"The person who was thus so lucky as to get this unobstructed view, is one so little liable to be led astray by any imaginary impulse, that I reckon on her statement with entirely as much confidence as if my own eyes had demonstrated its truth."—Grattan's Civilised America, p. 39.
The second testimony is contained in the following communication with which I have been favoured by Mr Cave:—
35, Wilton Place, April 29, 1861.
Sir,—On reading your interesting "Romance of Natural History" it occurred to me that I could supply some corroborative evidence of the existence of the sea serpent. On looking up my old journals, I found it was slighter than I imagined; but, such as it is, I give it almost verbatim from my diary.
I was in Jamaica the year after you were, and have often regretted that we were not there together, as I might have shewn you parts of the island which you missed, and have been, perhaps, the cause of a few more pages to your very pleasant journal of a naturalist there.—Believe me, faithfully, yours,
STEPHEN CAVE,
M.P. for Shoreham.
Philip H. Gosse, Esq.
Extract from a Journal written during a Voyage to the West Indies in 1846.
Thursday, Dec. 10.—Off Madeira, on board R.M.S. "Thames."—"Made acquaintance with a Captain Christmas of the Danish navy, a proprietor in Santa Cruz, and holding some office about the Danish Court. He told me he once saw a sea-serpent between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. He was lying-to in a gale of wind, in a frigate of which he had the command, when an immense shoal of porpoises rushed by the ship, as if pursued; and, lo and behold! a creature with a neck moving like that of a swan, about the thickness of a man's waist, with a head like a horse, raised itself slowly and gracefully from the deep, and seeing the ship it immediately disappeared again, head foremost, like a duck diving. He only saw it for a few seconds; the part above the water seemed about 18 feet in length. He is a singularly intelligent man, and by no means one to allow his imagination to run away with him."