as if I were falling from some lofty mountain top in a dream.

"It could not have been more than two minutes afterwards, when we suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat made a sharp half-turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt. We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another moment we must plunge in the abyss, down which we could only see indistinctly, on account of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. "It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves. "After a little while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such extremity, and I have often thought since that the revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a little light-headed.

"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the 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 at the stern, holding on to a small empty water-cask, which had been securely lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been swept overboard, when the gale first took us. As we approached the brink of the pit, he let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which in the agony of his terror, he endeavoured to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this act, although I knew he was a madman when he did it-a raving maniae through sheer fright. I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at all; so I let him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask. This there was no difficulty in doing, for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even keel, only swaying too and fro with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position when we gave 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 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 sensation 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 of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and with perfectly smooth sides that might have been mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun round, 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 maintaining my hold than if we had been upon a dead level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we revolved.

"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had carried us a great distance down the slope and our farther progress 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.

"I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terror. 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 thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears;' and then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant-ship overtook it, and went down before. At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all, this fact -the fact of my invariable miscalculation-set me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily once more. "It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present observation. I called to mind the great variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed, and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-strom. By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the most extraordinary way-so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance of being stuck full of splinters; but then I distinctly recollected that there were some of them which were not disfigured at all. Now, I could not account for this difference, except by supposing that the roughened fragments were the only ones which had been completely absorbed -that the others had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or, for some reason, had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not reach 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 more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made also three important observations :-The first was that, as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent; the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical, and the other of any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere; the third, that, between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical and the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I have had several conversations on this subject with an old schoolmaster of the district. From him I learned the use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.'

"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to the water-cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do. I thought at length that he comprehended my design; but, whether this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station by the ringbolt. It was impossible to reach him; the emergency admitted of no delay; and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings which secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the sea, without another moment's hesitation.

"The result was precisely what I hoped it might be. As it is myself who now tell you this tale-as you see that I did escape-and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have further to say, I will bring my story quickly to a conclusion. It might have been an hour, or thereabouts, after my quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid succession, and, bearing my loved brother with it, plunged headlong, at once and for ever, into the chaos of foam below. The barrel to which I was attached had sunk very little farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became every moment less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew gradually less and less violent. By degrees, the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-strom had been. It was the hour of the slack; but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Strom, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up, exhausted from fatigue, and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old mates and

than they would have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven black the day before, was as white as you see it now."

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, And the stars themselves have flowers for me, One blossom of heaven outblows them all!

"Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, With its plane-tree isle reflected clear,

And sweetly the founts of that valley fall; Though bright are the waters of Sing-Su-Hay, And the golden floods that thitherward stray, Yet-oh 'tis only the bless'd can say

How the waters of Heaven outshine them all!

"Go wing thy flight from star to star, From world to luminous world, as far

As the universe spreads its flaming wall; Take all the pleasures of all the spheres. And multiply each through endless yearsOne minute of Heaven is worth them all!"

The glorious Angel, who was keeping The Gates of Light, beheld her weeping; And as he nearer drew, and listened To her sad song, a tear-drop glistened Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain when it lies On the blue flower which-Brahmins sayBlooms nowhere but in Paradise! "Nymph of a fair, but erring line!" Gently he said "One hope is thine. "Tis written in the Book of Fate,

The Peri yet may be forgiven, Who brings to this Eternal Gate

The Gift that is most dear to Heaven! Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin ;"Tis sweet to let the Pardon'd in !"

Rapidly as comets run

To th' embraces of the sun;Fleeter than the starry brands, Flung at night from angel hands

At those dark and daring sprites
Who would climb the empyreal heights,
Down the blue vault the PERI flies,

And, lighted earthward by a glance
That just then broke from morning's eyes,
Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse.

But whither shall the Spirit go

To find this gift for heaven ?—“I know
The wealth," she cries, "of every urn,
In which unnumber'd rubies burn,
Beneath the pillars of Chilminar;

I know where the Isles of Perfume are,
Many a fathom down in the sea,
To the south of sun-bright Araby;
I know too where the Genii hid
The jewell'd cup of their king Jamshid
With life's elixir sparkling high-

But gifts like these are not for the sky.
Where was there ever a gem that shone
Like the steps of Alla's wonderful throne?
And the Drops of Life-oh! what would they be
In the boundless Deep of Eternity?"

While thus she mused, her pinions fann'd
The air of that sweet Indian laud,
Whose air is balm; whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks and amber beds;
Whose mountains pregnant by the beam
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem;
Whose rivulets are like rich brides,
Lovely with gold beneath their tides;
Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice
Might be a Peri's Paradise!

But crimson now her rivers ran

With human blood-the smell of death Came reeking from those spicy bowers, And man, the sacrifice of man,

Mingled his taint with every breath Upwafted from the innocent flowers ! Land of the Sun! what foot invades Thy pagods and thy pillar'd shades, Thy cavern shrines and idol stones, Thy monarchs and their thousand thrones ? 'Tis he of Gazna,-fierce in wrath

He comes, and India's diadems Lie scattered in his ruinous path.

His blood-hounds he adorns with gems, Torn from the violated necks

Of many a young and loved Sultana ;— Maidens within their pure Zenana, Priests in the very fane he slaughters, And chokes up with the glittering wrecks Of golden shrines the sacred waters !

False flew the shaft, though pointed well;
The tyrant lived, the hero fell!-
Yet mark'd the Peri where he lay;

And when the rush of war was past,
Swiftly descending on a ray

Of morning light, she caught the lastLast glorious drop his heart had shed, Before its free-born spirit fled ! "Be this," she cried, as she winged her flight, "My welcome gift at the Gates of Light; Though foul are the drops that oft distil On the field of warfare, blood like this,

"Sweet is our welcome of the brave,
Who die thus for their native land.
But see-alas !-the crystal bar
Of Eden moves not-holier far

Than even this drop the boon must be,
That opes the gate of Heaven for thee !"

Her first fond hope of Eden blighted,
Now among Afric's lunar mountains,
Far to the south, the PERI lighted;
And sleek'd her plumage at the fountains
Of that Egyptian tide,-whose birth
Is hidden from the sons of earth,
Deep in those solitary woods
Where oft the Genii of the Floods