The Romance of Natural History Part 22

[235] _Zool._, 2589.

[236] Newman, _Hist. of Insects_, 50.

APPENDIX.

ON THE SEA-SERPENT.

Since the publication of my former volume, which concluded with an examination of the evidence for the existence of this unrecognised animal, two other important testimonies have been brought under my notice. The first of these is that of an officer of high literary reputation, the Consular representative of Great Britain lately residing at Boston, in the United States, who thus gives his personal testimony and that of his lady to the appearance of the monster:--

"On a Sunday afternoon in the middle of August, above a hundred persons, at that time in and about the hotel, were called on to observe an extraordinary appearance in the sea, at no great distance from the sh.o.r.e. Large shoals of small fish were rus.h.i.+ng landwards in great commotion, leaping from the water, crowding on each other, and shewing all the common symptoms of flight from the pursuit of some wicked enemy.

I had already more than once remarked this appearance from the rocks, but in a minor degree; and on these occasions I could always distinguish the shark, whose ravages among the "manhaidens" was the cause of such alarm. But the particular case in question was far different from those.

The pursuer of the fugitive shoals soon became visible; and that it was a huge marine monster, stretching to a length quite beyond the dimensions of an ordinary fish, was evident to all the observers. No one, in short, had any doubt as to its being the sea-serpent, or one of the species to which the animal or animals so frequently before seen belonged. The distance at which this one was, for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, visible, made it impossible to give a description of its apparent dimensions so accurate as to carry conviction to the sceptical. For us who witnessed it, it was enough to be convinced that the thing was a reality. But one of the spectators, Dr Amos Binney, a gentleman of scientific attainments, drew up a minute account of it, which is deposited in the archives of one of the Philosophical Societies of Boston. I was and am quite satisfied that on this occasion I had a partial and indistinct but positive view of this celebrated nondescript.

But had the least doubt rested on my mind, it would have been entirely removed by the event of the day following the one just recorded. On that day, a little before noon, my wife was sitting, as was her wont, reading on the upper piazza of the hotel. She was alone. The gentlemen, including myself and my son, were, as usual, absent at Boston, and the ladies were scattered about in various directions. She was startled by a cry from the house of "The sea-serpent! The sea-serpent!" But this had been so frequent, by the way of joke, since the event of the preceding day, and was so like "The wolf, the wolf!" of the fable, that it did not attract her particular attention for a moment or two, until she observed two women belonging to the family of the hotel-keeper running along the piazza towards the corner nearest the sea, with wonder in their eyes, and the cry of "The serpent, the serpent! He is turning, he is turning!"

spontaneously bursting from their lips. Then my wife did fix her looks in the direction they ran; and sure enough she saw, apparently quite close beyond the line formed by the rising ground above the rocks, a huge serpent, gliding gracefully through the waves, having evidently performed the action of turning round. In an instant it was in a straight line, moving rapidly on; and after coasting for a couple of minutes the north-west front of the hotel, and (as accurately as the astonished observer could calculate) looking as it stretched at full length in the water about the length of the piazza, that is to say, about ninety feet; it sank quietly beneath the surface, and was seen no more.

"The person who was thus so lucky as to get this un.o.bstructed view, is one so little liable to be led astray by any imaginary impulse, that I reckon on her statement with entirely as much confidence as if my own eyes had demonstrated its truth."--_Grattan's Civilised America_, p. 39.

The second testimony is contained in the following communication with which I have been favoured by Mr Cave:--

35, WILTON PLACE, _April 29, 1861_.

SIR,--On reading your interesting "Romance of Natural History" it occurred to me that I could supply some corroborative evidence of the existence of the sea serpent. On looking up my old journals, I found it was slighter than I imagined; but, such as it is, I give it almost verbatim from my diary.

I was in Jamaica the year after you were, and have often regretted that we were not there together, as I might have shewn you parts of the island which you missed, and have been, perhaps, the cause of a few more pages to your very pleasant journal of a naturalist there.--Believe me, faithfully, yours,

STEPHEN CAVE, M.P. for Sh.o.r.eham.

Philip H. Gosse, Esq.

_Extract from a Journal written during a Voyage to the West Indies in 1846._

_Thursday, Dec. 10._--Off Madeira, on board R.M.S. "Thames."--"Made acquaintance with a Captain Christmas of the Danish navy, a proprietor in Santa Cruz, and holding some office about the Danish Court. He told me he once saw a sea-serpent between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. He was lying-to in a gale of wind, in a frigate of which he had the command, when an immense shoal of porpoises rushed by the s.h.i.+p, as if pursued; and, lo and behold! a creature with a neck moving like that of a swan, about the thickness of a man's waist, with a head like a horse, raised itself slowly and gracefully from the deep, and seeing the s.h.i.+p it immediately disappeared again, head foremost, like a duck diving. He only saw it for a few seconds; the part above the water seemed about 18 feet in length. He is a singularly intelligent man, and by no means one to allow his imagination to run away with him."

THE END.