CHAPTER XIII.

THE SYRENS.

Behold me once more on shore. I had enough, and to spare, of shipwreck. I want durable races. The Cetaceæ must disappear. Let us moderate our conceptions, and, of that gigantic faëry of the first-born mammalia, of milk and warm blood, let us preserve all except the giant.

Above all, let us preserve the gentleness, the love, and the love of family. Let us preserve them completely in those humbler but kindly races into which both elements infuse their spirits.

The benedictions of the Earth already begin to be felt. On quitting the life of the fish, many things impossible to it, easily become harmonized.

Thus the Whale, tender mother if ever there was one, could grasp her nursling, but could not press it to her breast, the arms being too high and short, and the breast, as we have already shown, being, perforce, placed far back. In the new creatures, which swim, but which also creep upon the land, such as seals, sea cows, &c., the breast, lest it should be hurt by the ground, is placed upon the chest, thus foreshadowing woman, and giving to the form and attitude, a grace most illusive at a distance.

In reality, even closely examined, if it has less of charming whiteness, the breast of the new creatures is a true feminine breast; that globe which, swelling with love, and with the sweet necessity of giving suck, exhibits, in its gentle heavings, all the sighs of the heart beneath, and invites the child to nourishment and soft repose. All this is denied to the mother that swims and floats, but is enjoyed by her who rests. The fixity of the family, the constant tenderness, let us at once say, Society, all these commence from the moment that the child reposes on the maternal breast.

But how is organization to pass from creatures of the sea to creatures of both sea and land? Let us try to divine that transition.

At the outset, the parentage of the amphibious race is evident. Many, amphibious still, to their great inconvenience, have the heavy tail of the Whale. And this latter, in one species, at least, conceals in its tail the rude outlines and distinct commencements of the two hind feet of the highest of the amphibious creatures.

In the seas studded with islands, continually interposing land, the cetaceæ, so frequently interrupted in their passage, had to modify their habits accordingly. Their less rapid motion, and confined life, diminished their bulk, and from the Whale they were reduced to the sea Elephant, and reserving the memory of the superb which had armed certain of the cetaceæ, in their grand sea life, the sea Elephant still has strong, but very harmless fore teeth. Even its masticating teeth are not precisely either herbivorous or carnivorous. They are but ill adapted to either diet, and must needs operate but slowly.

Two things tended to lighten the Whale; his mass of blubber, that vast mass of concentrated oil, which floated him on the water, and that powerful tail whose alternate strokes to right and left, urged him onward. But all this was unfitted for the amphibious creature, grovelling in shallow waters, or crawling on the rocks. The fish, so agile, scorns a creature that cannot catch him, and he consequently gets little other prey than the molluscs, as slow as himself. By degrees, he learns to eat the abundant and gelatinous sea wrack, which nourishes, and fattens, but without giving the strength of animal food.

Such a one we may see in the Red Sea, the Malay isles, and those of Australia. Crawling or sitting, that rare collossus, the Dugong, displays its chests and breasts. He is sometimes called the Dagon of the Tabernacles, an inert idol, which in spite of its imposing aspect, cannot defend itself, and which will soon disappear, and enter into that region of fable which already contains so many realities, at which we as stupidly, as presumptuously, laugh. What has caused this great change, created the terrestrial Dugong, and his brother the Walrus? The plentiful alimentation of the generous and fertile earth, truly pacific before the coming of man, and doubtless, also, Love, so difficult to the Whale, so easy in the quiet and settled life of the amphibious.

Love, to these latter, is no longer a thing of flight and danger; the female is no longer the shy giant that must be followed to the end of the world, but is content, on her bed of sea-weed, to obey the will of her master, whose life she makes pleasant. Few mysteries here. The amphibious live frankly and honestly in the face of day. The females being very numerous, voluntarily form a seraglio. From wild, fierce poetry, we descend to patriarchal manners and pleasures too facile. The male, good patriarch, notable for his large head, his moustaches, and his great front teeth, sits proudly between his Sarah and Agar, Rebecca and Leah, and his little flock of young ones, to all of which he is most kind. In his quiet life, the great strength of this sanguineous creature, turns wholly to family tenderness; he embraces all his family, and is willing to die, if need be, in their defence. But, alas! his strength and his fury serve him but feebly for even his own defence: his enormous mass delivers him over to the enemy. He bellows, and crawls, and is willing to combat, but unable--gigantic failure as he is; an abortion belonging to neither world, a poor disarmed Caliban.

Weight, so fatal to the Whale, is still more so to these. Let us, then, still farther reduce the bulk, make, the spine more supple, and above all, either do away with that tail, or rather, let us fork it into two fleshy appendages, which will be much more useful. This new being, the Seal, lighter, a good fisher, getting his subsistence in the sea, but living on the land, will employ his life in endeavoring to return to it, to climb the rock to which his females and their offspring await his return from fishing. Having no tusks, like those with which the Walrus assists himself in climbing, he presses into the service his front and back members, clings to the sea-weed, distending his members continually, until they form into fingers.

What is finest in the Seal, what strikes you the moment you catch sight of his round head, is the great capaciousness of brain. Boitard assures us that, with the exception of man, no creature has so fine a cerebral development as the Seal. We are strongly impressed by the aspect of the Seal, far more so than by that of the ape tribe, whose grimaces never fail to revolt us. I shall never forget the Seals in the Zoological Garden at Amsterdam, admirable museum, so rich, so beautiful, so well organized, decidedly one of the finest establishments in the world. I was there on the twelfth of last July, just after a great rain fall. The atmosphere was heavy and sultry, and two Seals sought shelter and coolness, swimming and playing in their pond. When they rested they looked up at me with their velvety eyes, and there was a mixed intelligence and melancholy in their fixed gaze. There was no language which we could mutually understand. Pity that, between soul and soul, there should be that eternal barrier!

The earth is the world of their greatest affection. There they are born, there they love; thither, when wounded, they retire to die. Thither they take their pregnant females, form for them their beds of sea-weed, and provide them with fish. They are very affectionate, good neighbors, mutually defending each other; only at their season of amours they are a little apt to fight. Each male has two or three females that he finds a home for on some mossy rock of sufficient extent. That is his estate, and he suffers no intrusion upon it. He knows how to maintain his right of proprietorship. The females are gentle and defenceless. If ill treated, they weep, are agitated and cast despairing glances upon the assailant.

They are parturient during nine months, and nurse their young during five or six months, teaching them to swim, fish, and select the best food. No doubt they would keep them still longer, but the husband is jealous of his own progeny, fearing that the too weak mother will give him a rival.

No doubt this brevity of education has limited the progress which the Seal would otherwise have made. Maternity is only complete when we come to the Sea Cow, an excellent family in which the parents have not the sad courage to drive away their young. The mothers nurse them for a long time; even while suckling a second, the mother still keeps by her the eldest, which, though it be a male, the father never ill treats, but seems to regard him with a love only second to that of the mother.

This extreme tenderness, peculiar to that species, is exemplified in the physical progress made in the organization. In the Seal, a great swimmer, and in the heavy and clumsy sea Elephant the arms still continue to be fins; closely attached to the body are incapable of extension. But at length the Sea Cow, the _Sea Mama_ as the negroes call her, accomplishes the miracle. All extend and becomes pliant by a continuous effort. Nature exerts all her ingenuity upon the fixed idea of holding, pressing, caressing the young. The ligaments yield and extend, the fore arm appears and by and by appears the hand.

And then the mother has the great, the supreme pleasure to press her young one to her breast. Here, then, are two things which may enable these amphibious creatures to make great progress. Already they have the hand, that organ of industry, that essential instrument of future toil. It must be supplied, must aid the work of the teeth as with the Beaver, and the Ant, will commence, at the outset, with building a home for the family.

On the other hand, education, also, has become possible. The young one rests on the maternal bosom and, slowly drinking in her life, remains there a long time, and to an age when he can learn every thing,--all this depends on the kindness of the father who protects the innocent rival. And it is that which allows of progress.

And, if we might give credence to certain traditions, progress did marvellously continue. The developed amphibious creatures, according to those traditions, approached nearer and nearer to the human form and became Tritons and Syrens, men and women of the Sea. Only, in contradiction to the fables of the melodious Syrens, these are dumb in their utter impotency to find a language in which to address themselves to man and obtain his pity. These races will have perished, as has the unfortunate Beaver which cannot speak, but weeps.

It has been very lightly affirmed that these men and women of the Sea were Seals. But how is it possible that such a mistake could be made? Every species of the Seal has been known from very early times; even as early as the seventh century the Seal was hunted, not only for his skin, but also for his flesh, which was then eaten.

The men and women of the Sea which are spoken of in the writings of the sixteenth century, were seen, not merely for an instant, and on the water, but brought to land, shown, and kept in the great cities of Antwerp and Amsterdam in the time of Charles V. and Philip II., and, therefore, under the very eyes of Vesale and other learned men and eminent naturalists. Mention is made of a marine woman who, for several years, wore the dress of a nun and lived in a Convent where any one might see her. She could not speak, but worked, and could spin, knit, and sew. Only one peculiarity, they could not cure her of,--her great love of the water, and her incessant efforts to return to it.

But it will be asked--"If these creatures really existed, how is it that we do not see them now?" Alas! We need not seek far for the reply. They were so generally killed! It was considered a sin to let them live, "for they were _monsters_." This we are expressly told by the old writers.

Whatever had not the known form of animality, and, especially, whatever approached to the form of man passed for a _monster_, and was pitilessly dispatched. Even the human mother of a greatly deformed child, could not protect it; the poor creature was smothered, as being a child of the Devil, an invention of his malice to outrage the creation and calumniate the Deity. On the other hand, those Syrens, too analogous to humanity, were all the more taken and detested for a diabolic mockery. In such horror and hate were they held in the eyes of the middle ages that their appearance was considered a prodigy, an omen that God permitted to terrify sinners. People scarcely dared to name them, and made haste to get rid of them. Even the bold sixteenth century still believed them to be men and women in shape, but Devils in reality, and not even to be touched, excepting with the harpoon. They had become very rare when miscreants made a profit of keeping and exhibiting them.

But do there now exist any remains, any whole, or even partial, skeletons of these creatures? We shall know that, when the Museums of Europe shall throw open to our view the whole of their immense collections. I am aware that room is wanting for that; and it is always likely to be wanting, if we need a palace. But the most simple building, if it only be sufficiently spacious and weather tight, would serve to hold such collections, and needs not to be at all costly. Hitherto, we have only seen mere specimens and selections.

Let us add that stuffed amphibious creatures, to give us a real idea of them, should be so placed as to exhibit _these monsters_ in the attitudes of their actual life. Let the maternal Seal, or the Sea Cow, be seen on its rock, as a Syren, in the first use of her hand and pressing her little one to her breast.

Is this to affirm that these creatures might have ascended to us? Or that we have descended from them? Mallet supposed so, but I cannot see the least probability in either.

The Sea, no doubt, commenced everything. But it is not from the highest marine animals, that has proceeded the long parallel series of terrestrials that is culminated and crowned in Man. They were already too fixed, too special, to form the first rude sketch of a nature so different. They had carried far, almost exhausted, the fecundity of their species. In that case the elders perish; and it is very low down in the obscure juniors of some parent class that the new series commences that is to ascend so much higher. [See notes at the end of the volume.]

Man was not their son, but their brother--a terribly tyrannical brother.

See him at length arrive, the active, the ingenious, the cruel monarch of the world! My book grows brighter, clearer. But what does it now proceed to exhibit? Alas! What sad things must I now draw into that broad, bright light! This creature, this tyrannical sovereign, can create a second nature within Nature. But what has he done with the first, with his mother, and his nurse? With the very teeth that she has given him, he has cruelly gnawed her bosom!

How many animals that lived peaceably, were becoming civilized, began even to practise some of the arts, are now hunted and terrified into the condition of mere brutes? The Ape-kings of Ceylon, whose sagacity was so well known in India, and that Brahmin of the creation, the Elephant, have been chased, subdued into the state of mere beasts of burthen.

The freest of beings, that formerly sported so joyously and harmlessly in the sea, those affectionate Seals, those gentle Whales, the pacific pride of the Ocean, have fled to the polar seas, the terrible world of ice. But they cannot all support, for long, so hard a life; in a brief time they will all have disappeared.

An unfortunate race, the Polish peasants, have learned to understand the intelligence of the dumb exile which has taken refuge in the lakes of Lithuania. The Poles say--"Woe to him who makes the Beaver weep."

That artist-animal has become a timid beast, which knows nothing and can do nothing. The few that still survive in America, still retire farther and farther from the vicinage of man. A traveller lately found one, far, very far off, beyond the great lakes. It was timidly resuming its traditional labors, and had commenced building a house for its family. When it saw a man, it dropped the wood on which it was working; it did not even dare to escape, but burst into tears.

BOOK THIRD.

CONQUEST OF THE SEA.