Perhaps it was the same individual who, after having served at the Eddystone upwards of fourteen years, conceived so strong an attachment to his prison that for two consecutive years he gave up his turn of relief. He would fain have continued the same course of life for a third year, but so much pressure was brought to bear upon him that he consented to avail himself of the usual privilege. All the years he had spent in the lighthouse he had been distinguished for his quiet and orderly behaviour; on land he found himself “out of his element,” and drank until he was completely intoxicated. In this condition he was carried back to the Eddystone, where, after languishing for a few days, he expired. Some men have gone mad, or nearly so, by dint of contemplating the same scenes and the same external impressions. About a mile and a quarter from the Land’s End, on a group of granite islets washed by the sea, stands the _Longships Lighthouse_, constructed in 1793. The particular rock on which it is built—the Carn-Bras—rises about forty-five feet above the level of low water. In winter both the rock and the building—as is the case at the Eddystone—will sometimes be covered for a few seconds by the leaping waters, which have even been known to surmount the lantern, and, on one occasion at least, to break through its crystal walls and extinguish the lamps. One day, in 1862, two black flags floated from the summit of the tower. They were evidently intended as a signal of distress. What, then, had happened? [Illustration: EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE IN A STORM.] Of the three men who inhabited the lighthouse, the one whose turn it was to keep watch had thrust a knife into his breast. His companions attempted to stanch the blood by plugging up the wound with bits of tow. Three days passed by before the people on shore could reach the lighthouse; and the sea was then so rude and disembarkation so dangerous that the wounded man had to be lowered into the boat, suspended from a kind of impromptu crane. When he was conveyed ashore he received every attention which his condition demanded; but he lived only a few days. The jury, acting upon the evidence of his companions, declared that he had committed suicide under an attack of temporary insanity. Perhaps it is not astonishing that persons of a susceptible or excitable temperament should, under the influence of ever-murmuring seas and ever-blowing winds, and while living in a state of almost continual solitude and comparative monotony, feel the vertigo of the abyss ascend to their brain, so that the control of reason is loosened, and the mind yields to the first impulse which passes over it. * * * * * Let us now take a glance at lighthouse life from a French point of view.