Sea Monsters Unmasked, and Sea Fables ExplainedLee, Henry
History
Sea Monsters Unmasked, and Sea Fables Explained
Lee, Henry
Cephalopoda; Marine animals
On the 15th of May, 1833, a party of British officers, consisting of
Captain Sullivan, Lieutenants Maclachlan and Malcolm of the Rifle
Brigade, Lieutenant Lister of the Artillery, and Mr. Ince of the
Ordnance, whilst crossing Margaret's Bay in a small yacht, on their way
from Halifax to Mahone Bay, "saw, at a distance of a hundred and fifty
to two hundred yards, the head and neck of some denizen of the deep,
precisely like those of a common snake in the act of swimming, the head
so far elevated and thrown forward by the curve of the neck, as to
enable them to see the water under and beyond it. The creature rapidly
passed, leaving a regular wake, from the commencement of which to the
fore part, which was out of water, they judged its length to be about
eighty feet." They "set down the head at about six feet in length
(considerably larger than that of a horse), and that portion of the neck
which they saw at the same." "There could be no mistake--no delusion,"
they say; "and we were all perfectly satisfied that we had been favoured
with a view of the true and veritable sea-serpent." This account was
published in the _Zoologist_, in 1847 (p. 1715), and at that date all
the officers above named were still living.
The next incident of the kind in point of date that we find recorded
carries us back to the locality of which Pontoppidan wrote, and in which
was seen the animal vouched for by Captain de Ferry. In 1847 there
appeared in a London daily paper a long account translated from the
Norse journals of fresh appearances of the sea-serpent. The statement
made was, that it had recently been frequently seen in the neighbourhood
of Christiansand and Molde. In the large bight of the sea at
Christiansand it had been seen every year, only in the warmest weather,
and when the sea was perfectly calm, and the surface of the water
unruffled. The evidence of three respectable persons was taken, namely,
Nils Roe, a workman at Mr. William Knudtzon's, who saw it twice there,
John Johnson, merchant, and Lars Johnoen, fisherman at Smolen. The
latter said he had frequently seen it, and that one afternoon in the
dog-days, as he was sitting in his boat, he saw it twice in the course
of two hours, and quite close to him. It came, indeed, to within six
feet of him, and, becoming alarmed, he commended his soul to God, and
lay down in the boat, only holding his head high enough to enable him to
observe the monster. It passed him, disappeared, and returned; but, a
breeze springing up, it sank, and he saw it no more. He described it as
being about six fathoms long, the body (which was as round as a
serpent's) two feet across, the head as long as a ten-gallon cask, the
eyes large, round, red, sparkling, and about five inches in diameter:
close behind the head a mane like a fin commenced along the neck, and
spread itself out on both sides, right and left, when swimming. The
mane, as well as the head, was of the colour of mahogany. The body was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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