CHAPTER IX. 



SEA-SERPENTS. 



"Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 

 Where the winds are all asleep ; 

 Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, 

 Where the salt weed sways in the stream ; 

 Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round, 

 Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground ; 

 Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, 

 Dry their mail, and bask in the brine." 



The Forsaken Merman. 



IT has been said that everything on earth has its double in the 

 water. Are there not water-beetles, water-scorpions, water-rats, 

 water-snakes, sea-lions, sea-horses, and a host of other living 

 things, whether plants or animals, bearing some sort of resem- 

 blance to others that live on land ? Then why not sea-serpents ? 

 The great controversy of the sea-serpent, that has so often been 

 discussed in the newspapers, need not be considered here. We 

 are dealing not with the present, but with the past ; and whether 

 or no the wonderful sailors' yarns of sea-serpents can be regarded 

 as authentic, even in a single case, we can offer our readers 

 infallible proof that, during the so-called "Age of Reptiles," 

 certain monstrous saurian animals flourished in considerable 

 abundance, which, though not true serpents, nevertheless must 

 have borne a striking resemblance to such, as they cleaved he 

 waters of primaeval seas. 1 



1 See an interesting little work, entitled, Sea-Monsters Unmasked, by H. 

 Lee (Clowes and Sons). Appendix II. contains some extracts therefrom. 



