Many years ago I remember the first time I read that marvellous description of the Maelström by Edgar Allan Poe, where he tells how a fisherman from the Lofoten Islands, driven by a hurricane, was caught in the Maelström's grip, and descended 'into the mouth of that terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice--half-shriek, half-roar--such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven'; and I remember how I used to picture to myself precipitous, polished cliffs of terrific height and grandeur encircling a writhing pool of dusky waters; above, the rocks glowing red and golden in the light of a stormy sunset; below, stray flakes of foam ever and again flashing back the fiery glories of the angry sky, as they glided with a stealthy, increasing haste for ever nearer and nearer and yet nearer to the awful abyss of the devouring whirlpool. This, like so many tales of one's youth, although told by that consummate artist Poe, must be relegated to the realms of fiction. But his description of one of the Lofoten Islands--of the 'sheer, unobstructed precipices of black, shining rock,' against which the ocean surf howled and shrieked, and of the endless array of gloomy mountains, 'outstretched like ramparts of the world, hideously craggy and barren'--is far nearer the truth; for in it is much that is characteristic of the outer islands. But after all he has only portrayed the Lofoten Islands when enveloped in storm. Of course, when the south-west gales sweep on to the rock-bound coast of Röst and Moskenesö, even Poe himself could hardly do justice to the scene, for the battle between the great waves coming in from the open ocean and the tremendous tides that surge past the outer islands must be magnificent. Truly the picture would have to be of 'An iron coast and angry waves, You seemed to hear them rise and fall And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, Beneath the windy wall.' [Illustration: Lofoten.]