people would be misled by their pernicious
example, caused them to be assembled,
together with their wives and children, and took
them out of the east and sent them to the
northern parts between two mountains.  He
then prayed to our Lord'' (like a good
Christian, as Alexander the Great—Great
Ammon's son—undoubtedly was), "to make
these mountains draw close together, till
they stood at only twelve feet from each
other.  Then" (this prayer being immediately
attended to) "Alexander caused gates of iron
to be made and covered with asbestos, so that
no fire might injure or destroy them.  And
from that day forward none of these men ever
came out of the place wherein he had put
them (which is the reason why we never
see negroes now-a-days two-and-twenty feet
high)."

Of course Maundevile does not leave giants
out of his collection, for though he admits
that he never saw any, "because that no man
comethe to that Yle but zif he be devoured
anon," he says that "men have seyn many
thymes tho geauntes (who are described as
'fifty Fote long') taken men in the See out of
hire Scippes, and broughte hem to lond, two
in one hond and two in another, etynge hem
goynge, all rawe and alle quyk."

Split men are a variety of the human race
only met with now-a-days, in a metaphorical
sense, at elections, but Bochart tells us, that
in some of the marshy districts of Arabia (a
country, by the bye, not over famous for
marshes) creatures exist formed like the half
of a man split down the middle from head to
foot (like a kippered salmon) having only one
eye, one arm, one leg, &c.  The Arabic name
for these beings is Nésnás.  Mr. Lane, in his
Notes to the Arabian Nights (vol. i. p. 37)
speaks of this monster, whom he classes,
however, amongst the Jinn or Genii, as being
found in the woods of El-Yemen, and being
endowed with speech.  He adds, "It is said
that it is found in Hadramót as well as El-
Yemen; and that one was brought alive to
El-Mutawekkil.  It resembled a man in form,
except that it had but half a face, which
was in its breast, and a tail like that of a
sheep.  The people of Hadramót, it is added,
eat it; and its flesh is sweet.  It is only
generated in their country.  A man who went
there asserted that he saw a captured
Nésnás, which cried out for mercy, conjuring
him by God and himself."  For the benefit of
those who desire to see what the Nésnás is
like, I may mention that there is a drawing
of one in the Bodleian Library.

What were termed double and triple-
formed men (Genus formæ duplicis et
triplicis) abounded in the olden time.  They
combined the shapes of man and beast, or of
a terrestrial and a marine animal.  The
Arabian author Alkazuin, in a treatise on
the Prodigies of Creation, mentions a sea-
born creature with a human face, to which
he gives the irreverent name of " Old Jew."
He describes this individual (one is tempted
to think of a Hebrew dealer in marine
stores) as having a white beard, the hide of
an ox, and being the size of a calf.  He comes
out of the sea on a Friday, and wanders
about till sunset, "leaping like a frog," and
then sinks into his native element, following
the track of vessels.

To a variety of this species, Alkazuin affixes
a tail, and tells a humorous but not very
delicate story about them.  Another Arabian
writer, cited by Bochart, speaks of "aquatic
females," who, in some respects, differ little
from certain of the sex seen at Ramsgate and
Margate during the bathing-season.  "Their
colour," he says, "is high; they perfectly
resemble women,—have long, flowing hair
and charming eyes, full of sprightliness.
They speak an unintelligible language,
interrupted with immoderate bursts of laughter."

Although it may not be flattering to the
Nereids and Tritons of antiquity, I suspect
that our friends the Phoeidæ, whose
countenances closely resemble those of men
(Scotchmen in particular), have in a great degree to
answer for the descriptions given of those
marine deities.   If not, they must be content,
in spite of their celestial lineage, to be classed
amongst monsters.  Hear how Pliny
discourses of them: "In the time when Tiberius
was Emperour, there came unto him an
ambassadour from Ulyssipon, sent of purpose to
make a relation that upon their sea-coast
there was discovered, within a certain hole,
a sea-goblin, called Triton, sounding a shell
like a trumpet or cornet, and that he was in
form and shape like those that are commonly
painted for Tritons.  And as for the
Mermaids, called Nereides, it is no fabulous tale
that goeth of them; for look how painters
draw them, so they are indeed; only their
bodie is rough and skaled all over. . . .
For such a meremaid was seene, and beheld
plainly upon the same coast, neere to the
shore; and the inhabitants dwelling neer
heard it a farre off, when it was a dying, to
make pitteous mone, and chattering very
heavily. . . . Divers knights of Rome testify
also to having seen a merman, in every respect
resembling a man as perfectly in all parts of
the bodie as might be. . . .   And they report,
moreover, that in the night season he would
come out of the sea aboard their ships; but
look, upon what part soever he settled, he
waied the same downe; and if he rested and
continued there any long time, he would
sinke it cleane."  John Theodore Jablonsky
gives a more particular account than
Pliny of this aquatic class (Universal
Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, page six
hundred and fifty-eight):  "Meer-man, Meer-
weib, Meer-minne that is, Sea-man,
Mermaid, or Siren; called by the Indians
Ambitiangulo, otherwise Pesiengono, and by the
Portuguese Pezz-muger—is found in the seas
and in some rivers in the southern parts of
Africa and India, and in the Philippine and