290 THE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS , [N°. 1188) 
it, about ten minutes, as we were fast leaving one another on op- 
posite tacks with a freshening breeze and the sea getting up.” 
“T feel, Sir, I have already occupied more of your time and 
space than is justiable, and have the honour to remain your obed- 
lent servant , 
“An Officer of Her Majesty’s ship Daedalus.” 
Now let us run over all the prominent important particulars in 
the reports of the appearance of the sea-serpent as seen from the 
Daedalus. The first report, which appeared in the Zimes of Octo- 
ber, 9, 1848, contains the description of the mouth: “and when 
it extended its jaws, which were full of large and jagged teeth, 
they seemed sufficiently capacious to admit of a tall man standing 
upright between them.” It is not said from whom the report came, 
nor is it signed. All the details, except this last, were afterwards 
substantiated by Captain M’Qouuar himself and by Lieutenant 
Drummonp. To me it seems quite impossible that the head was 
longer than three feet; as the neck is estimated at 16 inches in 
diameter, or one foot and a third, the breadth of the head, ac- 
cording to what we already know of the relative dimensions, cannot 
have been more than about two feet, and the length not more than 
about three feet. So the jaws, when extended, may open the mouth 
to about one and a half or two feet, a space which never can 
admit “of a tall man standing upright between them!” 
The animal seen by the captain and some of the officers and 
crew of the Daedalus, was as follows: It swam with its body in 
a straight line. About sixty feet of its body were visible. Its head 
appeared to be about four feet out of the water. The part of the 
body hidden under water was estimated at thirty feet at least. 
The diameter of the neck behind the head was estimated at one 
foot and a third. When the animal opened its mouth, large jagged 
teeth were seen. “It moved with such velocity that the water was 
surging under its chest’ (read throat, for the very chest, situated 
between the foreflappers, was invisible and much farther back). 
The head and a portion of the neck (Captain M’Qunaz says, 
though without any reason, shoulders) were kept above the surface 
of the sea. The animal was, during the time it was in sight, 
never once below the surface. Lieutenant Drummonp, however, 
says: the head disappeared occasionally beneath a wave for a very 
brief interval. The colour of the animal was a dark brown, with 
yellowish white under the throat. Something like the mane of a | 
horse, or rather like a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back. 
