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THE MAELSTROM A MYTH.
99
in the morning during our stay at Boclü and part of the
crossing of the channel; yet here 1 was again on this
bright sunny night, drowsy and giddy with perpetual
staring and excitement, and yet incapable of sleep. I
have seen many a grand sea-coast, all the best that
the Mediterranean can show, but nothing to equal this.
My fellow passenger, the veteran tourist, who had sailed
all the world over, can remember no rival, unless it be
the Straits of Magellan. From the Seven Sisters to
this, the north extremity of the Loffodens, the panorama
maintained this unrivalled magnificence.
In the early part of the day we passed close to the
channel against which the terrible word Maelstrom is
marked on most of our English maps. Ever since my
first school lessons in geography, I have pictured this
place to my mind as a great, whirling, conical hollow in
the waters, like the den of the ant-lion, near to which
no ship dare approach, not even within many miles.
I looked for it on my Norwegian map, but it is not
marked there; the rest of the English passengers were
equally diligent, but with no better success, though
there were three different maps among us, and all on a
large scale, giving minute details. We peeped at the
ship’s charts, and could not find it there in the portions
that we examined. We then inquired of the captain, a
man of much experience in these seas, who told us that
all he knew about the Maelstrom had been
communicated to him by his English passengers. He was very
satirical, and cruelly hard upon us : he told us that the
English had imported a great deal of useful knowledge
ii 2
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