The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1876-06-15

The petals of the rose are shed
The piercing thorns alone remain;
l live to sorrow for The dead.
Chambers Journal.
GREAT SEA MONSTER.
THE following well-told &C. sea-serpent'
story purports to be an account written
by Matthew Strong, a missionary, under
date of March %, to the Bombay Gazette
from on board the steamship Hydaspes:
We steamed out of Bombay harbor OF
the evening of Monday, the 18th o1
March, in the steamship Hydaspes, Capt
Reynolds. Nothing of remark occurred
up to Saturday. The weather was cool
and nearly every one slept below; only
one passenger, Capt. Davidson and my
self remaining on deck for the night !
was reused from sleep at six by the men
washing and scrubbing the decks. !
took my plate of broken biscuits to the
stern and sat there munching them and
looking at the sun rising. ! was quite
alone, Captain Davidson still sleeping
in peace on the port side. There was a
thick bank of clouds on the horizon, and
as the sun rose from the sea behind the
dark bank great masses of colCr-red and
blue and yellow-lit up the whole cx'
panse of sky and sea. was looking at a
strange, ruddy blot of red on the water
right astern, when saw apparently nca1
the horizon, but in the red blot, dark
moving shadow. 1t did not seem to move
with the other shadows on the sea, and
this fixed my attention to it. Soon saw
that it was steadily approaching the yes
sci. could distinguish no form, only a
dalk shadow; but made out certainly
that it was advancing toward us and at a
great rate.
Fifteen minutes must have passed
when | at last became able to distinguish
the form ofthe advancing object. q spoke
to the Captain afterward as to the distance
the object could have been from US when
I first distinguished it, and he told me
must have been deceived by the moving
light in supposing it near the hori-
zon; and he guessed, from what ] said,
that it was then Onl y three or four miles
distant. Mistakes OF like nature, he
said, are commonly made by the inexpe-
rienced) | cannot accurately describe
my feelings on beholding that hidcous
sight. At first | turned to call out 10
bring others to look on with me, but be-
fore cry could pass my lips a second
feeling of selfish pleasure that | alone
saw that fearful thing seized me, and
turned my eyes again to the sea and kept
them fixed there. Within 100 feet OF the
stern of our vessel, not now approaching
us, but simply following steauily in our
wake, was this hideous thing.
A great mass of what looked like
tanglel seaWceG, on which a futile at
tempt ut combing had been made, rose
out of the water. This mass must have
been twenty Or thirty feet in length and
ten feet in width, and as it came on it
caused a wide ripple in the water, that
showed there must be still greater part
below the surface. From the center of
this mass, raised just clear above it and
facing the vessel was great black head.
The top was quite flat, in shape not unlike
that of a monstrous toad. A thick fringe
of coarse, reddish hair hung over the
mouth quite concealing it. But the eyes
were the most awful part Of this fearful
thing. They were placed far apart, at
either extremity of the fiat head, distant
from each other at least three feet.
| must here state that all the passengers
and all the crew, except the Captain him.
self, saw the thing afterward, but that
there were scarcely two who could agree
as to the color and nature of these eyes.
l can only, therefore, write as they ap.
peared to me. The eyeballs were enor-
nous; they must have BEEN four or five
inches in diameter. They scintillated
constantly. Everyone knows the extraor-
dinary appearance of surface covered
with small alternate squares of bright red
and bright blue, the quivering, uncertain,
unfixed look such surface has, the diff
fcalty, the impossibility experienced by
the looker.on to fix the color of any par
ticular square. The eyeballs of this thing
had such quiyering, uncertain look
but they were not red, not blue, not
red and blue; they were of bright,
burningly bright, copper hue; they
panied our eyes-and in this we were
all agreed-as we looked at them. In
the center Of each eyeball, mere
speck, but visible from its ext1em bright
ness, was point of light, of white light.
1t was impossible to tell whether these
points were, or were not, material points
of the eye or merely caused by reflection,
but they were clearly defined, and seemed
to remain in the same place. The mo-
ton, however, of the thing was so steady
that no deduction could fairly be drawn
from their not chan ging their position.
/ had been so absorbed in the pleasing
pain of looking at the thing that l had
quite forgotten the other people on board,
and was first reused by hearing Capt. Da-
wilson step up on the stern by me, give
one look below at the water, and then
hurriedly go back. In a few minutes
every passenger was crowding on to the
stern, even the ladies appearing in unfn-
ished costume. Exclamations of the ex-
tremest astonishment broke from all, and
then silence fell, as the crowd stared at
the hideous creature. The children, at
the first sight, ran ba TX below screaming,
and some refused to come again on deck,
though their nurses and ayahs-desirous
Of looking on rllemselves-used all possi-
BILE means to make them. Some, howev-
er, returned, curiosity overcoming fear,
but even these looked on in perpetual
tremor of terror, and held themselves
ready at the first movements of the thing
to rush away. noticed at this time that
the Captain was not present, and turned
to an old European sailor by me and asked
him to go and tell him.
"Captain won't come; no fear of that,
sir" replied the man.
asked if he was navigating the ship
"No, he was not navigating the ship"
said the sailor, "but he would not come
for all that; however, he would go and
tell him"
But though he went, the Captain would
not come.
We all remained absorbed in the strange
sightitilI the first breakfast bell rang u