AN OLD MAN OF THE SEA 



Medieval writers gave the name of phoca to various marine animals which in form 

 faintly resembled a human being. Manatees, dugongs, seals, walruses, etc., all 

 seem to have been regarded as one species under this name, and to have been 

 identified loosely with mermaids and tritons. Ambrosinuh gives the above 

 picture of what he calls senex maris, an old man of the sea. Natives around the 

 Red vSea, it is said, took these creatures to be the survivors of Pharaoh's Army, 

 drowned in the pursuit of the Children of Israel. (Fig. 1.) 



the West Indies, h)ut that they were not 

 as charming as he had been led to 

 bcHeve. 



MERMAIDS OF THE NEW WORLD 



While sailing in the river near the 

 harbor of St. John's, in 1610, Capt. 

 Johann Schmidt relates that he saw a 

 marine creature which resembled greatly 

 a human being with flowing hair and 

 the face of a maiden (Fig. 2) swimming 

 rai)idly toward him. This peculiar 

 being did not, however, have the usual 

 timidity of her sex, and seemed to wish 

 to overtake the captain, who fled hastily- 

 in order to avoid her. She then made 

 toward the ])art of the shi]) where 

 Wilhelm Hacobridge, the captain's ser- 

 vant, was stationed. But the members 

 of the crew also had no desire to make a 



340 



closer acquaintance with this strange 

 creature, and seizing some sticks, they 

 beat the visitor tuimercifull>-, until she 

 turned and disap])eared luider the water. 

 If the author of Telliamed is credible. 

 Sirens and Tritons were formerly quite 

 common at Martinique. He cites an 

 affidavit of Pierre Luce, a nobleman, 

 sworn to on I\Iay 31, 1761, before 

 Pierre de Beville, a notary, in the 

 presence of Pere Julien Simon, Jesuit, 

 and three other witnesses. The state- 

 ment was sworn to by two Frenchmen 

 and four negroes who, on the twenty- 

 third day of the same month, had gone 

 to the Isles of the Diamond in a boat to 

 fish. When returning near sunset they 

 noticed, near the .shore of the small islet 

 on which they were situated, a marine 

 monster having human fomi from the 



