It is a pity that an account like this, avouched by six witnesses, was not thoroughly sifted. I have no doubt that, if a person tolerably conversant with zoology, and accustomed to the habit of cross-examination, had examined these six eye-witnesses _separately_, making full notes of what each could remember to have observed, and had then checked each deposition by all the others, a mass of testimony would have been accumulated that would in an instant have convinced any candid inquirer what measure of truth lay in the story. Points in which the whole six, or even three or four, agreed, might unhesitatingly have been set down as correct: suggestive questions, (not, however, suggesting the sort of answer,) as, "Had the creature so and so, or so and so?" could not have received the same reply from all the deponents, without being worthy of credence: even the points on which they would have differed might themselves have been instructive to an intelligent inquirer. I do not know that any such precautionary measures were resorted to in this case, and the tale must remain as we get it; but I make these observations for the purpose of suggesting, in the event of any similar occurrence, the advantage of _separate_ examination in getting at the truth. On a review of the whole evidence, I do not judge that this single story is a sufficient foundation for believing in the existence of mermaids; but, taken into combination with other statements, it induces a strong suspicion that the northern seas may hold forms of life as yet uncatalogued by science. [87] _Geog. and Classif. of Animals_, 249. [88] _Egypt and Mehemet Ali_, ii. p. 322. [89] _Japan and her People_, p. 193. [90] See Hibbert's _Shetland Islands_, p. 566. [91] Miss Sinclair's _Shetland_. [92] Notes to _The Lord of the Isles_. [93] _Hudson the Navigator_, by Asher, Voy. ii. [94] _Voyage towards the South Pole_, p. 143. [95] Pontoppidan's _Nat. Hist. of Norway_, p. 154. [96] _Edinburgh Magazine_, vol. xiii. IV. THE SELF-IMMURED. Turning from reputed beings of which the very existence is the subject of doubt, let us consider one or two well-known and homely creatures, about which a certain degree of romantic interest hovers, because conditions of life are attributed to them by popular faith, which the general verdict of science denies.