THE ST. PAUL DAILY GLOBE — JULY 16, 1893
WHERE MERMAIDS ARE RARELY SEEN ♢ Types of Animal Life.
IN THE time of Alexander the Great, and afterwards under the Seleucidæ, the ancient Greeks became acquainted with the northwestern part of India. Among other things they heard that the seas about Ceylon were peopled with mermaids. In this case, as in the case of so many other wonderful tales, there was a certain amount of truth underlying the fiction, for these seas are peopled by creatures as big or bigger than human beings, which have a habit of raising themselves up vertically out of the water, when they present a very startling appearance to an unscientifically critical eye.
Astonished travelers behold beings with rounded, human looking heads, showing their body down to the bust out of the water, displaying a pair of rounded prominent breasts, and not seldom holding a baby in their arms. But the creature thus seen is as different in temper and habit from the fabled mermaid as it is in body. Instead of seeking to seduce the unwary voyagers to visit its home beneath the waves, in order there to devour them, the dugong (for that is the name of this sort of a mermaid) browses peacefully on seaweed and is as harmless as it is curious.
St. Paul Daily Globe. (Saint Paul, Minn.), 16 July 1893. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
