Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained Part 5

"Sir,--In reply to your letter of this date, requiring information as to the truth of the statement published in the _Times_ newspaper, of a sea-serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from H.M.S. _Daedalus_, under my command, on her pa.s.sage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at 5 o'clock P.M. on the 6th of Aug. last, in lat. 24 44' S. and long.

9 22' E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the N.W.

with a long ocean swell from the W., the s.h.i.+p on the port tack, head being N.E. by N., something very unusual was seen by Mr.

Sartoris, mids.h.i.+pman, rapidly approaching the s.h.i.+p from before the beam. The circ.u.mstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieut. Edgar Drummond, with whom and Mr. Wm.

Barrett, the Master, I was at the time walking the quarter-deck.

The s.h.i.+p's company were at supper. On our attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and, as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the animal _a fleur d'eau_, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It pa.s.sed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should easily have recognised his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the s.h.i.+p or after it had pa.s.sed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the S.W., which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.

"The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was without any doubt that of a snake; and it was never, during the twenty minutes it continued in sight of our gla.s.ses, once below the surface of the water; its colour dark brown, and yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of seaweed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain's mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and the officers above mentioned.

"I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow's post.--PETER M'QUHae, Captain."

The sketches referred to in the captain's letter were made under his supervision, and copies of them, of which he certified his approbation, were published in the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ on the 28th of October, 1848. I am kindly permitted by the proprietors of that journal to reproduce two of them, reduced in size to suit these pages--one showing the relative positions of the "serpent" and the s.h.i.+p when the former was first seen (_Frontispiece_), and the other (Fig. 19) representing the animal afterwards pa.s.sing under the frigate's quarter. An enlarged drawing of its head was also given, which I have not thought it necessary to copy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 19.--THE "SEA SERPENT" Pa.s.sING UNDER THE QUARTER OF H.M.S. 'DaeDALUS.']

Lieutenant Drummond, the officer of the watch mentioned in Captain M'Quhae's report, published his memorandum of the impression made on his mind by the animal at the time of its appearance. It differs somewhat from the captain's description, and is the more cautious of the two.

"I beg to send you the following extract from my journal. H.M.S.

'Daedalus,' August 6, 1848, lat. 25 S., long. 9 37' E., St. Helena 1,015 miles. In the 4 to 6 watch, at about 5 o'clock, we observed a most remarkable fish on our lee-quarter, crossing the stern in a S.W. direction. The appearance of its head, which with the back fin was the only portion of the animal visible, was long, pointed and flattened at the top, perhaps ten feet in length, the upper jaw projecting considerably; the fin was perhaps 20 feet in the rear of the head, and visible occasionally; the captain also a.s.serted that he saw the tail, or another fin, about the same distance behind it; the upper part of the head and shoulders appeared of a dark brown colour, and beneath the under-jaw a brownish-white. It pursued a steady undeviating course, keeping its head horizontal with the surface of the water, and in rather a raised position, disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief interval, and not apparently for purposes of respiration. It was going at the rate of perhaps from twelve to fourteen miles an hour, and when nearest was perhaps one hundred yards distant; in fact it gave one quite the idea of a large snake or eel. No one in the s.h.i.+p has ever seen anything similar; so it is at least extraordinary. It was visible to the naked eye for five minutes, and with a gla.s.s for perhaps fifteen more. The weather was dark and squally at the time, with some sea running.--EDGAR DRUMMOND, Lieut. H.M.S. 'Daedalus;'

Southampton, Oct. 28, 1848."

Statements so interesting and important, of course, elicited much correspondence and controversy. Mr. J. D. Morries Stirling, a director of the Bergen Museum, wrote to the Secretary of the British Admiralty, Captain Hamilton, R.N., saying that while becalmed in a yacht between Bergen and Sogne, in Norway, he had seen, three years previously, a large fish or reptile of cylindrical form (he would not say "sea serpent") ruffling the otherwise smooth surface of the fjord. No head was visible. This appears to have been, like the others from the same locality, a large calamary. Mr. Stirling unaware, doubtless, that Mr.

Edward Newman, editor of the _Zoologist_, had previously propounded the same idea, suggested that the supposed serpent might be one of the old marine reptiles, hitherto supposed only to exist in the fossil state.

This letter was published in the _Ill.u.s.trated News_ of October 28th, and four days afterwards, November 2nd, a letter signed F.G.S. appeared in the _Times_, in which the same idea was mooted, and the opinion expressed that it might be the _Plesiosaurus_. This brought out that great master in physiology, Professor Owen, who in a long, and, it is needless to say, most able letter to the _Times_, dated the 9th of November, 1848, set forth a series of weighty arguments against belief in the supposed serpent, which I regret that I am unable, from want of s.p.a.ce, to quote _in extenso_. The reasoning of the most eminent of living physiologists of course had its influence on those who could best appreciate it; but, as it went against the current of popular opinion, it met with little favour from the public, and has been slurred over much too superciliously by some subsequent writers. He suggested also that the creature seen might have been a great seal, such as the leonine seal, or the sea-elephant (the head, as shown in the enlarged drawing, was wonderfully seal-like), but it was generally felt that this explanation was unsatisfactory. The nature of his criticism of the official statement will be seen from Captain M'Quhae's reply, which was promptly given in the _Times_ of the 21st of November, 1848, as follows:--

"Professor Owen correctly states that I evidently saw a large creature moving rapidly through the water very different from anything I had before witnessed, neither a whale, a grampus, a great shark, an alligator, nor any of the larger surface-swimming creatures fallen in with in ordinary voyages. I now a.s.sert--neither was it a common seal nor a sea-elephant, its great length and its totally differing physiognomy precluding the possibility of its being a '_Phoca_' of any species. The head was flat, and not a 'capacious vaulted cranium;' nor had it a stiff, inflexible trunk--a conclusion at which Professor Owen has jumped, most certainly not justified by the simple statement, that no portion of the sixty feet seen by us was used in propelling it through the water either by vertical or horizontal undulation.

"It is also a.s.sumed that the 'calculation of its length was made under a strong preconception of the nature of the beast;' another conclusion quite contrary to the fact. It was not until after the great length was developed by its nearest approach to the s.h.i.+p, and until after that most important point had been duly considered and debated, as well as such could be in the brief s.p.a.ce of time allowed for so doing, that it was p.r.o.nounced to be a serpent by all who saw it, and who are too well accustomed to judge of lengths and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real substance and an actual living body, coolly and dispa.s.sionately contemplated, at so short a distance, too, for the 'eddy caused by the action of the deeper immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving gigantic seal raising its head above the surface of the water,' as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of its lost iceberg.

"The creative powers of the human mind may be very limited. On this occasion they were not called into requisition; my purpose and desire throughout being to furnish eminent naturalists, such as the learned Professor, with accurate facts, and not with exaggerated representations, nor with what could by any possibility proceed from optical illusion; and I beg to a.s.sure him that old Pontoppidan having clothed his sea-serpent with a mane could not have suggested the idea of ornamenting the creature seen from the 'Daedalus' with a similar appendage, for the simple reason that I had never seen his account, or even heard of his sea-serpent, until my arrival in London. Some other solution must therefore be found for the very remarkable coincidence between us in that particular, in order to unravel the mystery.

"Finally, I deny the existence of excitement or the possibility of optical illusion. I adhere to the statements, as to form, colour, and dimensions, contained in my official report to the Admiralty, and I leave them as data whereupon the learned and scientific may exercise the 'pleasures of imagination' until some more fortunate opportunity shall occur of making a closer acquaintance with the 'great unknown'--in the present instance most a.s.suredly no ghost.

"P. M'QUHae, late Captain of H.M.S. 'Daedalus.'"

Of course neither Professor Owen, nor any one else, doubted the veracity or _bona fides_ of the captain and officers of one of Her Majesty's s.h.i.+ps; and their testimony was the more important because it was that of men accustomed to the sights of the sea. Their practised eyes would, probably, be able to detect the true character of anything met with afloat, even if only partially seen, as intuitively as the Red Indian reads the signs of the forest or the trail; and therefore they were not likely to be deceived by any of the objects with which sailors are familiar. They would not be deluded by seals, porpoises, trunks of trees, or Brobdingnagian stems of algae; but there was one animal with which they were not familiar, of the existence of which they were unaware, and which, as I have said, at that date was generally believed to be as unreal as the sea-serpent itself--namely, the great calamary, the elongated form of which has certainly in some other instances been mistaken for that of a sea-snake. One of these seen swimming in the manner I have described, and endeavoured to portray (p. 77), would fulfil the description given by Lieutenant Drummond, and would in a great measure account for the appearances reported by Captain M'Quhae.

"_The head long, pointed and flat on the top_," accords with the pointed extremity and caudal fin of the squid. "_Head kept horizontal with the surface of the water, and in rather a raised position, disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief interval, and not apparently for purposes of respiration._" A perfect description of the position and action of a squid swimming. "_No portion of it perceptibly used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulations._" The mode of propulsion of a squid--the outpouring stream of water from its locomotor tube--would be unseen and unsuspected, because submerged. Its effect, the swirl in its wake, would suggest a prolongation of the creature's body. The numerous arms trailing astern at the surface of the water would give the appearance of a mane. I think it not impossible that if the officers of the _Daedalus_ had been acquainted with this great sea creature the impression on their mind's eye would not have taken the form of a serpent. I offer this, with much diffidence, as a suggestion arising from recent discoveries; and by no means insist on its acceptance; for Captain M'Quhae, who had a very close view of the animal, distinctly says that "the head was, without any doubt, that of a serpent," and one of his officers subsequently declared that the eye, the mouth, the nostril, the colour, and the form were all most distinctly visible.

In a letter addressed to the Editor of the _Bombay Times_, and dated "Kamptee, January 3rd, 1849," Mr. R. Davidson, Superintending Surgeon, Nagpore Subsidiary Force, describes a great sea animal seen by him whilst on board the s.h.i.+p _Royal Saxon_, on a voyage to India, in 1829.

The features of this incident are consistent with his having seen one of the, then unknown, great calamaries.

Dr. Scott, of Exeter, sent to the Editor of the _Zoologist_ (p. 2459), an extract from the memorandum-book of Lieutenant Sandford, R.N., written about the year 1820, when he was in command of the merchant s.h.i.+p _Lady Combermere_. In it he mentions his having met with, in lat. 46, long. 3 (Bay of Biscay), an animal unknown to him, an immense body on the surface of the water, spouting, not unlike the blowing of a whale, and the raising up of a triangular extremity, and subsequently of a head and neck erected six feet above the surface of the water. This was evidently a great squid seen under circ.u.mstances similar to those described by Hans Egede (p. 67).

In the _Sun_ Newspaper of July 9th, 1849, was published the following statement of Captain Herriman, of the s.h.i.+p _Brazilian_:

"On the morning of the 24th February, the s.h.i.+p being becalmed in lat. 26 S., long. 8 E. (about forty miles from the place where Captain M'Quhae is said to have seen the serpent), the captain perceived something right astern, stretched along the water to a length of twenty five or thirty feet, and perceptibly moving from the s.h.i.+p, with a steady sinuous motion. The head, which seemed to be lifted several feet above the water, had something resembling a mane running down to the floating portion, and within about six feet of the tail. Of course Captain Herriman, Mr. Long, his chief officer, and the pa.s.sengers who saw this came to the conclusion that it must be the sea-serpent. As the 'Brazilian' was making no headway, to bring all doubts to an issue, the captain had a boat lowered, and himself standing in the bow, armed with a harpoon, approached the monster. It was found to be an immense piece of sea-weed, drifting with the current, which sets constantly to the westward in this lat.i.tude, and which, with the swell left by the subsidence of a previous gale, gave it the sinuous snake-like motion."

Captain Harrington, of the s.h.i.+p _Castilian_, reported in the _Times_ of February 5th, 1858, that:

"On the 12th of December, 1857, N.E. end of St. Helena distant ten miles, he and his officers were startled by the sight of a huge marine animal which reared its head out of the water within twenty yards of the s.h.i.+p. The head was shaped like a long nun-buoy,[31]

and they supposed it to have been seven or eight feet in diameter in the largest part, with a kind of scroll or tuft of loose skin, encircling it about two feet from the top. The water was discoloured for several hundred feet from its head, so much so that on its first appearance my impression was that the s.h.i.+p was in broken water."

[31] See ill.u.s.tration, p. 67.

Evidently, again, a large calamary raising its caudal extremity and fin above the surface, and discolouring the water by discharging its ink.

This was immediately followed by a letter from Captain Frederick Smith, of the s.h.i.+p _Pekin_, who stated that:

"On December 28th, 1848, being then in lat. 26 S., long. 6 E.

(about half-way between the Cape and St. Helena), he saw a very extraordinary-looking thing in the water, of considerable length.

With the telescope, he could plainly discern a huge head and neck, covered with a s.h.a.ggy-looking kind of mane, which it kept lifting at intervals out of water. This was seen by all hands, and was declared to be the great sea-serpent. A boat was lowered; a line was made fast to the 'snake,' and it was towed alongside and hoisted on board. It was a piece of gigantic sea-weed, twenty feet long, and completely covered with snaky-looking barnacles. So like a huge living monster did this appear, that had circ.u.mstances prevented my sending a boat to it, I should certainly have believed I had seen the great sea-serpent."

In September, 1872, Mr. Frank Buckland published, in _Land and Water_, an account by the late Duke of Marlborough, of a "sea-serpent" having been seen several times within a few days, in Loch Hourn, Scotland. A sketch of it was given which almost exactly accorded with that of Pontoppidan's sea-serpent, namely, seven hunches or protuberances like so many porpoises swimming in line, preceded by a head and neck raised slightly out of water. Many other accounts have been published of the appearance of serpent-like sea monsters, but I have only s.p.a.ce for two or three more of the most remarkable of them.

On the 10th of January, 1877, the following affidavit was made before Mr. Raffles, magistrate, at Liverpool:

"We, the undersigned officers and crew of the barque 'Pauline' (of London), of Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, do solemnly and sincerely declare that, on July 8, 1875, in lat. 5 13' S., long. 35 W., we observed three large sperm whales, and one of them was gripped round the body with two turns of what appeared to be a huge serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a length beyond the coils of about thirty feet, and its girth eight feet or nine feet.

The serpent whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom, head first.

"GEO. DREVAR, Master; HORATIO THOMPSON, JOHN HENDERSON LANDELLS, OWEN BAKER, and WILLIAM LEWARN.

"Again, on July 13, a similar serpent was seen, about two hundred yards off, shooting itself along the surface, head and neck being out of the water several feet. This was seen only by the captain and one ordinary seaman.

"GEORGE DREVAR, Master.

"A few moments after it was seen some 60 feet elevated perpendicularly in the air by the chief officer and the following seamen:--Horatio Thompson, Owen Baker, Wm. Lewarn. And we make this solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the same to be true."

In the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, of November 20th, 1875, there had previously appeared a letter from the Rev. E. L. Penny, Chaplain to H.M.S. _London_, at Zanzibar, describing this occurrence and also the representation of a sketch (which I am kindly permitted to reproduce here), drawn by him from the descriptions given by the captain and crew of the _Pauline_. "The whale," he said, "should have been placed deeper in the water, but he would then have been unable to depict so clearly the manner in which the animal was attacked." He adds that, "Captain Drevar is a singularly able and observant man, and those of the crew and officers with whom he conversed were singularly intelligent; nor did any of their descriptions vary from one another in the least: there were no discrepancies." The event took place whilst their vessel was on her way from s.h.i.+elds to Zanzibar, with a cargo of coals, for the use of H.M.S.

_London_, then the guard s.h.i.+p on that station.

It is impossible to doubt for a moment the genuineness of the statement made by Captain Drevar and his crew, or their honest desire to describe faithfully that which they believed they had seen; but the height to which the snake is said to have upreared itself is evidently greatly exaggerated; for it is impossible that any serpent could "elevate its body some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air"--nearly one-third of the height of the Monument of the Great Fire of London. I have no desire to force this narrative of the master and crew of the _Pauline_ into conformity with any preconceived idea. They may have seen a veritable sea-serpent; or they may have witnessed the amours of two whales, and have seen the great creatures rolling over and over that they might breathe alternately by the blow-hole of each coming to the surface of the water; or the supposed coils of the snake may have been the arms of a great calamary, cast over and around the huge cetacean.

The other two appearances--1st, the animal "seen shooting itself along the surface with head and neck raised" (p. 77), and 2nd, the elevation of the body to a considerable height, as in Egede's sea monster, (p.

67), would certainly accord with this last hypothesis; but, taking the statement as it stands, it must be left for further elucidation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG 20.--THE "SEA SERPENT" AND SPERM WHALE AS SEEN FROM THE 'PAULINE.']

On the 28th of January, 1879, a "sea-serpent" was seen from the s.s.

_City of Baltimore_, in the Gulf of Aden, by Major H. W. J. Senior, of the Bengal Staff Corps. The narrator "observed a long, black object darting rapidly in and out of the water, and advancing nearer to the vessel. The shape of the head was not unlike pictures of the dragon he had often seen, with a bull-dog expression of the forehead and eyebrows.

When the monster had drawn its head sufficiently out of the water, it let its body drop, as it were a log of wood, prior to darting forward under the water. This motion caused a splash of about fifteen feet in length on either side of the neck much in the 'shape of a pair of wings.'" This last particular of its appearance, as well as its movements, suggest a great calamary; but, as one with "a bull-dog expression of eyebrow, visible at 500 yards distance," does not come within my ken, I will not claim it as such.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 21.--THE "SEA SERPENT" AS SEEN FROM THE 'CITY OF BALTIMORE.']

In June 1877 Commander Pearson reported to the Admiralty, that on the 2nd of that month, he and other officers of the Royal Yacht _Osborne_, had seen, off Cape Vito, Sicily, a large marine animal, of which the following account and sketches were furnished by Lieutenant Haynes, and were confirmed by Commander Pearson, Mr. Douglas Haynes, Mr. Forsyth, and Mr. Moore, engineer.

"Lieutenant Haynes writes, under date, 'Royal Yacht _Osborne_, Gibraltar, June 6': On the evening of that day, the sea being perfectly smooth, my attention was first called by seeing a ridge of fins above the surface of the water, extending about thirty feet, and varying from five to six feet in height. On inspecting it by means of a telescope, at about one and a-half cables' distance, I distinctly saw a head, two flappers, and about thirty feet of an animal's shoulder. The head, as nearly as I could judge, was about six feet thick, the neck narrower, about four to five feet, the shoulder about fifteen feet across, and the flappers each about fifteen feet in length. The movements of the flappers were those of a turtle, and the animal resembled a huge seal, the resemblance being strongest about the back of the head. I could not see the length of the head, but from its crown or top to just below the shoulder (where it became immersed), I should reckon about fifty feet. The tail end I did not see, being under water, unless the ridge of fins to which my attention was first attracted, and which had disappeared by the time I got a telescope, were really the continuation of the shoulder to the end of the object's body. The animal's head was not always above water, but was thrown upwards, remaining above for a few seconds at a time, and then disappearing.

There was an entire absence of 'blowing,' or 'spouting.' I herewith beg to enclose a rough sketch, showing the view of the 'ridge of fins,' and also of the animal in the act of propelling itself by its two fins."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 22.--THE "SEA SERPENT" AS SEEN FROM H.M. YACHT 'OSBORNE.'

PHASE I.]