CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 269 



animal, ann capable, from its barbs, of inflicting a very terrible wound, 

 attended with dangerous symptoms; but it cannot be possessed of any 

 poison, as the spine has no sheath to preserve the supposd venom on 

 its surface: and the animal has no gland that separates the noxious 

 fluid : besides, all those animals that are furnished with envenomed 

 fangs or stings, seem to have them strongly connected with their safety 

 and existence ; they never part with them ; there is an apparatus of 

 poison prepared in the body to accompany their exertions ; and when 

 the fangs or stings are taken away, the animal languishes and dies> 

 But it is otherwise with the spine of the fire-flare; it is fixed to the tail, 

 as a quill is into the tail of the fowl, and is annually shed in the same 

 manner : it may be necessary for the creature's defence, but it is no 

 way necessary for its existence. The wound inflicted by an animal's 

 tail, has something terrible in the idea, and may from thence alone be 

 supposed to be fatal. From hence terror might have added poison to 

 the pain, and called up imagined dangers: the Negroes universally be- 

 lieve that the sting is poisonous; but they never die of the wound ; for 

 by opening the fish, and laying it to the part injured, it effects a speedy 

 cure. The slightness of the remedy proves the innocence of the 

 wound." 



The Torpedo is an animal of this kind, equally formidable and well 

 known with the former; but the manner of its operating is to this hour 

 a mystery to mankind. The body of this fish is almost circular, and 

 thicker than others of the ray kind ; the skin is soft, smooth, and of a 

 yellowish colour, marked, as all the kind with large annular spots ; the 

 eyes very small ; the tail tapering to a point ; and the weight of the fish 

 from a quarter to fifteen pounds. Redi found one twenty-four pounds 

 weight. To all outward appearance, it is furnished with no extraordi- 

 nary powers ; it has no muscles formed for particularly great exertions ; 

 no internal confirmation perceptibly differing from the rest of its kind ; 

 yet such is that unaccountable power it possesses, that, the instant it 

 is touched, it benumbs not only the hand and arm, but sometimes also 

 the whole body. The shock received, by all accounts, most resembles 

 the stroke of an electrical machine ; sudden, tingling, and painful. 

 " The instant," says Kempfer, " I touched it with my hand, I felt a 

 terrible numbness in my arm, and as far up as the shoulder. Even if 

 one treads upon it with the shoe on, it affects not only the leg, but the 

 whole thigh upwards. Those who touch it with the foot are seized 

 with a stronger palpitation than even those who touched it with the 

 hand. This numbness bears no resemblance to that which we feol 

 when a nerve is a long time pressed, and the foot is said to be asleep ; 

 it rather appears like a sudden vapour, which passing through the pores 

 in an instant penetrates to the very springs of life, from whence it dif- 

 fuses itself over the whole body, and gives real pain. The nerves are 

 so affected that the person struck imagines all the bones of his 

 body, and particularly those of the limb that received the blow, are 

 driven out of joint. All this is accompanied with an universal tre- 

 mor, a sickness of the stomach, a general convulsion, and a total sus- 

 pension of the faculties of the mind. In short," continues Kemp, 

 for, " such is the pain, that all the force of our promises and 



VOL. III. X 



