Part 82

WILLIAM LEWARN, Steward.

HORATIO THOMPSON, Chief Officer.

J. H. LANDELLS, Second Officer.

OWEN BAKER.

“Severally declared and subscribed at Liverpool aforesaid, the tenth day of January, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven, before T. S. Raffles, J. P. for Liverpool.”

In Nature of February 10th., 1881, we read that “Captain Drevar has circulated a printed account of the conflict which he witnessed, and of the subsequent appearance of the animal rearing its long neck out of the water.”

Evidently this circular was a letter addressed by Captain DREVAR, when in Chittagong (Bengal), to the Editor of the Calcutta Englishman, in January, 1876. I have had no opportunity to consult this paper, but I have found an extract from it in the Graphic of January 27, 1877, and a partial translation of it in the Illustrirte Zeitung of Febr. 3, 1877. What I have found in the Graphic runs as follows:

“Captain GEORGE DREVAR, master of the barque Pauline, has furnished us a sketch of the Sea-Serpent (from which the annexed engraving is taken), which he encountered off the coast of South America. The occurrence took place on the 8th. July, 1875, at eleven A. M., the Pauline being at that time off Cape San Roque, lat. 5° 13′ N., long 35° W., the north-east coast of Brazil being twenty miles distant. Captain Drevar says:--The weather fine and clear, wind and sea-moderate. Observed some black spots on the water, and a whitish pillar, about thirty feet high above them. At the first glace I took all to be breakers as the sea was splashing up fountain-like about them, and the pillar a pinnacle rock, bleached with the sun; but the pillar fell with a splash, and a similar one rose. They rose and fell alternately in quick succession, and good glasses showed me it was a monstrous sea-serpent coiled twice round a large sperm-whale. The head and tail parts, each about thirty feet long were acting as levers, twisting itself and victim round with great velocity. They sank out of sight about every two minutes, coming to the surface still revolving; and the struggles of the whale and two other whales, that were near, frantic with excitement, made the sea in their vicinity like a boiling cauldron; and a loud and confused noise was distinctly heard. This strange occurrence last some fifteen minutes, and finished with the tail portion of the whale being elevated straight in the air, then waving backwards and forwards, and lashing the water furiously in the last death struggle, when the body disappeared from our view, going down head foremost to the bottom, where no doubt it was gorged at the serpent’s leisure; and that monster of monsters may have been many months in a state of coma, digesting the huge mouthful. Then two of the largest sperm-whales that I have ever seen moved slowly thence towards the vessel, their bodies more than usually elevated out of water, and not spouting or making the least noise, but seeming quite paralized with fear; indeed, a cold shiver went through my own frame on beholding the last agonizing struggle of the poor whale that had seemed as helpless in the coils of the vicious monster as a small bird in the talons of a hawk. Allowing for two coils round the whale, I think the serpent was about 160 or 170 feet long, and 7 or 8 feet in girth. It was in colour much like a conger-eel; and the head, from the mouth being always open, appeared the largest part of its body. I wrote thus far, little thinking I would ever see the serpent again, but at seven A. M., July 13, in the same latitude, and some eighty miles east of San Roque I was astonished to see the same or a similar monster. It was throwing its head and about 40 feet of its body in a horizontal position out of water as it passed onwards by the stern of our vessel.”

“This narrative is extracted from a letter addressed from Chittagong to the editor of the Calcutta Englishman in January 1876. It seems that Captain Drevar’s friends advised him to say nothing about this strange spectacle. “My relatives wrote saying that they would have seen a hundred sea-serpents and never reported it, and a lady also wrote that she pitied any one that was related to any one who had seen the sea-serpent.” On the 10th. of this month Captain Drevar and four of the crew attended before Mr. Raffles, the magistrate at Liverpool, and made a solemn declaration in support of the foregoing narrative.”

The two figures, 42 and 43, are facsimiles of those accompanying the account in the Graphic.

I will try to translate again into English, what the Illustrirte Zeitung has published about this curious case, taken for granted that the German translation was correct, and laying all responsibility on the German writer.

“The Barque Pauline was on July 8th, 1875, about twenty miles distant from the north-eastern coast of Brazil, in lat. 5° 13′ S., long. 35° W., near Cape San Roque. At 11 o’clock a. m., the weather fine and clear”....... etc., word for word as in the Graphic up to the passage....... “head foremost to the bottom, where no doubt it was gorged at the serpent’s leisure”.

“As the serpent was twice wound round the body of the whale, Captain Drevar estimated its length to be 160 or 170 feet; it was about seven or eight in girth. The mouth was always open; the head was very large.”

“On the 13th. of July at 7 o’clock a. m. the barque was still in the same latitude, but about eighty miles from San Roque; then the same or a similar monster raised out of the water. Its head and about forty feet of its body were thrown horizontally out of the water and passed our stern.”

“As I was still reflecting on the cause, why this strange guest so often paid us a visit, and concluded that it was the white stripe of two feet breadth, which went round our ship above the copper work and which the serpent probably thought to be one of its colleagues, the cry of “There he is again” roused me. At a short distance from the ship I really saw the Leviathan, balancing about sixty feet high in the air, looking angrily at our vessel. As I was not sure, whether it was only looking at the white stripe on the ship’s hull, probably thinking to see one of its colleagues, or whether it was preparing to attack the vessel, we kept ready all our axes, to give it a warm reception. But the animal dived and disappeared.”

The German translater is convinced that the story contains truth, but he suggests that the whale was playing with a large tree or with a broken mast, “for it is known that whales like to gambol with violent motions”. The author further presents to his readers a reduced copy of the sketch of the Rev. Penny, (our fig. 41).--

Mr. LEE, who usually explains every sea-serpent after each report quoted by him, says, in his Sea Monsters Unmasked, p. 90, the following about these reports.

“It is impossible to doubt for a moment the genuineness of the statement made by Captain Drevar and his crew, or their honest desire to describe faithfully that which they believed they had seen; but the height to which the snake is said to have upreared itself is evidently greatly exaggerated; for it is impossible that any serpent could “elevate its body some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air”--nearly one third of the height of the Monument of the Great Fire of London. I have no desire to force this narrative of the master and crew of the Pauline into conformity with any preconceived idea. They may have seen a veritable sea-serpent; or they may have witnessed the amours of two whales, and have seen the great creatures rolling over and over that they might breathe alternately by the blow-hole of each coming to the surface of the water; or the supposed coils of the snake may have been the arms of a great calamary, cast over and around the huge cetacean. The other two appearances--1st., the animal “seen shooting itself along the surface with head and neck raised”, and 2nd., the elevation of the body to a considerable height, as in Egede’s sea monster, would certainly accord with this last hypothesis; but taking the statement as it stands, it must be left for further elucidation”.

It is remarkable that Mr. LEE who generally explains sea-serpents by calamaries, cannot give an explanation of this sea-serpent, with which he himself is satisfied. “They may have seen a veritable sea-serpent”. This phrase is very surprising, for Mr. LEE has not yet explained what is a veritable sea-serpent. Or did he mean a veritable sea-snake? This is improbable, for he knows very well that the largest snake which frequents the sea, the Eunectes murina, does not measure above 25 feet, so that it is not able to encircle a spermwhale, whose circumference is about forty feet. “Or they may have witnessed the amours of two whales, and have seen the great creatures rolling over and over that they might breathe alternately by the blow-hole of each coming to the surface of the water”. This phrase, however, does not give any explanation of the long neck, the tail, the mouth being constantly open, the thick coils, which were coloured longitudinally, partly black, partly white, so that the captain spoke of a black back and a white belly!” “Or the supposed coils of the snake may have been the arms of a great calamary, cast over and around the huge cetacean.” This too is impossible, for the circumference of the serpent was estimated at seven or eight feet, and no arm of a calamary has a greater circumference than about sixteen inches, even that of the largest known specimens, which have a total length of eighty feet! For a moment I will leave Mr. LEE in his supposition that the animal, seen on the 13th. of July, was a swimming calamary or a similar individual standing upright with its tail in the air, and pass to his last phrase: “but, taking the statement as it stands, it must be left for further elucidation”. This, now, I will try to do. But first I beg the reader to direct his attention to the sperm-whales.

The sperm-whales may attain a length of 60 to 70 feet, with a circumference of 40 feet at the thickest part. The females are smaller, growing from 30 to 40 feet. It is reported that sometimes, though very seldom, a male measures 90 feet. The head occupies the third part of the body-length, in mass, however, it is larger, for it is quadrangular in shape and in front just as thick and high as behind, whilst the bulky body tapers to the tail. The mouth lies wholly on the under side of the head. It is a terrible cavity when opened and may be up to fourteen feet in depth. The upper-jaw is toothless, but the under-jaw has from forty to fifty four formidable teeth, comparatively as sharp as the canines of a dog.

The sperm-whales live in troops, numbering from a very few to some hundreds, and containing many females and young ones, under the command of some old males. The young males remain in this family till they are strong enough to command their own family. Some old males wander about solitary, wild and angry. To become the sole proprietor of some females, these males fight each other vehemently, and indescribably grand is the sight of two troops meeting! The wild and warlike nature and the untamable muscular strength of the sperm-whale makes its presence even dangerous. The greatest hatred exists between them and the whale-bone-whales, or the fin-fishes, or rorquals, and when a shoal of sperm-whales meets with a shoal of whale-bone-whales, the latter are immediately attacked with the greatest fury and cruelty. The fight between two such squadrons is terrible, but grand, and commonly ends in the flight of the whale-bone-whales, pursued by the sperm-whales, not, however, without leaving many dead and terribly wounded companions, on which the frightful effects are visible of the bites of the sperm-whales, animals that might be called “mouth and teeth”.

Knowing the wild and angry nature of the warlike and pitiless sperm-whale, and the rather harmless character of the sea-serpent, we cannot believe that a sea-serpent has ever or will ever attack such a formidable antagonist. Every one will rather believe that a sperm-whale, when meeting with a sea-serpent, would suddenly attack it. Moreover, if the sea-serpent was the attacker, it would not have had “its mouth always open”,--an unfailable sign of great pain--but would have bitten repeatedly the whale! And so I firmly believe that one of the three spermwhales, had seized with its colossal mouth a sea-serpent by the trunk. The poor defenseless sea-serpent with its enormous flexible body wound round the upper jaw and forepart of the quadrangular head of the sperm-whale. We know that the sea-serpent has a rather dorso-ventral flexibility, for it can swim in vertical undulations, but we know too that its lateral flexibility is astonishing. I refer to the American reports from 1817 to 1819, wherein the animal in turning bent its body in the form of a staple, so that its head nearly touched its tail, and to the figures of Dr. BICCARD (fig. 37, 38.).

The sea-serpent, seized by the sperm-whale by the trunk, did not bend itself dorsally round the spermwhale’s head, for if this had been the case, the captain would have seen the underpart of the animal and described its colour as being white. It did not bend itself ventrally, for if this had happened, the colour would have been described as dark, or black. On the contrary the coils are described as longitudinally divided into two sections white and black. Consequently the sea-serpent had bent itself laterally. Captain DREVAR was right in his statement that the colour of the belly (under part) was white, and that the back (upper part) of the animal was black.

The sea-serpent in its violent pain raised its long neck high in the air and extended its jaws; it is even probable that it uttered a roaring sound or shriek, this is not mentioned; it may have been drowned by the dreadful noise caused by the fight of these two huge monsters, for we may suppose that the sea-serpent was not destitute of muscular strength, and must have been a formidable antagonist. Though it is not mentioned, I am convinced that the “two turns” of the sea-serpent were not always wound closely round the whale, but from time to time were loosened to be tightened again a moment afterwards. Nor do I set great value on the repeated assertion that there were two turns; it is impossible that this has always been seen clearly through such a “boiling of the water like a cauldron”. The dimensions of the head and tail part being each about thirty feet beyond the coils are certainly not exaggerated, as is the circumference or girth “about eight or nine feet”. The sea-serpent in its agony evidently paddled with its formidable flappers, which caused the water to be thrown like a fountain into the air. They therefore cannot have been visible with the glasses. The rolling over and over is, in my opinion, very natural in animals of such dimension, fighting in the water, and cannot be a result of the serpent “using its extremities as levers”. And so they were rolling for about fifteen(?) minutes and at last the spermwhale (and not the sea-serpent) dragged its victim down to the depths, head foremost. It is a habit of spermwhales, which is to be ascribed to their attachment to members of their family and to their warlike character and hatred of their enemies, to help each other in danger, and so the captain’s statement is quite correct: “the two others attempted to release their companion” and after the disappearance of the combatants “swam away, exhibiting signs of the greatest terror”; here we may safely read “fury”, probably they followed on the surface their companion which was beneath it, perceptible to them, but invisible to the spectators of the Pauline.

It is, however, more probable that the sea-serpent, feeling itself free for a moment, suddenly escaped, dived and was followed by the sperm-whale.

It is now the right moment to say some words about the figures. I will be short, only observing that they are not worth our attention. The sketches were evidently drawn in October and December, consequently more than three and five months after the encounter. It is impossible that they can give an exact representation.

Mr. ANDREW WILSON in his Leisure Time Studies is of another opinion than I, as to the fight; for he declares: “..... to my mind, the only feasible explanation of the narrative of the crew of the Pauline must be founded on the idea that the animals observed by them were gigantic snakes. The habits of the animals in attacking the whales, evidently point to a close correspondence with those of terrestrial serpents of large size, such as the boas and pythons”. The reader will understand that I do not wish to contest Mr. WILSON’S opinion.

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