

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 419 



Captain Harrington, of the ship Castilian, reported in 

 the Times of February 5th, 1858, that : 



" On the 1 2th of December, 1857, N.E. end of St. Helena distant 

 ten miles, he and his officers were startled by the sight of a huge 

 marine animal which reared its head out of the water within twenty 

 yards of the ship. The head was shaped like a long nun-buoy,* and 

 they supposed it to have been seven or eight feet in diameter in the 

 largest part, with a kind of scroll or tuft of loose skin, encircling it 

 about two feet from the top. The water was discoloured for several 

 hundred feet from its head, so much so that on its first appearance my 

 impression was that the ship was in broken water." 



Evidently, again, a large calamary raising its caudal 

 extremity and fin above the surface, and discolouring the 

 water by discharging its ink. 



This was immediately followed by a letter from Captain 

 Frederick Smith, of the ship Pekin, who stated that : 



"On December 28th, 1848, being then in lat. 26 S., long. 6 

 E. (about half-way between the Cape and St. Helena), he saw a very 

 extraordinary -looking thing in the water, of considerable length. With 

 the telescope, he could plainly discern a huge head and neck, covered 

 with a shaggy -looking kind of mane, which it kept lifting at intervals 

 out of water. This was seen by all hands, and was declared to be the 

 great sea serpent. A boat was lowered ; a line was made fast to the 

 " snake,' and it was towed alongside and hoisted on board. It was a 

 piece of gigantic sea-weed, twenty feet long, and completely covered 

 with snaky-looking barnacles. So like a huge living monster did this 

 appear, that had circumstances prevented my sending a boat to it, I 

 should certainly have believed I had seen the great sea serpent." 



In September, 1872, Mr. Frank Buckland published, in 

 Land and Water, an account by the late Duke of Marl- 

 borough, of a " sea serpent " having been seen several times 

 within a few days, in Loch Hourn, Scotland. A sketch of 

 it was given which almost exactly accorded with that of 

 * See illustration, p. 393. 



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