CHAPTER I
A SHIFTING REEF
The year 1866 was signalized by a bizarre incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumors 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 and masters 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. Neither Cuvier, Lacedede, Dumeril nor de Quatrefages would have admitted the existence of such a monster—unless they had seen it with their own scientists’ eyes.
Taking the average of observations made at different 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.
But that it did exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that tendency which disposes the human mind in favor of the marvelous, 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.
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 reef; 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 reef 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 vapor.
Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July in the same year, in the Pacific Ocean, by the Cristobal Colon, of the West India and Pacific Steam Navigation Company. Apparently 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 Cristobal Colon had observed it at two different points of the chart, separated by a distance of more than seven hundred nautical leagues.’
Fifteen days later, two thousand miles farther off, the Helvetia, of the Compagnie-Nationale, and the Shannon, of the Royal Mail, passing in opposite directions in that portion of the Atlantic lying between the United States and Europe, respectively signaled to one another that the monster had been seen 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,2 as the Shannon and Helvetia were of smaller dimensions than it, though they both measured three hundred feet overall. 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 fifty-six meters, if they attain that.
The reports arriving one after the other, with fresh observations made on board the transatlantic ship, Le Pereire, a collision which occurred between the Etna of the Inman line and the monster, an official memorandum 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.
In all the great capitals the monster was the fashion. They sang of it in the cafes, ridiculed it in the papers, and represented it on the stage. All kinds of stories were circulated regarding it. There appeared in the papers—otherwise short of copy—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 once “navigated” by the now-defunct newspaper, Constitutionel
The accident to the Scotia.
Then burst forth the interminable controversy between the credulous and the incredulous in the societies of savants and scientific journals. The “question of the monster” inflamed all minds. Editors of scientific journals, quarreling with believers in the supernatural, spilled seas of ink during this memorable campaign, some even drawing blood; for, from talking about the sea-serpent, they turned all too easily to direct personalities.
For six months war was waged with various fortune. To leading articles by the geographical Institution of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science of Berlin, the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington; to the discussions in the Indian Archipelago, in the Cosmos of the Abbe Moigno, in the Mittheilungen of Petermann; to 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 Linnaeus, 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 favorite contributor, the chief of the staff, settled the monster, like Hippolytus, giving it the death-blow amidst a 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 again 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 horsepower, it was going at a 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. The accident happened about five o’clock in the morning, as the day was breaking. The officers of the watch 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 smooth 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.
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 circumstances became extensively circulated.
Everyone knows the name of the celebrated British shipowners, Cunard and Co. This intelligent company founded, in 1840, a postal service between Liverpool and Halifax, with three wooden vessels with engines of 400 horsepower, and a capacity of 1,162 tons. Eight years afterwards the stock of the company increased to four vessels of 650 horsepower and 1,820 tons, and two years later they had two more boats, superior in power and tonnage. In 1853 the Cunard Company, whose privilege of carrying the mails had just been renewed, added successively to their stock the Arabia, Persia, China, Scotia, Java, and Russia, all vessels of first-rate speed, and the largest which, next to the Great Eastern, had ever ploughed the seas. Thus, then, in 1867 the company possessed twelve vessels, eight with paddles and four with screws.
I give these brief details to show the importance of this maritime transport company, known to the entire world by its intelligent administration. No enterprise of transoceanic navigation has been conducted with more skill; no business affair has been crowned with more success. During the last twenty-six years the Cunard vessels have crossed the Atlantic more than two thousand times, and no voyage has ever failed, no letter, man, nor vessel has ever been lost. Notwithstanding the powerful competition of France, passengers still chose the Cunard route in preference to every other, as is apparent from an examination of the official documents of late years. This understood, no one will be astonished at the commotion caused by the accident that happened to one of its finest steamers.
The 13th of April 1867, the sea being beautiful, the breeze favorable, the Scotia found herself in 15° 12' long. and 45° 37' lat., driven by her 1000horsepower engines. She was going at the speed of thirteen and a half knots. Her paddle wheels beat the sea with perfect regularity. She drew 6.7 meters and displaced 6,624 cubic meters.
At seventeen minutes past four in the afternoon, whilst the passengers were assembled at lunch in the great salon, a slight shock was felt on the hull of the Scotia, on the side, a little aft of the port-paddle.
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 stokers 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 watertight bulkheads, 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 size of the leak 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, two meters wide,3 in the ship’s bottom. Such a leak could not be patched; 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 shipyards of the company.
The engineers visited the Scotia, which was put in dry dock. They could scarcely believe their eyes: at two and a half meters below the water-line 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, piercing an iron plate 4 cm. (\Vi inches) thick, had withdrawn itself by a retrograde motion truly inexplicable.
This latest incident 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 the Bureau Veritas, 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.
1. A league is equal to a little more than 2.16 miles (in the Nineteenth century). R.M.
2. About 106 meters. An English foot equals 30.4 cm. J.V.
3. A meter equals 3.28 feet. A kilometer equals about 0.6 mile, or about 3,280 feet. R.M.