the whirl now," said the guide; "and if you
will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and deaden the roar
of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you I ought to
know something of the Moskoe-stroem."

I placed myself as he desired, and he proceeded:

"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of about
seventy tons' burden, with which we were in the habit of fishing among the
islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea
there is good fishing, at proper opportunities, if one has only the
courage to attempt it; but among the whole of the Lofoden coast-men we
three were the only ones who made a regular business of going out to the
islands, as I tell you.

"The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. There fish
can be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore these places are
preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only
yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that we often
got in a single day what the more timid of the craft could not scrape
together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate speculation:
the risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage answering for
capital.

"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than
this; and it was our practise, in fine weather, to take advantage of the
fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the
Moskoe-stroem, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage
somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so
violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack
water again, when we weighed and made for home.

"We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for
going and coming--one that we felt sure would not fail us before our
return; and we seldom made a miscalculation upon this point. Twice, during
six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor, on account of a
dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had
to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale
which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too
boisterous to be thought of.

"Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of
everything (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently that
at length we fouled our anchor and dragged it), if it had not bee