Part 13

From what has been said of the animal, seen by EGEDE, we gather that it appeared on the 6th. of July, 1734, in fine weather before the Danish Colony the Good Hope, Davis Straits, Greenland; (EGEDE says: “the following evening we had very bad weather”, so we may conclude that:) the weather was fine, when the animal was seen; it had a considerable length, say a hundred feet, and was much thicker than a snake of those dimensions would be, say some eight feet; it raised its head, its neck and the fore-part of its trunk high above the surface of the water, it had a long, sharp snout, it blew like a whale (the breath of an animal as large as a whale must of course have been distinctly visible in those cold regions; I also wish to fix the reader’s attention on the figure where the animal is not spouting a stream of water, but where its breath is condensed by the cold, and forms little curling clouds of vapour). It had broad and large flappers. EGEDE does not say: it had broad flappers on the forepart of the trunk; as Egede does not state that the figure, made by Mr. BING aboard his ship, directly after the appearance of the animal, is not truthful, we must consider it as being correct; so the animal had two large and broad flappers on the fore-part of the trunk. The body _seemed_ to be covered with a hard skin. For truth’s sake EGEDE wrote _seemed_, which is well done; for a hard skin or crust would not have been _wrinkled_ when the animal bends its body. Like all known air-breathing sea-animals of those dimensions the animal must of course have had under its skin a relatively thick layer of bacon, and I myself have often seen that the skin of sea-lions and seals wrinkled, when the animal bent its body in such a manner as the Sea-Serpent of EGEDE did. And we shall afterwards repeatedly see that the sea-serpent has no scales but a smooth skin, as seals have. And if the animal could have scales, they would be very large ones, considering its colossal dimensions, in which case it must have been easy to see the scales from a distance, though they were wet with the water; but I can hardly believe that one can say of an animal, seen at some distance and quite wet and shining with the water, whether it has a crust or a soft skin. The latter has been the case, for the animal showed wrinkles when bending its body. Its lower part was formed like that of a snake, by which EGEDE evidently means to say that it was perfectly round and tapered to the end of the tail, and that he _did not see_ any appendages (which does not exclude their presence, for the middle part of the body remained invisible, hidden by the water). The creature plunged _backwards_ into the water. It evidently has a considerable flexibility, as is also shown in the figure. Consequently it cannot have been a snake, which has no dorso-ventral flexibility, nor a gigantic calamary, as Mr. LEE thinks, which has no flexibility at all! It had a very flexible, long tail, almost one half of the length of its body, which was distinctly seen by EGEDE and figured by Mr. BING. The tail of the animal, being of a considerable length, tapered in a point, and had no caudal fins, neither horizontal nor vertical ones. The figure shows an eye with a heavy eye-brow, a nostril, and teeth; the flappers have external visible fingers, as sea-lions have; those of porpoises and dolphins are without them. Afterwards we shall more than once have occasion to observe that the sea-serpent’s head is drawn by BING too large, and the neck too short.

Mr. LEE says in his frequently quoted work _Sea-Monsters Unmasked_, “The sea-monster seen by EGEDE was of an entirely different kind” (viz. from those mentioned by MAGNUS and PONTOPPIDAN). I am of the opinion that if Mr. LEE had written: The sea-monster seen by EGEDE was the same, but seen in an entirely different position, condition and direction, he would have been nearer the truth; for careful inquiry has shown me that the sea-serpents of MAGNUS and PONTOPPIDAN are the same as those which still appear in the Norwegian seas, and those have all the characters of EGEDE’S animal. Moreover we saw that the animal, mentioned in our accounts 1, 2, 3 and 4, and according to the descriptions of MAGNUS and GESNER had the following characteristics: 1. It raises itself out of the water to a considerable height. 2. It swims with vertical undulations. 3. It has an enormous length, probably upwards of a hundred feet. 4. It is much thicker than a snake of the same length would be. 5. It has a row of hairs hanging down from its neck. 6. Its colour is dark. 7. Its eyes are brilliant and flaming. 8. Its food consists of squids, cuttles, crabs and lobsters. 9. It is harmless, if not provoked. 10. It appears in fine weather. 11. It can stretch itself in a straight line.--Of these facts the 1st., 3d., 4th., and 10th. are stated by EGEDE; he could not mention the 2d., 8th., and 11th., because he did not see the animal swimming or eating. Most probably he could not see the 5th., because he did not see the animal on its back, but as the figure shows, somewhat on its belly and somewhat from aside; moreover there are individuals without a mane. EGEDE says nothing of its colour, its eyes, its harmlessness. Its colour was evidently a dark brown one, the common colour of large sea-animals, else he would have called it brilliant white, or green, or red. The eyes are figured by BING, though not described by EGEDE, but in PONTOPPIDAN’S work we read in a note to Chapt. VIII, § 7, that Mr. BING mentioned to his brother-in-law, Parson SYLOW, at Hougs in the parish of Bergen, that the eyes seemed to be reddish and like a burning fire. So its harmlessness is the only fact we cannot derive with certainty from EGEDE’S account.

PONTOPPIDAN relating EGEDE’S observation of the monster gives a copy of Mr. BING’S figure, but as often occurred in those days, it is not copied with great accuracy, and BING’S drawing has been altered by PONTOPPIDAN so as to give quite another figure. (Our fig. 22 is a facsimile of that of the German edition.) Mr. BING was right in figuring the vaporous breath of the animal, and PONTOPPIDAN changes it wrongly into a waterspout of more than 100 feet long! PONTOPPIDAN is convinced, when seeing BING’S figure, that there are several species of sea-serpents, all belonging to the same genus. I do not wish to discuss this point.

Still more exaggerated is the figure of JARDINE’S _Naturalist’s Library_, or rather that which Dr. R. HAMILTON presents to his readers. He makes of it a serpentine dragon which has also the power of spouting a splendid set of water some twenty feet high, a water-mass equalling nearly half the volume of the animal’s body!

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In his _Essay towards a Natural History of Serpents_, 1742, Mr. OWEN repeats only (p. 14, and p. 143) the tales and reports of OLAUS MAGNUS and GESNER.

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=6=.--1743?--(PONTOPPIDAN, Chapt. VIII, § 7).--“It is said that a few years ago a sea-serpent stranded on the cliffs near Amund in Nordfjord, perhaps with high water, and died there and the carrion also caused a dreadful smell.”

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=7=.--1744?--(PONTOPPIDAN, Chapt. VIII, § 7).--“It is also told that a sea-serpent stranded near the Isle of Karmen and that the stranding of sea-serpents took place in more localities.”

There is nothing strange in the stranding of sea-serpents. Unluckily the fear of the Norwegian people of sea-serpents is great enough to keep them far away from them, even from their carrions, and so these accounts don’t mention anything as a result of closer investigation.

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=8=.--1745?--(PONTOPPIDAN, Chapt. VIII, § 1, note).--“A fisherman relates to me that, on Sundsland, two miles from Bergen, he once saw a long, large and strange animal so close to his boat, that the water, brought in motion by the animal, dashed against it, but immediately it disappeared again under water. The head resembled that of a seal, its skin was also as woolly, but the body was as thick and as long as a yacht of fifty tons, and the tail, which seemed to be about thirty-five feet long, tapered towards the end which was as pointed as a boat-hook.”

Though PONTOPPIDAN did not seem to believe that this animal was his sea-serpent, I am convinced that such was indeed the case, because the whole description is exactly that of the animal. It is remarkable that all the persons who saw the sea-serpent so close to their boat, as this fisherman did, agree in giving it a smooth skin; now seals when wet have also a smooth skin, and our fisherman was near enough to the animal to detect the real nature of such a skin, viz. that it is _hairy_, or as he expresses himself _woolly_. We shall afterwards more than once meet with statements in which the head is compared with that of a seal. The head, though resembling that of a seal, was of course much larger. The body was as thick and as long as a yacht of fifty tons, say about forty feet, and the tail was about thirty-five feet in length, and tapered to its pointed end, like the animal of EGEDE and those of the former writers MAGNUS, OLEARIUS and RAMUS, who compared the body with that of a snake. As the fisherman mentions the length of the tail, it is evident that he could see the beginning of it, so that it may be supposed that there was a difference in thickness between the body and the tail.

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=9=.--1746, August.--(PONTOPPIDAN, _Det förste Forsög_, _etc._).--PONTOPPIDAN relates:

“Last winter I happened to meet the Royal Commander and Pilot-general at Bergen, Mr. LORENZ VON FERRY, and we spoke about this subject. He told me that for a long time he had doubted the existence of the sea-serpent, but that at last his experiences in 1746 had convinced him. And though I could not say anything of importance against it, he ordered to my satisfaction and that of others, two seamen, who were with him in his boat, and had seen the animal and its blood which coloured the water red after a shot of VON FERRY at it, to appear before the public court of justice at Bergen. What those men confirmed on oath may be found in the following instrument which I received in original, and which I therefore think valuable enough to communicate in extenso:”

“ALBERT CHRISTIAN DASS, His Royal Majesty’s Stadtholder at Bergen, HANS CHRISTIAN GARTNER, His Royal Majesty’s Councillor of Justice and Commerce, at the same time Secretary of the town, together with JAN CLIES, OLE SIMENSEN, OLE BRINCHMAND, JOERGEN KOENIG for CONRAD VON LANGE, MATTHIAS GRAM for ELIAS PETRUS TUCHSEN, CLAUS NATLER for DIDRICH HASLOP, JOCHEM FOEGH for HENRICH HIORT, and JOERGEN WIERS for HANS CHRISTIAN BYSZING, sworn citizens and additional deniers there, declare, that on February the 22th., 1751, the Procurator JOHANN REUTZ appeared before the public court of justice at Bergen, and presented a paper he had received that day, and bearing the date of the day before, from the honourable Captain and Pilot-general LORENZ VON FERRY. And as the services of the appearer are requested in it, to supply him a judicial hearing of witnesses, concerning the event mentioned in the same paper, so the appearer, being there for that purpose, pointed out two men living in this town, named NIELS PETERSEN KOPPER and NIELS NIELSEN ANGLEWIGEN, begging that these men might be admitted to a declaration on oath, that all has happened in particulars so as is mentioned in the paper, which he begged to be registered in said instrument. The above mentioned paper was read to the witnesses and runs as follows:

“Mr. JOHANN REUTZ.”

“Sir,”

“In the latter end of August, in the year 1746, as I was on a voyage, on my return from Trundheim, on a very calm and hot day, having a mind to put in at Molde, it happened that when we had arrived with my yacht within a mile of the aforesaid Molde, being at a place called Jule-Naess, as I was reading in a book, I heard a kind of murmuring voice from amongst the men at the oars, who were eight in number, and observed that the man at the helm kept off from the land. Upon this I inquired what was the matter, and was informed that there was a sea-serpent before us. I then ordered the man at the helm to keep the land again, and to come up with this creature of which I had heard so many stories. Though the fellows were under some apprehension, they were obliged to obey my orders. In the meantime the sea-snake passed by us, and we were obliged to tack the vessel about in order to get nearer to it. As the snake swam faster than we could row, I took my gun which was loaded with small shot, and fired at it; on this he immediately plunged under water. We rowed to the place where it sank down (which in the calm might be easily observed) and lay upon our oars, thinking it would come up again to the surface; however it did not. Where the snake plunged down, the water appeared thick and red; perhaps the small shot might have wounded it, the distance being very little. The head of this sea-serpent, which it held more than two feet above the surface of the water, resembled that of a horse. It was of a greyish colour, and the mouth was quite black, and very large. It had black eyes, and a long white mane, which hung down from the neck to the surface of the water. Besides the head and neck, we saw seven or eight folds, or coils, of this snake, which were very thick, and as far as we could guess there was a fathom’s distance between each fold. I related this affair in a certain company, where there was a person of distinction present, who desired that I would communicate to him an authentic detail of all that happened; and for this reason two of my sailors who were present at the same time and place where I saw this monster, namely, NIELS PETERSEN KOPPER, and NIELS NIELSEN ANGLEWIGEN, will appear in court, to declare on oath the truth of every particular herein set forth; and I desire the favour of an attested copy of the said descriptions.”

“I remain, Sir, your obliged servant,”

“L. VON FERRY.”

“Bergen, 21st. February 1751.

“After this the above-named witnesses gave their corporal oaths, and, with their finger held up according to law, testified and declared the aforesaid letter or declaration, and every particular set forth therein to be strictly true. A copy of the said attestation was made out for the said Procurator REUTZ, and granted by the Recorder. That this was transacted in our court of justice we confirm with our hand and seals.”

“Actum Bergis, Anno, Die et Loco ut supra.”

“A. C. DASS.” “H. C. GARTNER.” “J. CLIES.” “O. SIMENSEN.” “O. BRINCHMAND” “J. KOENIG.” “M. GRAM.” “C. NATLER.” “J. FOEGH.” “J. WIERS.”

As to Mr. VON FERRY’S declaration that the head of the sea-serpent resembled that of a horse, we cannot give another explanation than that it evidently was held at nearly right angles with the neck, that the nostrils were wide opened and large, and that the mane on the animal’s neck altogether must have led him to think so. The statement that the colour of the head was greyish, apparently contradictory to what had as yet been said about the animal’s colour, viz., that it is a dark brown one, may be explained, I think, as follows: the sea-serpent has a skin as woolly as seals and sea-lions have; it had swum a long time with its head two feet above the water, and the weather being very hot, its skin was dried up, and had got a colour quite different from that when being wet. When wet the common seal has a greenish or brownish black colour, but when dry a greyish yellow one, with a somewhat dark greenish hue; and the spots become less visible. So we see that sea-lions are dark brown when wet, but when lying on the stone border of their basin in our Zoological Gardens they very soon become dry in the sunbeams and show a greyish yellow colour. But returning to Mr. VON FERRY’S sea-serpent, the mouth, however, was black and very large. The eyes were black, the mane long and white (being dry) hanging down to the surface of the water. The coils, seven or eight in number, were very thick and the distance between them was a fathom. The colour of the coils is not mentioned; we may suppose that they were dark brown.

Prof. W. D. PECK (_Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts. Sc._ IV, I, 1818) calls this account a rational and credible one. “The figure which he” (PONTOPPIDAN) “gives seems to have been made from the description of Capt. DE FERRY, the officer above alluded to. In this figure, the head and jugular region are raised out of the water; a little below the head is a mane which seems to be inserted all round the back of the neck. The appearance of this mane was most probably an optical deception, and was nothing more than the water displayed by the neck in the progress of the animal through it, returning to its level. It had probably no mane. But of the existence of the animal, the testimony presented by the Rev. Bishop is sufficiently conclusive.”

Prof. PECK seems not to have read PONTOPPIDAN so accurately as might be expected from him, for the figure in PONTOPPIDAN’S work has quite another origin, as we shall see below. Prof. PECK would not have written his supposition of the mane, if one of the eye-witnesses of the animal near Cape Ann (see below, 1817), had seen a mane. Moreover PONTOPPIDAN asserts that nearly all agree in representing the animal with a mane, and we shall read of several declarations further on.

As to the colour of the coils, Mr. LEE seems to be at one with me for in his frequently quoted work _Sea Monsters Unmasked_ he says: “The supposed coils of the serpent’s body present exactly the appearance of eight porpoises following each other in line”, and: “I believe that in every case so far cited from PONTOPPIDAN, as well as that given by OLAUS MAGNUS, the supposed coils or protuberances of the serpent’s body were only so many porpoises swimming in line, in accordance with their habit before mentioned.” If Captain VON FERRY had described the coils of his serpent as being white or red, Mr. LEE certainly would not have supposed that they were eight porpoises.

Further Mr. LEE remarks: “If an upraised head, like that of a horse, was preceding them, it was either unconnected with them, or it certainly was not that of a snake; for no serpent could throw its body into those vertical undulations.”

Very well, but if Mr. LEE wishes to explain the coils by porpoises, he ought to account for the head which preceded them; this he silently passes by, only saying it was not that of a snake. A fine explanation indeed!

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=10=.--1747?--(PONTOPPIDAN, Chapt. VIII, § 7).--“Governor BENSTRUP is said to have had some years ago a similar meeting with the sea-serpent” (to Mr. VON FERRY’S) “and he has figured it. I should like to possess this figure to show it to my readers. I, however, show here another one sent to me by Parson HANS STROEM, which he himself has copied from the original.”

The figure shows a head with a mane, and six coils of the body. The nostril is indicated, the mouth has no teeth, the eye is large.

It is remarkable that Mr. LEE tells us: “The figure of the sea-serpent given by PONTOPPIDAN was drawn, he tells us, under the inspection of a clergyman, Mr. HANS STROM, from descriptions given of it by two of his neighbours, Messrs. REUTZ and TUCHSEN, of Herroe; and was declared to agree in every particular with that seen by Captain DE FERRY, and another subsequent observed by Governor BENSTRUP.”

Not only does not the first part of this statement tally with the words of PONTOPPIDAN, but also the second part is discrepant, for the learned Bishop goes on saying: “This figure agrees with the descriptions given by two of his neighbours Messrs. REUTZ and TUCHSEN.”

Mr. VON FERRY is not mentioned at all on this occasion by PONTOPPIDAN!

Mr. BENSTRUP’S figure has also been copied by Dr. R. HAMILTON in the volume of _Phocidae_ (seals) of JARDINE’S _Naturalist’s Library_, but it has been greatly exaggerated. It seems that Dr. R. HAMILTON thought it to be the same animal as that seen by EGEDE, for he figures both animals with the same head and features. Of the figure of BENSTRUP too he makes a serpentine dragon, swimming with corkscrew motions! O horror!

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=11=.--1748?--Mr. REUTZ of Herröe declared to PONTOPPIDAN that the drawing of Parson HANS STROEM agreed even in particulars with what he saw of the serpent several times when he went in his boat to church.

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=12=.--1749?--Also Mr. TUCHSEN of Herröe made the same declaration. He too saw the animal several times when he went to church in his boat. PONTOPPIDAN adds: “and then I do not even mention many other persons of the same high rank and trustworthiness. The same Mr. TUCHSEN is the only one who told me that he distinctly saw the difference in thickness between the trunk and the tail of the animal, viz., the trunk is not gradually growing smaller where the tail begins, but becomes smaller at once and very distinctly. The body is as thick as a barrel of two hogsheads. The tail is tapering towards its end, which is very pointed.”

This account is remarkable for the reason that it mentions the fact that the beginning of the tail is distinctly visible. So we must infer from it that the animal had thighs, and consequently had also hind-limbs. And knowing that the fore-limbs which Egede saw, are flappers, the hind-limbs too must be flappers; consequently the animal has four flappers.

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=13=.--1750?--PONTOPPIDAN, telling what he has learned from the north-sailors says:

“One of these north-sailors tells that he was once so close to the serpent, that he might have touched its smooth skin.”

Here is stated by a person who saw the sea-serpent close to his boat, that the skin is smooth, a statement apparently contradictory to that of the fisherman (n^o. 8), who declared it as woolly as a seal-skin. The fact is that the one has distinctly recognized the hairy nature of the skin, whilst the other did not discern it.

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=14=.--1751?--(PONTOPPIDAN, Chapt. VIII, § 1, note). “An incertain rumour tells me, that some peasants of Sundmöer have lately captured in their nets a serpent of eighteen feet with four paws under its belly; which they brought ashore. Thus it resembled a crocodile. The peasants in their terror fled from their nets, and by doing so they gave an opportunity to the serpent to do the same.”

Though the Bishop does not call this animal a sea-serpent, I am sure it was one. In the Norwegian and Danish languages an Orm is a serpent, viz., a long slender animal with a rather small head and a pointed tail; and as it was captured in nets in the sea, it is certain, that this animal, which PONTOPPIDAN compares with a crocodile, having a slender and round body like a snake and four paws (or flappers) is the same as the animal afterwards seen by Captain HOPE (n^o 119) and compared by him with an alligator. The dimensions not surpassing twenty feet, the animal must have been very young.

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Now let us see what PONTOPPIDAN himself says of the sea-serpent, after having heard hundreds of eye-witnesses: