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hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.
"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed
my eyes. For some seconds I dared not open them - while I expected instant destruction, and wondered that I
was not already in my death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. The
sense of falling had ceased; and the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before, while in the belt
of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along. I took courage, and looked once again upon the
scene.
"Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat
appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in
circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony,
but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they
shot forth, as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have already described,
streamed in a flood of golden glory along the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the
abyss.
"At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was
all that I beheld. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively downward. In this
direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed view, from the manner in which the smack hung on the inclined
surface of the pool. She was quite upon an even keel - that is 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-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying
upon our beam-ends. I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in
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maintaining my hold and footing in this situation, than if we had been upon a dead level; and this, I suppose,
was owing to the speed at which we revolved.
"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound gulf; but still I could make out
nothing distinctly, on account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there
hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway
between Time and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of
the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom - but the yell that went up to the Heavens from out of that
mist, I dare not attempt to describe.
"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had carried us a great distance down the
slope; but our farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we swept - not with any
uniform movement - but in dizzying swings and jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards -
sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, at each revolution, was slow, but
very perceptible.
"Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were thus borne, I perceived that our
boat was not the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of
vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of
house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had
taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful
doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our company. I must
have been delirious - for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their several
descents toward the foam below. 'This fir tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly be the next
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