1 8 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



with a minute description of each for the satisfaction of 

 men of science. 



The fame of this creature having reached Europe, the 

 British minister in Holland wrote to Valentyn on the 28th 

 of December, 17 16, whilst the Emperor Peter the Great, of 

 Russia, was his guest at Amsterdam, to communicate the 

 desire of the Czar that the mermaid should be brought 

 home from Amboyna for his inspection. To complete his 

 proofs of the existence of mermen and merwomen, Valentyn 

 points triumphantly to the historical fact that in Holland, 

 in the year 1404, a mermaid was driven, during a tempest, 

 through a breach in the dyke of Edam, and was taken alive 

 in the lake of Purmer. Thence she was carried to Haarlem, 

 where the Dutch women taught her to spin, and where 

 several years after, she died in the Roman Catholic faith ; — 

 " but this," says the pious Calvinistic chaplain, " in no way 

 militates against the truth of her story." The worthy 

 minister citing the authority of various writers as proof that 

 mermaids had in all ages been known in Gaul, Naples, 

 Epirus, and the Morea, comes to the conclusion that as 

 there are " sea-cows," " sea-horses," " sea-dogs," as well as 

 "sea-trees," and "sea-flowers," which he himself had seen, 

 there are no reasonable grounds for doubt that there may 

 also be "sea-maidens" and "sea-men." 



In an early account of Newfoundland,* Wliitbourne 

 describes a " maremaid or mareman," which he had seen 

 "within the length of a pike," and which "came swimming 

 swiftly towards him, looking cheerfully on his face, as it had 

 been a woman. By the face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ears, 

 neck and forehead, it appeared to be so beautiful, and in 

 those parts so well proportioned, having round about the 

 head many blue streaks resembling hair, but certainly it 

 * Whitbourne's ' Discourse of Newfoundland.' 



