Tag: sailing
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Psychoactive substances and mermaid sightings at sea
Martine MussiesMaastricht, Netherlands Since the earliest long-term sea voyages, from the Age of Exploration to the eighteenth century, sailors have been known to report seeing mermaids—enigmatic creatures with human-like upper bodies and fish-like tails. These accounts have long been a subject of fascination and speculation. Could these sightings have been influenced by the use of…
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“Filth so foul and stench so offensive as not to be imagined”
Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia … during the voyage there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water,…