the fastest
express train, and it bore all the appearance of being the `wake' of
some enormous body moving at no great distance beneath the surface.
While the seamen were still watching it in wonder and perplexity,
mingled with no little alarm, it had reached the fleet, the rippling
swell spreading out on each side and curling over into a breaker which
dashed against the sides of the several vessels, causing the smaller
craft to rock and toss perceptibly. It clove its irresistible way to
the very centre of the fleet, where there happened to be a large open
space of water, and here there suddenly shot into view above the surface
a gigantic fish, the length of which is variously estimated by those who
saw it as from four hundred to eight hundred feet, with a girth of
between one and two hundred feet. The creature, apparently startled at
finding itself in the midst of so many vessels, immediately dived below
the surface again, passing directly beneath the keel of the barque
_Olivia_, of London, from Bangkok, William Rogers master. The crew of
this ship had a most distinct view of the monster, as it broke water at
not more than half a cable's length (or some three hundred feet) from
them, and immediately afterwards shaved the keel of the ship so closely
as almost to touch it. Captain Rogers, who was on deck at the time,
describes the creature, and his description tallies perfectly with that
of the other witnesses, as being somewhat like a saw-fish, without the
saw, in general shape, but with a proportionately longer and more
sharply pointed head, in which _four_ eyes, two in the upper and two in
the lower part of the head, were distinctly seen. The body was a
beautiful silvery white, glistening in the sun like polished metal. On
the back of the immense fish was a curious flat protuberance, above
which rose another in the form of a dome-shaped hump, with, if we may
venture to repeat so incredible a story, eyes all round it, and
surmounted by an object having a very marked resemblance to a silver
crown. This extraordinary creature had no fins so far as could be seen,
but propelled itself solely by its tail, which it moved with such
wonderful rapidity as rendered it utterly impossible to detect the shape
of it. The creature was evidently an air-breather, for it had no sooner
completely cleared the fleet, which it did in about one minute, the
distance travelled in that time being fully three miles, than it rose
once mor