It has a peculiar effect, because it has no regular period; depending upon the irregular coming in of the waves, and upon their similarly irregular force, it is blown somewhat as an idle boy would blow his penny trumpet.

It ceases entirely for an hour and a half at low water, when the mouth of the cave or passage is exposed.
[Illustration: LIGHT-HOUSE ON THE SOUTH FARALLON.] [Illustration: ARCH AT WEST END, FARALLON ISLANDS.] The life of the keepers of the Farallon light is singularly lonely and monotonous.

Their house is built somewhat under the shelter of the rocks, but they live in what to a landsman would seem a perpetual storm; the ocean roars in their ears day and night; the boom of the surf is their constant and only music; the wild scream of the sea-birds, the howl of the sea-lions, the whistle and shriek of the gale, the dull, threatening thunder of the vast breakers, are the dreary and desolate sounds which lull them to sleep at night, and assail their ears when they awake.

In the winter months even their supply vessel, which, for the most part, is their only connection with the world, is sometimes unable to make a landing for weeks at a time.

Chance visitors they see only occasionally, and at that distance at which a steamer is safe from the surf, and at which a girl could not even recognize her lover.