“When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from beneath her — which appears very strange to a landsman — and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase.  Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as it rose — up — up — as if into the sky.  I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high.  And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream.  But while we were up I had thrown a quick glance around — and that one glance was all sufficient.  I saw our exact position in an instant.  The Moskoe-Ström whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead — but no more like the every-day Moskoe-Ström, 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, I should not have recognised the place at all.  As it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror.  The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm.

“It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until 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.  At the same moment the roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek — such a sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together.  We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the abyss — down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we wore borne along.  The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge.  Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left.  It stood like a huge writhing wall between us and the horizon.

“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.

“It may look like boasting — but what I tell you is truth — I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God’s power.  I do believe that I blushed with shame when this idea crossed my mind.  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.