THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 251 



trust in the account wliich the celebrated English 

 seaman, George Anson, gives of that fish in the Phi- 

 lippine Islands which the Spanish have called pere- 

 mujer (almost a woman), and which, he assures us, 

 resemble, in all but their song, the Sirens of the 

 ancients ? According to Anson, these fish have im- 

 mense strength, and, in order to capture them, the 

 natives employ nets made of very strong ropes as 

 thick as the little finger, and when they are caught 

 they kill them with arrows. 



The solemn voice of science has not yet pronounced 

 authoritatively with regard to the Kraken or Sea- 

 serpent; but I recollect that, in 1846, happening to 

 be at Newport during the month of August and in 

 the season of sea-bathing, I heard at the table d'hote 

 the captain of a whaler, who had arrived the evening 



situation ; they were sunk into hollows under eyebrows ; they were 

 furnished with eyelids, and were not (as is the case with every other 

 species of fish) furnished with different axes of vision. The nose 

 differed only from the ordinary human nose in that it was slightly 

 flattened like that of a negro. The mouth and lips were exactly similar 

 to our own. The teeth were square, and set close to one another. The 

 breast was large, and covered with a white skin, through which the 

 veins could be seen. The females had round and fii-m breasts, and 

 were evidently suckling their young ; for, on pressing their breasts, a 

 white and very pure milk exuded. Their arms were long, more massive 

 than ours, and without joints. Below the belly, and where the haunches 

 and thighs should commence, there was a tail formed exactly like that 

 of a fish. It will easily be understood that this capture made a great 

 deal of noise. The Viceroy presented most of his friends with a Triton 

 or a Siren, and the residentiary Dutch envoy received for his share a 

 Siren, which he forwarded forthwith to the Museum at the Hague, 

 where it remains to this day, stuffed. 



