EXPEDITION TQ SURINAM. 125 



This wonderful animal is of a lead-blue colour, formed CHAP^ 

 in a great meafvire like an eel, with one large fin that ^^^1 

 runs below from head to tail, not unlike the keel of a 

 fliip. It lives only in frefli water : its length is called by 

 fome three feet, and by others is afferted to be not lefs 

 than four or five times as much*. When this animal 

 is touched by the hand, or any rod of metal or hard 

 wood, it communicates a fhock, the impulfe of which 

 produces the fame effe6l as ele6lricity ; and Dr. Firmyn 

 has even afTured me, that the fhock of this elecSlrical eel 

 has been communicated to him through the bodies of 

 eight or ten people, who flood hand in hand for the 

 purpofe of trying the experiment. 



For my own part, all that I can fay concerning this 

 animal is, that I faw it in a tub full of water, where it 

 appeared to be about two feet long ; that I threw off my 

 Goat, and having turned up my fliirt-fleeves, tried about 

 twenty different times to grafp it with my hand, but all 

 without effedl, receiving juft as many ele6lrical fhocks, 

 which I felt even to the top of my ftioulder, to the great 

 entertainment of Mr. Kennedy, to whom I loft a fmall 

 wager on the occafion. The ele£lrical eel fwims forward 

 or backward at pleafure, it may be eaten with the greateft 

 fafety, and is even by many people thought delicious. 



It has been faid, that this animal mufl be touched with 

 both hands before it gives the fhock, but this I muft 



* Mr;_^Greenwood, of Leicefter Fields, has told me himfelf that he killed one 

 ©f eleven Feet long. 



■ . . 8 take 



