THE KRAKEN. 
25 
to a rock or the flat bottom of a tank ; and if a large one 
happened to fix one or more of its strong, tough arms on 
the leg of a swimmer whilst the others held firmly to a rock, 
I doubt if the man could disengage himself under water 
by mere strength, before being exhausted. Fortunately 
the octopus can be made to relax its hold by grasping it 
tightly round the " throat " (if I may so call it), and it may 
be well that this should be known. 
That men are occasionally drowned by these creatures 
is, unhappily, a fact too well attested. I have else- 
where* related several instances of this having occurred. 
Omitting those, I will give two or three others which have 
since come under my notice. Sir Grenville Temple, in his 
' Excursions in the Mediterranean Sea,' tells how a Sardinian 
captain, whilst bathing at Jerbeh, was seized and drowned 
by an octopus. When his body was found, his limbs were 
bound together by the arms of the animal ; and this took 
place in water only four feet deep. 
Mr. J. K. Lord's account of the formidable strength of 
these creatures in Oregon is confirmed by an incident 
recorded in the Weekly Oregonian (the principal paper of 
Oregon) of October 6th, 1877. A few days before that 
date an Indian woman, whilst bathing, was held beneath 
the surface by an octopus, and drowned. The body was 
discovered on the following day in the horrid embrace of 
the creature. Indians dived down and with their knives 
severed the arms of the octopus and recovered the corpse. 
Mr. Clemens Laming, in his book, * The French in Al- 
giers,' writes : — " The soldiers were in the habit of bathing 
in the sea every evening, and from time to time several of 
them disappeared — no one knew how. Bathing was, in 
• See ' The Octopus ; or, the Devil-fish of Fiction and of Fact.' 
1873. Chapman and Hall. 
