The sketches referred to in the captain's letter were made under his supervision, and copies of them, of which he certified his approbation, were published in the Illustrated London News on the 28th of October, 1848. I am kindly permitted by the proprietors of that journal to reproduce two of them, reduced in size to suit these pages—one showing the relative positions of the "serpent" and the ship when the former was first seen (Frontispiece), and the other (Fig. 19) representing the animal afterwards passing under the frigate's quarter. An enlarged drawing of its head was also given, which I have not thought it necessary to copy.
Lieutenant Drummond, the officer of the watch mentioned in Captain M'Quhæ's report, published his memorandum of the impression made on his mind by the animal at the time of its appearance. It differs somewhat from the captain's description, and is the more cautious of the two.
"I beg to send you the following extract from my journal. H.M.S. 'Dædalus,' August 6, 1848, lat. 25° S., long. 9° 37' E., St. Helena 1,015 miles. In the 4 to 6 watch, at about 5 o'clock, we observed a most remarkable fish on our lee-quarter, crossing the stern in a S.W. direction. The appearance of its head, which with the back fin was the only portion of the animal visible, was long, pointed and flattened at the top, perhaps ten feet in length, the upper jaw projecting considerably; the fin was perhaps 20 feet in the rear of the head, and visible occasionally; the captain also asserted that he saw the tail, or another fin, about the same distance behind it; the upper part of the head and shoulders appeared of a dark brown colour, and beneath the under-jaw a brownish-white. It pursued a steady undeviating course, keeping its head horizontal with the surface of the water, and in rather a raised position, disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief interval, and not apparently for purposes of respiration. It was going at the rate of perhaps from twelve to fourteen miles an hour, and when nearest was perhaps one hundred yards distant; in fact it gave one quite the idea of a large snake or eel. No one in the ship has ever seen anything similar; so it is at least extraordinary. It was visible to the naked eye for five minutes, and with a glass for perhaps fifteen more. The weather was dark and squally at the time, with some sea running.—Edgar Drummond, Lieut. H.M.S. 'Dædalus;' Southampton, Oct. 28, 1848."
Statements so interesting and important, of course, elicited much correspondence and controversy. Mr. J. D. Morries Stirling, a director of the Bergen Museum, wrote to the Secretary of the British Admiralty, Captain Hamilton, R.N., saying that while becalmed in a yacht between Bergen and Sogne, in Norway, he had seen, three years previously, a large fish or reptile of cylindrical form (he would not say "sea serpent") ruffling the otherwise smooth surface of the fjord. No head was visible. This appears to have been, like the others from the same locality, a large calamary. Mr. Stirling unaware, doubtless, that Mr. Edward Newman, editor of the Zoologist, had previously propounded the same idea, suggested that the supposed serpent might be one of the old marine reptiles, hitherto supposed only to exist in the fossil state. This letter was published in the Illustrated News of October 28th, and four days afterwards, November 2nd, a letter signed F.G.S. appeared in the Times, in which the same idea was mooted, and the opinion expressed that it might be the Plesiosaurus. This brought out that great master in physiology, Professor Owen, who in a long, and, it is needless to say, most able letter to the Times, dated the 9th of November, 1848, set forth a series of weighty arguments against belief in the supposed serpent, which I regret that I am unable, from want of space, to quote in extenso. The reasoning of the most eminent of living physiologists of course had its influence on those who could best appreciate it; but, as it went against the current of popular opinion, it met with little favour from the public, and has been slurred over much too superciliously by some subsequent writers. He suggested also that the creature seen might have been a great seal, such as the leonine seal, or the sea-elephant (the head, as shown in the enlarged drawing, was wonderfully seal-like), but it was generally felt that this explanation was unsatisfactory. The nature of his criticism of the official statement will be seen from Captain M'Quhæ's reply, which was promptly given in the Times of the 21st of November, 1848, as follows:—
"Professor Owen correctly states that I evidently saw a large creature moving rapidly through the water very different from anything I had before witnessed, neither a whale, a grampus, a great shark, an alligator, nor any of the larger surface-swimming creatures fallen in with in ordinary voyages. I now assert—neither was it a common seal nor a sea-elephant, its great length and its totally differing physiognomy precluding the possibility of its being a 'Phoca' of any species. The head was flat, and not a 'capacious vaulted cranium;' nor had it a stiff, inflexible trunk—a conclusion at which Professor Owen has jumped, most certainly not justified by the simple statement, that no portion of the sixty feet seen by us was used in propelling it through the water either by vertical or horizontal undulation.
"It is also assumed that the 'calculation of its length was made under a strong preconception of the nature of the beast;' another conclusion quite contrary to the fact. It was not until after the great length was developed by its nearest approach to the ship, and until after that most important point had been duly considered and debated, as well as such could be in the brief space of time allowed for so doing, that it was pronounced to be a serpent by all who saw it, and who are too well accustomed to judge of lengths and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real substance and an actual living body, coolly and dispassionately contemplated, at so short a distance, too, for the 'eddy caused by the action of the deeper immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving gigantic seal raising its head above the surface of the water,' as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of its lost iceberg.
"The creative powers of the human mind may be very limited. On this occasion they were not called into requisition; my purpose and desire throughout being to furnish eminent naturalists, such as the learned Professor, with accurate facts, and not with exaggerated representations, nor with what could by any possibility proceed from optical illusion; and I beg to assure him that old Pontoppidan having clothed his sea-serpent with a mane could not have suggested the idea of ornamenting the creature seen from the 'Dædalus' with a similar appendage, for the simple reason that I had never seen his account, or even heard of his sea-serpent, until my arrival in London. Some other solution must therefore be found for the very remarkable coincidence between us in that particular, in order to unravel the mystery.
"Finally, I deny the existence of excitement or the possibility of optical illusion. I adhere to the statements, as to form, colour, and dimensions, contained in my official report to the Admiralty, and I leave them as data whereupon the learned and scientific may exercise the 'pleasures of imagination' until some more fortunate opportunity shall occur of making a closer acquaintance with the 'great unknown'—in the present instance most assuredly no ghost.
"P. M'Quhæ, late Captain of H.M.S. 'Dædalus.'"
Of course neither Professor Owen, nor any one else, doubted the veracity or bona fides of the captain and officers of one of Her Majesty's ships; and their testimony was the more important because it was that of men accustomed to the sights of the sea. Their practised eyes would, probably, be able to detect the true character of anything met with afloat, even if only partially seen, as intuitively as the Red Indian reads the signs of the forest or the trail; and therefore they were not likely to be deceived by any of the objects with which sailors are familiar. They would not be deluded by seals, porpoises, trunks of trees, or Brobdingnagian stems of algæ; but there was one animal with which they were not familiar, of the existence of which they were unaware, and which, as I have said, at that date was generally believed to be as unreal as the sea-serpent itself—namely, the great calamary, the elongated form of which has certainly in some other instances been mistaken for that of a sea-snake. One of these seen swimming in the manner I have described, and endeavoured to portray (p. 77), would fulfil the description given by Lieutenant Drummond, and would in a great measure account for the appearances reported by Captain M'Quhæ. "The head long, pointed and flat on the top," accords with the pointed extremity and caudal fin of the squid. "Head kept horizontal with the surface of the water, and in rather a raised position, disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief interval, and not apparently for purposes of respiration." A perfect description of the position and action of a squid swimming. "No portion of it perceptibly used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulations." The mode of propulsion of a squid—the outpouring stream of water from its locomotor tube—would be unseen and unsuspected, because submerged. Its effect, the swirl in its wake, would suggest a prolongation of the creature's body. The numerous arms trailing astern at the surface of the water would give the appearance of a mane. I think it not impossible that if the officers of the Dædalus had been acquainted with this great sea creature the impression on their mind's eye would not have taken the form of a serpent. I offer this, with much diffidence, as a suggestion arising from recent discoveries; and by no means insist on its acceptance; for Captain M'Quhæ, who had a very close view of the animal, distinctly says that "the head was, without any doubt, that of a serpent," and one of his officers subsequently declared that the eye, the mouth, the nostril, the colour, and the form were all most distinctly visible.
In a letter addressed to the Editor of the Bombay Times, and dated "Kamptee, January 3rd, 1849," Mr. R. Davidson, Superintending Surgeon, Nagpore Subsidiary Force, describes a great sea animal seen by him whilst on board the ship Royal Saxon, on a voyage to India, in 1829. The features of this incident are consistent with his having seen one of the, then unknown, great calamaries.
Dr. Scott, of Exeter, sent to the Editor of the Zoologist (p. 2459), an extract from the memorandum-book of Lieutenant Sandford, R.N., written about the year 1820, when he was in command of the merchant ship Lady Combermere. In it he mentions his having met with, in lat. 46, long. 3 (Bay of Biscay), an animal unknown to him, an immense body on the surface of the water, spouting, not unlike the blowing of a whale, and the raising up of a triangular extremity, and subsequently of a head and neck erected six feet above the surface of the water. This was evidently a great squid seen under circumstances similar to those described by Hans Egede (p. 67).
In the Sun Newspaper of July 9th, 1849, was published the following statement of Captain Herriman, of the ship Brazilian: