In a letter to the London prints concerning this affair, we have another description of our old friend the serpent, as he appeared off St. David's Head, to John Abes, mate of a merchantman, in 1863. "I was the first who saw the monster, and shouted out. A terrible-looking thing it was! Seen at a little distance in the moonlight, his two eyes appeared about the size of _plates_, and were very bright and sparkling." All on board thought his length about ninety feet; but as he curled and twirled rapidly, it was a difficult matter to determine. Captain Taylor ordered him to be noosed lasso-fashion with a rope, which John Abes tells us he got on the bowsprit to throw, but in the attempt threw himself overboard. "The horror of my feelings at the moment I must leave you to imagine," continues this remarkable epistle (which is dated from Totterdown, Bristol, September 19, 1875). "The brute was then within a few yards of me, with its monstrous head and wavy body, looking ten times more terrible than it did on board the brig. I shiver even now when I think of it. Whether the noise made by throwing the ropes over to save me scared him, I cannot say; but he went down suddenly, though not more so than I came up. After a few minutes he appeared some distance from us, and then we lost him." When next we hear of the sea-serpent after his adventure off Cape Roque, he was beheld by the crew of no less a ship than Her Majesty's yacht the _Osborne_, the captain and officers of which, in June, 1877, forwarded an official report to the Admiralty, containing an account of the monster's appearance off the coast of Sicily on the 2nd of that month. "The time was five o'clock in the afternoon. The sea was exceptionally smooth, and the officers were provided with good telescopes. The monster had a smooth skin, devoid of scales, a bullet-shaped head, and a face like an alligator. It was of immense length, and along the back was a ridge of fins about _fifteen_ feet in length and _six_ feet apart. It moved slowly, and was seen by all the ship's officers." This account was further supplemented by a sketch in a well-known illustrated paper, from the pencil of Lieutenant W. P. Hynes of the _Osborne_, who, to the above description, adds, that the fins were of irregular height, and about forty feet in extent, and "as we were passing through the water at ten and a-half knots, I could only get a view of it 'end on.'" "It was about fifteen or twenty feet broad at the shoulders, with flappers or fins that seemed to have a semi-revolving motion. From the top of the head to the part of the back where it became immersed, I should consider about fifty feet, and that seemed about a third of the whole length. All this part was smooth, resembling a seal."