| The 17th. | THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 455 
“He left the Cape on the 19 of February, running with a strong 
south-easterly wind for four days. On the morning of the 24th. 
the ship was becalmed in latitude 26° South, longitude 8° East, 
being about forty miles from the place in which Captain M’Quhae, 
R. N., is said to have seen the Great Sea-Serpent. About eight 
oclock on that morning, whilst the captam was surveying the 
calm, heavy, rippleless swell of the sea through his telescope, the 
ship at the same time heading N.N. W., he perceived something 
right abeam, about half a mile to the westward, stretched along 
the water to the length of about twenty-five or thirty feet, and 
perceptibly moving from the ship with a steady, sinuous motion. 
The head, which seemed to be lifted several feet above the waters, 
had something resembling a mane, running down to the floating 
portion, and within about six feet of the tail it forked out into a 
sort of double fin. Having read at Colombo the account of the 
monster said to have been seen by Captain M’Quhae in nearly 
the same latitude, Mr. Herriman was led to suppose that he had 
fallen in with the same animal, or one of the genus; he immediat- 
ely called his chief officer, Mr. Long, with several of the passengers, 
who, after surveying the object for some time, came to the unan- 
imous conclusion that it must be the sea-serpent seen by Captain 
M’Quhae. As the Braziian was making no headway, Mr. Herri- 
man, determining to bring all doubts to an issue, had a boat 
lowered down, and taking two hands on board, together with 
Mr. Boyd, of Peterhead, near Aberdeen, one of the passengers, 
who acted as steersman under the direction of the captain, they 
approached the monster, Captain Herriman standing on the bow 
of the boat armed with a harpoon, to commence the onslaught. 
The combat, however, was not attended with the danger which 
those on board apprehended; for on coming close to the object it 
was found to be nothing more than an immense piece of sea-weed , 
evidently detached from a coral reef, and drifting with the current, 
which sets constantly to the westward in this latitude, and which, 
together with the swell left by the subsidence of the gale, gave it 
the sinuous, snake-like motion.” 
“But fore the calm, which afforded Captain Herriman an oppor- 
tunity of examining the weed, we should have had an other “eye- 
witness” account of the great sea-serpent, — Mr. Herriman him- 
self admitting that he should have remained under the impression 
that he had seen it. What appeared to be the head, crest, and 
mane of the tmmensum volumen, was but the large root which 
