“‘Why, mother, when we anchored to the northward of St. Kitt’s one Sunday morning, a voice called us from alongside, and when we looked over, there was a merman just come to the top of the water; he stroked down his hair, and touched it, as we do our hats, to the captain, and told him that he would feel much obliged to him to trip his anchor, as it had been let go just before the door of his house below, which they could not open in consequence, and his wife would be too late to go to church.’
“‘God bless me!’ says the old woman; ‘why, they’re Christians, I do declare—And now, Jack, tell me something more.’
“Jack, whose invention was probably exhausted, then told her that he had seen hundreds of fish flying in the air.
“‘Come, come, Jack,’ said the old woman, ‘now you’re bamming me—don’t attempt to put such stories off on your old granny. The chariot wheel I can believe, because it is likely; the sugar and rum I know to be true; and also the merman, for I have seen pictures of them. But as for fish flying in the air, Jack—that’s a lie.’”
“Excellent,” said Captain M—. “Then the only part that was true she rejected, believing all the monstrous lies that he had coined.”
“If any unknown individual,” observed Macallan, “and not Captain Cook, had reported the existence of such an animal as the ornithorhynchus, or duck-billed platypus, without bringing home the specimen as a proof; who would have credited his statement?”
“No one,” replied Captain M—. “Still, such is the scepticism of the present age, that travellers must be content with having justice done to them after they are dead.”
“That’s but cold comfort, sir,” replied the first-lieutenant, rising from the table, which movement was immediately followed by the remainder of the guests, who bowed, and quitted the cabin.
Note. It is singular that the almost incredible story in the above chapter is, perhaps, the only real fact in the whole book. It will be found in the log of the ship, and signed by all the officers; and yet many of my readers will be inclined to reject this, and believe a considerable portion of the remainder of the composition to have been drawn from living characters; if so, they will be like the old woman.