Twee Scheeps-togten van Kapiteyn Johan Smith, beyde gedaan na Nieuw-Engeland. De eerste in het jaar 1614....

1614.

came swimming toward us. It appeared with a beautiful form, having the face of a woman, as well as similar eyes, nose, ears, chin, mouth, neck, and forehead. It also had blond hair that hung down over its shoulders. I, along with my servant who is still alive, saw this myself. When this animal was about the length of a pike a predatory freshwater fish from us, I was so startled that I jumped back. When this creature saw that, it went underwater to the depths, but a short time later it came up again and went to the corner where I had gone ashore. From there I watched it for some time from afar. It seemed to me a human from the top down to the navel, but from the navel downward it had the form of a fish.

Occurrence of this creature.

A similar creature came to the ship shortly thereafter, where my servant was on board. When it had approached the ship, it attempted to come on board, which caused those who were in the ship to be not a little startled and full of fear. They therefore struck at it with boat hooks and clubs, so that it went back into the water. It then went to two other ships, which caused the ship's crew to be so astonished that they fled to land in all haste. Since much is written about these sea-wonders and sirens, I did not want to remain silent about this, but rather gladly share it with the curious reader.

The author's thoughts on this.

Since I saw this alongside other credible men, I will not dispute whether this monster was a siren or some other creature, but rather gladly leave that to others and instead prefer to put a description of this New England on paper.

New England is that part of America in the Atlantic Ocean, across from Nova Albion