A melancholy story is connected with the completion of the lighthouse on this fatal island. The principal mason and his assistants being desirous of returning home, proceeded to Stromness on the mainland of Orkney, from whence they were most likely to get a passage to the southward. The party consisted of six in number; and the foreman’s brother, wishing to go directly to his native place, took his passage in a vessel bound from Stromness to Anstruther, while the rest embarked on board a schooner bound for Leith. The vessel sailed with a fair wind early on the 24th December, 1806. On the following morning they got sight of Kinnaird Head lighthouse in Aberdeenshire, and had the prospect of speedily reaching the Frith of Forth; but the wind having suddenly shifted to the south-east, and increased to a tremendous gale, the vessel immediately put about, and steered in quest of some safe harbour in Orkney. At two o’clock in the afternoon she passed the Portland Frith, and got into the bay of Long Hope, but could not reach the proper anchorage; and at three o’clock both anchors were let go in an outer roadstead. The storm still continuing with unabated force, the cables parted or broke, and the vessel drifted on the island of Flotta. The utmost efforts of those on board to pass a rope to the shore, with the assistance of the inhabitants of the island, proved ineffectual; the vessel struck upon a shelving rock, and, night coming on, sunk in three fathoms water. Some of the unfortunate crew and passengers attempted to swim ashore, but in the darkness of the night they either lost their way, or were dashed upon the rocks by the surge of the sea; while those who retained hold of the rigging of the ship, being worn out with fatigue and the piercing coldness of the weather during a long winter night, died before morning,--when the shore presented the dreadful spectacle of the wreck of no fewer than five vessels, with many lifeless bodies.