THE SEA SERPENT QUESTION REVIVED. im 



they spoke in good faith. The creature (which resembles a huge salaman- 

 der, only instead of being about six or eight inches long, these dimensions 

 must be multiplied by at least seventy-five or one hundred, the body being 

 from forty-five to fifty feet in length, the head twelve feet, and the tail, it i& 

 said, no less than 150 feet), was first seen at 10:30 on the 11th of September,, 

 fifteen miles northwest of the North Sand Lighthouse, in the Straits of Ma- 

 lacca. The weather was fine, the sea smooth, and the air perfectly clear^ 

 The Chinese on deck were terribly alarmed and set up a howl. The whole 

 watch and three saloon passengers saw the creature clearly and observed 

 its movements. It traveled for a long time about as fast as the steamer,- 

 appearing to paddle itself by the help of ' an undulatory motion of its tail 

 in a vertical plane.' The body and tail were marked as those of the sala- 

 mander are marked — with alternate bands, black and pale yellow in color.. 

 'The head was immediately connected with the body, without any indica- 

 tion of a neck.' Both witnesses state positively that the only resemblance 

 was to some creature of the frog or newt kind, while one of them (the sur- 

 geon) says the longer he observed it the more' he was struck with its re- 

 semblance to a gigantic salamander. Its back was oval in form. No eyes 

 or fins were seen, and it did not blow or spout in the manner of a whale. 

 The greater part of its head was never seen, being beneath the surface." 



The New York Graphic publishes a very remarkable letter, dated Hon- 

 olulu, January 8, 1877, giving an account of an attack upon the brig Alba- 

 tross, November 10, 1876, by an immense serpent, in latitude 21° 11' south 

 and longitude 122° 25' west. When first seen, the animal was about one 

 mile and a half to windward and making direct for the brig. The captain 

 ordered the guns loaded and the brig kept off a little. But the serpent 

 continued to approach rapidly and at last reached the vessel. Eaising his 

 head he struck at the windlass, without doing any harm, He was fired 

 upon and wounded, upon which the creature withdrew and disappeared. 

 The cajDtain of the Albatross describes this animal as being three feet thick 

 at the neck and about four and a half to five feet at the shoulders, with 

 large scales all over the body, immense mouth with teeth in both, jaws, the 

 top of the head rounded up high and the neck puffed out like an East India 

 cobra's. To make the story complete, the captain states that on the 12th 

 November the French bark Esperance came across a dead serpent floating 

 in the water, not far from the locality described above, which measured 

 about 45 metres in length by two metres diameter in the largest part ; was 

 covered with large scales; had no fins, but had a broad tail like a shark. 



While many of the sea serpent stories maybe classed as "fishy," enough 

 testimony of a positive and indisputable kind has been furnished to render 

 it at least probable that a few marine monsters still inhabit the sea whose 

 size warrants navigators in pronouncing them sea serpents. One of our 

 most esteemed contemporary periodicals contains an article on this subject, 

 in which the following language is used : 



"And the idea of fraud in such matters is not nearly so reasonable as- 



