Robert Louis Stevenson so many irons in the fire". He wrote "The Beach of Falesa", "Catriona" (titled "David Balfour" in the US), "The Ebb-Tide", and the "Vailima Letters" during this period. Stevenson grew depressed and wondered if he had exhausted his creative vein, as he had been "overworked bitterly" and that the best he could write was "ditch-water". He even feared that he might again become a helpless invalid. He rebelled against this idea: "I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to
Torran Rocks white spittle". Nicholson (1995) calls them "4½ miles of jumbled granite teeth" and that "the extent and confused nature of this reef claimed untold numbers of vessels plying between America or the Baltic ports and Oban". The reefs are so hazardous that only small boats can hope to navigate them with any degree of safety. In addition to being a hazard to navigation, they are one of the locations featured in the novel "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was in this "stoneyard" that Alan Breck Stewart and David Balfour were ship-wrecked. David Balfour, the hero of this tale was