It is well known that at flood-tide the waters pent up between the Loffoden and the Feroë Islands are precipitated together with tremendous violence, and form a whirlpool from which no ship can escape. On every side of us huge waves were rearing their crests and forming a gulf, which has been rightly called the “navel of the ocean,” whose power of attraction extends to a distance of about twelve miles round.
There, not vessels only, but whales, and even white bears from the northern regions, meet their doom.
It was to this terrible fate that the Nautilus, whether designedly or not, was rushing. It was describing a circle, the circumference of which was gradually lessening, and the boat, which was attached to the side, was thus carried along with appalling speed. I got giddy. I felt that sensation which is produced by turning round for a long time rapidly. We were dreadfully alarmed, horror had reached its limit, circulation had ceased, our nervous force was annihilated ; we were bathed in a cold perspiration of agony. What a noise rose round us—roarings which the echoes repeated several miles away. The noise of the waves breaking upon the sharp rocks below, where the stoutest bodies are broken to pieces, where trunks of trees are worn away, and become “like fur,” to use the Norwegian term.
What a situation it was! We were tossed about like a cork. The Nautilus defended herself like a human being, the steel muscles were strained. Sometimes it rose upright, and we along with it.
“We must hold on tightly,” said Ned, “and see about the bolts. If we stand by the Nautilus we may be saved yet.”
