CHAP. 1. (1.)—THE POWER OF NATURE AS MANIFESTED IN ANTIPATHIES. THE ECHENEÏS: TWO REMEDIES.
FOLLOWING the proper order of things, we have now arrived
at the culminating point of the wonders manifested to us by
the operations of Nature. And even at the very outset, we
find spontaneously presented to us an incomparable illustration
of her mysterious powers: so much so, in fact, that beyond it
we feel ourselves bound to forbear extending our enquiries,
there being nothing to be found either equal or analogous to an
element in which Nature quite triumphs over herself, and that,
too, in such numberless ways. For what is there more unruly
than the sea, with its winds, its tornadoes, and its tempests?
And yet in what department of her works has Nature been
more seconded by the ingenuity of man, than in this, by his
inventions of sails and of oars? In addition to this, we are
struck with the ineffable might displayed by the Ocean's tides,
as they constantly ebb and flow, and so regulate the currents
of the sea as though they were the waters of one vast river.
And yet all these forces, though acting in unison, and impelling
in the same direction, a single fish, and that of a very
diminutive size—the fish known as the "echeneïs"
1—possesses
the power of counteracting. Winds may blow and
storms may rage, and yet the echeneïs controls their fury,
restrains their mighty force, and bids ships stand still in their
career; a result which no cables, no anchors, from their ponderousness quite incapable of being weighed, could ever have
produced! A fish bridles the impetuous violence of the deep,
and subdues the frantic rage of the universe—and all this by
no effort of its own, no act of resistance on its part, no act at
all, in fact, but that of adhering to the bark! Trifling as this
object would appear, it suffices to counteract all these forces
combined, and to forbid the ship to pass onward in its way!
Fleets, armed for war, pile up towers and bulwarks on their
decks, in order that, upon the deep even, men may fight from
behind ramparts as it were. But alas for human vanity!—
when their prows, beaked as they are with brass and with
iron,
2 and armed for the onset, can thus be arrested and
rivetted to the spot by a little fish, no more than some half
foot in length!
At the battle of Actium, it is said, a fish of this kind stopped
the prætorian ship
3 of Antonius in its course, at the moment that
he was hastening from ship to ship to encourage and exhort his
men, and so compelled him to leave it and go on board another.
Hence it was, that the fleet of Cæsar gained the advantage
4 in
the onset, and charged with a redoubled impetuosity. In our
own time, too, one of these fish arrested the ship of the Emperor
5 Caius in its course, when he was returning from Astura
to Antium:
6 and thus, as the result proved, did an insignificant
fish give presage of great events; for no sooner had the emperor returned to Rome than he was pierced by the weapons of
his own soldiers. Nor did this sudden stoppage of the ship
long remain a mystery, the cause being perceived upon finding
that, out of the whole fleet, the emperor's five-banked galley
was the only one that was making no way. The moment this
was discovered, some of the sailors plunged into the sea, and,
on making search about the ship's sides, they found an
echeneïs adhering to the rudder. Upon its being shown to
the emperor, he strongly expressed his indignation that such
an obstacle as this should have impeded his progress, and have
rendered powerless the hearty endeavours of some four hundred
men. One thing, too, it is well known, more particularly
surprised
7 him, how it was possible that the fish, while adhering
to the ship, should arrest its progress, and yet should
have no such power when brought on board.
According to the persons who examined it on that occasion,
and who have seen it since, the echeneïs bears a strong resemblance
to a large slug.
8 The various opinions entertained
respecting it we have already
9 noticed, when speaking of it
in the Natural History of Fishes. There is no doubt, too, that
all fish of this kind are possessed of a similar power; witness,
for example, the well-known instance of the shells
10 which
are still preserved and consecrated in the Temple of Venus at
Cnidos, and which, we are bound to believe, once gave such
striking evidence of the possession of similar properties.
Some of our own authors have given this fish the Latin name
of "mora."
11 It is a singular thing, but among the Greeks
we find writers who state that, worn as an amulet, the echeneïs
has the property,
12 as already mentioned, of preventing miscarriage,
and of reducing procidence of the uterus, and so permitting
the fœtus to reach maturity: while others, again,
assert that, if it is preserved in salt and worn as an amulet, it
will facilitate parturition; a fact to which it is indebted for
another name which it bears, "odinolytes."
13 Be all this as
it may, considering this most remarkable fact of a ship being
thus stopped in its course, who can entertain a doubt as to the
possibility of any manifestation of her power by Nature, or
as to the effectual operation of the remedies which she has
centred in her spontaneous productions?