Part 32

It is evident that a true sea-serpent visited the little fjord daily during that week, most probably in its pursuit of fish, for the sea-serpent is sufficiently known to the Norwegians, and if it had been an animal different from the common Norwegian sea-serpent, I am sure that it would not have been called a sea-serpent. It is also stated that the animal left the inlet. But the skin found afterwards was certainly nothing else but a putrified long arm or tentacle of a great calamary. The soft slimy nature of the skin sufficiently proves my hypothesis. The great calamary died in the fjord or inlet, and its long dead arm was washed ashore by the current, while the body sunk.

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=5=.--1734, July 6.--The earliest account of HANS EGEDE’S encounter with the sea-serpent we find in his work published in Danish at Kopenhagen in 1740, entitled: “A Full and Particular Relation of his voyage to Greenland, as a Missionary, in the year 1734”.

I have not had the opportunity of consulting this work, but the passage about the sea-serpent runs most probably as follows:

“Anno 1734, July. On the 6th. appeared a very terrible sea-animal, which raised itself so high above the water, that its head reached above our main-top. It had a long sharp snout, and blew like a whale, had broad, large flappers, and the body was, as it were, covered with a hard skin, and it was very wrinkled and uneven on its skin; moreover on the lower part it was formed like a snake, and when it went under water again, it cast itself backwards and in so doing it raised its tail above the water, a whole ship-length from its body: That evening we had very bad weather.”

In the same year there appeared a German edition of this work, entitled Ausführliche und Wahrhafte Nachricht vom Anfange und Fortgange der Groenländischen Mission, etc., Hamburg, 1740, 4^o, which I have not been able to consult either.

I don’t know whether there is an English or a French edition. In the Illustrated London News of Oct. 28, 1848, the writer of the article Evidences of the former appearance of the Sea-Serpent translated the passage from a Danish copy of EGEDE’S Full and Particular Relation in the British Museum. Evidently he was not very well up in the Danish language, for his translation is partly incorrect. I am convinced that in the original text EGEDE does not mention the exact locality where he saw the animal. The translator tells us that it was off the south coast of Greenland, which of course is incorrect, as Greenland has no south coast. Of “sea-animal” he makes “sea-monster”, for “above our main-top” he has “on a level with our main-top”, for “it blew like a whale” he has “it blew water almost like a whale”, for “its body was as it were covered with a hard skin” he has “its body was covered with shell-fish, or scales”, and some parts are not translated at all.

In 1738 HANS EGEDE wrote a Journal of his mission, in which he did not mention the meeting, but his son PAUL EGEDE in the continuation of this Journal, entitled Continuation af Relationerne betreffende den Groenlandske Mission, Kjoebenhavn, 1741, gives a full account of it, which we have translated above word for word.

I have not had the means of consulting the German translation of this work, entitled Fortgesetzte Relationen die Groenländische Mission betreffend, Kopenhagen, 1741, so I cannot say anything about the text or figures, but the translation which I found in the German edition of PONTOPPIDAN’S Natural History of Norway is correct. Not so the English translation entitled Journal of the Mission to Greenland, 2d. Vol. There we find, according to Mr. LEE who quotes the passage in his Sea-Monsters Unmasked, first sea-monster instead of sea-animal, further, that it spouted water like a whale, instead of it blew like a whale. There is a great difference between these two expressions. A whale does not spout water as is generally believed and figured. Further, that the body seemed to be covered with scales, instead of with a hard skin or crust, for the Danish skiell or skiaell is singular, and not plural. Finally, that the tail above the water was a whole ship-length from the head instead of from the body, for the Danish Kroppen signifies “the body”. Of course I cannot say anything of the figures in this edition.

In the original Danish work of PAUL EGEDE there is a map of a part of the coast of Greenland and of the Davis’ Straits, called Baals Rivier, on which is situated the Danish Colony, the Good Hope (Gothaab). As it was generally done in those days, Mr. BING, a brother-missionary of EGEDE’S, drew on his map not only the animal but also the vessel in the sea. I give here a facsimile of the figure of the animal, without the ship. We distinctly see that the animal has rather a serpentlike form with a large head, showing formidable teeth, an eye with a heavy eye-brow, and a nostril; two flappers on the fore-part of the body, the uneven skin, and a tail ending in a point.

On the same map there is also another figure, showing the animal’s tail, after it had plunged back into the water. The tail is again figured terminating in a point.

We shall do well to observe the fact that the figure is an accurate illustration of the text with regard to the animal blowing like a whale; the breath which the animal exhales immediately after having been under water a long time, is condensed in the cold air and forms little curling clouds.

In the original Danish work of HANS EGEDE, entitled A Full and Particular Relation, etc., of which we have spoken above, there is also a figure. Though I have not had the opportunity to consult this work, I am thoroughly convinced, that the map of Baals Rivier with the two figures of the animal are quite the same, true facsimiles. The above mentioned translator drew this figure on a reduced scale for his article in the Illustrated London News, and as his text is incorrect, his figure is so too, for he changed the rough skin into scales, according to his own translation. (See our fig. 21.)

Afterwards Mr. LEE in his Sea-Monsters Unmasked made use of the figure of the Illustrated London News and so gave his readers again an altered figure. For history’s sake I show here a true facsimile of the figure as it appeared in the Illustrated London News, Oct. 28, 1848, and in Mr. LEE’S Sea Monsters Unmasked, London, 1883. A reduced copy of it also appeared in the Illustrirte Zeitung of February 3, 1877.

In the Danish work of HANS EGEDE Det gamle Groenlands nye Perlustration we read: “that it was seen at 64° lat. before the colony”. “Its body was as thick as the ship and three or four times longer”. Moreover the description of the animal is the same as in PAUL EGEDE’S Continuation of the Journal.

In the German edition of this work, entitled Des alten Groenlands neue Perlustration, Copenhagen, 1742, we read: “that it was seen before the Danish Colony, the Good Hope, that it had two broad flappers on the fore-part of the body”.

In the Dutch edition, entitled: Beschrijving van Oud Groenland, Delft, 1746, the translator did not allow himself so many liberties as the English and the German translators did, but was more correct in his expressions.

In the French edition, entitled Description et histoire naturelle du Groenland, Copenhagen et Genève, 1763, the translator allowed himself the liberty to tell his readers that “when the animal, which was covered with scales, plunged back into the water, it did so with the belly turned upwards!”

In the same year appeared a second German edition (translated from the French) entitled Beschreibung und Naturgeschichte von Groenland, Berlin, 1763, in which we even read that the animal lay upon the water with its belly turned upwards when it plunged back into the water!

In many respects the figure of Mr. BING and EGEDE’S text complete each other.

Let us now have a look at both the text and the figures. We may do this most safely, being convinced of the truth of EGEDE’S words and BING’S figure. EGEDE “was a truthful, pious, and single-minded man, possessing considerable powers of observation, and a genuine love of natural history; his statements are modest, accurate, and free from exaggeration. His illustrations bear the unmistakable signs of fidelity.” (LEE, Sea-Monsters Unmasked, p. 65.)

From what has been said of the animal, seen by EGEDE, we gather that it appeared on the 6th. of July, 1734, in fine weather before the Danish Colony the Good Hope, Davis Straits, Greenland; (EGEDE says: “the following evening we had very bad weather”, so we may conclude that:) the weather was fine, when the animal was seen; it had a considerable length, say a hundred feet, and was much thicker than a snake of those dimensions would be, say some eight feet; it raised its head, its neck and the fore-part of its trunk high above the surface of the water, it had a long, sharp snout, it blew like a whale (the breath of an animal as large as a whale must of course have been distinctly visible in those cold regions; I also wish to fix the reader’s attention on the figure where the animal is not spouting a stream of water, but where its breath is condensed by the cold, and forms little curling clouds of vapour). It had broad and large flappers. EGEDE does not say: it had broad flappers on the forepart of the trunk; as Egede does not state that the figure, made by Mr. BING aboard his ship, directly after the appearance of the animal, is not truthful, we must consider it as being correct; so the animal had two large and broad flappers on the fore-part of the trunk. The body seemed to be covered with a hard skin. For truth’s sake EGEDE wrote seemed, which is well done; for a hard skin or crust would not have been wrinkled when the animal bends its body. Like all known air-breathing sea-animals of those dimensions the animal must of course have had under its skin a relatively thick layer of bacon, and I myself have often seen that the skin of sea-lions and seals wrinkled, when the animal bent its body in such a manner as the Sea-Serpent of EGEDE did. And we shall afterwards repeatedly see that the sea-serpent has no scales but a smooth skin, as seals have. And if the animal could have scales, they would be very large ones, considering its colossal dimensions, in which case it must have been easy to see the scales from a distance, though they were wet with the water; but I can hardly believe that one can say of an animal, seen at some distance and quite wet and shining with the water, whether it has a crust or a soft skin. The latter has been the case, for the animal showed wrinkles when bending its body. Its lower part was formed like that of a snake, by which EGEDE evidently means to say that it was perfectly round and tapered to the end of the tail, and that he did not see any appendages (which does not exclude their presence, for the middle part of the body remained invisible, hidden by the water). The creature plunged backwards into the water. It evidently has a considerable flexibility, as is also shown in the figure. Consequently it cannot have been a snake, which has no dorso-ventral flexibility, nor a gigantic calamary, as Mr. LEE thinks, which has no flexibility at all! It had a very flexible, long tail, almost one half of the length of its body, which was distinctly seen by EGEDE and figured by Mr. BING. The tail of the animal, being of a considerable length, tapered in a point, and had no caudal fins, neither horizontal nor vertical ones. The figure shows an eye with a heavy eye-brow, a nostril, and teeth; the flappers have external visible fingers, as sea-lions have; those of porpoises and dolphins are without them. Afterwards we shall more than once have occasion to observe that the sea-serpent’s head is drawn by BING too large, and the neck too short.

Mr. LEE says in his frequently quoted work Sea-Monsters Unmasked, “The sea-monster seen by EGEDE was of an entirely different kind” (viz. from those mentioned by MAGNUS and PONTOPPIDAN). I am of the opinion that if Mr. LEE had written: The sea-monster seen by EGEDE was the same, but seen in an entirely different position, condition and direction, he would have been nearer the truth; for careful inquiry has shown me that the sea-serpents of MAGNUS and PONTOPPIDAN are the same as those which still appear in the Norwegian seas, and those have all the characters of EGEDE’S animal. Moreover we saw that the animal, mentioned in our accounts 1, 2, 3 and 4, and according to the descriptions of MAGNUS and GESNER had the following characteristics: 1. It raises itself out of the water to a considerable height. 2. It swims with vertical undulations. 3. It has an enormous length, probably upwards of a hundred feet. 4. It is much thicker than a snake of the same length would be. 5. It has a row of hairs hanging down from its neck. 6. Its colour is dark. 7. Its eyes are brilliant and flaming. 8. Its food consists of squids, cuttles, crabs and lobsters. 9. It is harmless, if not provoked. 10. It appears in fine weather. 11. It can stretch itself in a straight line.--Of these facts the 1st., 3d., 4th., and 10th. are stated by EGEDE; he could not mention the 2d., 8th., and 11th., because he did not see the animal swimming or eating. Most probably he could not see the 5th., because he did not see the animal on its back, but as the figure shows, somewhat on its belly and somewhat from aside; moreover there are individuals without a mane. EGEDE says nothing of its colour, its eyes, its harmlessness. Its colour was evidently a dark brown one, the common colour of large sea-animals, else he would have called it brilliant white, or green, or red. The eyes are figured by BING, though not described by EGEDE, but in PONTOPPIDAN’S work we read in a note to Chapt. VIII, § 7, that Mr. BING mentioned to his brother-in-law, Parson SYLOW, at Hougs in the parish of Bergen, that the eyes seemed to be reddish and like a burning fire. So its harmlessness is the only fact we cannot derive with certainty from EGEDE’S account.

PONTOPPIDAN relating EGEDE’S observation of the monster gives a copy of Mr. BING’S figure, but as often occurred in those days, it is not copied with great accuracy, and BING’S drawing has been altered by PONTOPPIDAN so as to give quite another figure. (Our fig. 22 is a facsimile of that of the German edition.) Mr. BING was right in figuring the vaporous breath of the animal, and PONTOPPIDAN changes it wrongly into a waterspout of more than 100 feet long! PONTOPPIDAN is convinced, when seeing BING’S figure, that there are several species of sea-serpents, all belonging to the same genus. I do not wish to discuss this point.

Still more exaggerated is the figure of JARDINE’S Naturalist’s Library, or rather that which Dr. R. HAMILTON presents to his readers. He makes of it a serpentine dragon which has also the power of spouting a splendid set of water some twenty feet high, a water-mass equalling nearly half the volume of the animal’s body!

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In his Essay towards a Natural History of Serpents, 1742, Mr. OWEN repeats only (p. 14, and p. 143) the tales and reports of OLAUS MAGNUS and GESNER.

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