242 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



An American captain, with whom I was very 

 intimate at New York, told me that in 1836, finding 

 himself among the Bahama Islands, his vessel was 

 attacked by an enormous polyp or Kraken, which 

 seized two of his crew with its enormous arms, and 

 dragged them into the sea. Their shipmates endea- 

 voured in vain to rescue them ; but the helmsman 

 managed with a hatchet to cut off one of the arms 

 of the polyp, and this monstrous limb measured 

 twelve feet long, and was of the bigness of a man's 

 body. I have myself seen this curious specimen in 

 Mr. Barnum's Museum at New York, where it may 

 be seen (in a somewhat shrivelled state) sealed up 

 in an enormous vessel of spirits of wine. 



If any faith can be put in a votive tablet which I 

 have seen hanging against the wall of the Chapel of 

 Notre Dame de la Garde, at Marseilles, some sailors 

 were attacked by a Kraken, which |astened itself to 

 the masts of their ship and attempted to drag it 

 under water, in which endeavour it would have suc- 

 ceeded, if the sailors had not managed to cut off 

 one of its arms. 



If we refer to still more remote ages, we shall 

 find that Pliny gives a description of an enormous 

 fish which was caught on the coast of Spain, which 

 weighed more than seven thousand pounds, and the 

 arms of which were so big that a man could not 

 grasp their circumference. The exactness with 

 which these ancient accounts agree with more 



