A Sea-Serpent, judged to be of the length of about eighty feet, was seen by a party of British officers, in Margaret’s Bay, whilst crossing from Halifax to Mahone Bay, on 15th May 1833.
In 1847 a Sea-Serpent was seen frequently, in the neighbourhood of Christiansand and Molde, by many persons, and by one Lars Johnöen, fisherman at Smolen, especially. He said that one afternoon, in the dog-days, when sitting in his boat, he saw it twice in the course of two hours, and quite close to him. It came, indeed, to within six feet of him, and, becoming alarmed, he commended his soul to God, and lay down in the boat, only holding his head high enough to enable him to observe the monster. It passed him, disappeared, and returned; but a breeze springing up, it sank, and he saw it no more. He described it as being about six fathoms (thirty-six feet) long, the body (which was as round as a serpent’s) two feet across, the head as long as a ten-gallon cask, the eyes round, red, sparkling, and about five inches in diameter; close behind the head, a mane, like a fin, commenced along the neck, and spread itself out on both sides, right and left, when swimming. The mane, as well as the head, was of the colour of mahogany. The body was quite smooth, its movements occasionally fast and slow. It was serpent-like, and moved up and down. The few undulations which those parts of the body and tail that were out of water made, were scarce a fathom in length. His account was confirmed by several people of position, a Surgeon, a
Rector, and a Curate, being among those who had seen a Sea-Serpent.
But an appearance of the Sea-Serpent, without doubt, is most satisfactorily attested by the captain and officers of H.M.S. Dædalus. The first notice of it was in the Times of 10th October 1848, in which was a paragraph, dated 7th October, from Plymouth:—
“When the Dædalus frigate, Captain M‘Quhæ, which arrived here on the 4th inst., was on her passage home from the East Indies, between the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena, her captain, and most of her officers and crew, at four o’clock one afternoon, saw a Sea-Serpent. The creature was twenty minutes in sight of the frigate, and passed under her quarter. Its head appeared about four feet out of the water, and there was about sixty feet of its body in a straight line on the surface. It is calculated that there must have been under water a length of thirty or forty feet more, by which it propelled itself at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. The diameter of the exposed part of the body was about sixteen inches; and when it extended its jaws, which were full of large jagged teeth, they seemed sufficiently capacious to admit of a tall man standing upright between them. The ship was sailing north at the rate of eight miles an hour. The Dædalus left the Cape of Good Hope on the 30th of July, and reached St. Helena on the 16th of August.”
Captain M‘Quhæ sent the following letter to Admiral Sir W. H. Gage, G.C.H., at Devonport:—
“Her Majesty’s Ship Dædalus, Hamoaze,
Oct. 11, 1848.“Sir,—In reply to your letter of this day’s date, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in the Times newspaper, of a Sea-Serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from Her Majesty’s Ship Dædalus, under my command, on her passage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at five o’clock P.M., on the 6th of August last, in latitude 24° 44′ S. and longitude 9° 22′ E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the N.W., with a long ocean swell from the S.W., the ship on the port tack heading N.E. by N., something very unusual was seen by Mr. Sartoris, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The circumstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Edgar Drummond, with whom, and Mr. William Barrett, the master, I was at the time walking the quarter-deck. The ship’s company were at supper.
“On our attention being called to the object, it was discovered to be an enormous Serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea; and, as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it with the length of what our maintopsail-yard would show in the water, there was, at the very least, sixty feet of the animal à fleur d’eau, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that, had it been a man of my acquaintance, I should have easily recognised his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the S.W., which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.
“The diameter of the Serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake; and it was never, during the twenty minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses, once below the surface of the water. Its colour, a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of seaweed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and officers above mentioned.
“I am having a drawing of the Serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s post.—I have, &c.,
Peter M‘Quhæ, Captain.”
Space will not allow me to chronicle all the other appearances of Sea-Serpents from 1848 to the present time. Suffice it to say, they are not very uncommon, and as for veracity, I will give another instance of its being seen on board the Royal Yacht Osborne, on 2nd June 1877, off Cape Vito, Sicily. Lieutenant Haynes made sketches, and wrote a description, of it, which was confirmed by the Captain and several officers. He wrote:—