benefit of shipwrecked seamen.~ ~View from top of pyramid.~