Cap. XVIII. TAeCaribby-Iflands. 



which are many times by the Ice carried to the Coaft of tfe+ 

 land: They are of fo prodigious a length and bulk, thatmoft 

 Authors who have written of them rank them among Whales : 

 They are not cover'd withfcalesas the formentioned deferib'd 

 by us was, but- with a hard black fkin like the Lamantin : They 

 have but two fins on both fides, and a large plume upon the 

 back, which being narrower in the midft then at either end, 

 makes as it were a double creft rifing up for the more conveni- 

 ent dividing of the waters r'they have three vent-holes a little 

 below their necks, at which they caft up the fuperfluous water 

 they had fwallow'd, as the Whales do : their heads are fharp, 

 and on the left fide of the upper jaw there comes out a horn 

 white all over as the tooth of a young Elephant, which horn 

 is fbmetimes fifteen or fixteen foot in length : It is wreath'd in 

 fome places, and ftreaked all over with fmall lines of a pearl- 

 colour, which are not only on the fuperficies of it, but run 

 through the fubftance : The horn is hollow to the third part, 

 and all over as folid as the hardeft bone. 



Some will have this prominency to be rather a tooth then a 

 horn . becaufe it riles not out 'of 'the forehead , as that we 

 h^Vf.- fpoken of, nor yet from the upper part of the head, as 

 thofe of Bulls and Rams, but out of the upper jaw, in which 

 it is fet,as th 4 reeth are in their proper places : Thofe who are 

 of this option fay further, that it is not to be wondred thefe 

 fifties mould have butonefiich tooth, when the fubftance out 

 of which others fhould be produced is quite exhaufted in the 

 making of that one, which is of fuch a prodigious length and 

 bignefs as might fufficeto make a hundred. 



But whether this ftrange defenfive wherewith thefe mon- 

 ftrous fifh are armed be called Tooth or Horn, certain it is 

 that they ufe it in their engagements with the Whales, and to 

 break the Ice of the Northern Seas, wherewith they are often- 

 times encompaffed.* Whence it came, that fome times there 

 have been feen of them fuch as by reafbn of the violent fer- 

 vice they have been in, in difingaging themfelves out of thofe 

 icy mountains, have not only had their horns blunted at the 

 point, but alfo fhattered and broken off : The figures of 

 both this kind and that caft afhore in the Tortoife Ifland may be 

 feen among the Sculps. 



While we were ordering the foregoing ftory for the fatisfa- 

 ction of the Publick, a Ship of Flujhing^ commanded by Ni- 

 cholas Tunes , wherein M. Lampfen^ one of the Deputies of that 

 Province, in the Aflembly of the States-General , and other 

 confiderable Merchants of the fame Town were concern 'd, co- 

 ming in from Davis -fir eighty brought thence among other rari- 

 ties feveral exceiieat pieces of the Unicorns of the Northern 

 Seas, of that kind we fpoke of before 3 and in regard thetve- 

 lation fent us of that Voyage may very much clear up the mat- 

 ter 



