Part 80

“On our return the next day we were again becalmed on the north side of the opening of Lochourn, where it is about three miles wide, the day warm and sunshiny as before. As we were dragging slowly along in the afternoon the creature again appeared over towards the south side, at a greater distance than we saw it the first day. It now showed itself in three or four rather long lines, as in the sketch N^o 2, and looked considerably longer than it did the day before: as nearly as we could compute, it looked at least sixty feet in length. Soon it began careering about, showing but a small part of itself, as on the day before, and appeared to be going up Lochourn. Later in the afternoon, when we were still becalmed in the mouth of Lochourn, and by using the oars had nearly reached the Island of Sandaig, it came rushing past us about a hundred and fifty yards to the south, on its return from Lochourn. It went with great rapidity, its black head only being visible through the clear sea, followed by a long trail of agitated water. As it shot along, the noise of its rush through the water could be distinctly heard on board. There were no organs of motion to be seen, nor was there any shower of spray as on the day before, but nearly such a commotion in the sea as its quick passage might be expected to make. Its progress was equable and smooth, like that of a log towed rapidly. For the rest of the day, as we worked our way home northwards through the Sound of Sleat, it was occasionally within sight of us until night fall, rushing about at a distance, as before, and showing only its head and a small part of its body on the surface. It seemed on each day to keep about us, and as we were always then rowing, we were inclined to think it might perhaps be attracted by the measured sound of the oars. Its only exit in this direction to the north was by the narrow Strait of Kylerhea, dividing Skye from the mainland, and only a third of a mile wide, and we left our boat, wondering whether the strange creature had gone that way or turned back again to the south.”--

“We have only to add to this narration of what we saw ourselves the following instances of its being seen by other people, of the correctness of which we have no doubt:

“The ferrymen on each side of Kylerhea saw it pass rapidly through on the evening of the 21st., and heard the rush of the water: they were surprised, and thought it might be a shoal of porpoises, but could not comprehend their going so quickly.”

“Finlay Macrae, of Bundaloch, in the parish of Kintail, was within the mouth of Lochourn on the 21st., with other men in his boat, and saw the creature at about the distance of one hundred and fifty yards.”

“Two days after we saw it, Alexander Macmillan, boat-builder at Dornie, was fishing in a boat in the entrance of Lochduich, halfway between Druidag and Castledonan, when he saw the animal near enough to hear the noise and see the ripple it made in rushing along in the sea. He says, that what seemed its head was followed by four or more lumps, or “half-rounds”, as he calls them, and that they sometimes rose and sometimes sank all together. He estimated its length as not less than sixty and eighty feet. He saw it also in two subsequent days in Lochduich. On all these occasions his brother Farquhar was with him in the boat, and they were both much alarmed and pulled to the shore in great haste.”

“A lady at Duisdale, in Skye, a place overlooking the part of the Sound which is opposite the opening of Lochourn said that she was looking out for the glass when she saw a strange object on the sea which appeared like eight seals in a row. This was just about the time we saw it.”

“We were also informed that about the same time it was seen from the island of Eigg, between Eigg and the mainland about twenty miles to the south-west of the opening of Lochourn.”

“We have not permission to mention the names in these two last instances.”

“John Macrae”

“David Twopeny”

“P. S. The writers of the above account scarcely expect the public to believe in the existence of the creature which they saw. Rather than that, they look for the disbelief and ridicule to which the subject always gives rise, partly on account of the animal having been pronounced to be a snake, without any sufficient evidence, but principally because of the exaggerations and fables with which the whole subject is beset. Nevertheless they consider themselves bound to leave a record of what they saw, in order that naturalists may receive it as a piece of evidence, or not, according to what they think it is worth. The animal will very probably turn up on these coasts again, and it will be always in that “dead season”, so convenient to editors of newspapers, for it is never seen but in the still warm days of summer or early autumn. There is a considerable probability that it has visited the same coasts before. In the summer of 1871 some large creature was seen for some time rushing about in Lochduich, but it did not show itself sufficiently for any one to ascertain what it was. Also some years back a well-known gentleman of the west coast, now living, was crossing the Sound of Mull, from Mull to the mainland, “on a very calm afternoon, when”, as he writes, “our attention was attracted to a monster which had come to the surface not more than fifty yards to our boat. It rose without causing the slightest disturbance of the sea, or making the slightest noise, and floated for some time on the surface, but without exhibiting its head or tail, showing only the ridge of the back, which was not that of a whale, or any other sea-animal that I had ever seen. The back appeared sharp and ridgelike, and in colour very dark, indeed black, or almost so. It rested quietly for a few minutes, and then dropped quietly down into the deep, without causing the slightest agitation. I should say that above forty feet of it, certainly not less, appeared on the surface.” It should be noticed that the inhabitants of that western coast are quite familiar with the appearance of whales, seals and porpoises, and when they see them, they recognize them at once. Whether the creature which pursued Mr. Maclean’s boat off the Island of Coll in 1808, and of which there is an account in the Transactions of the Wernerian Society (Vol. I, p. 442), was one of these Norwegian animals, it is not easy to say. Survivors who knew Mr. Maclean say that he could quite be relied upon for truth.”

“The public are not likely to believe in the creature till it is caught, and that does not seem likely to happen just yet, for a variety of reasons,--one reason being that it has, from all the accounts given of it, the power of moving very rapidly. On the 20th., while we were becalmed in the mouth of Lochourn, a steam launch slowly passed us, and, as we watched it, we reckoned its rate at five or six miles an hour. When the animal rushed past us on the next day at about the same distance, and when we were again becalmed nearly in the same place, we agreed that it went quite twice as fast as the steamer, and we thought that its rate could not be less then ten or twelve miles an hour. It might be shot but would probably sink. There are three accounts of its being shot at in Norway; in one instance it sank, and in the other two it pursued the boats, which were near the shore, but disappeared when it found itself getting into shallow water.”

“It should be mentioned that when we saw this creature and made our sketches of it, we had never seen Pontoppidan’s “Natural History”, or his print of the Norwegian sea-serpent, which has a most striking resemblance to the first of our own sketches. Considering the great body of reasonable Norwegian evidence, extending through a number of years, which remains after setting aside fables and exaggerations, it seems surprising that no naturalist of that country has ever applied himself to make out something about the animal. In the meantime, as the public will most probably be dubious about quickly giving credit to our account, the following explanations are open to them, all of which have been proposed to me, viz:--porpoises, lumps of sea-weed, empty herring-barrels, bladders, logs of wood, waves of the sea, and inflated pig-skins; but as all these theories present to our minds greater difficulties than the existence of the animal itself, we feel obliged to decline them.”

“D. Twopeny.”

We observe at a glance that the figures show nearly exactly the same outlines as the figure of Mr. BENSTRUP (fig. 24). The reappearing and disappearing of the animal is well pictured and evidently recalls to my readers’ mind the “sinking down like a rock” of American reports. The reader will observe that the appearance took place nearly in the same locality as that of 1808, June (n^o. 31, 32). Moreover we need not add anything to the unvarnished reports. As to the appearances of the large creatures in 1871 and “some years back”, communicated in the post-scriptum, their descriptions, are too vague for me to see in them sea-serpents.--The fin striking up at a little distance from the head, of course, was one of the animal’s fore-flappers.--

* * * * *

Mr. EDWARD NEWMAN, the Editor of the Zoologist, who first was a firm believer in the sea-serpent, and expressed his opinion that it might be a still living Plesiosaurus or an animal closely allied to it, and who afterwards evidently wavered in his opinion, after his description of the Regalecus Jonesii, a ribband-fish, (see above p. 319), now suddenly adds to the evidences of the Rev. JOHN MACRAE and the Rev. DAVID TWOPENY, the following note:

“I have long since expressed my firm conviction that there exists a large marine animal unknown to us naturalists; I maintain this belief as firmly as ever. I totally reject the evidence of published representations; but do not allow their imaginary figures to interfere with a firm conviction, although I admit their tendency is always in that direction: the figures and exaggerated descriptions of believers are far more damaging to a faith in such an animal than the arguments, the ridicule on the explanatory guesses of unbelievers. The guess that a little seal was magnified by Captain M’Quhae into a monster several hundred feet in length is simply incredible: we smile at the conceit, and that is all.”

So he is again converted into a firm believer, but he does not now express any supposition as to the kind of animal that it may be.

* * * * *

=141=, =142=, =143=.--1873, November 16?, 17?, 18?--I have not been able to get a sight at the Times of Nov. 20th. of this year, but I have found an extract from an account in it, in the Zoologist of December of that year, p. 3804, running as follows:

“Mr. Joass, an eye-witness, writing in the Times of November 20, says, “the ears seemed to be diaphanous and nearly semicircular flaps or valves over-arching the nostrils, which were in front. The cavity of the eye appeared to be considerably further back, and a peculiar glimmer in it, along with the sudden disappearance of the creature, presented, indeed, the only signs of its vitality, as far as I could see, while I watched it for half an hour, apparently drifting with the rising tide, but always keeping about the same distance off shore ..... Dr. Soutar and I are more or less familiar with the forms of the porpoise, seal, halibut, conger, and even shark, both in and out of the water.”

In the same journal and on the same page we read the following “Extract from a letter from Mr. Joass, of Golspie, to the Rev. John Macrae, of Glenelg:”

“On Thuesday afternoon last, lady Florence Leveson Gower and the Hon. Mrs. Coke, driving near the sea, about eight miles east from Dunrobin, saw what seemed to them a large and long marine animal; on Wednesday morning Dr. Soutar, of Golspie, saw a large creature rushing about in the sea. about fifty yards from shore: it frequently raised what seemed a neck seven feet out of the water, and from the length of troubled water behind it appeared to be fifty or sixty feet long. He said to his family on meeting them at breakfast, “If I believed in sea-serpents, I should say I had seen one this morning”. I may mention that this gentleman is a most trustworthy observer and cautious man. On Thursday I saw what seemed some drift sea-weed. When your report was published Dr. Tayler, the author of “Thanatophidia of India” was at the castle; I asked him what he thought of the matter, and he said he was quite prepared to believe in such a monster. Mr. Vernon Harcourt told me that he was in a small yacht off Glenelg on the evening of the day mentioned in your report, and about six miles from the locality and that he and his crew saw what seemed a great moving mass, which, but for some engagement or the lateness of the hour, they would have examined.”

It is evident that the greater part of the account of the Times is not reprinted in the Zoologist.

The above given descriptions are poor, giving no approximative measurements of the diameter of the neck, &c.

This is the only appearance of the animal on the eastern coasts of Great Britain!

Again I am obliged to express my astonishment that Mr. NEWMAN does not mention any date, neither of the appearances, nor of Mr. JOASS’ letter.