The "great sea-serpent "seems to beat last authenticated. This morning's
papers publish a formal report addressed to the Admiralty by Captain Peter M'Qabie, of the Royal frigate Daedalus, describing a sea-serpent beheld by him and other officers of his crew on her passage from the East Indies. The creature was seen at five p. m., on the 6th August last, in latitude 24 deg. 44 m. South, longitude 9 deg. 22 m. East. "By comparing it with the length of what our maintopsail- yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the ani- mal a fleur d'eau; no portion of which was, to our perception, used in pro- pelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. "It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognized his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, de- viate in the slightest degree from its course to the South-west, which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles an hour, apparently on some deter- mined purpose. The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was without any doubt that of a snake, and never during the twenty minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses, once below the surface of the water. Its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea weed washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain's mate, the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and officers above-mentioned. I am having a drawing of this serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen."
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