There is a legend that in days of old one of the abbots of the
neighbouring monastery of Aberbrothoc erected a bell on the Inchcape
Rock, which was tolled in rough weather by the action of the waves on
a float attached to the tongue, and thus mariners were warned at
night and in foggy weather of their approach to the rock, the great
danger of which consists in its being a sunken reef, lying twelve
miles from the nearest land, and exactly in the course of vessels
making for the firths of Forth and Tay. The legend further tells how
that a Danish pirate, named Ralph the Rover, in a mischievous mood,
cut the bell away, and that, years afterwards, he obtained his
appropriate reward by being wrecked on the Bell Rock, when returning
from a long cruise laden with booty.

Whether this be true or not is an open question, but certain it is
that no beacon of any kind was erected on this rock until the
beginning of the nineteenth century, after a great storm in 1799 had
stirred the public mind, and set springs in motion, which from that
time forward have never ceased to operate.

Many and disastrous were the shipwrecks that occurred during the
storm referred to, which continued, with little intermission, for
three days. Great numbers of ships were driven from their moorings
in the Downs and Yarmouth Roads; and these, together with all vessels
navigating the German Ocean at that time, were drifted upon the east
coast of Scotland.

It may not, perhaps, be generally known that there are only three
great inlets or estuaries to which the mariner steers when overtaken
by easterly storms in the North Sea--namely, the Humber, and the
firths of Forth and Moray. The mouth of the Thames is too much