PLATE LVII. 



race, after the varieties which he denominates " Monstrosus^ The 

 reference made by Linnaeus to the Roman Naturalist, (Plin. 5. c. 8.) 



so far dissimilar from the bust of our present Mermaid. We are, therefore, 

 upon the whole, inclined to consider this object as a type of some attribute 

 in one of the incarnations of Vishnu, and which for this reason commanded 

 the veneration of the Hindu mariners ; a tutelary idol perhaps kept onboard 

 to ensure the safety of the vessel against storms and shipwreck, or some 

 spoliation of one of the Hindu sanctuaries. 



Should these conjectures prove correct, and we are much inclined to 

 think them so, we may at once perceive the cause of that reverence which 

 the Indians were observed to offer to this compound idol, and which the 

 ignorant Dutchman, by whom it was purchased in the first instance, might 

 have supposed to have been devoted to it as a " Mermaid." These sugges- 

 tions, arising from the circumstances related, and the known superstitions of 

 Asiatics generally, as well as the Hindus in particular, appear to be at least 

 probable. The Hindus would be naturally disinclined to part with such a 

 representative allusion to an Avalara, or incarnation of Vishnu, and to 

 which, as mariners, they might attach some additional superstitious notions, 

 at the same time that they were wily enough to take advantage of that 

 eagerness which they might have perceived in the European speculator to 

 possess it, for this must have been apparent in any one who could for a mo- 

 ment seriously entertain a treaty for the purchase of an object so preposte- 

 rous, an earnestness that could only become more obvious by the payment 

 of the enormous price at which these devotees were disposed to sell their 

 venerated idol. Unless in those presumed circumstances, or some other of 

 the like tendency, we are able to discover an adequate apology for this 

 fabrication and the many errors that have resulted from it, we must regard 

 the whole as a complete deception upon the credulity of the world, and as 

 one the most deserving of exposure. 



We have alluded generally in one of the foregoing passages to certain 

 imaginary monsters, the pretended inhabitants of the waves ; the details of 

 which are to be found in the ancient books of the people of Japan and China. 

 Such persuasions were no doubt common to every country in the first ages 

 of the world, but of the superstitious belief of those people in this respect 

 in particular, we were wholly ignorantin Europe till very lately, when many 

 of their writings happened to have been introduced, and are now in the 

 hands of scientific men ; it will not be therefore amiss to add, that though 

 some of the literati of those countries consider those anomalous relations to 

 be chimerical, the people generally, as in every other part of the world, be- 



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