Chap. I.] 



THE DUGONG. 



71 



creatures were again seen by him and more than fifty 

 witnesses, at the same place, by clear daylight. 1 



"If any narrative in the world," adds Valentyn, 

 " deserves credit, it is this ; since not only one but two 

 mermen together were seen by so many eye-witnesses. 

 Should the stubborn world, however, hesitate to believe 

 it, it matters nothing ; as there are people who would 

 even deny that such cities as Eome, Constantinople 

 or Cairo, exist, merely because they themselves have 

 not happened to see them." 



But what are such incredulous persons, he continues, 

 to make of the circumstance recorded by Albert Herport 

 in his account of India 2 , that a sea-man was seen in the 

 water near the Church of Taquan, on the morning of 

 the 29th of April 1661, and a mermaid at the same spot 

 the same afternoon ? — or what do they say to the fact 

 that in 1714, a mermaid was not only seen but captured 

 near the island of Booro ? " five feet Ehineland measure 

 m in height, which lived four days and seven hours, but 

 " refusing all food, died without leaving any intelligible 

 " account of herself." 



Valentyn, in support of his own faith in the mer- 

 maid, cites numerous other instances in which both 

 " sea-men and women" were seen and taken at Amboina; 

 especially one by an office-bearer in the Church of 

 Holland 3 , by whom it was surrendered to the Governor 

 Vanderstel. 



Of this well-authenticated specimen he gives an 

 elaborate engraving amongst those of the authentic fishes 

 of the island — together with a minute ichthyological 



1 Valentyn, Beschryving, §c m) Berne, 1669. 



vol. iii. p. 331. 3 A " krank-bezoeker " or visit- 



2 Probably the Itinerarium In- ant of the sick. 

 dicum of Albrecht Herport. 



F 4 



