Part 7

“[The British Banner arrived here on Sunday, and is now in the Albert Dock. Captain Taylor declares that the above statement is perfectly correct.--_Editor Daily Post._]”

Mr. EDWARD NEWMAN, the Editor of the _Zoologist_, adds hereto:

“It is impossible for any story to read more like a hoax than this, but I had ready means of procuring, through a friend at Lloyd’s, the information that there is such a ship as the “British Banner”, that she is commanded by Mr. William Taylor, a respectable and trustworthy gentleman, and that she did arrive at Liverpool on Sunday, 18 March, last past, and is now in the Albert Dock. Armed with this information I wrote to Capt. Taylor, who has replied in the most courteous manner; he confirms the above statement, adding that he sent it to the Daily Post himself, and adding also that the young one reported to have been caught was presented to the Museum at Melbourne, where it was thoroughly inspected and pronounced to be a veritable sea-serpent.”--

It is not quite clear whether Mr. NEWMAN was a second time the dupe of a trick, or not, but I think he really was!

Mr. GEORGE GUYON, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, on the contrary, wrote the following poem (see _Zoologist_, p. 7051, 1860):

“I’ve a story to tell--I don’t say that it’s true-- But just as I heard it I tell it to you. A ship there was sailing upon the blue sea With her canvas all set, when the captain, said he “I feel that the vessel is all of a tremble, A sort of sea earthquake it seems to resemble; Send forward the mate to see what is the matter.” When lo! what he saw would have made your teeth shatter, An enormous big snake rising out of the sea, Some three hundred feet long it might possibly be, And in bulk it might equal a “wide crinoline” (At least seven yards round that description must mean). With jaws eight feet long, and with eyes fiercely glaring, A horn and a mane; he looked horribly daring, While the bowsprit he shook in his terrible mouth. ’T was in Latitude east and in Longitude south, This is somewhat obscure, but I think on the whole It occurred th’ other side of the Antarctic pole, The ship making six knots--leaving foam in her wake, Yet she stopped at the touch of this wonderful snake; And the jibboom and bowsprit were snapped like a straw; But his strength was outdone by his marvellous maw; For he swallowed the stay-sail and also the jib, Like a boy gulping oysters--they went down to glib. With his stay to his stomac he turned him about, And gave with his tail such a vigorous flout, That some timbers to atoms were crushed by the blow, And what more might have happened we none of us know, When an object appeared for the which he set sail, And both object and story were much like a whale.”

Afterwards, (_Zoologist_, p. 7278, of the same year) we find the following about the young sea-serpent of Captain TAYLOR:

“Captain Taylor’s Sea-Serpent.--A friend, who has the opportunity of communicating with Melbourne on the subject of the young sea-serpent which Captain Taylor says (Zool. 6985) he presented to the Museum at Melbourne, has ascertained through Mr. Coates, of that town, that Captain Taylor is so far correct, that he did at the time specified present a specimen of Pelamys bicolor to the Museum in question, and Professor M’Coy exhibited the same to Mr. Coates. Of course there is no rational ground for concluding that this small sea snake is the young of any such gigantic creature as Captain Taylor has described.--_Edward Newman._”

But of a _great_ Sea-Serpent of Captain TAYLOR we don’t find any more statements!

* * * * *

We have read the various hoaxes which appeared in the _Cork Constitution_ of 1850; the _Skibbereen Eagle_ too is not averse to publishing a similar hoax (See _Zoologist_, 1861, p. 7354):

“As Samuel Townsend, Esq., J. P., of Whitehall, was sailing in Whitehall Harbour, he saw, following his wake, what appeared to him (from the many descriptions he had read of the monster) to be a sea-serpent about twenty five or thirty feet in length; and being in a small boat he endeavoured to keep as respectful a distance as possible. There was, however, another boat in the harbour at the time, in which was Mr. Samuel Kingston, his brother, Mr. John Kingston (of Trinity College, Dublin), and a party of ladies. These parties also saw the huge monster; and upon raising its neck about six feet above the surface the females became greatly alarmed, when Mr. John Kingston, who is a remarkably good shot, fired at it, upon which it immediately disappeared. Mr. Townsend informed us the serpent presented a beautiful appearance, having large, brilliant scales of a yellow hue, and is of opinion it was struck by the shot fired by Mr. Kingston. It was likewise distinctly seen from the windows of Whitehall-House. Mr. Robert Atkins told us he saw it the day before of Barlogue.”--

* * * * *

The following hoax is not inferior to any of the foregoing (Nature, of 13th. of June 1872):

“Mr. J. COBBIN of Durban, forwards to the _Natal Colonist_ the following account of a “sea-serpent” seen by him:--“During my last passage from London, I saw no less than three sea-serpents, but an account of the last will suffice. On 30th. December last, on board the _Silvery Wave_, in lat. about 35′ 0″ S., and long. 33′ 30″ E., at 6.20 P. M. solar time, an enormous sea-serpent passing nearly across our bows compelled the alteration of our course. He was at least one thousand yards long, of which about one third appeared on the surface of the water at every stroke of his enormous fan-shaped tail, with which he propelled himself, raising it high above the waves, and arching his back like a land-snake or a caterpillar. In shape and proportion he much resembled the cobra, being marked by the same knotty and swollen protuberance at the back of the head on the neck. The latter was the thickest part of the serpent. His head was like a bull’s in shape, his eyes large and glowing, his ears had circular tips and were level with his eyes, and his head was surrounded by a horny crest, which he erected and depressed at pleasure. He swam with great rapidity and lashed the sea into a foam, like breakers dashing over jagged rocks. The sun shone brightly upon him; and with a good glass I saw his overlapping scales open and shut with every arch of his sinuous back coloured like the rainbow.”

* * * * *

I don’t know whether the following, taken from the _Graphic_, is a true hoax, or an optical illusion, but I think it is a hoax. There we read in the number of August, 17th., 1872:

“Concerning this much discussed animal, whose existence mariners from the earliest times have firmly asserted, and landsmen as obstinately persisted in doubting, we have received the following from Mr. Walthew, a well-known ship-owner and merchant in Liverpool:--“Report of Captain A. Hassel, of barque _St. Olaf_, from Newport to Galveston, Texas.--Two days before arrival at Galveston, and about 4.30 P. M. on May 13, weather calm, smooth sea, lat. 26° 52′, long. 91° 20′, I saw a shoal of sharks passing the ship. Five or six came under the vessel’s stern, but before we could get out a line they went off with the rest. About two minutes after, one of the men sang out that he saw something on the weather bow, like a cask on its end. Presently another one called out that he saw something rising out of the water like a tall man. On a nearer approach we saw it was an immense serpent, with its head out of the water, about 200 ft. from the vessel. He lay still on the surface of the water, lifting his head up, and moving the body in a serpentine manner. Could not see all of it; but what we could see, from the after part of the head, was about 70 ft. long and of the same thickness all the way, excepting about the head and neck, which were smaller, and the former flat, like the head of a serpent. It had four fins on its back, and the body of a yellow greenish colour, with brown spots all over the upper part and underneath white. The whole crew were looking at it for fully ten minutes before it moved away. It was about six feet in diameter. One of the mates has drawn a slight sketch of the serpent, which will give some notion of its appearance.--A. Hassel, master of Norwegian barque St. Olaf.--Witness to signature, J. Fredk. Walthew.”--

The accompanying engravings are also published, and I give facsimiles of them in Fig. 3 and 4.--I think that Captain HASSEL after having seen the shoal of sharks, two minutes afterwards saw four of these individuals swimming perfectly in a line, the foremost occasionally lifting its head above the surface, and the backs with the backfin of each animal being visible. The distance between the first and the last being about seventy feet, the whole row looked like a huge serpent, and gave thus rise to the story, which, as I have already said above, may be a hoax, or a true statement of what they saw. Evidently one of the mates first drew the sketch exactly as he saw the four sharks, but afterwards, answering his own question: “how would the serpent look, if floating on the surface?” sketched the second figure, where a boa or python with four fins is represented floating on the water like a cork, or better like the skin of such an animal puffed up!

* * * * *

A splendid hoax was again communicated by a correspondent of the _Monde Illustré_ to the Editor, and published in the number of October, 8, 1881, of that journal.

“On board the steamer _The Don_, of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.--Captain ROBERT WOOLWARD.”

“Sunday, August 14, 1881”.

“To the Editor.”

“I commence my letter by asking you a correspondent’s diploma of the journal _Le Monde Illustré_ for my friend Mr. E. DE CONTRERAS Y ALCANTARA, an inhabitant of Ponce, Isle of Porto Rico, Spanish colony.”

“I owe to Mr. DE CONTRERAS the subjoined sketch, the exactness of which is guaranteed by the seven signatures of the eye witnesses, who are:

“Mr. E. DE CONTRERAS Y ALCANTARA, of Ponce, Isle of Porto Rico,

Mr. CARLO LOPEZ ALDANA, of Lima, Peru,

Mr. HENRIQUE ROMAN, of Cartagena, Columbia,

Mr. A. E. XIMENES DE SAN JOSÉ, of Costa Rica,

Mr. MAURICE RENARD, of Paris,

Mr. C. RENARD, of Paris, your correspondent.

“The appearance lasted for ten minutes, in full moonlight. As I made the sketch, my son noted down his observations, Mr. CONTRERAS too; we compared and exchanged our several observations, these gentlemen at the little window of the smoking-saloon, and I just above, resting upon the port-hole and supported by a rope.”

“The monster seemed to measure about forty or fifty meters, from the head to the tail, as far as the numerous coils made an approximative estimation possible. The body from the dorsal ridge to the midst of the belly seemed to be covered by several ranges of scales, or a rough skin like that of sharks, but forming overlapping layers of scales. The back is very darkish and gradually growing lighter towards the belly, where it is a dirty grey. The entire body is marked with alternating transversal stripes, darkish green, chesnut coloured, and grey; the tail seems to taper in a point, like that of eels. I preserve for the end the description of the head, which we have properly examined, and which is very remarkable. This head is not oval, and rather pointed, as in most of the snakes; it forms at its cranium a great mass with rough and irregular outlines. From the occiput it is provided with a hard and movable crest, with very sharp points; this crest may be lowered on the neck so as to become invisible. The upper jaw projects, as is shown in the sketch, the end is doubled up, and a dark hollow, like a nostril is visible there; the lower jaw, more pointed, shows below hollow and convex outlines, like sacs, doubtless for the act of swallowing. The teeth are sharp, enormous, and white. From the throat, attached to a kind of cushion, projects a hard tongue, pointed, provided with suckers, and glittering like steel, and phosphorescing as the sea occasionally does; the eye is round, very glittering, very movable, and seems to be able to look backward, so rapid and “_bien combinées_” are the animal’s evolutions; the orbit is bordered by a ring of lighter colour and seems to be overarched by an eye-brow provided with hairs or bristles.”

“The face, from the snout to the neck presents a lateral oblique line, grey in colour, on both sides of which three other similar lines run towards it.”

“The movement of the animal in the water, seems to produce no sound at all, but undulating waves and a very slight ripple.”

“It caused a stench enough to make one ill; this smell, which hung about us for more than half an hour, was like that of a fermentation by heat on a large scale of the house of LESAGE, the great gatherers of Asnières, mingled with that of a dozen of charcoal-black works of Billancourt.”

“To neutralize it, all the shops of several of our best perfumers would be wanted.”

“The monster seems to be old, judging partly from its dimensions, and partly from its colour and the roughness of its integument.”

“This is not the first time that similar animals are observed.”

“The first time it was seen in 1847 by the Portuguese ship _Ville de Lissabonne_, captain JUAN ALPHONSO ZARCO Y CAPEDA.”

“This date coincides with the buffooneries of the _Charivari_ on the _Constitutionel_, and with the first disease of the potatoes.”

“In 1864, the second of _The Don_ observed a similar animal near the coast of Japan; he tattooed it on his arm.”

“I end this series of reports by assuring you that the monster was seen on Wednesday evening, August 10, 1881, by the undersigned, at a quarter to ten P. M. in

latitude 29° 60′ longitude 42° 40′

reckoning the degrees, according to the log-book on board, from the meridian of Greenwich.”

“C. RENARD.”

“(Here follow the seven signatures above-mentioned).”

The Editor of the _Monde Illustré_ adds:

“We leave to the author of this letter and of the subjoined sketch all the responsibility of an assertion which seems to us, least to say, strange, and the details of which we communicate to our readers with due reserve.”

* * * * *

Let us now pass on to reports of would-be sea-serpents.

III.

Would-be Sea-Serpents.

It is by no means astonishing that in the vast waters of the ocean several objects, totally different from the animal generally known as the Great Sea-Serpent, gave rise to tales of that Great Unknown, such as wrecks, gigantic sea-weeds, or even animal beings. So we meet with an account dated:

1720.--(See PONTOPPIDAN.) “THORLACK THORLACKSEN has told me that in 1720 a Sea-Serpent had been shut up a whole week in a little inlet, in which it came with high tide through a narrow entrance of seven or eight fathoms deep, and that eight days afterwards, when it had left the inlet, a skin of a snake or serpent was found. One end of the skin had sunk into the water of the inlet, so that its length could not be made out, as the inlet was several fathoms deep, and the skin partly lay there. The other end of this skin was washed on the shore by the current, where everybody could see it; apparently, however, it could not be used, for it consisted of a soft slimy mass. THORLACKSEN was a native of the harbour of Kobbervueg.”

It may be that a real sea-serpent remained a week in the inlet. The Norwegian fishermen know the sea-serpent too well to make mistakes. Another animal would not have been called a sea-serpent, and a short description of it would have been given. But the skin wrongly attributed to the sea-serpent, was certainly nothing else but a putrified long arm or tentacle of a gigantic calamary. The description “soft and slimy mass” proves this sufficiently. The great calamary died in the fjord, or inlet, and its long dead arm was floated ashore by the current, while the body sank. Such great calamaries, the true Krakens, have been measured, and found to have a body of 30 feet in length with long tentacles of 58 feet (see LEE, _Sea Monsters Unmasked_, London, 1883). I give here a figure of the largest ever found. (See our Fig. 6.)

* * * * *

1808.--_The Animal of Stronsa._--Perhaps no stranded animal, even the so-called sea-monks of the seventeenth and the eighteenth century caused such an excitement among the learned as “the animal of Stronsa”.

The oldest report of it is certainly a letter from Mr. CAMPBELL, in which only the following lines refer to it:

“A snake (my friend TELFORD received a drawing of it) has been found thrown on the Orkney-Isles, a sea-snake with a mane like a horse, 4 feet thick and 55 feet long, this is seriously true. MALCOLM LAING, the historian saw it, and sent a drawing of it to my friend.”

The letter was first printed in the work entitled: “_Life and Letters of Campbell_”, and afterwards the above quoted lines were reprinted in the _Zoologist_ for 1849, p. 2395.

In the _Proceedings of the Meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society_ on the 19th. of November, 1808, printed in the _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. 32, p. 190, we read:

“At this meeting Mr. P. NEILL read an account of a great Sea-Snake, lately cast ashore in Orkney. This curious animal, it appears, was stranded in Rothiesholm Bay, in the Island of Stronsa. Malcolm Laing, Esq., M. P. being in Orkney at the time, communicated the circumstance to his brother, Gilbert Laing Esq., advocate at Edinburgh, on whose property the animal had been cast. Through this authentic channel Mr. Neill received his information. The body measured fifty five feet in length, and the circumference of the thickest part might be equal to the girth of an Orkney pony. The head was not larger than that of a seal, and was furnished with two blow holes. From the back a number of filaments (resembling in tecture the fishing-tackle known by the name of silk-worm gut) hung down like a mane. On each side of the body were three large fins, shaped like paws, and jointed. The body was unluckily knocked to pieces by a tempest; but the fragments have been collected by Mr. Laing, and are to be transmitted to the Museum at Edinburgh. Mr. Neill concluded with remarking, that no doubt could be entertained that this was the kind of animal described by Ramus, Egede, and Pontoppidan, but which scientific and systematic naturalists had hitherto rejected as spurious and ideal.”

In the meeting of the same Society on the 14th. of January, 1809, (see _Phil. Mag._ Vol. 33. p. 90.),

“Dr. John Barclay communicated some highly curious observations which he had made on the caudal vertebrae of the Great Sea-Snake, (formerly mentioned) which exhibit in their structure some beautiful provisions of Nature, not hitherto observed in the vertebrae of any other animal.”

“And Mr. Patric Neill read an ample and interesting account of this new animal, collected from different sources, especially letters of undoubted authority, which he had received from the Orkneys. He stated, however, that owing to the tempestuous season, the head, fin, sternum, and dorsal vertebrae, promised some weeks ago to the University Museum at Edinburgh, had not yet arrived; but that he had received a note from Gilbert Meason, esq., (the gentleman on whose estate in Stronsa the sea-snake was cast,) intimating that they might be expected by the earliest arrivals from Orkney. In the mean time, he submitted to the Society the first sketch of a generic character. The name proposed for this new genus was _Halsydrus_, (from ἁλς the sea, and ὑδρος a water snake); and as it evidently appeared to be the Soe-Ormen described above half a century ago, by Pontoppidan, in his Natural History of Norway, it was suggested that its specific name should be _H. Pontoppidani_.”

Mr. MALCOLM LAING and Dr. GRANT, living on Stronsa, were requested to take down the affidavits of the eye-witnesses, and at the meeting of the Wernerian Society on the 11th. of February, 1809, (see _Phil. Mag._ Vol. 33. p. 251),

“the Secretary (Mr. P. Neill) laid before the Society copies of those affidavits made before the justices of peace at Kirkwall in Orkney, by several persons who saw and examined the carcass of the great sea snake (_Halsydrus Pontoppidani_) cast ashore in Stronsa in October last; with remarks illustrative of the meaning of some passages in these affidavits.”

The above-mentioned communication of Dr. JOHN BARCLAY was printed in 1811 in the first Volume of the _Memoirs of the Wernerian Society_, and contains a detailed description of some vertebrae of the animal. The figures of these vertebrae are splendid, also those of the dried and shrivelled skull and a portion of one of the pectoral fins, with the cartilages that connect it with the body. As well the descriptions as the figures betray at a glance the shark nature of the animal. We will not trouble our readers with them, and we will also omit the figures, except one; it is a drawing made after the description of one of the eye-witnesses. (See our Fig. 7).

The Paper of Dr. BARCLAY was entitled: _Remarks on some parts of the animal that was cast ashore on the island of Stronsa, Sept. 1808._ The above-mentioned affidavits were also printed in 1811, in the first Volume of the _Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society_, and run as follows:

“At Kirkwall, Nov. 10. 1808.

“In presence of Dr. Robert Groat, Physician in Kirkwall, and Malcolm Laing, Esq; M. P. Two of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace of the County of Orkney.