1841

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM



The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways;nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness,profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth inthem greater than the well of Democritus.

Joseph Glanville.
WE had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutesthe old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you onthis route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about threeyears past, there happened to me an event such as never happenedbefore to mortal man --or at least such as no man ever survived totell of --and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured havebroken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old man --but I amnot. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jettyblack to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so thatI tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do youknow I can scarcely look over this little cliff without gettinggiddy?"

The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrownhimself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hungover it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of hiselbow on its extreme and slippery edge --this "little cliff" arose,a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteenor sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothingwould have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. Intruth so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of mycompanion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to theshrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky--while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the veryfoundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds.It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage tosit up and look out into the distance.

"You must get over these fancies," said the guide, "for I havebrought you here that you might have the best possible view of thescene of that event I mentioned --and to tell you the whole story withthe spot just under your eye."

"We are now," he continued, in that particularizing manner whichdistinguished him --"we are now close upon the Norwegian coast --inthe sixty-eighth degree of latitude --in the great province ofNordland --and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain uponwhose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up alittle higher --hold on to the grass if you feel giddy --so --and lookout beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea."

I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose waterswore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubiangeographer's account of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama moredeplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To the rightand left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched,like ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black and beetlingcliff, whose character of gloom was but the more forciblyillustrated by the surf which reared high up against it its whiteand ghastly crest, howling and shrieking for ever. Just opposite thepromontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of somefive or six miles out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-lookingisland; or, more properly, its position was discernible through thewilderness of surge in which it was enveloped. About two milesnearer the land, arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy andbarren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of darkrocks.

The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more distantisland and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although,at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig inthe remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantlyplunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing likea regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of waterin every direction --as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Offoam there was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.

"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called bythe Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to thenorthward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Iflesen, Hoeyholm, Kieldholm,Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off --between Moskoe and Vurrgh --areOtterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Skarholm. These are the truenames of the places --but why it has been thought necessary to namethem at all, is more than either you or I can understand. Do youhear any thing? Do you see any change in the water?"

We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, towhich we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we hadcaught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from thesummit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and graduallyincreasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon anAmerican prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that whatseamen term the chopping character of the ocean beneath us, wasrapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Evenwhile I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each momentadded to its speed --to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutesthe whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury;but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar heldits sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into athousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensiedconvulsion --heaving, boiling, hissing --gyrating in gigantic andinnumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastwardwith a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except inprecipitous descents.

In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radicalalteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and thewhirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks offoam became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks,at length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering intocombination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of thesubsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast.Suddenly --very suddenly --this assumed a distinct and definiteexistence, in a circle of more than half a mile in diameter. Theedge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray;but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel,whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth,shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at anangle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and roundwith a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the windsan appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even themighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.

The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. Ithrew myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an excessof nervous agitation.

"This," said I at length, to the old man --"this can be nothingelse than the great whirlpool of the Maelstrom."

"So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it theMoskoe-strom, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."

The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared mefor what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the mostcircumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception either ofthe magnificence, or of the horror of the scene --or of the wildbewildering sense of the novel which confounds the beholder. I amnot sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it,nor at what time; but it could neither have been from the summit ofHelseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of hisdescription, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details,although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an impressionof the spectacle.

"Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the wateris between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other side, towardVer (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a convenientpassage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on the rocks,which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is flood, thestream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with aboisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea isscarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts; thenoise being heard several leagues off, and the vortices or pits are ofsuch an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within itsattraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to thebottom, and there beat to pieces against the rocks; and when the waterrelaxes, the fragments thereof are thrown up again. But theseintervals of tranquillity are only at the turn of the ebb and flood,and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violencegradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and itsfury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norwaymile of it. Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by notguarding against it before they were within its reach. It likewisehappens frequently, that whales come too near the stream, and areoverpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describetheir howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles todisengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofodento Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roaredterribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pinetrees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and tornto such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows thebottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to andfro. This stream is regulated by the flux and reflux of the sea --itbeing constantly high and low water every six hours. In the year 1645,early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such noiseand impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the coast fellto the ground."

In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how thiscould have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of thevortex. The "forty fathoms" must have reference only to portions ofthe channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or Lofoden. Thedepth in the centre of the Moskoe-strom must be immeasurablygreater; and no better proof of this fact is necessary than can beobtained from even the sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirlwhich may be had from the highest crag of Helseggen. Looking down fromthis pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not helpsmiling at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records,as a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and thebears; for it appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, thatthe largest ships of the line in existence, coming within theinfluence of that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as afeather the hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.

The attempts to account for the phenomenon --some of which, Iremember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusal --now worea very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generallyreceived is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among theFeroe islands, "have no other cause than the collision of waves risingand falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of rocks and shelves,which confines the water so that it precipitates itself like acataract; and thus the higher the flood rises, the deeper must thefall be, and the natural result of all is a whirlpool or vortex, theprodigious suction of which is sufficiently known by lesserexperiments." --These are the words of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.Kircher and others imagine that in the centre of the channel of theMaelstrom is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in somevery remote part --the Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedlynamed in one instance. This opinion, idle in itself, was the one towhich, as I gazed, my imagination most readily assented; and,mentioning it to the guide, I was rather surprised to hear him saythat, although it was the view almost universally entertained of thesubject by the Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As tothe former notion he confessed his inability to comprehend it; andhere I agreed with him --for, however conclusive on paper, itbecomes altogether unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunderof the abyss.

"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old man,"and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, anddeaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that willconvince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-strom."

I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.

"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smackof about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the habit offishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In allviolent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at properopportunities, if one has only the courage to attempt it; but amongthe whole of the Lofoden coastmen, we three were the only ones whomade a regular business of going out to the islands, as I tell you.The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. Therefish can be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore theseplaces are preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks,however, not only yield the finest variety, but in far greaterabundance; so that we often got in a single day, what the more timidof the craft could not scrape together in a week. In fact, we madeit a matter of desperate speculation --the risk of life standinginstead of labor, and courage answering for capital.

"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up thecoast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to takeadvantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the mainchannel of the Moskoe-strom, far above the pool, and then drop downupon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where theeddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain untilnearly time for slackwater again, when we weighed and made for home.We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind forgoing and coming --one that we felt sure would not fall us beforeour return --and we seldom made a mis-calculation upon this point.Twice, during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor onaccount of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just abouthere; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starvingto death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, andmade the channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this occasionwe should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything, (for thewhirlpools threw us round and round so violently that, at length, wefouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been that we driftedinto one of the innumerable cross currents-here to-day and goneto-morrow --which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where, by goodluck, we brought up.

"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties weencountered 'on the ground' --it is a bad spot to be in, even ingood weather --but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of theMoskoe-strom itself without accident; although at times my heart hasbeen in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind orbefore the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we thoughtit at starting, and then we made rather less way than we could wish,while the current rendered the smack unmanageable. My eldest brotherhad a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout boys of my own.These would have been of great assistance at such times, in usingthe sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing --but, somehow, althoughwe ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the youngones get into the danger --for, after all said and done, it was ahorrible danger, and that is the truth.

"It is now within a few days of three years since what I amgoing to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth of July, 18--, a daywhich the people of this part of the world will never forget --forit was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever cameout of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and indeed until latein the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from thesouth-west, while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seamanamong us could not have foreseen what was to follow.

"The three of us --my two brothers and myself --had crossed overto the islands about two o'clock P. M., and soon nearly loaded thesmack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more plenty thatday than we had ever known them. It was just seven, by my watch,when we weighed and started for home, so as to make the worst of theStrom at slack water, which we knew would be at eight.

"We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and forsome time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger, forindeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at once wewere taken aback by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was mostunusual --something that had never happened to us before --and I beganto feel a little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We put theboat on the wind, but could make no headway at all for the eddies, andI was upon the point of proposing to return to the anchorage, when,looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a singularcopper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.

"In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away,and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. Thisstate of things, however, did not last long enough to give us timeto think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us --inless than two the sky was entirely overcast --and what with this andthe driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we could not seeeach other in the smack.

"Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attemptdescribing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced any thinglike it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly tookus; but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board if theyhad been sawed off --the mainmast taking with it my as I youngestbrother, who had lashed himself to it for safety.

"Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat uponwater. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch nearthe bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten downwhen about to cross the Strom, by way of precaution against thechopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered atonce --for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elderbrother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had anopportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let theforesail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against thenarrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt nearthe foot of the foremast. It was mere instinct that prompted me todo this --which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could havedone --for I was too much flurried to think.

"For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, and allthis time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When I couldstand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping holdwith my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our little boatgave herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming out of the water,and thus rid herself, in some measure, of the seas. I was now tryingto get the better of the stupor that had come over me, and tocollect my senses so as to see what was to be done, when I feltsomebody grasp my arm. It was my elder brother, and my heart leapedfor joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard --but the nextmoment all this joy was turned into horror --for he put his mouthclose to my ear, and screamed out the word 'Moskoe-strom!'

"No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment. Ishook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of theague. I knew what he meant by that one word well enough --I knewwhat he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now droveus on, we were bound for the whirl of the Strom, and nothing couldsave us!

"You perceive that in crossing the Strom channel, we always went along way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and then hadto wait and watch carefully for the slack --but now we were drivingright upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane as this! 'To besure,' I thought, 'we shall get there just about the slack --thereis some little hope in that' --but in the next moment I cursed myselffor being so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew very wellthat we were doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship.

"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, orperhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, but atall events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind,and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains. Asingular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in everydirection it was still as black as pitch, but nearly overhead thereburst out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky --as clear as Iever saw --and of a deep bright blue --and through it there blazedforth the full moon with a lustre that I never before knew her towear. She lit up every thing about us with the greatest distinctness--but, oh God, what a scene it was to light up!

"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother --but insome manner which I could not understand, the din had so increasedthat I could not make him hear a single word, although I screamed atthe top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook his head, lookingas pale as death, and held up one of his fingers, as to say 'listen!'

"At first I could not make out what he meant --but soon ahideous thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. Itwas not going. I glanced as its face by the moonlight, and thenburst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. It had rundown at seven o'clock! We were behind the time of the slack, and thewhirl of the Strom was in full fury!

"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deepladen, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seemalways to slip from beneath her --which appears very strange to alandsman --and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase.

"Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; butpresently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under thecounter, and bore us with it as it rose --up --up --as if into thesky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. Andthen down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made mefeel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some loftymountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I had thrown a quickglance around --and that one glance was all sufficient. I saw ourexact position in an instant. The Moskoe-strom whirlpool was about aquarter of a mile dead ahead --but no more like the every-dayMoskoe-strom, than the whirl as you now see it, is like a mill-race.If I had not known where we were, and what we had to expect, Ishould not have recognised the place at all. As it was, Iinvoluntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselvestogether as if in a spasm.

"It could not have been more than two minutes afterwards untilwe suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. Theboat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in itsnew direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noiseof the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek--such a sound as you might imagine given out by the water-pipes ofmany thousand steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together.We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and Ithought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the abyss--down which we could only see indistinctly on account of theamazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seemto sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon thesurface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and onthe larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like ahuge writhing wall between us and the horizon.

"It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jawsof the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approachingit. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a greatdeal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it wasdespair that strung my nerves.

"It may look like boasting --but what I tell you is truth --Ibegan to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such amanner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry aconsideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful amanifestation of God's power. I do believe that I blushed withshame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I becamepossessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. Ipositively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the sacrificeI was going to make; and my principal grief was that I should never beable to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I shouldsee. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mindin such extremity --and I have often thought since, that therevolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me alittle light-headed.

"There was another circumstance which tended to restore myself-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind, which couldnot reach us in our present situation --for, as you saw yourself,the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general bed of theocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high, black,mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale,you can form no idea of the confusion of mind occasioned by the windand the spray together. They blind, deafen and strangle you, andtake away all power of action or reflection. But we were now, in agreat measure, rid of these annoyances --just as death-condemnedfelons in prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them whiletheir doom is yet uncertain.

"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible tosay. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying ratherthan floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle ofthe surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge.All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was atthe stern, holding on to a large empty water-cask which had beensecurely lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the onlything on deck that had not been swept overboard when the gale firsttook us. As we approached the brink of the pit he let go his hold uponthis, and made for the ring, from which, in the agony of his terror,he endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough toafford us both a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when Isaw him attempt this act --although I knew he was a madman when he didit --a raving maniac through sheer fright. I did not care, however, tocontest the point with him. I thought it could make no differencewhether either of us held on at all; so I let him have the bolt, andwent astern to the cask. This there was no great difficulty indoing; for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even keel--only swaying to and fro, with the immense sweeps and swelters of thewhirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position, when wegave a wild lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss.I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.

"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinctivelytightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my eyes. For someseconds I dared not open them --while I expected instantdestruction, and wondered that I was not already in my death-struggleswith the water. But moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. Thesense of falling had ceased; and the motion of the vessel seemedmuch as it had been before while in the belt of foam, with theexception that she now lay more along. I took courage and lookedonce again upon the scene.

"Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, andadmiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to behanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of afunnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectlysmooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for thebewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleamingand ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the full moon,from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have alreadydescribed, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the blackwalls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.

"At first I was too much confused to observe anythingaccurately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that Ibeheld. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fellinstinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain anunobstructed view, from the manner in which the smack hung on theinclined surface of the pool. She was quite upon an even keel --thatis to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with that of the water--but this latter sloped at an angle of more than forty-fivedegrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam-ends. I could nothelp observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty inmaintaining my hold and footing in this situation, than if we had beenupon a dead level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed atwhich we revolved.

"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of theprofound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, onaccount of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, andover which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow andtottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway betweenTime and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by theclashing of the great walls of the funnel, as they all met together atthe bottom --but the yell that went up to the Heavens from out of thatmist, I dare not attempt to describe.

"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foamabove, had carried us to a great distance down the slope; but ourfarther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round weswept --not with any uniform movement --but in dizzying swings andjerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred feet --sometimesnearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, ateach revolution, was slow, but very perceptible.

"Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on whichwe were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the onlyobject in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us werevisible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber andtrunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of housefurniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have alreadydescribed the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of myoriginal terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer andnearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strangeinterest, the numerous things that floated in our company. I must havebeen delirious --for I even sought amusement in speculating upon therelative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below.'This fir tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainlybe the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears,' --andthen I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchantship overtook it and went down before. At length, after making severalguesses of this nature, and being deceived in all --this fact --thefact of my invariable miscalculation, set me upon a train ofreflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavilyonce more.

"It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn ofa more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partlyfrom present observation. I called to mind the great variety ofbuoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbedand then thrown forth by the Moskoe-strom. By far the greater numberof the articles were shattered in the most extraordinary way --sochafed and roughened as to have the appearance of being stuck fullof splinters --but then I distinctly recollected that there weresome of them which were not disfigured at all. Now I could not accountfor this difference except by supposing that the roughened fragmentswere the only ones which had been completely absorbed --that theothers had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or, fromsome reason, had descended so slowly after entering, that they did notreach the bottom before the turn of the flood came, or of the ebb,as the case might be. I conceived it possible, in either instance,that they might thus be whirled up again to the level of the ocean,without undergoing the fate of those which had been drawn in moreearly or absorbed more rapidly. I made, also, three importantobservations. The first was, that as a general rule, the larger thebodies were, the more rapid their descent; --the second, that, betweentwo masses of equal extent, the one spherical, and the other of anyother shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with thesphere; --the third, that, between two masses of equal size, the onecylindrical, and the other of any other shape, the cylinder wasabsorbed the more slowly.

Since my escape, I have had several conversations on thissubject with an old school-master of the district; and it was from himthat I learned the use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' Heexplained to me --although I have forgotten the explanation --how whatI observed was, in fact, the natural consequence of the forms of thefloating fragments --and showed me how it happened that a cylinder,swimming in a vortex, offered more resistance to its suction, andwas drawn in with greater difficulty than an equally bulky body, ofany form whatever.*
*See Archimedes, "De Incidentibus in Fluido." --lib.2.
"There was one startling circumstance which went a great way inenforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them toaccount, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed somethinglike a barrel, or else the broken yard or the mast of a vessel,while many of these things, which had been on our level when I firstopened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high upabove us, and seemed to have moved but little from their originalstation.

"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myselfsecurely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose fromthe counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I attractedmy brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrelsthat came near us, and did everything in my power to make himunderstand what I was about to do. I thought at length that hecomprehended my design --but, whether this was the case or not, heshook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station bythe ring-bolt. It was impossible to force him; the emergencyadmitted no delay; and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him tohis fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings whichsecured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into thesea, without another moment's hesitation.

"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it ismyself who now tell you this tale --as you see that I did escape --andas you are already in possession of the mode in which this escapewas effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther tosay --I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might havebeen an hour, or thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when, havingdescended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four wildgyrations in rapid succession, and, bearing my loved brother withit, plunged headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of foambelow. The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little fartherthan half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spotat which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in thecharacter of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vastfunnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirlgrew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the froth andthe rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly touprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the fullmoon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on thesurface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and abovethe spot where the pool of the Moskoe-strom had been. It was thehour of the slack --but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves fromthe effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the channelof the Strom and in a few minutes, was hurried down the coast into the'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up --exhausted fromfatigue --and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from thememory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old mates anddally companions --but they knew me no more than they would have knowna traveller from the spirit-land. My hair, which had beenraven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They saytoo that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. I toldthem my story --they did not believe it. I now tell it to you --andI can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the merryfishermen of Lofoden.

-THE END-