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But I will lay aside my discourse of rivers, and tell you some things
of the monsters, or fish, call them what you will, that they breed
and feed in them. Pliny the philosopher says, in the third chapter
of his ninth book, that in the Indian sea, the fish called balaena
or whirlpool, is so long and broad, as to take up more in length
and breadth than two acres of ground; and, of other fish of two
hundred cubits long; and that in the river Ganges, there be eels
of thirty feet long. He says there, that these monsters appear in
that sea only when the tempestuous winds oppose the torrents of
water falling from the rocks into it, and so turning what lay at
the bottom to be seen on the water's top. And he says, that the
people of Cadara, an island near this place, make the timber for
their houses of those fish-bones. He there tells us, that there
are sometimes a thousand of these great eels found wrapt, or interwoven
together. He tells us there, that it appears the dolphins love music,
and will come, when called for, by some men or boys, that know and
use to feed them, and that they can can swim as swift as an arrow
can be shot from a bow; and much of this is spoken concerning the
dolphin, and other fish: as may be found also in the learned Dr.
Casaubon's "Discourse of Credulity and Incredulity," printed
by him about the year 1670.
I know, we islanders are averse to the belief of these wonders;
but there be so many strange creatures to be now seen, many collected
by John Tradescant, and others added by my friend Elias Ashmole,
Esq., who now keeps them carefully and methodically at his house
near to Lambeth, near London; as may get some belief of some of
the other wonders I mentioned. I will tell you some of the wonders
that you may now see,--and not till then believe, unless you think
fit.
You may there see the hog-fish, the dog-fish, the dolphin, the parrot-fish,
the shark, the poison-fish, sword-fish, and not only other incredible
fish; but you may there see the salamander, several sorts of barnacles,
of Solan geese, the bird of Paradise; such sorts of snakes, and
such bird's-nests, and of so various forms, and so wonderfully made,
as may beget wonder and amusement in any beholder; and so many hundred
of other rarities in that collection, as will make the other wonders
I spake of the less incredible; for, you may note, that the waters
are Nature's store-house, in which she locks up her wonders.
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