Chapter XII: Front Matter (12)

“D——,” replied Dupin, “is a desperate man, and a man of nerve.
His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his
interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never
have left the Ministerial presence alive. The good people of
Paris might have heard of me no more. But I had an object apart
from these considerations. You know my political prepossessions.
In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For
eighteen months the Minister has had her in his power. She has
now him in hers—since, being unaware that the letter is not in
his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was.
Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political
destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than
awkward. It is all very well to talk about the facilis descensus
Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of
singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the
present instance I have no sympathy—at least no pity—for him who
descends. He is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of
genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know
the precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her
whom the Prefect terms ‘a certain personage’ he is reduced to
opening the letter which I left for him in the card-rack.”

“How? did you put any thing particular in it?”

“Why—it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
blank—that would have been insulting. D——, at Vienna once, did me
an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I
should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in
regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I
thought it a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted
with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet
the words—

“‘— — Un dessein si funeste,
S’il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.

They are to be found in Crébillon’s ‘Atrée.’”

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE

Truth is stranger than fiction.—_Old Saying_

Having had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsöornot, a work
which (like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at
all, even in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my
knowledge, by any American—if we except, perhaps, the author of
the “Curiosities of American Literature”;—having had occasion, I
say, to turn over some pages of the first-mentioned very
remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover that
the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error
respecting the fate of the vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, as
that fate is depicted in the “Arabian Nights”; and that the
_dénouement_ there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as
it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much
farther.

For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the
inquisitive reader to the “Isitsöornot” itself; but in the
meantime, I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I
there discovered.

It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a
certain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not
only puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the
prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his
dominions, and the next morning to deliver her up to the
executioner.

Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with
a religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit
upon him as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was
interrupted one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit
from his grand vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had
occurred an idea.

Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would
either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty,
or perish, after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the
attempt.

Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year
(which makes the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her
father, the grand vizier, to make an offer to the king of her
hand. This hand the king eagerly accepts—(he had intended to take
it at all events, and had put off the matter from day to day,
only through fear of the vizier),—but, in accepting it now, he
gives all parties very distinctly to understand, that, grand
vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design of
giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When,
therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king,
and did actually marry him despite her father’s excellent advice
not to do any thing of the kind—when she would and did marry him,
I say, will I, nill I, it was with her beautiful black eyes as
thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.

It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading
Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in
her mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I
forget what specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch
sufficiently near that of the royal pair to admit of easy
conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before cock-crowing,
she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband (who bore
her none the worse will because he intended to wring her neck on
the morrow),—she managed to awaken him, I say, (although on
account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept
well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a
black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone,
of course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that
this history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade,
in the nature of things could not finish it just then, since it
was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung—a thing very
little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel!

The king’s curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say,
even over his sound religious principles, induced him for this
once to postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next morning,
for the purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it
fared in the end with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was)
and the rat.

The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only
put the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat
was blue) but before she well knew what she was about, found
herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference
(if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green
wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was
wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even
more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the day
broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen’s
endeavors to get through with it in time for the bowstringing),
there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony as
before, for twenty-four hours. The next night there happened a
similar accident with a similar result; and then the next—and
then again the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch,
having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his
vow during a period of no less than one thousand and one nights,
either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time, or
gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more
probable) breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father
confessor. At all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally
descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven
baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all know, picked up
from under the trees in the garden of Eden; Scheherazade, I say,
finally triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.

Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it
upon record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant—but
alas! like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than
true, and I am indebted altogether to the “Isitsöornot” for the
means of correcting the error. “Le mieux,” says a French proverb,
“est l’ennemi du bien,” and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had
inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she
put them out at compound interest until they amounted to
seventy-seven.

“My dear sister,” said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I
quote the language of the “Isitsöornot” at this point, verbatim)
“my dear sister,” said she, “now that all this little difficulty
about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is
so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great
indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry
to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion
of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through numerous other and
more interesting adventures than those which I related; but the
truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular night of their
narration, and so was seduced into cutting them short—a grievous
piece of misconduct, for which I only trust that Allah will
forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to remedy my great
neglect—and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two in
order to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible
noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him if he pleases)
with the sequel of this very remarkable story.”

Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the
“Isitsöornot,” expressed no very particular intensity of
gratification; but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at
length ceased snoring, and finally said, “Hum!” and then “Hoo!”
when the queen, understanding these words (which are no doubt
Arabic) to signify that he was all attention, and would do his
best not to snore any more—the queen, I say, having arranged
these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into
the history of Sinbad the sailor:

“‘At length, in my old age,’ [these are the words of Sinbad
himself, as retailed by Scheherazade]—‘at length, in my old age,
and after enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I became
once more possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries;
and one day, without acquainting any of my family with my design,
I packed up some bundles of such merchandise as was most precious
and least bulky, and, engaging a porter to carry them, went with
him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrival of any chance
vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some region
which I had not as yet explored.

“‘Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down
beneath some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of
perceiving a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever.
At length I fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or
humming sound; and the porter, after listening awhile, declared
that he also could distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and
then still louder, so that we could have no doubt that the object
which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge of the
horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in
size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a
great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came
toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of
foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea
through which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended
far off into the distance.

“‘As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length
was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and
it was as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O
most sublime and munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was
unlike that of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a
jetty blackness throughout all that portion of it which floated
above the water, with the exception of a narrow blood-red streak
that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated beneath
the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and
then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely
covered with metallic scales, of a color like that of the moon in
misty weather. The back was flat and nearly white, and from it
there extended upwards of six spines, about half the length of
the whole body.

“‘This horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive;
but, as if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with
at least four score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets
like those of the green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around
the body in two rows, one above the other, and parallel to the
blood-red streak, which seemed to answer the purpose of an
eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much larger
than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.

“‘Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with
the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by
necromancy—for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like
a duck, nor wings like the seashell which is blown along in the
manner of a vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do
the eels. Its head and its tail were shaped precisely alike,
only, not far from the latter, were two small holes that served
for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick
breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking,
disagreeable noise.

“‘Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but
it was even surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a
nearer look, we perceived upon the creature’s back a vast number
of animals about the size and shape of men, and altogether much
resembling them, except that they wore no garments (as men do),
being supplied (by nature, no doubt) with an ugly uncomfortable
covering, a good deal like cloth, but fitting so tight to the
skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward, and put
them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads
were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I
thought might have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon
discovered that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I
therefore concluded they were contrivances designed, by their
great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and safe
upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were
fastened black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as
we keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so
that it was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their
heads in any direction without moving the body at the same time;
and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their
noses—a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively
in an awful degree.

“‘When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood,
it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and
emitted from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense
cloud of smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but
thunder. As the smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd
man-animals standing near the head of the large beast with a
trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it to his mouth) he
presently addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeable accents,
that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language, had they not
come altogether through the nose.

“‘Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply,
as I could in no manner understand what was said; and in this
difficulty I turned to the porter, who was near swooning through
affright, and demanded of him his opinion as to what species of
monster it was, what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those
were that so swarmed upon its back. To this the porter replied,
as well as he could for trepidation, that he had once before
heard of this sea-beast; that it was a cruel demon, with bowels
of sulphur and blood of fire, created by evil genii as the means
of inflicting misery upon mankind; that the things upon its back
were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a
little larger and more savage; and that these vermin had their
uses, however evil—for, through the torture they caused the beast
by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that degree
of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and
so fulfil the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.

“This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without
once even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the
hills, while the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an
opposite direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his
escape with my bundles, of which I have no doubt he took
excellent care—although this is a point I cannot determine, as I
do not remember that I ever beheld him again.

“‘For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin
(who had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon
overtaken, bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which
immediately swam out again into the middle of the sea.

“‘I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home
to peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being
useless, I made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to
secure the goodwill of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and
who appeared to exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded
so well in this endeavor that, in a few days, the creature
bestowed upon me various tokens of his favor, and in the end even
went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments of what it was
vain enough to denominate its language; so that, at length, I was
enabled to converse with it readily, and came to make it
comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world.

“‘Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt
grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,’ said he to me, one day after
dinner—but I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your
majesty is not conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so
the man-animals were called; I presume because their language
formed the connecting link between that of the horse and that of
the rooster). With your permission, I will translate. ‘Washish
squashish,’ and so forth:—that is to say, ‘I am happy to find, my
dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow; we are
now about doing a thing which is called circumnavigating the
globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the world, I will
strain a point and give you a free passage upon back of the
beast.’”

When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the
“Isitsöornot,” the king turned over from his left side to his
right, and said:

“It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you
omitted, hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know
I think them exceedingly entertaining and strange?”

The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair
Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words:

“Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative—‘I thanked the
man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very much at
home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the
ocean; although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the
world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we
went—so to say—either up hill or down hill all the time.’

“That I think, was very singular,” interrupted the king.

“Nevertheless, it is quite true,” replied Scheherazade.

“I have my doubts,” rejoined the king; “but, pray, be so good as
to go on with the story.”

“I will,” said the queen. “‘The beast,’ continued Sinbad to the
caliph, ‘swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at
length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in
circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the
middle of the sea by a colony of little things like
caterpillars.’” (*1)

“Hum!” said the king.

“‘Leaving this island,’ said Sinbad—(for Scheherazade, it must be
understood, took no notice of her husband’s ill-mannered
ejaculation) ‘leaving this island, we came to another where the
forests were of solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to
pieces the finest-tempered axes with which we endeavoured to cut
them down.’” (*2)

“Hum!” said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no
attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.

“‘Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where
there was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty
miles within the bowels of the earth, and that contained a
greater number of far more spacious and more magnificent palaces
than are to be found in all Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs
of these palaces there hung myriads of gems, like diamonds, but
larger than men; and in among the streets of towers and pyramids
and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony, and
swarming with fish that had no eyes.’” (*3)

“Hum!” said the king.

“‘We then swam into a region of the sea where we found a lofty
mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents of melted
metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles long
(*4); while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a
quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the
heavens, and it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that
when we were even at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles
from the mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest object,
however close we held it to our eyes.’” (*5)

“Hum!” said the king.

“‘After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until
we met with a land in which the nature of things seemed
reversed—for we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which,
more than a hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there
flourished in full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.’”
(*6)

“Hoo!” said the king.

“Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where the
atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our
own does feather.’” (*7)

“Fiddle de dee,” said the king.

“Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at
the most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there
meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This
river was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than
that of amber. It was from three to six miles in width; and its
banks which arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in
perpendicular height, were crowned with ever-blossoming trees and
perpetual sweet-scented flowers, that made the whole territory
one gorgeous garden; but the name of this luxuriant land was the
Kingdom of Horror, and to enter it was inevitable death.’” (*8)

“Humph!” said the king.

“‘We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came
to another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of
monstrous animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads.
These hideous beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil,
of a funnel shape, and line the sides of them with rocks, so
disposed one upon the other that they fall instantly, when
trodden upon by other animals, thus precipitating them into the
monster’s dens, where their blood is immediately sucked, and
their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an
immense distance from “the caverns of death."’” (*9)

“Pooh!” said the king.

“‘Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with
vegetables that grew not upon any soil but in the air. (*10)
There were others that sprang from the substance of other
vegetables; (*11) others that derived their substance from the
bodies of living animals; (*12) and then again, there were others
that glowed all over with intense fire; (*13) others that moved
from place to place at pleasure, (*14) and what was still more
wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and
moved their limbs at will and had, moreover, the detestable
passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures, and confining
them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of
appointed tasks.’” (*15)

“Pshaw!” said the king.

“‘Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the
bees and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and
erudition, that they give daily instructions in the science of
geometry to the wise men of the empire. The king of the place
having offered a reward for the solution of two very difficult
problems, they were solved upon the spot—the one by the bees, and
the other by the birds; but the king keeping their solution a
secret, it was only after the most profound researches and labor,
and the writing of an infinity of big books, during a long series
of years, that the men-mathematicians at length arrived at the
identical solutions which had been given upon the spot by the
bees and by the birds.’” (*16)

“Oh my!” said the king.

“‘We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found
ourselves close upon another, from whose shores there flew over
our heads a flock of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and
forty miles long; so that, although they flew a mile during every
minute, it required no less than four hours for the whole flock
to pass over us—in which there were several millions of millions
of fowl.’” (*17)

“Oh fy!” said the king.

“‘No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us
great annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a
fowl of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs
which I met in my former voyages; for it was bigger than the
biggest of the domes on your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of
Caliphs. This terrible fowl had no head that we could perceive,
but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was of a prodigious
fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance, smooth,
shining and striped with various colors. In its talons, the
monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house
from which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of
which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in
a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited
them. We shouted with all our might, in the hope of frightening
the bird into letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a snort
or puff, as if of rage and then let fall upon our heads a heavy
sack which proved to be filled with sand!’”

“Stuff!” said the king.

“‘It was just after this adventure that we encountered a
continent of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which,
nevertheless, was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue
cow that had no fewer than four hundred horns.’” (*18)

“That, now, I believe,” said the king, “because I have read
something of the kind before, in a book.”

“‘We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in
between the legs of the cow), and, after some hours, found
ourselves in a wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by
the man-animal, was his own native land, inhabited by things of
his own species. This elevated the man-animal very much in my
esteem, and in fact, I now began to feel ashamed of the
contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him; for I
found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the most
powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brain, (*19)
which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful
writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of
imagination!’”

“Nonsense!” said the king.

“‘Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very
singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones
were iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he
had black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard
a diet, he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more
weighty than the grandest temple in this city, at a rate
surpassing that of the flight of most birds.’” (*20)

“Twattle!” said the king.

“‘I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but
bigger than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and
brick; her blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she
was nearly related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate
nothing but wood or black stones. This hen brought forth very
frequently, a hundred chickens in the day; and, after birth, they
took up their residence for several weeks within the stomach of
their mother.’” (*21)

“Fal lal!” said the king.

“‘One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of
brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity
that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with
the exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. (*22)
Another of these magi constructed (of like material) a creature
that put to shame even the genius of him who made it; for so
great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed
calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required
the united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. (*23)
But a still more wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a
mighty thing that was neither man nor beast, but which had brains
of lead, intermixed with a black matter like pitch, and fingers
that it employed with such incredible speed and dexterity that it
would have had no trouble in writing out twenty thousand copies
of the Koran in an hour, and this with so exquisite a precision,
that in all the copies there should not be found one to vary from
another by the breadth of the finest hair. This thing was of
prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrew the
mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised
equally for evil and for good.’”

“Ridiculous!” said the king.

“‘Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in
his veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of
sitting down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his
dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor. (*24) Another had
the faculty of converting the common metals into gold, without
even looking at them during the process. (*25) Another had such a
delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to be invisible.
(*26) Another had such quickness of perception that he counted
all the separate motions of an elastic body, while it was
springing backward and forward at the rate of nine hundred
millions of times in a second.’” (*27)

“Absurd!” said the king.

“‘Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody
ever yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish
their arms, kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance
at his will. (*28) Another had cultivated his voice to so great
an extent that he could have made himself heard from one end of
the world to the other. (*29) Another had so long an arm that he
could sit down in Damascus and indite a letter at Bagdad—or
indeed at any distance whatsoever. (*30) Another commanded the
lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at
his call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another
took two loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another
constructed a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights. (*31)
Another made ice in a red-hot furnace. (*32) Another directed the
sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did. (*33) Another took
this luminary with the moon and the planets, and having first
weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their depths
and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were
made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a
necromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their
commonest cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects
that do not exist at all, or that for twenty millions of years
before the birth of the nation itself had been blotted out from
the face of creation.’” (*34)

“Preposterous!” said the king.

“‘The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise
magi,’” continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner
disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions
on the part of her husband—“‘the wives and daughters of these
eminent conjurers are every thing that is accomplished and
refined; and would be every thing that is interesting and
beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and from
which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and
fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities
come in certain shapes, and some in others—but this of which I
speak has come in the shape of a crotchet.’”

“A what?” said the king.

“‘A crotchet’” said Scheherazade. “‘One of the evil genii, who
are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into
the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we
describe as personal beauty consists altogether in the
protuberance of the region which lies not very far below the
small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the
direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having been long
possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country,
the days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a
woman from a dromedary—’”

“Stop!” said the king—“I can’t stand that, and I won’t. You have
already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day,
too, I perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been
married?—my conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And
then that dromedary touch—do you take me for a fool? Upon the
whole, you might as well get up and be throttled.”

These words, as I learn from the “Isitsöornot,” both grieved and
astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of
scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she
submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however,
great consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from
the reflection that much of the history remained still untold,
and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for
him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of many
inconceivable adventures.

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.

The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways;
nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the
vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, _which have
a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus_.

—_Joseph Glanville_.

We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some
minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

“Not long ago,” said he at length, “and I could have guided you
on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about
three years past, there happened to me an event such as never
happened to mortal man—or at least such as no man ever survived
to tell of—and the six hours of deadly terror which I then
endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a _very_
old man—but I am not. It took less than a single day to change
these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and
to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion,
and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look
over this little cliff without getting giddy?”

The “little cliff,” upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown
himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung
over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his
elbow on its extreme and slippery edge—this “little cliff” arose,
a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some
fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath
us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of
its brink. In truth so deeply was I excited by the perilous
position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the
ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance
upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest myself of
the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger
from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason
myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the
distance.

“You must get over these fancies,” said the guide, “for I have
brought you here that you might have the best possible view of
the scene of that event I mentioned—and to tell you the whole
story with the spot just under your eye.”

“We are now,” he continued, in that particularizing manner which
distinguished him—“we are now close upon the Norwegian coast—in
the sixty-eighth degree of latitude—in the great province of
Nordland—and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon
whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up
a little higher—hold on to the grass if you feel giddy—so—and
look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea.”

I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose
waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the
Nubian geographer’s account of the _Mare Tenebrarum_. A panorama
more deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To
the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay
outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black
and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more
forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against its
white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever. Just
opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a
distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible
a small, bleak-looking island; or, more properly, its position
was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was
enveloped. About two miles nearer the land, arose another of
smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at
various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.

The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more
distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about
it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward
that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed
trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight,
still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a
short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in 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 and scarred into a thousand
conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied
convulsion—heaving, boiling, hissing—gyrating in gigantic and
innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the
eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes
except in precipitous descents.

In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical
alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and
the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks
of foam became apparent where none had been seen before. These
streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance, and
entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory
motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of
another more vast. Suddenly—very suddenly—this assumed a distinct
and definite existence, in a circle of more than a mile in
diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt
of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth
of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could
fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water,
inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees,
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.

The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I
threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an
excess of nervous agitation.

“This,” said I at length, to the old man—“this _can_ be nothing
else than the great whirlpool of the Maelström.”

“So it is sometimes termed,” said he. “We Norwegians call it the
Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the midway.”

The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me
for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most
circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception
either of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene—or of
the wild bewildering sense of _the novel_ which confounds the
beholder. I am not sure from what point of view the writer in
question surveyed it, nor at what time; but it could neither have
been from the summit of Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are
some passages of his description, nevertheless, which may be
quoted for their details, although their effect is exceedingly
feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.

“Between Lofoden and Moskoe,” he says, “the depth of the water is
between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other side,
toward Ver (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a
convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on
the rocks, which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is
flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe
with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to
the sea is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful
cataracts; the noise being heard several leagues off, and the
vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship
comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and
carried down to the bottom, and there beat to pieces against the
rocks; and when the water relaxes, the fragments thereof are
thrown up again. But these intervals of tranquility are only at
the turn of the ebb and flood, and in calm weather, and last but
a quarter of an hour, its violence gradually returning. When the
stream is most boisterous, and its fury heightened by a storm, it
is dangerous to come within a Norway mile of it. Boats, yachts,
and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it
before they were within its reach. It likewise happens
frequently, that whales come too near the stream, and are
overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to
describe their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless
struggles to disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to
swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne
down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large
stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed by the
current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if
bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist
of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. This
stream is regulated by the flux and reflux of the sea—it being
constantly high and low water every six hours. In the year 1645,
early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such
noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the
coast fell to the ground.”

In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this
could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of
the vortex. The “forty fathoms” must have reference only to
portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or
Lofoden. The depth in the centre of the Moskoe-ström must be
immeasurably greater; and no better proof of this fact is
necessary than can be obtained from even the sidelong glance into
the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the highest crag of
Helseggen. Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling
Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with
which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of
belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears; for it
appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, that the largest
ship of the line in existence, coming within the influence of
that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather
the hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.

The attempts to account for the phenomenon—some of which, I
remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusal—now wore
a very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generally
received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among
the Ferroe islands, “have no other cause than the collision of
waves rising and falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of
rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that it
precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the
flood rises, the deeper must the fall be, and the natural result
of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which
is sufficiently known by lesser experiments.”—These are the words
of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Kircher and others imagine that
in the centre of the channel of the Maelström is an abyss
penetrating the globe, and issuing in some very remote part—the
Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in one instance.
This opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as I gazed,
my imagination most readily assented; and, mentioning it to the
guide, I was rather surprised to hear him say that, although it
was the view almost universally entertained of the subject by the
Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former
notion he confessed his inability to comprehend it; and here I
agreed with him—for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes
altogether unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of
the abyss.

“You have had a good look at the whirl now,” said the old man,
“and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee,
and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that
will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-ström.”

I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.

“Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of
about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the habit of
fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all
violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at proper
opportunities, if one has only the courage to attempt it; but
among the whole of the Lofoden coastmen, we three were the only
ones who made a regular business of going out to the islands, as
I tell you. The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the
southward. There fish can be got at all hours, without much risk,
and therefore these places are preferred. The choice spots over
here among the rocks, however, not only yield the finest variety,
but in far greater abundance; so that we often got in a single
day, what the more timid of the craft could not scrape together
in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate
speculation—the risk of life standing instead of labor, and
courage answering for capital.

“We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast
than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take
advantage of the fifteen minutes’ slack to push across the main
channel of the Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop
down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen,
where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to
remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed
and made for home. We never set out upon this expedition without
a steady side wind for going and coming—one that we felt sure
would not fail us before our return—and we seldom made a
mis-calculation upon this point. Twice, during six years, we were
forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead calm,
which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to
remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to
a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the
channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this occasion we
should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything, (for
the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently, that, at
length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been
that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross currents—here
to-day and gone to-morrow—which drove us under the lee of Flimen,
where, by good luck, we brought up.

“I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we
encountered ‘on the grounds’—it is a bad spot to be in, even in
good weather—but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the
Moskoe-ström itself without accident; although at times my heart
has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind
or before the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we
thought it at starting, and then we made rather less way than we
could wish, while the current rendered the smack unmanageable. My
eldest brother had a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout
boys of my own. These would have been of great assistance at such
times, in using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing—but,
somehow, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart
to let the young ones get into the danger—for, after all is said
and done, it _was_ a horrible danger, and that is the truth.

“It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going
to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day of July, 18—, a day
which the people of this part of the world will never forget—for
it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever
came out of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and indeed
until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze
from the south-west, while the sun shone brightly, so that the
oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was to
follow.