Sea monster

“ The lurking octopus, having its lair in the cranny of a rock, watching in ambush for passing prey, seizing anything coming within its reach with one or more of its prehensile arms, even brandishing these fear-inspiring weapons out of water in a threatening manner, and known in some localities to be dangerous to boats and their occupants, is transformed into a many-headed sea monster, seizing in its mouths, instead of by the adhesive suckers of its numerous arms, the helpless sailors from passing vessels, and devouring them in the abysses of its cavernous den. ”

“ This monster of nature is born somewhere out of the huge womb of the South Pacific, upon whose bosom it strays aimlessly and recklessly about, romping, wrestling, growing, until it gets into a 18temper and buffets its mother, the sea. Becoming cyclopean, it spits at heaven—petulant it departs.
Like a loosened monster it allows itself every liberty, and wanders with the greatest ease in any path. It sucks up the sea and snatches lightning from the clouds; it fills its belly with floods and its breast with fire. Headlong it falls upon every obstacle; ships become as dust motes in its breath. ”

“ An angry sea is a mechanical monster, all sound, power, and threat of immediate destruction. But a calm sea, its surface breathing slowly and gently like a sleeping giant, seems animate and, in spite of its seeming gentleness, somehow more menacing. ”

“ A terrible whirlpool, where the waves rushed furiously round and round, was the next danger that they met. Then, when they were free of that, a great storm arose, and every fierce and ugly fish and monster that ever lived in the sea came rushing at the boat from out the foaming waves, roaring as if they were going to devour them.
‘Have no fear,’ said the palmer to Guyon. ‘These ugly shapes were only made by the wicked witch to frighten you.’
With his palmer’s staff he smote the sea. [Pg 55] The waves sank down to rest, and all the ugly monsters vanished away. ”

“ Also, how we had been picked up and were returned now to Wecanicut of our own will, seeking rich treasure. We described the “Sea Monster” very carefully, and wrote about the black cave-entrance-looking place that had happened, where no boat would dare to venture. Jerry’s description of it was quite wild. He dictated it to me above the shrieking of a lot of gulls which were flying over us all the time. It went like this:
“The Sea Monster was quite terrific enough looking before, like the slimy black head of something huge coming out of the water. ”

“ Seen only for a few moments as he seized his prey, and then sinking back into the depths, a sea monster would probably remain a mystery even to those who had witnessed his attack, while their imperfect account of what they had seen would be modified at each repetition of the story, until there would remain little by which the creature could be identified, even if at some subsequent period its true nature were recognized. ”

“ The prosaic traveller perhaps remembers it better from the fact that a great sea-monster, in the shape of a steamboat, takes him, sitting in the car, on its back, and swims across with him like Arion's dolphin,—also that mercenary men on board offer him canvas-backs in the season, and ducks of lower degree at other periods. ”

“ As he approached the ship, the struggle continuing and becoming more violent, it was perceived that a fish, apparently about twenty feet long, held him by the jaw, his contortions, spouting, and throes, all betokening the agony of the huge monster. The whale now threw himself at full length from the water with open mouth, his pursuer still hanging to the jaw, the blood issuing from the wound and dyeing the sea to a distance around; but all his flounderings were of no avail; his pertinacious enemy still maintained his hold, and was evidently getting the advantage of him. ”

“ Those beholders who might be out of reach of the clutches of the sea-monster would see in the deep clear water only the horrible coiling, writhing, and outstretching suckers of the creature, and upon them these latter would naturally make the most vivid impression. Hence we can easily understand how a drawing or carving of the tentacles only, without the face, as in Fig. 3, would become, as an alternative with the grinning mask, a representation of the dreaded monster. ”

“ The monster is described as having a large and terrifying face, a sloping forehead and wide brows, a large mouth and wrinkled cheeks. But if it eats the fishes or throws them into the sea away from the ship, the crews have good hopes that their lives will be spared, even though they should meet severe storms. ”

“ Jerry said, “safe once more from an ignominious death. But, Chris, look at the Sea Monster! What’s happened to it?”
The Sea Monster is a bare black rock-island off the end of Wecanicut. We called it that because it looks like one, and it hasn’t any other name that we know of. We’d always wanted awfully to go out there and explore it, but the only time we ever asked old Captain Moss, who has boats for hire, he said, “Thunderin’ bad landin’. Nothin’ to see there but a clutter o’ gulls’ nests,” and went on painting the Jolly Nancy, which is his nicest boat. ”

“ Clear to the horizon, the gleam of white here and there amid the sun-burned rocks and patches of sand, told of the world’s greatest burying place of fossil whales. Ten thousand monsters lay around them. A day’s search would have produced enough skeletons to supply all the museums of all the countries in the world.
“The sea must have swarmed with Zeuglodons, Uncle George,” said Perry, breaking silence when at last the sand-dunes were crossed and they were in the famous valley itself. ”

“ At times, when, far out at sea, the waves are running mountains high, the ship can scarce weather the storm, and some of the affrighted sailors have betaken themselves to their boats in hopes to preserve their lives, a hideous monster is said to rise from the deep, encircling and crushing the boat with its gigantic coil, and striking with its cruel fangs the drowning mariners. ”

“ From all we have read and heard of a singular sea-monster that has been seen from time to time in various parts of the ocean, it is difficult to doubt that some such creature, or creatures rather, may exist; though the reiterated allegations of "old salts," that they do exist, may be but a relic of that dark superstition known as serpent-worship, which once prevailed over a great part of the world, and which still lingers in India, particularly among the Nagas, and of which snake-charming is a remnant. ”

“ Rapacious greed and inordinate desire, in respect of their influences on human mind, can be rightly compared with the dreadful and all-devouring sea-devil, as described by Victor-Hugo. This horrible animal lives in water which equals even crystals in transparency, and where stones of different colours and varieties sparkle and glow with a lustre all their own; innumerable priceless pearls and corals also illumine the beautiful habitation of this dreadful monster. It is dreadful because it sucks human blood. ”

“ The moon shone full on its long, dragon-like body and the party shuddered with horror as they recognized in it the exact counterpart of the sea-monster of the cave. After gazing on those above it for a full minute, and 98then realizing probably that they were out of its reach, the monster became enraged and, throwing itself back into the water beat the surface with its wing-like fins and long tail until almost lost to view in the foam thus created. But others had now come close to the rock, and as the number increased the water was blackened by their dark bodies. ”

“ HYDROID FROM WHICH THE JELLY-FISH GROWS.
The monster when alive looks as much as anything like an immense circular plate or dish of glass floating bottom upward on the sea. The color of the body is a brownish-red, with a rather broad margin of creamy white edged with blue, while the tentacles—pink, blue, brown, and purple—hang like skeins of colored glass threads from the under parts of the shield. Very beautiful are these threads, glistening with a silky lustre beneath the waves, but they are extremely dangerous, too. ”

“ Amazement gave way to rage. The monster wrapped his prize in three more tentacles, and then plunged his beak into it savagely. The next instant he was jerked to the surface of the water. A blaze of fierce sun blinded him, and strong meshes enclosed him, binding and entangling his tentacles.
In such an appalling crisis most creatures of sea or land would have been utterly demoralized by terror. Not so the octopus. ”

“ No one dared approach the monster near enough to make a photograph, for none had the temerity to run the risk of rousing the ire of the monster. Excursion steamers from Boston were crowded with thousands eager to get a glimpse of the terrifying creature without incurring any peril, for whoever heard of a sea serpent attacking a ship? It may crush a small boat in its prodigious jaws, as the hippopotamus of the upper Nile has been known to do,—but a steamer is beyond its capacity. ”

“ Moreover they tell you that all sorts of fishes flock together upon it, as upon a bank of the sea, and that many fishing boats come thither to catch fish, not suspecting that they lie upon such a dreadful monster, which they at last understand by the intangling of their hooks and angles in its body; which the monster feeling, rises softly from the bottom to the surface, and seizes them all; if in time they do not perceive him and prevent their destruction, which they may easily do, only calling it by its name, which it no sooner hears, but it sinks down again as softly as it did rise. ”

“ A more recent record of the appearance of a mysterious sea-monster is that of Messrs Meade-Waldo and Nicoll, both fellows of the Zoological Society, in the Proceedings of that Society for 1906, p. 719. These two gentlemen on the 7th of December 1905 were on board the yacht “ Valhalla ” off the coast of Brazil when at 10.15 A.M. they saw, 100 yds. from the ship, a large fin projecting above the water to a height of 18 in. or 2 ft., and 6 ft. in length. Under the water to the rear of the fin was the shade of a considerable body. ”

“ Enough of these fairy tales that time has changed for me into harsh realities. I repeat: opinion had crystallized as to the nature of this phenomenon, and the public accepted without argument the existence of a prodigious creature that had nothing in common with the fabled sea serpent.
Yet if some saw it purely as a scientific problem to be solved, more practical people, especially in America and England, were determined to purge the ocean of this daunting monster, to insure the safety of transoceanic travel. ”

“ The pursuer of the fugitive shoals soon became visible; and that it was a huge marine monster, stretching to a length quite beyond the dimensions of an ordinary fish, was evident to all the observers. No one, in short, had any doubt as to its being the sea-serpent, or one of the species to which the animal or animals so frequently before seen [Pg 388] belonged. The distance at which this one was, for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, visible, made it impossible to give a description of its apparent dimensions so accurate as to carry conviction to the sceptical. ”

“ “And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster’s (whale’s) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps.” ”

“ Many people, including some scientists, believe that there exist in the sea to-day monster animals—sea-serpents, leviathans, and giant fishes—which have never been captured, and hence are unknown to zoölogists and have no place in scientific books, Whatever may be the facts in regard to such creatures, there are well-known members of the fish class which deserve to be regarded as monsters, and which may have given rise to the sea-serpent stories. ”

“ In ancient times these monsters of the deep may have claimed many a victim by thus stupefying, and, as it were, turning them to stone; at any rate, it is very probable that it was one of the greatest dangers to human life, with which dwellers by the sea were acquainted. For any fisher or swimmer round whom the fearful tentacles were coiled, was indeed beyond chance of escape. We read plenty of modern stories of the attacks of this monster even on people in boats. ”

“ Its huge tentacles encircled the vessel in their embrace, threatening its instant destruction. At this critical moment Nganaoa seized his spear, and fearlessly drove it through the head of the creature. The tentacles slowly relaxed, and the dead monster floated off on the surface of the ocean.
Passing from the early records of the appearance of cuttles of unusual size, and the current as well as the traditional belief in their existence by the inhabitants of many countries, let us take the testimony of travellers and naturalists who have a right to be regarded as competent [Pg 36] observers. ”

“ These sea monsters are as shy and timorous as they are huge and bulky, for as soon as they hear a boat rowing, and perceive any body’s approach, they immediately shoot under water and plunge into the deep; but when they find themselves in danger, then they shew their great and surprising strength; for then they break to pieces whatever comes in their way, and if they should hit a boat, they would beat it in a thousand pieces. According to the relation of the whale-catchers, the whale, being struck, will run away with the line some hundreds of fathoms long, faster than a ship under full sail. ”

“ Yet deep down, I had accepted the existence of "the monster."
My article was hotly debated, causing a fine old uproar. It rallied a number of supporters. Moreover, the solution it proposed allowed for free play of the imagination. The human mind enjoys impressive visions of unearthly creatures. Now then, the sea is precisely their best medium, the only setting suitable for the breeding and growing of such giants--next to which such land animals as elephants or rhinoceroses are mere dwarves. ”