The Delaware ledger. (Newark, Del.) 1879-19??, 1884-06-07

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The old authors, poets and orators,
even the divine bard Shakespeare,
peopled the earth, sea and air with all
solts Of monsters and bugaboos. There
were then many worlds for science to
conquer and when the Marco Polos, Cap
tain Magellans and Lord Monboddos,
and people who had been far countries
for to see, came back with yarns of In
credibly fierce and ferocious monsters,
why, the stay-at homes had nothing to
do but believe. There are no more
Abyssinias for ingenious DR.. Johnsons
to improvise happy valleys out of. and
to people with Rasselasses and other
happy mortals. India and the Perus
are explored, the Amazon is no longer
a mystery, we know where the Nile
rises, and nearly all the earth has yiel-
ded up its mysteries to science and
man, excepting, OF course, Symmes'
Hole, and the impenetrable North
Pole. The ignorance of our early
writer's upon subjects of natural his
tory seems at this day astonishing, yet
cannot fail to be amusing. The sea
especially was peopled with qneer
monsters. There was the kraken,
whom Pontoppeden, in his Natural
History Of Norway, describes at length.
1t was not serpent; in fact, had not
an elongated body, but was round, like
an island. The Norwegian fishermen
had frequently seen it, and many were
the tales they told of its presence in
warm seas. They knew of its presence
by the shadowing of the water from
one hundred fathoms to twenty. His
back was mile and half long and
hIs arms as big as the masts of ships.
The dragon was another monster
that our forefsthers placed implicit
faith In the existence of. Sir Bevis of
Hampton, st. Michael. st. George and
other knights and saints all killed
dragons. In the age of Queen Eliza
beth the monster was fifty feet long
from shoulder to tail, with glittering
scales bright as silver, but tougher than
brass, except just under the wing,
where, according to Percy's Reliques,
st George sent his good sword Ascalon
clear up to the hilt. Llvy speaks of
one that stopped the progress of the
whole Roman army, and Diodorus
tells of one captured in Africa that was
sixty feet long.
The hydra was another terrible SER
pent that Hercules killed, which had
seven, nine or fifty heads, according to
the pleasure of the poet; and when one
was cut off another spro uted, like the
star-6sh's legs, though Hudibras dis
putes this point. The hydra is sup
posed to have been a brother of the
chimera.
There are two animals mentioned by
Shakespeare. The first is often repre-.
sented in heraldic designs. 1t is fly.
ing serpent, the forepart as a dragon
with wings, and the latter part as a
snake, but differing from the dragon
in only having two legs. The cocka.
trice, or basilisk. was a sort of missing
link between birds and reptiles. The
Scotch claimed that he came from an
egg, laid by cock after he was seven
years old. Pliny describes it under
the name of basilisk, and claims that
its very odOr is death to man and ami.
mails. Serpents fly from j., and the
mortal whom it looked upon died.
First came the great roc, whom one
reads of In the adventures of "Sinbad
the Sailor" Marco Polo heard of him
in Madagascar, and declares that it
was like the eagle, measuring sixteen
PAGES from wing to wing. But the
Persian authorities give the widest
account. They represent him as car.
rying an elephant In his beak and one
in each Of its claws. The Christian
Fathers believed in the existence of
the phoenix as typical of the resurrec-
tion, and the Roman Senator Nautilus
told the Romans he had lived 509
years, and built a nest of cinnamon
and incense and then died. Out of his
bones came worm which performed
funeral rites for its parent by placing
the nest ON an altar of the City of the
Sun in Egypt.