Water-Snake.
The Pelamys bicolor is very common from India to Otaheite. In the seas of Mindoro and Sooloo, Mr. Adams saw thousands swimming on the top of the water, especially in eddies and tide-ways where the ripple collects numerous fish and medusæ, which principally constitute their prey. Their tongue is white and forked, differing in respect of its colour from the tongue of other snakes, which is generally black. The water-snakes, which are frequently beautifully banded, and as thick as a man's leg, are said to be highly venomous. Captain Cook, in one of his voyages, "saw abundance of water-snakes, one of which was coming up the side of our ship, and our men beat it off. The Spaniards affirm there is no cure for such as are bit by them; and one of our blacks happened to fall under that misfortune, and died notwithstanding the utmost care was taken by our surgeons to recover him."
Such are the real sea-snakes as they are met with by ordinary travellers, while the great sea-serpent, which from time to time dives up in the columns of the newspapers, must, until better evidence be brought forward for its existence, be banished to those dim regions peopled by unicorns, griffins, krakens, and tailed men.
Olaus Magnus, it is true, speaks of the great sea-snake as if it made its daily appearance on the Norwegian coast. According to him, it inhabits the rocky caves near Bergen, and wanders forth at night, particularly by moonshine, to commit its depredations by sea and land; as calves and pigs seem to suit its appetite as well as fishes and lobsters. The body is covered with scales, a long mane flows along the neck, and the head, furnished with two glistening eyes, rises like a mast out of the water. It often attacks ships, and picks up seamen from the deck. This description may serve as an example of the boldness with which authors have sometimes asserted the most extravagant things.
The Greenland missionary Egede tells us in his Journal, that "on the 6th of July, 1734, there appeared a very large and frightful sea-monster, which raised itself so high out of the water that its head reached above our main-top. It had a long sharp snout, very broad flappers, and spouted water like a whale. The body seemed to be covered with scales, the skin was uneven and wrinkled, and the lower part was formed like a snake. After some time the creature plunged backwards into the water, and then turned its tail up above the surface, a whole ship-length from the head."
It is hard to disbelieve so pious and excellent a man, whose excited fancy no doubt gave extraordinary forms and dimensions to some commoner sea-animal of large size; but the testimony of a Scoresby, who during his frequent Arctic voyages never saw anything of the kind, would have been more convincing.
If to this account of Egede be added the reports of some other northern divines, such as Pontoppidan, the missionary Nicholas Græmius, and Maclean, who either pretend to have actually seen the monster or write about it from hearsay—and the testimony of a few seamen, among others of Captain M'Quhae of the Dædalus, who, on the 6th of August, 1848, saw a sea-snake on his homeward voyage from the East Indies; we have all the evidence extant in favour of the existence of the monstrous animal.
In opposition to these testimonies, incredulous naturalists beg to remark, that no museum possesses a single bone of the huge snake, and that its body has nowhere been found swimming on the ocean or cast ashore. They therefore agree with Professor Owen in regarding the negative evidence, from the utter absence of any recent remains, as stronger against their actual existence than the positive statements which have hitherto weighed with the public mind in favour of their reality; and believe that a larger body of evidence from eye-witnesses might be got together in proof of the reality of ghosts than in proof of the existence of the great sea-serpent.
The plain truth seems to be that lines of rolling porpoises, resembling a long string of buoys, first gave origin to the marvellous stories of the fabulous monster. For, keeping in close single file, and progressing rapidly along the calm surface of the water by a succession of leaps or demivaults forward, part only of their uncouth forms appears to the eye, so as to resemble the undulatory motions of one large serpentiform animal.