210 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



fish or creature which resembles the human species more 

 than any other." As for the objection " founded on self- 

 love and respect to our own species which is honoured with 

 the image of God, who made man lord of all creatures, and 

 that, consequently, we may suppose he is entitled to a 

 noble and heavenly form which other creatures must not 

 partake of," he thinks " its force vanishes when we consider 

 the form of apes, and especially of another African creature 

 called 'Quoyas Morrov' described by Odoard Dapper in 

 his work on Africa," and which appears to have been a 

 chimpanzee. Pontoppidan regarded it as being the Satyr 

 of the ancients. He therefore claims that " if we will not 

 allow our Norwegian Hastromber the honourable name of 

 merman, we may very well call it the ( Sea-ape,' or the 

 ' Sea-Quoyas-Morrov ;' " especially as the author already 

 quoted says that, "in the Sea of Angola mermaids are 

 frequently caught which resemble the human species. They 

 are taken in nets, and killed by the negroes, and are heard 

 to shriek and cry like women." 



The Bishop adds that in the diocese of Bergen, as well 

 as in the manor of Nordland, there were hundreds of 

 persons who affirmed with the strongest assurances that 

 they had seen this kind of creature ; sometimes at a 

 distance and at other times quite close to their boats, 

 standing upright, and formed like a human creature down 

 to the middle the rest they could not see but of those 

 who had seen them out of water and handled them he had 

 not been able to find more than one person of credit who 

 could vouch it for truth. This informant, " the Reverend 

 Mr. Peter Angel, minister of Vand-Elvens Gie'ld, on 

 Suderoe," assured his bishop, when he was on a visitation 

 journey, that 



" In tbe year 1719, he (being then about twenty years old) saw what 



