Happy Valentine’s Day.
Today’s extract from the “Naval Chronicle” comes to us from the “Naval Anecdotes” section of the July-December 1806 edition.
A MERMAID
THE journal of Hudson, the great navigator, which is deposited in the British Museum, contains the following entry:
June 15, 1607, 15 degrees latitude, 75 degrees, 7 minutes
This morning one of our company looking overboard, saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the company to see her, one more came up, and by that time she was come close to the ship's side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after, a sea came and overturned her. From the navel upwards her back and breasts were like those of a woman (as they say that saw her); her body as big as one of us; her skin very white, and long hair hanging down behind, of colour black. In her going down, they saw her tail, which was like the tail of a porpoise, and speckled like a mackarel. Their names that saw her were Thomas Nelles, Robert Rayner, and Joseph Wilson.
XVI, 200
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