Dr Hooker states further, that the description precisely accorded with that of a serpent seen five years before by Captain Bennet of Boston. At a later period, three officers in Her Majesty's service—namely, Captain Sullivan, Lieutenant Maclachlan, and Ensign Malcolm of the Rifle Brigade—beheld a similar creature gambolling in the sea near Halifax; but they asserted that it was at least one hundred and eighty feet in length, and thicker than the trunk of a moderately sized tree. Nor must we forget the official account which was transmitted in 1848 to the Lords of the Admiralty, by Captain Peter M'Quhae of Her Majesty's ship Dædalus, past which, he and his crew saw the great sea-serpent swimming merrily—a document which produced, or provoked, a learned paper in the Westminster Review; while Professor Owen asserted that what was seen from the deck of the Dædalus, would be nothing more than a large seal borne rapidly southward on a floe or iceberg.
Recently, the appearances of the serpent have been amusingly frequent and clearly detailed. He has been seen in the north seas and the south seas, and in many places nearer home; in the Firth of Forth, off Filey Bay and the North Foreland, off Hastings and the Isle of Arran, the Menai Strait and Prawle Point; and in 1875, a battle between it and a whale was viewed from the deck of the good ship Pauline of London, Captain Drevar, when proceeding with a cargo of coals from Shields to Zanzibar, destined for Her Majesty's ship London. When the Pauline reached the region of the trade-winds and equatorial currents, she was carried out of her course, and after a severe storm, found herself off Cape Roque, where several sperm-whales were seen playing about her. While the crew were watching them, they suddenly beheld a sight that filled every man on board with terror. Starting straight from the bosom of the deep, a gigantic serpent rose and wound itself twice in two mighty coils round the largest of the whales, which it proceeded to crush in genuine boa-constrictor fashion. In vain did the hapless whale struggle, lash the water into foam, and even bellow, for all its efforts were as nothing against the supernatural powers of its dreadful adversary, whose strength 'may be further imagined,' says a leader in the Daily Telegraph, 'from the fact that the ribs of the ill-fated fish were distinctly heard cracking one after the other with a report like that of a small cannon. Soon the struggles of the wretched whale grew fainter and fainter; its bellowings ceased, and the great serpent sank with its prey beneath the surface of the ocean.'
Its total length was estimated at fifty yards, and its aspect was allowed to be simply 'terrific.' Twice again it reared its crest sixty feet out of the water, as if meditating an attack upon the Pauline, which bore away with all her canvas spread. Her crew told their terrible story. But critics there were who averred that what they had seen was no serpent at all, but only a bottle-nosed whale attacked by grampuses!
In a letter to the London prints concerning this affair, we have another description of our old friend the serpent, as he appeared off St David's Head, to John Abes, mate of a merchantman, in 1863. 'I was the first who saw the monster, and shouted out. A terrible-looking thing it was! Seen at a little distance in the moonlight, his two eyes appeared about the size of plates, and were very bright and sparkling.' All on board thought his length about ninety feet; but as he curled and twirled rapidly, it was a difficult matter to determine. Captain Taylor ordered him to be noosed lasso-fashion with a rope; which John Abes tells us he got on the bowsprit to throw, but in the attempt, threw himself overboard. 'The horror of my feelings at the moment I must leave you to imagine,' continues this remarkable epistle (which is dated from Totterdown, Bristol, September 19, 1875). 'The brute was then within a few yards of me, with its monstrous head and wavy body, looking ten times more terrible than it did on board the brig. I shiver even now when I think of it. Whether the noise made by throwing the ropes over to save me scared him, I cannot say; but he went down suddenly, though not more so than I came up. After a few minutes he appeared some distance from us, and then we lost him.'
When next we hear of the sea-serpent after his adventure off Cape Roque, he was beheld by the crew of no less a ship than Her Majesty's yacht the Osborne, the captain and officers of which, in June 1877, forwarded an official Report to the Admiralty, containing an account of the monster's appearance off the coast of Sicily on the 2d of that month. 'The time was five o'clock in the afternoon. The sea was exceptionally smooth, and the officers were provided with good telescopes. The monster had a smooth skin, devoid of scales, a bullet-shaped head, and a face like an alligator. It was of immense length, and along the back was a ridge of fins about fifteen feet in length and six feet apart. It moved slowly, and was seen by all the ship's officers.'
This account was further supplemented by a sketch in a well-known illustrated paper, from the pencil of Lieutenant W. P. Hynes of the Osborne, who to the above description adds, that the fins were of irregular height, and about forty feet in extent, and 'as we were passing through the water at ten and a half knots, I could only get a view of it "end on."' It was about fifteen or twenty feet broad at the shoulders, with flappers or fins that seemed to have a semi-revolving motion. 'From the top of the head to the part of the back where it became immersed, I should consider about fifty feet, and that seemed about a third of the whole length. All this part was smooth, resembling a seal.'
In the following month, the Scottish prints reported, that when the Earl of Glasgow's steam-yacht Valetta was cruising off Garroch Head, on the coast of Bute, with a party of ladies and gentlemen on board, an enormous fish or serpent, forty feet in length and about fifteen in diameter, suddenly rose from the sea. Under sail and steam the Valetta gave chase. A gentleman on board speared it with a salmon 'leister;' on which the serpent dived, and after a time reappeared with the iron part of the weapon sticking in its back. The monster scudded along for some minutes, again dived, and was not seen afterwards. There is little doubt, however, that the animal which figured in this instance was a very large basking-shark (Selache maxima).
An animal of exactly similar shape and dimensions was reported as being seen in the subsequent August by twelve persons in Massachusetts Bay; and soon after on three different occasions in the same quarter by the crew of a coasting vessel.
In May 1877, the 'sea-serpent' would seem to have shifted his quarters to the Indian Ocean, which it must be remarked is the habitat of the true sea-snakes. On the 21st of that month, in latitude 2° north and longitude 90° 53′ east, the monster was alleged to have been seen by the crew of the barque Georgina, bound from Rangoon to Falmouth. It seemed to be about fifty feet long, 'gray and yellow in colour, and ten or eleven inches thick. It was on view for about twenty minutes, during which time it crossed the bow, and ultimately disappeared under the port quarter.' A second account of this affair stated, that 'for some days previously the crew had seen several smaller serpents, of from six to ten feet in length, playing about the vessel.'
Strange as all these stories seem, it is difficult to suppose they are all quite untrue, for nautical superstition apart, we have the ready testimony of various men of education and veracity. That there is only one serpentine monster in the ocean, is an idea which the great disparity in the various descriptions would seem to contradict; and certainly the most astounding aspect presented by this supposed and most ubiquitous animal, was his form and size when seen by the officers of the Queen's yacht off the coast of Sicily; though it is somewhat singular that these gentlemen made no attempt to kill or capture the mighty fish, or whatever it was they saw.