A sea-fog is a ghastly and chilling phenomenon, but in no other circumstances does the South Stack rock appear so impressive, or the fog-horn of its lighthouse seem so uncanny. As a light wind springs up and gradually clears away the fog, like clouds of white smoke, the first object looming in ghostly fashion out of the absolute void is the lighthouse lantern, apparently detached and swimming in air; while the strange bellowing, like that of a dyspeptic cow, that has been coming at half-minute intervals from some unknown quarter, is located from it. The distant wail, throbbing in a higher key across the invisible water, is the fog-horn on the Skerries. [Illustration: THE SOUTH STACK. _After T. Creswick, R.A._] As the fog gradually dies away, the lighthouse becomes revealed with the island rock it stands upon. This is the South Stack: a great mass of seamed and crannied rock torn off from the cliffs and standing as an island, itself rising to a height of 212 feet above high water, and looked down upon by sheer granite cliffs three hundred feet taller. In the narrow chasm below the sea dashes savagely in and out of the gloomy caverns, with a sound like muffled thunder. The grandeur and scale of this terrific scene—a fitting climax to all the varied scenery of the Holyhead Road—are not fully realised when looking down upon it. There, on the island rock, stands the white lighthouse, with whitewashed stone walls zigzagging along the verge of its cliffs, and forming a little compound where the store-houses and the cottages of the staff are situated; and the whole looks so neat and toy-like that its dimensions are not at first grasped. But when the slow and winding descent to it down the face of the cliff by 381 rude rocky steps has been cautiously accomplished, the awful savagery of the spot is realised. There may possibly be a few places on these coasts to approach the grimly bristling rocks of the South Stack in their wild beauty, but none can surpass them. At the foot of the long descent, but still perched high above the fearful waves that even in calm weather run and recede, hissing and foaming, for a distance of thirty or forty feet up and down the face of the cliffs, is the entrance to a suspension-bridge hung from side to side of the channel. Before this was built, the only means of access was by a line and basket, followed at a little later period by a rope bridge; but the risk was so great that the present one, a miniature reproduction of the Menai Bridge was constructed.