the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against
it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever. Just
opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a
distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible a
small, bleak-looking island; or, more properly, its position was
discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped.
About two miles nearer the land arose another of smaller size, hideously
craggy and barren and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of
dark rocks.

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

"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by the
Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the
northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven,
and Buckholm. Farther off--between Moskoe and Vurrgh--are Otterholm,
Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the
places--but why it has been thought necessary to name them at all, is
more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you
see any change in the water?"

We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which we
had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no
glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the
old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound,
like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie;
and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the _chopping_
character of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current
which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed this current acquired a
monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed--to its headlong
impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea as far as Vurrgh was lashed
into ungovernable fury; but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the
main uproar held its sway. Here the vast bed of th