fish him up with their nets. They found
him with one arm and one leg entangled in
the root of an old tree. As they were
endeavouring to disengage the body, " they
perceived a serpent of a prodigious size
fixed to the left breast, which so terrified
them that they cried out. Upon this the
monster left his prey, and after hissing in
a most terrible manner, threw himself into
the water." Pèron, in his voyage to New
Holland about the close of the last century,
soberly talks like a naturalist on the subject
of sea-serpents. He says that they "are
distinguished from land serpents by their tail,
which is flat and oar-shaped, and by their
narrower body, which resembles that of an
eel, and terminates below almost in an angle.
They are of very various and sometimes
extremely brilliant hues; some have an
uniform colour, such as grey, yellow,
green, or bluish; others have rings of
blue, white, red, green, black, &c. Some
again are marked with large spots,
disposed with less or greater regularity;
while others are distinguished by very
small specks, elegantly distributed over the
body." According to his account, these
creatures, of whatever kind they may have
been, varied from three to ten feet in
length. Faber, an Icelandic naturalist,
was making a voyage near the entrance of
the Baltic in 1829; and the man at the
helm gave him an account of a sea-serpent
which had been seen about two years
before. While fishing near Thunöe he
observed the head of a large creature lying
quite on the surface of the water, and in
close proximity to the boat. The head was
like that of a seal, though the animal
evidently did not belong to that species. A
gull flew towards the monster, and made a
pounce upon it, when the huge creature
raised its body " at least three fathoms into
the air, and made a snap at the bird, which
flew away in terror." The animal was
described as being " about twice the thickness
of a boat's mast," and as having a red
throat.

There were two English captains who
described the sea-serpent in 1848 under
circumstances of tolerably minute detail.
Her Majesty's ship Daedalus, in August of
that year, when on the passage from the
Cape of Good Hope to St. Helena, came
near a strange-looking creature which was
moving rapidly through the water against
a cross sea; with such velocity, indeed, that
the water was surging under its chest as it
passed along at the estimated rate of ten
miles an hour. Captain M'Quhae could
not bring the ship into pursuit, in the
actual state of the wind: so he and his
officers observed the animal through their
glasses. The nearest approach it made to
the ship was about two hundred yards; at
which distance the eye, mouth, nostril,
colour, and form, were distinctly visible.
Some of the officers at once called it a sea-
serpent; others deemed it to be rather of a
lizard than serpent character, for its
movement was steady and uniform, as if
propelled by fins, and not by any undulatory
power. The evidence in this case, has
always appeared to us, to be very strong,
as to the certainty of something remarkable
and answering the description, having been
indubitably seen. The other occurrence
in 1848 we shall notice presently, for a
special reason.

In 1855 the American newspapers were
busy with an account of a sea-serpent or
water-snake fifty-nine feet long, which
appeared on a lake near New York. He was
harpooned and killed with great difficulty.
The head was as large as that of a full-grown
calf; at about eight feet from the head the
thickness was twelve inches; but at about
the middle of the length the thickness
swelled to two feet. The body was tapered
off to the end, which ended in a broad fin.
Double rows of fins were placed alternately
along the belly. The eyes were large and
staring, with a transparent membrane
attached to the lids, protecting the eye
without impeding the vision. There were
no gills. The mouth could stretch so as to
take in an object half a yard in diameter.
The sides and back were dusky brown;
the belly dirty white. Although sinuous
like a snake, there were hard knot-like
protuberances along the back. Such was
the story, which it is open to us to trust or
not.

Eleven years ago, Captain Harrington
sent to the Times an extract from a journal
kept by him on board the Castilian, during
a voyage from Bombay to Liverpool: the
original journal was sent to the Board of
Trade. The extract relates to an occurrence
on the 12th of December, 1857, when the
ship was about ten miles from St. Helena;
and certainly nothing can be more like an
honest belief in the truthfulness of what he
is saying, than the following words of
Captain Harrington: " While myself and
officers were standing on the lee-side of
the poop, looking towards the island, we
were startled by the sight of a large marine
animal, which reared its head out of the
water within twenty yards of the ship;