92 
SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 
London. I have no desire to force this narrative of the 
master and crew of the Pauline into conformity with any- 
preconceived idea. They may have seen a veritable sea- 
serpent ; or they may have witnessed the amours of two 
whales, and have seen the great creatures rolling over and 
over that they might breathe alternately by the blow-hole 
of each coming to the surface of the water ; or the supposed 
coils of the snake may have been the arms of a great 
calamary, cast over and around the huge cetacean. The 
other two appearances — ist, the animal "seen shooting 
itself along the surface with head and neck raised " (p. 77), 
and 2nd, the elevation of the body to a considerable height, 
as in Egede's sea monster, (p. 67), would certainly accord 
with this last hypothesis ; but, taking the statement as it 
stands, it must be left for further elucidation. 
On the 28th of January, 1879, a "sea-serpent" was seen 
from the s.s. City of Baltimore, in the Gulf of Aden, by 
Major H. W. J. Senior, of the Bengal Staff Corps. The 
narrator "observed a long, black object darting rapidly in 
and out of the water, and advancing nearer to the vessel. 
The shape of the head was not unlike pictures of the 
dragon he had often seen, with a bull-dog expression of the 
forehead and eyebrows. When the monster had drawn its 
head sufficiently out of the water, it let its body drop, as it 
were a log of wood, prior to darting forward under the 
water. This motion caused a splash of about fifteen feet 
in length on either side of the neck much in the ' shape 
of a pair of wings.' " This last particular of its appearance, 
as well as its movements, suggest a great calamary ; but, 
as one with " a bull-dog expression of eyebrow, visible at 
500 yards distance," does not come within my ken, I will 
not claim it as such. 
In June 1877 Commander Pearson reported to the 
