THE SEA-SERPENT AGAIN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 35, 29 August 1891, Page 318

THE SEA-SERPENT AGAIN.

X the morning of Saturday, the 24th of Jaly, when the steamship Manapouri was abreast of Horoera Point, on her way from Auckland to Gisborne, a few passengers were sitting abaft of the funnel, where they obtained warmth and shelter from a stiff south easter, when one of the party drew the attention of the others to a sea-monster about a quarter of a mile off

on the starboard bow, which would, about every two minutes, slowlv rise its head and part of its body to an estimated height of twenty feet, in nearly a perpendicular line from the surface of the water, and when in that position gyrate, displaying a black back and a white belly, about the colour of the under side of a patiki (the colours met about half-way on the monster's side), and two arm-like appendages of about ten feet in length, which appeared to dangle about like a broken limb on a human being. It would then suddenly tall back into the water, scattering it in all directions. It kept on a course parallel to the steamer, and was in view for about ten minutes. A week later, when the Rotomahana was off Portland Light, between Gisborne and Napier, what was supposed to be an immense sea monster was sighted. The chief officer standing on the bridge had bis attention called to the animal by the quarter-master, who was looking out of the door leading to the wheelroom. There was a heavy sea running at the time, and the quarter-master states he first noticed a long, dark-looking object rise slowly from the water about half a mile from the vessel until it reached a height of thirty or forty feet. It then slowly disappeared, and when it next made its appearance it was much closer to the ship. The quarter-master saw the serpent appear four or five times before he drew the chief officer’s attention to it, when they both marked it rise perpendicularly out of the water to a great height, within a hundred yards of the vessel. After withdrawing into the water that time it was

not seen again. Both men who saw it say it could not have been less than a hundred feet long. The result of the dissemination of the above reports has been to cause a renewed discussion of this reznfo ous-sfro. Scientists in the colony are not disposed to accept the above evidence as convincing, and Sir John Hector explains it away on the theory of optical illusion, assuming the object to be a large tree with a projecting branch. Old sailors, on the other hand, assert that the creature is the hump-backed whale, which behaves in precisely a similar fashion, and large numbers of which have been passing along the New Zealand coast during the last three months. For the present illustration we have to thank Mr A. Forde Matthews, of Gisborne.