At the same moment the roaring noise
of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek
--such a sound as you might imagine given out by the water-pipes of
many thousand steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together.
We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I
thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the abyss
--down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the
amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem
to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the
surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on
the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a
huge writhing wall between us and the horizon.
"It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws
of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching
it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great
deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was
despair that strung my nerves.
"It may look like boasting --but what I tell you is truth --I
began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a
manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a
consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a
manifestation of God's power.
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