That this great article of the lighthouse-keeper’s faith may be the more easily carried out, he is subjected, both when on probation and afterwards, to a strict discipline, and is required to gain a thorough acquaintance with all the materials he has to handle—lamps, oil, wicks, lighting apparatus, and revolving machinery. Before being admitted into the service, he is carefully examined as to his physical qualities by keen medical eyes; and as to his moral qualities, the best testimonials are necessary from persons in whose competency and honesty of judgment implicit confidence can be placed. He receives liberal wages, and, when past work, a fair pension; and a deduction from his pay is regularly applied to the discharge of a premium on his life insurance. He is enjoined to “the constant habit of cleanliness and good order in his own person, and to the invariable exercise of temperance and morality in his habits and proceedings; so that, by his example, he may enforce, as far as lies in his power, the observance of the same laudable conduct by his wife and family.” The utmost vigilance is expected of him when it is his turn to attend to the lantern. “He whose watch is about to end is to trim the lamps, and leave them burning in perfect order, before he quits the lantern and calls the succeeding watch; and he who has the watch at sunrise, when he has extinguished the lamps, is to commence all necessary preparations for the exhibition of the light at the ensuing sunset.” No bed, sofa, or other article on which to recline, is permitted, either in the lantern or in the apartment under the lantern known as the watch-room. From these requirements we may infer what kind of life is led by the lighthouse-keeper, and what are its leading requisites: temperance, cleanliness, honesty, conscientiousness, zeal, watchfulness. At different stations it varies considerably in its lighter occupations. In the rock lighthouse—such as the Eddystone—the keeper’s chief amusements are necessarily reading and fishing: the only capability of exercise is within the circle of the outer gallery, or on the belt of rock surrounding the lighthouse base; and the sole incidents which break up the uniformity of his daily life are the inspections of the committee, the visits of the district superintendent, or the monthly relief which takes the men back to shore. In the shore lighthouse—as at Harwich or the Forelands—there is a plot of ground to cultivate, frequent intercourse with visitors from the neighbouring watering-places, and the wider range of occupation and entertainment which necessarily can be enjoyed upon _terra firma_.