282 Mr. 1':. W. Gndgei- on the 



great admiration and wondering of them all, and contrarie 

 to all reason and man's understanding, so that they did not 

 only Mondcr thereat, hut were mueh ahasht l)ceing stead- 

 fastly [)ers\va(le(l that they were hewitchcd, for they knew 

 very well hy experience that the streame or course of the 

 water in these countries did not drive them hack, nor witli- 

 holde them contrarie to all Art of Navigation, whereupon 

 they were all in great perplexity and feare, standing still and 

 beholding each other, not once knowing the cause thereof. 



" At ye last thechiefc Hotesoii, whom they call the masters 

 mate, looking l)y chance overhoid towards the beak head of 

 the ship, he esj)ied a great broad taile of a Fish that had 

 winded itselfe as it were about the beakchead, the body 

 thereof bi-eing under the kcele, and the heade under the 

 Ruther, swimming in that manner, and drawing the shippe 

 with her against the wind and their right course : whereby 

 presently they knewe the cause of their so going backe- 

 wards : so that having at last stricken long with staves and 

 other weapons uppon the fishes taile, in the ende they stroke 

 it off, and thereby the fish left the ship, after it had layne 

 14 dayes under the same, drawing the ship with it against 

 wind and weather: for wliich cause the Viceroy in Goa 

 caused it to be painted in his pallace for a perpetuall 

 memory, where 1 have often read it, with the day and the 

 time, and the name of both shippe and Captaine, which I 

 cannot well remember, although it bee no great matter '^ *. 



Ferrante Imperato, a pharmacist of Naples, having a taste 

 for natural history, formed a collection of such objects, and 

 made the description of these the basis of his book ' Historia 

 Naturale,' published at Venetia, 1599. In this he writes : 

 "Although the Kemora ot the ancients has by many been 

 described under the forms of different fishes, there is, how- 

 ever, no description that fits except the one proposed by us. 

 It has on the upperpart of the head tentacles similar to the 

 vibratile combs [cirri, literally ringlets] of the polyps by 

 which it attaches itself to ships or the bodies of large whales 

 and other fishes/^ 



With the above description Imperato published a figure of 



* Linschoten's book was first published in Dutch at Amsterdam in 

 1596, but was translated into English and published in London in 1598, 

 while in the following' year (1599) a Latin version appeared at Amsterdam, 

 The above account is talieu literally from the Eng-lish edition. For 

 photostats of it and of the original Dutch edition I am indebted to the 

 kindness of Dr. Lydenberg, who not only sent these, but who had pre- 

 viously in a most skilful manner run down Linschoten from an exceed- 

 ingly indefiiiite and obscure reference in 2s ieremberg to the " Pro-Ilex of 

 Joannes Hugo." 



