HIDEOUS PROFUNDITIES. 133 



in slope after slope of slippery ooze, and at such a pre- 

 cipitous angle, that probably the only way of proceeding 

 further would be to put on a pair of " ski " and glide, 

 with breathless celerity, to the bottom. It is, however, 

 more probable that we should not have a pair of " ski " 

 at our command, and that even if we had, we should be 

 far too daunted by the giddy prospect confronting us 

 to attempt any such hypothetical descent. 



Stretching aAvay beneath us, right and left, and far 

 beyond our farthest range of vision, would extend one of 

 the grandest, deepest, and most awful valleys on earth. 

 Eighty miles away in front of us, the stupendous Cayman- 

 Mysteriosa ridge would rise like a long grey barrier wall, 

 reaching for several hundreds of miles in a north-easterly 

 direction towards the southern point of Cuba, and barring 

 our further range of vision to the north. 



Along its length, at almost equidistant intervals, 

 would rise three isolated flat-topped peaks, towering 

 skywards to a height of eighteen thousand feet. As the 

 rays of a westering sun fell upon them , they would appear 

 as if snow capped ; but we should know that it was no 

 snow which sprinkled their dizzy slopes, but the white 

 coral sand and coral debris, which had fallen upon them 

 from the reefs of the Mysteriosa Bank, the Grand Cayman 

 Island and the united platforms of Little Cayman and 

 Cayman Brae. Perhaps Avith a powerful telescope we 

 could perceive upon the flat-topped summits of the two 

 easterly peaks, the thinnest of green lines, denoting the 

 woods and scrub which clothe their surface. 



Twenty thousand feet below us, almost beneath our 

 feet, down slope after slope of slithery smoothness and 

 steepness, which would be coated for some way down with 

 the same white coral ooze, the eye would light upon a 

 long reddish trough , one hundred and fifty miles long — 

 the Swan Island Canyon — ^the nethermost Gehenna of 

 these vasty depths, a veritable Valley of the Shadow of 

 Death, a fit abode for slithy toves " or " jabber-wocks." 

 In all the vast prospect beneath us, there would be not the 



