Chapter 1 — PART ONE

CHAPTER I
A SHIFTING REEF

The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and
puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention
rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind,
even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited.
Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and
America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several states
on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter.

For some time past, vessels had been met by “an enormous thing,” a long object,
spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent, and infinitely larger and more
rapid in its movements than a whale.

The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books) agreed in
most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in question, the
untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of locomotion, and the
peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If it was a cetacean, it surpassed
in size all those hitherto classified in science. Taking into consideration the
mean of observations made at divers times,—rejecting the timid estimate of
those who assigned to this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with
the exaggerated opinions which set it down as a mile in width and three in
length,—we might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly
all dimensions admitted by the ichthyologists of the day, if it existed at all.
And that it did exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that tendency
which disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we can understand
the excitement produced in the entire world by this supernatural apparition. As
to classing it in the list of fables, the idea was out of the question.

did

On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the
Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass five
miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at first that he
was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even prepared to determine its
exact position, when two columns of water, projected by the inexplicable
object, shot with a hissing noise a hundred and fifty feet up into the air.
Now, unless the sandbank had been submitted to the intermittent eruption of a
geyser, the Governor Higginson had to do neither more nor less than with
an aquatic mammal, unknown till then, which threw up from its blow-holes
columns of water mixed with air and vapour.

Governor Higginson

Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July in the same year, in the
Pacific Ocean, by the Columbus, of the West India and Pacific Steam
Navigation Company. But this extraordinary cetaceous creature could transport
itself from one place to another with surprising velocity; as, in an interval
of three days, the Governor Higginson and the Columbus had
observed it at two different points of the chart, separated by a distance of
more than seven hundred nautical leagues.

Columbus

Governor Higginson

Columbus

Fifteen days later, two thousand miles farther off, the Helvetia, of the
Compagnie-Nationale, and the Shannon, of the Royal Mail Steamship
Company, sailing to windward in that portion of the Atlantic lying between the
United States and Europe, respectively signalled the monster to each other in
42° 15′ N. lat. and 60° 35′ W. long. In these simultaneous
observations they thought themselves justified in estimating the minimum length
of the mammal at more than three hundred and fifty feet, as the Shannon
and Helvetia were of smaller dimensions than it, though they measured
three hundred feet over all.

Helvetia

Shannon

Helvetia

Now the largest whales, those which frequent those parts of the sea round the
Aleutian, Kulammak, and Umgullich islands, have never exceeded the length of
sixty yards, if they attain that.

These reports arriving one after the other, with fresh observations made on
board the transatlantic ship Pereire, a collision which occurred between
the Etna of the Inman line and the monster, a procès verbal
directed by the officers of the French frigate Normandie, a very
accurate survey made by the staff of Commodore Fitz-James on board the Lord
Clyde, greatly influenced public opinion. Light-thinking people jested upon
the phenomenon, but grave practical countries, such as England, America, and
Germany, treated the matter more seriously.

Pereire

Etna

procès verbal

Normandie

Lord
Clyde

In every place of great resort the monster was the fashion. They sang of it in
the cafés, ridiculed it in the papers, and represented it on the stage. All
kinds of stories were circulated regarding it. There appeared in the papers
caricatures of every gigantic and imaginary creature, from the white whale, the
terrible “Moby Dick” of hyperborean regions, to the immense kraken whose
tentacles could entangle a ship of five hundred tons, and hurry it into the
abyss of the ocean. The legends of ancient times were even resuscitated, and
the opinions of Aristotle and Pliny revived, who admitted the existence of
these monsters, as well as the Norwegian tales of Bishop Pontoppidan, the
accounts of Paul Heggede, and, last of all, the reports of Mr. Harrington
(whose good faith no one could suspect), who affirmed that, being on board the
Castillan, in 1857, he had seen this enormous serpent, which had never
until that time frequented any other seas but those of the ancient
“Constitutionnel.”

Castillan

Constitutionnel

Then burst forth the interminable controversy between the credulous and the
incredulous in the societies of savants and the scientific journals. “The
question of the monster” inflamed all minds. Editors of scientific journals,
quarrelling with believers in the supernatural, spilled seas of ink during this
memorable campaign, some even drawing blood; for, from the sea-serpent they
came to direct personalities.

For six months war was waged with various fortune in the leading articles of
the Geographical Institution of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science of Berlin,
the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, in the
discussions of the “Indian Archipelago,” of the Cosmos of the Abbé Moigno, in
the Mittheilungen of Petermann, in the scientific chronicles of the great
journals of France and other countries. The cheaper journals replied keenly and
with inexhaustible zest. These satirical writers parodied a remark of Linnæus,
quoted by the adversaries of the monster, maintaining “that nature did not make
fools,” and adjured their contemporaries not to give the lie to nature, by
admitting the existence of krakens, sea-serpents, “Moby Dicks,” and other
lucubrations of delirious sailors. At length an article in a well-known
satirical journal by a favourite contributor, the chief of the staff, settled
the monster, like Hippolytus, giving it the death-blow amidst an universal
burst of laughter. Wit had conquered science.

During the first months of the year 1867 the question seemed buried, never to
revive, when new facts were brought before the public. It was then no longer a
scientific problem to be solved, but a real danger seriously to be avoided. The
question took quite another shape. The monster became a small island, a rock, a
reef, but a reef of indefinite and shifting proportions.

On the 5th of March, 1867, the Moravian, of the Montreal Ocean Company,
finding herself during the night in 27° 30′ lat. and 72° 15′
long., struck on her starboard quarter a rock, marked in no chart for that part
of the sea. Under the combined efforts of the wind and its four hundred
horse-power, it was going at the rate of thirteen knots. Had it not been for
the superior strength of the hull of the Moravian, she would have been
broken by the shock and gone down with the 237 passengers she was bringing home
from Canada.

Moravian

The accident happened about five o’clock in the morning, as the day was
breaking. The officers of the quarter-deck hurried to the after-part of the
vessel. They examined the sea with the most scrupulous attention. They saw
nothing but a strong eddy about three cables’ length distant, as if the surface
had been violently agitated. The bearings of the place were taken exactly, and
the Moravian continued its route without apparent damage. Had it struck
on a submerged rock, or on an enormous wreck? they could not tell; but on
examination of the ship’s bottom when undergoing repairs, it was found that
part of her keel was broken.

Moravian

This fact, so grave in itself, might perhaps have been forgotten like many
others if, three weeks after, it had not been re-enacted under similar
circumstances. But, thanks to the nationality of the victim of the shock,
thanks to the reputation of the company to which the vessel belonged, the
circumstance became extensively circulated.

The 13th of April, 1867, the sea being beautiful, the breeze favourable, the
Scotia, of the Cunard Company’s line, found herself in 15° 12′
long. and 45° 37′ lat. She was going at the speed of thirteen knots and
a half.

Scotia

At seventeen minutes past four in the afternoon, whilst the passengers were
assembled at lunch in the great saloon, a slight shock was felt on the hull of
the Scotia, on her quarter, a little aft of the port-paddle.

Scotia

The Scotia had not struck, but she had been struck, and seemingly by
something rather sharp and penetrating than blunt. The shock had been so slight
that no one had been alarmed, had it not been for the shouts of the carpenter’s
watch, who rushed on to the bridge, exclaiming, “We are sinking! we are
sinking!” At first the passengers were much frightened, but Captain Anderson
hastened to reassure them. The danger could not be imminent. The Scotia,
divided into seven compartments by strong partitions, could brave with impunity
any leak. Captain Anderson went down immediately into the hold. He found that
the sea was pouring into the fifth compartment; and the rapidity of the influx
proved that the force of the water was considerable. Fortunately this
compartment did not hold the boilers, or the fires would have been immediately
extinguished. Captain Anderson ordered the engines to be stopped at once, and
one of the men went down to ascertain the extent of the injury. Some minutes
afterwards they discovered the existence of a large hole, of two yards in
diameter, in the ship’s bottom. Such a leak could not be stopped; and the
Scotia, her paddles half submerged, was obliged to continue her course.
She was then three hundred miles from Cape Clear, and after three days’ delay,
which caused great uneasiness in Liverpool, she entered the basin of the
company.

Scotia

The engineers visited the Scotia, which was put in dry dock. They could
scarcely believe it possible; at two yards and a half below water-mark was a
regular rent, in the form of an isosceles triangle. The broken place in the
iron plates was so perfectly defined that it could not have been more neatly
done by a punch. It was clear, then, that the instrument producing the
perforation was not of a common stamp; and after having been driven with
prodigious strength, and piercing an iron plate 1-3/8 inches thick, had
withdrawn itself by a retrograde motion truly inexplicable.

Scotia

Such was the last fact, which resulted in exciting once more the torrent of
public opinion. From this moment all unlucky casualties which could not be
otherwise accounted for were put down to the monster. Upon this imaginary
creature rested the responsibility of all these shipwrecks, which unfortunately
were considerable; for of three thousand ships whose loss was annually recorded
at Lloyd’s, the number of sailing and steam ships supposed to be totally lost,
from the absence of all news, amounted to not less than two hundred!

Now, it was the “monster” who, justly or unjustly, was accused of their
disappearance, and, thanks to it, communication between the different
continents became more and more dangerous. The public demanded peremptorily
that the seas should at any price be relieved from this formidable cetacean.