270 I N A G U A 



alive, a pearly sort of color that shimmered with a faint luster 

 that was conceived of clarity and sunlight. I hung suspended, 

 lightly grasping the life line. In the distance the sheen faded 

 imperceptibly into a pale golden silver through which rays 

 of misty sunlight penciled downwards in long streaks which 

 came and went as the facets of the waves captured and di- 

 rected them on their courses. I looked below me and gulped 

 in amazement. 



I was hanging on the very edge of a deep canyon, a 

 drowned dark space that tumbled dizzily toward the center 

 of the ocean. For seventy feet I could see clearly. Each rock 

 and stone stood out in vivid relief, but beyond that objects 

 became progressively dimmer, less and less visible, until in the 

 farther reaches of out-of-focusness I could discern only the 

 blurry outlines of phantom shapes, shadowy crags, and queer 

 forms that flitted from place to place. Further down was 

 empty darkness that seemed more mysterious because there 

 was nothing tangible. 



Gingerly I let myself down a few feet and became con- 

 scious that I was swaying back and forth like a pendulum. 

 Then I noticed that everything in the canyon was swaying 

 too. First one way and then the other. Not forcefully but 

 very gently, back and forth over an arc of ten or twelve 

 feet. For a second I would be poised over a mound of hard 

 white sand, and then slowly and quite helplessly, I would 

 sweep out over the steep walls of the canyon until I was 

 suspended over thirty feet of nothingness. It was a most sur- 

 prising sensation to be wafted thus like the lightest feather, 

 and for nearly five minutes I hung suspended, enjoying the 

 sensation. On a return swing I dropped the remaining distance 

 to the mound of white sand and landed with a gentle bump on 

 its surface. But only for a second. For a brief moment I poised 

 erect and then was dragged from my perch by the current. 



