shoulders, fixing his nails in his flesh, and tearing him to pieces. In an instant fifty sabres were drawn to revenge this dreadful murder; every one pressed forward to strike him, and chastise his insolence; but they very soon found to their terror that the skin of their enemy was as impenetrable as adamant; their sabres broke, and their edges turned without so much as raising the skin. Though he received no hurt by their blows, they did not strike him with impunity; he took one of the most forward of his assailants, and with amazing strength tore him to pieces before our eyes. "When we found our sabres were useless, and that we could not wound him, we threw ourselves upon him to endeavour to fling him into the sea; but we could not stir him. Besides his huge limbs and prodigious nerve, he stuck his crooked nails in the timber of the deck, and stood as immoveable as a rock in the midst of the waves. He was so far from being afraid of us, that he said, with a sullen smile, 'You have taken the wrong course, friends; you will fare much better by obeying me; I have tamed more indocile people than you. I declare if you continue to oppose my will, I will serve you all as your two companions have been served.' "These words made our blood freeze in our veins. We a third time set a large quantity of provisions before him; he fell aboard it, and one would have thought by his eating that his stomach rather increased than diminished. When he saw we were determined to submit, he grew good-humoured. He said he was sorry we had forced him to do what he did, and kindly assured us he loved us on account of the service we had done him in taking him out of the sea, where he should have been starved if he had stayed there a few hours longer without succour; that he wished, for our sakes, he could meet with some other vessel laden with good provisions, because he would throw himself aboard it and leave us in quiet. He talked thus while he was eating, and laughed and bantered like other men; and we should have thought him diverting enough had we been in a disposition to relish his pleasantry. At the fourth service he gave over, and was two hours without eating anything at all. During this excess of sobriety he was very familiar in his discourse; he asked us one after another what country we were of, what were our customs, and what had been our adventures. We were in hopes that the fumes of his victuals he had eaten would have got up in his head and made him drowsy; we impatiently expected that sleep would seize him, and were resolved to take him napping, and fling him into the sea before he had time to look about him. This hope of ours was our only resource; for though we had great store of provisions aboard, yet, after his rate of eating, he would have devoured them all in a very little while. But, alas! in vain did we flatter ourselves with these false hopes. The cruel wretch, guessing our design, told us he never slept; that the great quantity of victuals he ate repaired the wearisomeness of nature, and supplied the want of sleep. "To our grief we found what he said was true; we told him long and tedious stories on purpose to lull him asleep, but the monster never shut his eyes. He then deplored our misfortune, and our master despaired of ever seeing Golconda again; when on a sudden a cloud gathered over our heads. We thought at first it was a storm which was gathering, and we rejoiced at it; for there was more hope of our safety in a tempest than in the state we were in. Our ship might be driven ashore on some island; we might save ourselves by swimming; and by this means be delivered from this monster, who doubtless intended to devour us when he had eaten up all our provisions. We wished, therefore, that a violent storm would overtake us: and, what perhaps never happened before, we prayed to Heaven to be drowned. However we were deceived; what we took for a cloud was the greatest rokh that was ever seen in those seas. The monstrous bird darted himself on our enemy, who was in the middle of our ship's company; and mistrusting nothing, had no time to guard himself against such an attack: the rokh seized him by his claws, and flew up into the air with his prey, before we were aware of it. "We then were witnesses of a very extraordinary combat. The man recollecting himself, and finding he was hoisted up in the air between the talons of a winged monster, whose strength he made trial of, resolved to defend himself. He struck his crooked nails into the body of the rokh, and setting his teeth to his stomach, began to devour him, flesh, feathers, and all. The bird made the air resound with his cries, so piercing was his pain; and to be revenged tore out his enemy's eyes with his claws. The man, blind as he was, did not give over. He ate the heart of the rokh, who, re-collecting all his force at the last gasp, struck his beak so forcibly into his enemy's head, that they both fell dead into the sea, not many paces from our ship's side*." In the "Arabian Nights" is an account of a nation who live under the sea, but they differ in nothing from men, except in their power of so doing, and coming to and fro with dry clothes, " as if nothing had happened;" all which is not in the usual fine taste of that work. Of men of the sea, in their connexion with the more shadowy nation of the Faeries, we have treated elsewhere, in a separate article on that people, and therefore say nothing of them here; and what we might have had to say on Mermen has been anticipated, as far as the genus are concerned, in the paper on "Sirens and Mermaids ;" but as we extracted into that paper Mr. Tennyson's poem on the female of this genus, we cannot but indulge ourselves here with giving his companion-piece. THE MERMAN. Who would be I would be a merman bold. I would sit and sing the whole of the day: I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power; * Persian Tales; or, the Thousand and One Days. Ed. 1800, vol. ii., p. 133. See the story of Prince Beder and the Princess Giauhara. And, holding them back by their flowing locks, And then we would wander away, away, There would be neither moon nor star; But the wave would make music above us afar- We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,- All night merrily, merrily. They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, But I would throw to them back in mine Oh! what a happy life were mine, The most charming story connected with beings of the sea is that of Acis and Galatea; the most wildly touching, that of the Neck, or Scandinavian Water-Spirit, who wept when he was told he would not be "saved" (related in the fairy article above-mentioned); the sublimest is the famous one of the Voice which announced the death of the "Great Pan." Plutarch relates it, in his essay on the "Cessation of Oracles," upon the authority of one Philippus, who said he had it from the hearer's own son, and who was corroborated in his report by several persons present. The original narrator alluded to gave the account as follows.* He said that, during a voyage to Italy, the wind fell in the night-time, as they were nearing the Echinades; and that, while almost all the people on board were on the watch, a great voice was heard from the island of Paxos, calling upon one of them of the name of Thamnus; which voice, for the novelty of the thing, excited them all to great astonishment. This Thamnus was an Egyptian, and master of the vessel. He was twice called, and gave no answer. He was called a third time, and then he acknowledged the call; upon which the Voice, with much greater loudness than before, cried out, "When you come to the Marsh, announce that the Great Pan is dead,”—a command which struck all the listeners with terror. Accordingly, when they arrived off the Marsh, Thamnus, looking out from his rudder towards the land, cried, with a loud voice, "The Great Pan is dead;" upon which there was suddenly heard a mighty groaning, as of many voices-" yea, of voices innumerable, all wonderfully mixed up together." And because there were many people in that ship, as soon as they came to Rome the * We quote from Gesner, as above, p. 1198. rumour was spread through the whole city, and the Emperor Tiberius sent for Thamnus, and was so struck with his relation, that he applied to the philosophers to know what Pan it could be; and the conjecture was that it must be the Pan who was the son of Mercury and Penelope. The announcement of the death of Pan was awkward; for Pan signifies all, and was the most universal of the gods; but luckily, by the help of the Platonists and others, every god was surrounded with minor intelligences of the same name, after the fashion of a Scottish clan; so that the philosophers found a god convenient for the occasion in this particular Pan, the offspring of Mercury and Penelope. It has been supposed that the story was a trick to frighten the vicious and superstitious Emperor, which is not very likely. There is no authority, beyond Plutarch's report, who lived long after, and was very credulous, for the story itself; and if a voice was actually heard, it does not follow that it said those exact words, or that the subsequent delivery of the message produced anything more than a fancied acknowledgment. A sceptic at court might have resolved it into some common message, perhaps a watch-word: perhaps some smugglers meant to tell their correspondent that "all was up with them!" Joking and scepticism apart, however, the story is a fine one; so much so, that it is surprising Milton did not make a more particular allusion to it in his noble juvenile ode on the Nativity," where he speaks of the voices heard at the cessation of the oracles: "The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament." A SCENE FROM THE DESERT. 'Tis o'er, and away to the deserts wide the Arabs fly away, Whilst the blood of their thousand brothers dyed the battle-field that day. And each plies well the gallant steed that bears him from the foe, As back, with the rush of the whirlwind's speed, to their homes in the wilds they go. I marked them well as they passed me by, those warriors fierce and free; And flash'd each eye, as they heard on high, the foeman's shout of 'victory!" And some there were who turn'd them round, and laughed, as the well-sped dart From their own good bow a dark rest found in the fleet pursuer's heart. But who is he, when the rest have pass'd, that comes from the field afar? " No, not worse to the traveller's sight is the withering dread simoom, snow-white plume; Though his hairs are gray, and though age may dim the lightning on his brow, Yet live there few who will cope with him in the strife of death, e'en now. Away! but, ah! why pauses he to gaze upon the slain? Or why, upon his bended knee, now sinks he on the plain? Beside a heap of those who died an Arab lay alone; The father knew his bosom's pride, "his beautiful, his own."- No lowering frown profaned his brow, but all was tranquil there— He gazed upon him steadfastly-the father on his child— No womanish tear bedimmed his eye, but marked you not that wild And once he raised his hands on high-methought it was in prayer; That morning, with a father's pride, he had gazed upon his "brave," A soulless, lifeless, abject thing-a rotting mass of clay. And fast and fleet the foe came on,-he marked not, recked not, how- But of the band not one is found that chieftain's might to dare. Enough"-as sternly now he cast his eye on every side "Enough to grief, the worst is passed-I live to revenge!" he cried. One bound, he gains his Arab steed-another, and hurra! He's off from the foe with the lightning's speed, to the desert, away, away! O. D. C. |