heir canoes, have
ventured down it, with safety." Well, one could give up the Indians
without much difficulty; but it is rather discouraging to step out of
the Falls Depot for the first time, within a quarter of a mile of the
cataract, and hear no sound except "Cab sir?" "Hotel, sir?" So of the
Maelstrom, denoted on my schoolboy map by a great spiral twist, which
suggested to me a tremendous whirl of the ocean currents, aided by the
information that "vessels cannot approach nearer than seven miles." In
Olney, moreover, there was a picture of a luckless bark, half-way down
the vortex. I had been warming my imagination, as we came up the coast,
with Campbell's sonorous lines:

"Round the shores where runic Odin
Howls his war-song to the gale;
Round the isles where loud Lofoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale;"

and, as we looked over the smooth water towards Moskoe, felt a renewed
desire to make an excursion thither on out return from the north. But,
according to Captain Riis, and other modern authorities which I
consulted, the Maelstrom has lost all its terrors and attractions. Under
certain conditions of wind and tide, an eddy is formed in the strait it
is true, which may be dangerous to small boats--but the place is by no
means so much dreaded as the Salten Fjord, where the tide, rushing in,
is caught in such a manner as to form a _bore_, as in the Bay of Fundy,
and frequently proves destructive to the fishing craft. It is the
general opinion that some of the rocks which formerly made the Maelstrom
so terrible have been worn away, or that some submarine convulsion has
taken place which has changed the action of the waters; otherwise it is
impossible to account for the reputation it once possessed.

It should also be borne in mind that any accident to a boat among these
islands is more likely to prove disastrous than elsewhere, since there
are probably not a score out of the twenty thousand Lofoden fishermen
who pass half their lives on the water, who know how to swim. The water
is too cold to make bathing a luxury, and they are not sufficiently
prepossessed in favour of cleanliness to make it a duty. Nevertheless,
they are bold sailors, in their way, and a tougher, hardier, more
athletic class of men it would be difficult to find. Handsome they are
not, but quite the reverse, and the most of them have an awkward and
uncouth air; but it is refreshing to look at their broad shoulders,
their