It was thirteen feet long, and the upper part of it had some
resemblance to the human form, while the lower part was like that of a
fish. The head was partly like that of a man and partly like that of a
hog. Its fins resembled hands, and it had forty-eight large teeth in
each jaw, not unlike those in the jaw-bone of a man. Just fancy one of
our Jack-tars diving from the Chesil Bank and finding a mate like that
below! But we were told that diving from that Bank into the sea would
mean certain death, as the return flows from the heavy swell of the
Atlantic which comes in here, makes it almost impossible for the
strongest swimmer to return to the Bank, and that "back-wash" in a storm
had accounted for the many shipwrecks that had occurred there in olden
times.
From where we stood we could see the Hill and Bill of Portland, in the
rear of which was the famous Breakwater, the foundation-stone of which
had been laid by the Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria, more
than twenty years previously, and although hundreds of prisoners from
the great convict settlement at Portland had been employed upon the work
ever since, the building of it was not yet completed.
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