In places, indeed, where huge caverns opening in front to the vast ocean, which had probably hollowed them out of the earth-fast rock in the course of succeeding ages, yawned in the mimicry of Gothic arches, the entering tide would rush, as it were, into the bowels of the land, roaring and groaning in those strange subterranean dungeons like some strong prisoner, Typhon, Enceladus, or Ephialtes, in his immortal agony. One of these singular vaults opened right in the base of the rock on the summit of which stood the castle of St. Renan, and into this the billows rushed with rapidity so tumultuous and terrible that the fishers of that stormy coast avowed that a vortex was created in the bay by their influx or return seaward, which could be perceived sensibly at a league’s distance; and that to be caught in it, unless the wind blew strong and steadily off land, was sure destruction. However that might be, it is certain that this great subterranean tunnel extended far beneath the rocks into the interior of the land, for at the distance of nearly two miles from the castle, directly eastward, in the bottom of a dark, wooded glen, which runs for many miles nearly parallel to the coast, there is a deep, rocky well, or natural cavity, of a form nearly circular, which, when the tide is up, is filled to overflowing with bitter sea-water, on which the bubbles and foam-flakes show the obstacles against which it must have striven in its landward journey. At low water, on the contrary, “the Devil’s Drinking-Cup,” for so it is named by the superstitious peasantry of the neighborhood, presents nothing to the eye but a deep, black abyss, which the countryfolks, of course, assert to be bottomless. But, in truth, its depth is immense, as can easily be perceived, if you cast a stone into it, by the length of time during which it may be heard thundering from side to side, until the reverberated roar of its descent appears to die away, not because it has ceased, but because the sound is too distant to be conveyed to human ears. On this side of the castle everything differs as much as it is possible to conceive from the view to the seaward, which is grim and desolate as any ocean scenery the world over. Few sails are ever seen on those dangerous coasts; all vessels bound to the mouth of the Garonne, or southward to the shores of Spain, giving as wide a berth as possible to its frightful reefs and inaccessible crags, which to all their other terrors add that, from the extraordinary prevalence of the west wind on that part of the ocean, of being, during at least three parts of the year, a _lee_ shore.