feel, whose heads could not know till
to-morrow that their members had been severed to-day--some of whom, in
a single moment, passed their whole existences, and fulfilled all the
functions of eating, drinking, and generating--who were not only
incapable of thoughts, affections, and emotions, but who could not
see, smell, hear, taste, or touch? But such subjects are among the
afflictions of all wise rulers, and I resolved to conclude upon
nothing till I had visited every part of my dominions.

"During three years of travel I classified the fishes anew, all
previous enumeration being paltry, and made the notes and queries
which form the staple of my manuscript. I found fresh-water creatures
to which the sheat-fish would be a morsel, and hydras to which the
fabled sea-serpent would be a worm. I ascended the rivers with the
salmon, and fathomed the motives of the climbing-perch. I heard the
narrative of a _siluris_ tossed out of a volcano, and talked with a
haddock which produced at a birth more young than there are men upon
the globe. I have noted the harlequin-angler, which lived three weeks
in Amsterdam, hopping about on his fins like a toad; the sucking-fish
which adhered to Marc Antony's galley and held it fast; the
horned-fish (_fil en dos_) which the savages discard from their nets
in terror and prayer; and the sprats which rise with vapors into the
clouds, and are rained back into the sea. I have collected the
traditions of many of these beings, and have translated some of their
ballads. There is music under the ocean; but most of the fishes sing
with their fins, beating the water to rude measures. Among the
traditions of all the tribes is that of a time when the waters were
peaceful and the fishes happy, when none were rapacious, when death
was unknown, when no storms lashed the ripples into billows, and when
beings of the upper air bathed at the surface, and the fishes rendered
them homage. But some foul deed of which the finny folk were guiltless
brought confusion into the waters; the ocean covered all the globe,
corpses sank into the depths and were devoured, nets were let down
from above, strange fires were kindled beneath, and whirlpools,
water-spouts, storms, and volcanoes began.

"I devoted a fourth year to perfecting my system of organic
communication, and made some advance toward developing life in
inorganic matter. From this latter attainment it would be but a step
to _perpetuate_ life, and I should th