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every direction--as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam
there was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.
"
The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by
the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the
northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven,
and Buckholm. Farther off--between Moskoe and Vurrgh--are Otterholm,
Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the
places--but why it has been thought necessary to name them at all, is
more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you
see any change in the water?"
We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which
we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no
glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the
old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound,
like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie;
and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping
character of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current
which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed, this current acquired
a monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed--to its headlong
impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed
into ungovernable fury; but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the
main uproar held its sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed
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