"Full in the centre of this rock displayed A yawning cavern casts a dreadful shade, Nor the fleet arrow from the twanging bow Sent with full force, could reach the depth below. Wide to the west the horrid gulf extends, And the dire passage down to hell descends. O fly the dreadful sight! expand thy sails, Ply the strong oar, and catch the nimble gales; Here Scylla bellows from her dire abodes; Tremendous pest! abhorred by man and gods! Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar The whelps of lions in the midnight hour. Twelve feet deformed and foul the fiend dispreads; Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads; * * * * * When stung with hunger she embroils the flood, The sea-dog and the dolphin are her food; She makes the huge leviathan her prey, And all the monsters of the wat'ry way; The swiftest racer of the azure plain Here fills her sails and spreads her oars in vain; Fell Scylla rises, in her fury roars, At once six mouths expands, at once six men devours."[72] [72] Homer's 'Odyssey,' Pope's Translation, Book XII. Circe then describes the perils of the whirling waters of Charybdis as still more dreadful; and, admonishing Ulysses that once in her power all must perish, she advises him to choose the lesser of the two evils, and to "shun the horrid gulf, by Scylla fly; 'Tis better six to lose than all to die." Ulysses continues his voyage; and as his ship enters the ominous strait, "Struck with despair, with trembling hearts we viewed The yawning dungeon, and the tumbling flood; When, lo! fierce Scylla stooped to seize her prey, Stretched her dire jaws, and swept six men away. Chiefs of renown! loud echoing shrieks arise; I turn, and view them quivering in the skies; They call, and aid, with outstretched arms, implore, In vain they call! those arms are stretched no more. As from some rock that overhangs the flood, The silent fisher casts th' insidious food; With fraudful care he waits the finny prize, And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies; So the foul monster lifts her prey on high, So pant the wretches, struggling in the sky; In the wide dungeon she devours her food, And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood." THE "SPOUTING" OF WHALES. One of the sea-fallacies still generally believed, and accepted as true, is that whales take in water by the mouth, and eject it from the spiracle, or blow-hole. The popular ideas on this subject are still those which existed hundreds of years ago, and which are expressed by Oppian in two passages in his 'Halieutics': "Uncouth the sight when they in dreadful play Discharge their nostrils and refund a sea," and "While noisy fin-fish let their fountains fly And spout the curling torrent to the sky."