THE MERMAID. 199 



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 inhabited by creatures having the appearance of 

 women. ^Elian 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 sub- 

 marine beings of conjoined 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 sup- 

 plied the rest. 



