254 HISTORY OF 



** When his spirits were thus restored, he was 

 again brought to satisfy the king's curiosity with 

 a narrative of the wonders he had seen ; and his 

 account was to the following effect : He would 

 never, he said, have obeyed the king's commands 

 had he been apprized of half the. dangers that 

 were before him. There were four things, he 

 said, that rendered the gulf dreadful, not only to 

 men, but even to the fishes themselves : first, the 

 force of the water bursting up from the bottom, 

 which requires great strength to resist ; secondly, 

 the abruptness of the rocks, that on every side 

 threatened destruction ; thirdly, the force of the 

 whirlpool, dashing against those rocks ; and 

 fourthly, the number and magnitude of the poly- 

 pous fish, some of which appeared as large as a 

 man, and which every-where sticking against the 

 rocks, projected their fibrous arms to entangle 

 him. Being asked how he was able so readily to 

 find the cup that had been thrown in, he replied, 

 that it happened to be flung by the waves into 

 the cavity of a rock, against which he himself 

 was urged in his descent. This account, how- 

 ever, did not satisfy the king's curiosity : being 

 requested to venture once more into the gulf for 

 further discoveries, he at first refused ; but the 

 king, desirous of having the most exact informa- 

 tion possible of all things to be found in the gulf, 

 repeated his solicitations ; and, to give them still 

 greater weight, produced a larger cup than the 

 former, and added also a purse of gold. Upon 

 these considerations, the unfortunate Pessacola 

 once again plunged into the whirlpool, and was 

 never heard of more/' 



