THE INLAND SEA REVISITED. 43 



gelatinous creature, but I should think it very tasteless. 

 I never saw a large one ; but an incident was told me 

 by a native, whom I believed, of one of those curious 

 creatures flinging an arm over a boat in which a man 

 was quietly fishing. He was so utterly taken aback 

 and astonished, that overboard he jumped, making a 

 tremendous row, and, swimming for the nearest boat, 

 related his story. Three or four fishermen returned, 

 armed with an axe, to the boat, and found it still in the 

 clasp of the monster. They soon chopped the arm in 

 two, and saw nothing more of the animal. The part left 

 in the boat was as thick as a man's thigh. Eeturning 

 to England on one occasion, I put into the Seychelles, 

 a group of islands off the east coast of Africa, in latitude 

 about 5° N. Here I heard of two instances of men 

 being caught by these diabolical creatures. One man, 

 when searching amongst the rocks at low tide for shell- 

 fish, was seized by an octopus, and retained in the 

 animal's hold, until the tide came up and drowned him. 

 He was afterwards found dead in the creature's grasp. 

 The other case was similar, only that the man, being in 

 a less lonely part of the coast, managed to make himself 

 heard, and was rescued. 



There is a most determined species of teredo, or 

 boring-worm, in the waters of the Inland Sea. If the 



