The Sun

FIFTY MILES OF SNAKES.

A SEA SERPENT, TOO, AND 'GATORS AND SHARKS GALORE.

The Thrilling Marine Spectacle Described In the Private Log of the Tam o' Shanter's Skipper—A Duet Between a 'Gator and a Shark Broken Up by the Opportune Appearance of the Sea Serpent.

Nobody who has ever looked into the frank blue eyes of the skipper's artless little daughter, Claire Leonora Frances Peabody, would dare to say that she could endorse a sea yarn that wasn't true, even though her father might spin it. Claire is 6 years old, plays the piano, writes her own name with a flourish that might astonish an expert penman, and knows the names of all the sails on the smart Yankee clipper Tam o' Shanter of Portland, Me., which her father commands. She has been four times around the Horn and twice around the Cape of Good Hope, but she never saw so many strange things, that she can remember, as she did on the voyage from Hong Kong that the Tam o' Shanter finished yesterday at this port. The skipper's wife corroborates his story, and the mate and all the very able seamen say that the skipper never puts anything in his log—his private log—that is not as true as the incident in which Capt. Jonah figured.

Anybody who thinks the sea serpent is a myth should read this, the skipper's attested yarn about it. Miss Claire avers, with emphasis, that she saw it and a myriad of what the skipper says "appeared to be its spawn," on the morning of May 28, off the coast of Borneo, in the Carimata or Billiton Passage, between the China and Java seas. The wild man of Borneo was invisible, but the coast of the island was plainly visible about five miles on the port beam. The skipper wrote the next day, while the marvellous incidents were still fresh in his mind:

"An account of the sea serpent as seen from the deck of the ship Tam o' Shanter."

He began his story thus: …Clark Russell says: An old sailor once said to me, "If I were to write down one quarter of what I've seen, heard, and gone through, the reader would throw away the book, calling me all the evil names he could put his tongue to, afore he had read half of what I'd wrote." "Now, at the risk of being doubted and called evil names, I am going to try to describe a little incident that has happened during our late passage in my ship from Hong Kong to New York. I may add that it is only one of many 'remarkable incidents,' as the landsman call them, that have happened during my thirty-four years of sea life. Without fear or favor I shall now proceed to give the account as entered at the time of its occurrence in my private log book: "May 28, 1890—At daylight the low land of Borneo in sight, ship exactly on the equator, and in longitude 107° east, noticed the water on port side of ship looked very muddy, while that on the starboard, or off shore side, was quite blue. On pulling up a bucket of water from either side of the ship we found the blue water was, as we expected, quite salt, while the muddy water on the port side was as nearly fresh as water could be under such conditions. "This fresh water had, without doubt, been driven so far off shore by one of the many estuaries of the Kapuas River, the tides of which are very strong, especially on the ebb, when the fresh water forces its way for fully five miles off shore, and, for some reason unexplained to me, refuses to amalgamate with the salt water. "Large numbers of sharks and all sorts of other fishes and snakes were on the blue water side. Some of the snakes were of immense size, while the smallest, which came very close to the ship, were not less than three feet long; they were of all imaginable colors, some of the longer ones being very prettily striped, and others spotted." The skipper paused at this point in the narrative to remark that one of the serpents came so close to the ship that he might have leaned over the side and dropped a brick on it if he had bricks aboard. He went down into the cabin and brought up his rifle. With Claire and her mother looking on he sent a bullet through the body of the sea snake. He knows this, because the water was dyed with the monster's blood. How big was the snake? the ultra-marine reporters asked. "How big was it, Claire?" asked the skipper, turning to his little blond-haired daughter. Claire said it was as long as the cabin, which is about twenty feet, and, like the other serpents, which the skipper's log says "literally covered the sea for fifty miles," it was a "horrid beast." It was a phenomenally hot day, even for the neighborhood of Borneo. The thermometer indicated 135, the sea—except where the great snakes squirmed, their bright skins glistening in the sunshine—was almost pulseless, and there was not a breath of air astir. On the port or fresh water side of the ship," read the skipper, resuming his yarn, "a number of alligators and huge catfish, such as we catch in the southern rivers, were to be seen swimming close to the dividing line of fresh and salt water. Every once in a while one could be seen making a dash at a dolphin or bonito, and, seizing the fish in its jaws, it would swim back to fresh water and eat its victim at leisure. But the alligators were not always so fortunate in their excursions, for we saw one which had to pay dearly for its temerity in trying to seize a beautiful dolphin, that was at the moment being hotly pursued by an immense shark. Alligator and shark both seized the dolphin at the same moment, and, in an instant, we beheld a terrific conflict. The shark managed to seize the alligator's right hind leg in its mouth, and, keeping itself well under water to avoid the frightful lashings of the 'gator's tail, it simply steered the unfortunate saurian out into the blue or salt water. This appeared to be more than the alligator could stand, for we saw it rapidly grow weaker. The shark appeared to realize that it had its antagonist out of its element, for it suddenly let go the bulldog hold on the leg, and, making a terrific dash at the 'gator's stomach, literally tore its entrails out. The blood from the combatants attracted every one of the salt and fresh water denizens in the vicinity to the scene of combat, and the utmost confusion appeared to prevail, but at the same time we could see from our deck that the larger and more powerful of the fishes had formed pools, or syndicates, and, as a result, the small fishes on both sides disappeared in very short order. We see the same thing on the Stock Exchanges once in a while. Much as we had been surprised, it was ordered that we were to be more surprised yet, for just as we thought the turmoil in the water was growing less, our attention was called to the other side of the ship, and we there saw a sight such as we had never seen before, and never believed any man could have seen. Not even Marco Polo, Baron Munchausen, nor George Francis Train, in their wildest flights of imagination, ever attempted describing such a monster as we saw advancing, with easy undulations, toward the bloody spot of water. Without doubt it was the veritable sea serpent, and a serpent among serpents at that. Every writer who has seen it gives a different description of the sea serpent; in fact, it seems to be like Proteus the marine god of mythology, whose distinguishing characteristic was the faculty of transforming himself into different shapes. "The Greenland missionary, Egede (and who could doubt the veracity of a missionary), tells us in his journal that on July 6, 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, very broad flippers, and spouted water like a whale. The body seemed to be covered with scales, the skin was uneven and wrinkled, and the lower part was formed like a snake." According to this estimable man, this particular snake must have been fully 150 feet long. Another writer saw it off the island of St. Helena. He describes it as having a head like a long buoy, and in diameter about seven or eight feet in the widest part and about 200 feet long, although the boatswain and several of the crew, who viewed it from the topgallant forecastle, estimated it to be fully 300 feet long. It had a kind of scroll or tuft of loose skin encircling it about two feet from its head. It was also seen in this same locality by the crew of the British man-of-war Daedalus. They give a very different description of the monster snake. "Capt. Cook, in one of his many voyages, saw abundance of water snakes, one of which attempted to board our ship, but the men succeeded in beating it off." Capt. Cook does not give this particular snake's dimensions, but we assume that it was a monster, as we are told that the crew of the Endeavour, Capt. Cook's ship, consisted of eighty-four persons besides the commander. Now, we all know it would not have taken eighty-four persons to beat off an ordinary snake. But enough of quoting. Our snake was like any ordinary every-day snake, except in size: its head was shield shaped, and very little wider than its body; its jaws were enormous and armed with four immense fangs, placed well in front. They must have been fully ten or twelve inches longer than the other teeth with which its jaws were thickly studded. Its nostrils appeared to be placed somewhat on top of the head, as every time it raised its head above water it 'blew,' or 'spouted,' as we see whales do, only with much more vigor than any whale we have ever seen. The tail was vertically flattened and compressed, and thus well adapted for swimming. A portion of it which was almost the middle, must have been fully ten feet, tapering to about six feet in diameter at the head and tail. Judging from the length of our ship it must have been fully 190 feet long. "Its skin appeared to be covered with large and very thick scales, or shields, and from head to tail it was very prettily marked with bands of pale yellow and very dark green. These colors were so happily blended on the underneath, or, as one might say, the belly part, that it looked as if a line of pale, very pale, sea green was the color from head to tail. Its eyes were placed well on the side of the head, and, in color, looked like two enormous rubies. "As this monster approached the scene of the late conflict, its motion was rapidly accelerated and its head kept about six feet above water. The scales on the side of its head appeared to stand well out, as does a cobra's hood when it is very much alarmed. The small fish, small as compared with this monster, scattered right and left, the only laggard being the huge shark, which must have been wounded by the alligator. This unfortunate was seized in an instant by the snake, and, being lifted well out of the water, it was shaken, as a terrier shakes a rat, for fully one minute, when we saw the head and tail of the poor shark drop into the water. The middle section disappeared down the snake's gullet. "The breeze having gradually freshened, we soon ran out of the muddy water, and when we last saw this huge snake it was finishing its breakfast in a very leisurely manner. So ends this little episode of the deep." In regard to the smaller serpents Mrs. Peabody said: "The sea was filled with them. I don't believe any of them were less than five feet long, and many were more than twenty feet long. There was not a spot around the ship during several hours' sailing that was not alive with animal life." Capt. Peabody says that he has seen big snakes of brilliant hues off Borneo before, and that he has captured some of them in a net fastened to a long bamboo pole. Some of these snakes, made to look natural by a taxidermist, are in a museum in Boston. The Tam o' Shanter ran into a typhoon just before she glided through the sea of tangled snakes. The typhoon was a buster, like the spectacular serpent. It lasted for forty-eight hours, and carried away some of the ship's light sails. The rain fell in cataracts for nearly two days, and for a few hours water was ankle deep on the deck, the scuppers not being big enough to carry off the flood. But that was a mere incident and not worthy a place in the skipper's private log. While the typhoon lasted the ship sailed 600 miles. Capt. Peabody's sea serpent, the snake editor observed, has none of the peculiarities of the traditional marine monster. It didn't have a mane; its eyes were not as big as saucers; its tail was not forked, and it was bigger around than a hogshead.