12 SEA FABLES EXPLAIAED. 



an emblem and symbol, it came to be accepted as the 

 corporeal shape and structure of actually-existent sea- 

 deities, who might present themselves to the view of the 

 mariner, in visible and tangible form, at any moment. 

 Thus were men trained and prepared to believe in mermen 

 and mermaids, to expect to meet with them at sea, and to 

 recognise as one of them any animal the appearance and 

 movements of which could possibly be brought into con- 

 formity with their pre-conceived ideas. 



Accordingly, and very naturally, we find that from north 

 to south this belief has been entertained. Megasthenes, 

 who was a contemporary of Aristotle, but his junior, and 

 whose geographical work was probably written at about the 

 period of the great philosopher's death, reported that the sea 

 which surrounded Taprobana, the ancient Ceylon, was in- 

 habited by creatures having the appearance of women. 

 yElian stated that there were "whales," or "great fishes," 

 having the form of satyrs. The early Portuguese settlers in 

 India asserted that true mermen were found in the Eastern 

 seas, and old Norse legends tell of submarine beings of con- 

 joined human and piscine form, who dwell in a wide territory 

 far below the region of the fishes, over which the sea, like 

 the cloudy canopy of our sky, loftily rolls, and some of whom 

 have, from time to time, landed on Scandinavian shores, 

 exchanged their fishy extremities for human limbs, and 

 acquired amphibious habits. Not only have poets sung of 

 the wondrous and seductive beauty of the maidens of these 

 aquatic tribes, but many a Jack tar has come home from 

 sea prepared to affirm on oath that he has seen a mermaid. 

 To the best of his belief he has told the truth. He has 

 seen some living being which looked wonderfully human, 

 and his imagination, aided by an inherited superstition, has 

 supplied the rest. 



