hed headlong
into the abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was
over.

"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinctively
tightened my hold upon the barrel and closed my eyes. For some seconds I
dared not open them; while I expected instant destruction and wondered
that I was not already in my death-struggles.

"But moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had
ceased; and the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before
while in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along.
I took courage, and looked once again upon the scene.

"Never shall I forget the sensation of awe, horror, and admiration with
which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic,
midway down upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference,
prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been
mistaken for ebony but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun
around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth as the
rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I
have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the
black walls and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.

"At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately. The
general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I recovered
myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively downward. In this
direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed view, from the manner in
which the smack hung on the inclined surface of the pool.

"She was quite upon an even keel--that is to say, her deck lay in a plane
parallel with that of the water; but this latter sloped at an angle of
more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam
ends.

"I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more
difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in this situation than if we
had been upon a dead level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at
which we revolved.

"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound
gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a thick
mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there hung a
magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which
Mussulmans say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity.

"This mist, or spray, was