The arrangements were that work should be resumed in the early spring of 1868, so as to secure full advantage of the favourable easterly winds. Accordingly, when the special steam-tender arrived on April 14, she was loaded up with necessaries and men, ready to proceed to the site directly the wind should veer round to the desired point of the compass. But with aggravating persistency it clung to the west and south-west until the end of June, so that many valuable weeks were unfortunately lost. Time after time, when there was a lull in the weather, the steamer put out from Earraid, the engineers determined to make a dash for the rock, and as many times they were foiled, as the men could not be got through the surf. One day, however, an hour and a half was snatched on the rock, and, although no work could be done in that time, yet the interval was sufficient to enable the engineers to take a look round and to see how their handiwork had withstood the heavy gales of the previous winter. There was only one marked evidence of the Atlantic’s wrath. One section of the iron ring connecting the heads of the legs of the barrack at a height of 30 feet had been carried away. [Illustration: _By permission of the Lighthouse Literature Mission._ THE NORTH UNST LIGHT. The first light was built in twenty-six days during the Crimean War at the British Government’s urgent request.] [Illustration: _By permission of the Lighthouse Literature Mission._ LANDING WATER AT THE NORTH UNST. Showing tramway connecting with tower, 200 feet above.] On June 29 the wind moderated sufficiently to enable the men to be landed, but the climatic conditions remained adverse. The wind refused to swing round to the east; a westerly swell was the luck day after day. The engineers had to dodge the ocean as best they could, and some idea of the handicap under which they laboured may be gathered from the fact that only four landings were made during the sixty-one days of May and June. July enabled the greatest number of landings to be effected--thirteen; while during August and September the men only gained the rock on twenty-one occasions, making a total of thirty-eight landings in the course of 153 days.