Part 4 (1/2)
”Bergen, 21st February, 1751.
”After this the before-named witnesses gave their corporal oaths, and, with their finger held up according to law, witnessed and confirmed the aforesaid letter or declaration, and every particular set forth therein to be strictly true. A copy of the said attestation was made out for the said Procurator Reutz, and granted by the Recorder. That this was transacted in our court of justice we confirm with our hand and seals. _Actum Bergis die et loco, ut supra._
”A. C. Da.s.s (_Chief Advocate_).
”H. C. GARTNER (_Recorder_).”
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--PONTOPPIDAN'S ”SEA SERPENT.”]
The figure of the sea-serpent (Fig. 14) given by Pontoppidan was drawn, he tells us, under the inspection of a clergyman, Mr. Hans Strom, from descriptions given of it by two of his neighbours, Messrs. Reutz and Teuchsen, of Herroe; and was declared to agree in every particular with that seen by Captain de Ferry, and another subsequently observed by Governor Benstrup. The supposed coils of the serpent's body present exactly the appearance of eight porpoises following each other in line.
This is a well-known habit of some of the smaller cetacea. They are often met with at sea thus proceeding in close single file, part only of their rotund forms being visible as they raise their backs above the surface of the water to inhale air through their ”blow-holes.” Under these circ.u.mstances they have been described by naturalists and seamen as resembling a long string of casks or buoys, often extending for sixty, eighty, or a hundred yards. This is just such a spectacle as that described by Olaus Magnus--his ”long line of spherical convolutions,”
and also as one reported to Pontoppidan as being descriptive of the sea-serpent:--
”'I have been informed,' he says, 'by some of our sea-faring men that a cable[27] would not be long enough to measure the length of some of them when they are observed on the surface of the water in an even line. They say those round lumps or folds sometimes lie one after another as far as a man can see. I confess, if this be true, that we must suppose most probably that it is not one snake, but two or more of these creatures lying in a line that exhibit this phenomenon.' In a foot-note he adds: 'If any one enquires how many folds may be counted on a sea-snake, the answer is that the number is not always the same, but depends upon the various sizes of them: five and twenty is the greatest number that I find well attested.'
Adam Olearius, in his Gottorf Museum, writes of it thus: 'A person of distinction from Sweden related here at Gottorf that he had heard the burgomaster of Malmoe, a very worthy man, say that as he was once standing on the top of a very high hill, towards the North Sea, he saw in the water, which was very calm, a snake, which appeared at that distance to be as thick as a pipe of wine, and had twenty-five folds. Those kind of snakes only appear at certain times, and in calm weather.'”
[27] Six hundred feet.
I believe that in every case so far cited from Pontoppidan, as well as that given by Olaus Magnus, the supposed coils or protuberances of the serpent's body, were only so many porpoises swimming in line in accordance with their habit before mentioned. If an upraised head, like that of a horse, was seen preceding them, it was either unconnected with them, or it certainly was not that of a snake; for no serpent could throw its body into those vertical undulations. The form of the vertebrae in the ophidians renders such a movement impossible. All their flexions are horizontal; the curving of their body is from side to side, not up and down.
The sea-monster seen by Egede was of an entirely different kind; and his account of it--let sceptics deride it as they may--is worthy of attention and careful consideration. The Rev. Hans Egede, known as ”The Apostle of Greenland,” was superintendent of the Christian missions to that country. He was a truthful, pious, and single-minded man, possessing considerable powers of observation, and a genuine love of natural history. He wrote two books on the products, people, and natural history of Greenland,[28] and his statements therein are modest, accurate, and free from exaggeration. His ill.u.s.trations are little, if at all, superior in style of art to the two j.a.panese wood-cuts shown on page 29, but they bear the same unmistakable signs of fidelity which characterise those of the j.a.panese.
[28] 'Des alten Gronlands neue Perl.u.s.tration,' 8vo., Frankfurt, 1730, and 'Det Gamle Gronlands nye perl.u.s.tratione eller Naturel Historie.' 4to., Copenhagen, 1741.
In his 'Journal of the Missions to Greenland' this author tell us that--
”On the 6th of July, 1734, there appeared a very large and frightful sea monster, which raised itself so high out of the water that its head reached above our main-top. It had a long, sharp snout, and spouted water like a whale; and very broad flappers. The body seemed to be covered with scales, and the skin was uneven and wrinkled, and the lower part was formed like a snake. After some time the creature plunged backwards into the water, and then turned its tail up above the surface, a whole s.h.i.+p-length from the head.
The following evening we had very bad weather.”
The high character of the narrator would lead us to accept his statement that he had seen something previously unknown to him (he does not say it was a sea-serpent) even if we could not explain or understand what it was that he saw. Fortunately, however, the sketch made by Mr.
Bing, one of his brother missionaries, has enabled us to do this. We must remember that in his endeavour to portray the incident he was dealing with an animal with the nature of which he was unacquainted, and which was only partially, and for a very short time, within his view. He therefore delineated rather the impression left on his mind than the thing itself. But although he invested it with a character that did not belong to it, his drawing is so far correct that we are able to recognise at a glance the distorted portrait of an old acquaintance, and to say unhesitatingly that Egede's sea-monster was one of the great calamaries which have since been occasionally met with, but which have only been believed in and recognised within the last few years. That which Mr. Egede believed to be the creature's head was the tail part of the cuttle, which goes in advance as the animal swims, and the two side appendages represent very efficiently the two lobes of the caudal fin.
In propelling itself to the surface the squid raised this portion of its body out of the water to a considerable height, an occurrence which I have often witnessed, and which I have elsewhere described (see pp. 23 and 27). The supposed tail, which was turned up at some distance from the other visible portion of the body, after the latter had sunk back into the sea, was one of the shorter arms of the cuttle, and the suckers on its under side are clearly and conspicuously marked. Egede was, of course, in error in making the ”spout” of water to issue from the mouth of his monster. The out-pouring jet, which he, no doubt, saw, came from the locomotor tube, and the puff of spray which would accompany it as the orifice of the tube rose to the surface of the water is sketched with remarkable truthfulness. In quoting Egede, Pontoppidan gives a copy (so-called) of this engraving, but his artist embellished it so much as to deprive it of its original force and character, and of the honestly drawn points which furnish proofs of its ident.i.ty.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15--THE ANIMAL DRAWN BY MR. BING AS HAVING BEEN SEEN BY HANS EGEDE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16.--THE ANIMAL WHICH EGEDE PROBABLY SAW.]
Pontoppidan records other supposed appearances of the sea-serpent, but from the date of his history I know of no other account of such an occurrence until that of an animal ”apparently belonging to this cla.s.s,”
which was stranded on the Island of Stronsa, one of the Orkneys, in the year 1808:--
”According to the narrative, it was first seen entire, and measured by respectable individuals. It measured fifty-six feet in length, and twelve in circ.u.mference. The head was small, not being a foot long from the snout to the first vertebra; the neck was slender, extending to the length of fifteen feet. All the witnesses agree in a.s.signing it blow-holes, though they differ as to the precise situation. On the shoulders something like a bristly mane commenced which extended to near the extremity of the tail. It had three pairs of fins or paws connected with the body; the anterior were the largest, measuring more than four feet in length, and their extremities were something like toes partially webbed. The skin was smooth and of a greyish colour; the eye was of the size of a seal's. When the decaying carca.s.s was broken up by the waves, portions of it were secured (such as the skull, the upper bones of the swimming paws, &c.) by Mr. Laing, a neighbouring proprietor, and some of the vertebrae were preserved and deposited in the Royal University Museum, Edinburgh, and in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. An able paper,” says Dr. Robert Hamilton, in his account of it,[29] ”on these latter fragments and on the wreck of the animal was read by the late Dr. Barclay to the Wernerian Society, and will be found in Vol. I. of its Transactions, to which we refer. We have supplied a wood-cut of the sketch” (of which I give a _facsimile_ here) ”which was taken at the time, and which, from the many affidavits proffered by respectable individuals, as well as from other circ.u.mstances narrated, leaves no manner of doubt as to the existence of some such animal.”
[29] Jardine's Naturalists' Library: 'Marine Amphibia,' p. 314.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 17.--THE ”SEA SERPENT” OF THE WERNERIAN SOCIETY.
(_Facsimile._)]
Well! one would think so. It looks convincing, and there is a savour of philosophy about it that might lull the suspicions of a doubting zoologist. What more could be required? We have accurate measurements and a sketch taken of the animal as it lay upon the sh.o.r.e, minute particulars of its outward form, characteristic portions of its skeleton preserved in well-known museums, and any amount of affidavits forthcoming from most respectable individuals if confirmation be required. And yet,