[12]. An old legend states these birds to be the disembodied spirits of captains who have been wrecked off the Cape, and who are condemned to wear the feathers for seven years by order of the demon of the deep. An author writes fifty years ago: “Caught a splendid albatross; measured nineteen feet from the tip of each wing. He had been following the ship for many hours; but I was surprised to see what an insignificant figure he cut when dissected. He turned out all feathers.” He was no doubt a captain!
A boatman told me that once whilst fishing off the coast in forty feet of water, the tide a quarter ebb, and the sea a dark clear green, he and his mate were hanging over the boat’s side with lines in their hands when they saw a mermaid floating past under the surface by about the depth a man’s arm would penetrate. I asked him what the mermaid was like, and he replied that she was of a chocolate colour, with short black hair and very large intensely black eyes. Her figure to the waist was that of a woman; the rest of her was fish-shaped. Altogether he reckoned her to have been of the size of a thirty-pound salmon, only that she was longer than a fish of that weight would be. Her face and figure—as much of it as was human—were as small as those of a child two years old. She was an unmistakable mermaid—he’d warrant that. Might he never airn another shilling in this world if he wor telling a lie. She floated by at an oar’s length; had the sight of her left him and his mate their wits they would have secured her; but some minutes passed before they recovered from their amazement, and though they got their anchor and pulled in the direction of the creature they saw no more of her. I was glad to hear that there was, at all events, one mermaid still in existence, for I had been given to understand that the last of these ocean Mohicans had been gorged by the sea-serpent a little before the date on which her Majesty’s ship Bacchante sighted the Flying Dutchman.
It is customary to look into antiquity for the origin of mermaids, to trace these daughters of the deep to the Nereids and Naiads, with some reference to the Syrens and to Circe and to Hylas and the Argonautic voyages. Would it not be easier to take Jack’s word for it? There is the sea-serpent; nobody would care to say positively that the mighty snake is a myth. It is like a ghost; one would rather reserve one’s opinion on the matter. So, in spite of the Barnumisms of the aquarium, who has courage enough in the face of the testimonies of many scores of mahogany-cheeked eye-witnesses to assert with all cocksureness that there is not and never was such a thing as a mermaid?
At all events, Simon Wilkin, F.L.S., who edited an edition of the works of Sir Thomas Browne, has stated such a case for the mermaid as merits something better than a smile. It is the business of the learned Norwich Knight to explode the sea-nymph as a vulgar error, and he certainly bears hard upon popular faith by denying the syren to be the mermaid’s original, as “containing no fishy composure,” and, by tracing her to Dagon, of whose stump “the fishy part only remained when the hands and upper part fell before the ark.” But what writes Mr. Simon Wilkin in a note to this passage? He takes the same view that Johnson took of disembodied spirits, and says that he cannot admit the probability of a belief in mermaids having lasted from remote antiquity without some foundation in truth. He examines Sir Humphry Davy’s arguments against the likelihood of the existence of such an object as a mermaid, and agrees with that distinguished philosopher’s view that a human head, human hands, and human mammæ are wholly inconsistent with a fish’s tail, because—and the logic is good—the head, hands, and mammæ of any creature furnished also with a tail could not be human; and so, conversely, adds he, “the tail of such a creature could not be a fish’s tail.” The philosopher was personally interested in the subject, for if Mr. Simon Wilkin is to be credited, Sir Humphry, whilst swimming, was himself mistaken by some ladies of Caithness for a mermaid. Surely no scientific gentleman ever received a higher compliment. Mr. Wilkin quotes from the Evangelical Magazine of September, 1822. In that publication was printed a letter from the Rev. Dr. Philip, dated at Cape Town. The doctor said he had just seen a mermaid that was then being exhibited. The head was the size of a baboon’s, thinly covered with black hair, and there were a few hairs on the upper lip. The ears, nose, lips, chin, breasts, fingers, and nails resembled the human subject. Of the teeth there were eight incisors, four canine, and eight molars. This creature was about three feet long, and covered with scales. It was caught by a Chinese fisherman, and sold to one Captain Eades, at Batavia. Sir Humphry pronounced this mermaid to be the head and bust from two apes, fastened to the tail of the kipper salmon; but this Mr. Simon Wilkin would not hear of. Sir Thomas Browne’s editor is well backed. Has not Alexandre Dumas described the mermaid of the Royal Museum at the Hague? It was not a thing to be disputed about. “If after all this,” says the author of Monte Cristo, “there shall be found those who disbelieve the existence of such creatures as mermaids, let them please themselves. I shall give myself no more trouble about them.”
If Sir Humphry Davy were the mermaid that was seen at Caithness in January, 1809, it would be interesting to know what he thought of the description of him that was sent to the public journals of that date by two witnesses, one of whom was Miss Mackay, daughter of the Rev. David Mackay, minister of Reay. That Sir Humphry should have been bathing in the sea in the month of January will seem strange to persons whose blood flows languidly. But there is more to wonder at in the following particulars: Whilst Miss Mackay and another lady were walking by the shore they perceived three people who were on a rock at some distance showing signs of astonishment and terror. On approaching the ladies saw that the object of their wonder was a face resembling the human countenance, floating on the waves. The sea ran high, and as the waves advanced the mermaid gently sank under them, and afterwards reappeared. The face was plump and round, the nose small, the eyes a light grey, the head long, the hair thick, the throat slender, smooth and white. The hands and fingers were not webbed. “It sometimes laid its right hand under its cheek, and in this position floated for some time.” Other witnesses declared that it disappeared on a boy crying out. It reappeared at a distance: the spectators followed it by walking along the shore, until it vanished for good.[[13]] Could this have been Sir Humphry Davy? The narrative was supplemented by a tale copied from an old History of the Netherlands. There was an inundation in 1403, and when the water retired a mermaid was found in the Dermet Mere, near Campear. A number of boats surrounded her; she tried to dive under them, and finding her way stopped, made a hideous deafening noise, and with her hands and tail sunk a boat or two. On being cleaned of the sea-moss and shells which covered her she was found a somewhat comely being, hair long and black, face human, figure—so far as it went—very good indeed. The rest was “a strong fish tail.” She was sent to the Haerlem magistrates, who ordered her to be taught to pray and to spin, but she never could be brought to speak; possibly she did not like the Dutch tongue. She also declined to wear any kind of clothing in summer. Part of her hair was plaited in the Dutch style, and the remainder hung down her. “She would leave her tail in the water, and accordingly had a tub of water under her chair, made on purpose for her; she eat milk, water, bread, butter, and fish. She lived thus out of her element (except her tail) fifteen or sixteen years.” That posterity might not doubt this prodigy ever flourished, her picture was painted and hung in the Town House of Haerlem, and her story written under it in letters of gold.
[13]. Annual Register, 1809.
But we must accept the existence of the mermaid on the mariner’s assurance. A fig for the dugong, and manatee, and sea-horse! Let them in certain postures look as human as they will, the ape is not more the brother of man than are those fish the originals of the wild-eyed, sweet-voiced, silver-shining, golden-haired beauties of the azure main, rising out of their palaces of pearl to ravish Jack’s gaze with a picture of girlish loveliness.
“Though all the splendour of the sea,
Around thy faultless beauty shine,
The heart that riots wild and free