1 66 Sea^Serpents 



persons, who really believe anything they read in print 

 which is not admittedly fiction. 



As an instance in point I may quote an experience 

 of my own. Some years ago I wrote a little yarn, 

 which was published in the Westminster Gazette, entitled 

 ' Up a Waterspout.' As I had no intention of gulling 

 anybody, I purposely wrote in a ridiculously inflated 

 style, describing my experiences while being sucked 

 up from the sea surface into the clouds and my subse- 

 quent sudden descent. It never even occurred to me 

 that any one could believe the story, it was so obviously 

 absurd. Yet to my intense amazement, when it was 

 included in a volume of sketches I afterwards published, 

 one critic gravely discussed it as if it were true, and 

 descanted upon the unique advantages of such an 

 experience. Now the critic may have been joking 

 ponderously and with ' deefeeculty,' but I do not think 

 he was. 



This, however, only by way of introduction to a 

 very difficult subject. Difficult, because it is dis- 

 tinctly unpleasant to realise, as one must do who takes 

 up the Sea-serpent question, how great is the number 

 of people who will, out of sheer wantonness, lie and 

 perjure themselves about some perfectly immaterial 

 matter like this. Any interest possessed by the Sea- 

 serpent, if it exists, can only be either scientific or 

 romantic ; it has never even been suggested that the 

 creature is dangerous or commercially valuable. Yet 

 an enormous mass of writing can be collected, written 

 by people of almost every European nation, and especi- 

 ally by Americans, whose authors have either admitted, 

 after the sensation caused by their statements has 

 died away, that they were lying for fim, or else aU 

 trace of them has been lost, they having invented 

 names and authorities as well as the serpent. 



