Morning journal and courier., 1886-08-31
Ir WAS THE TURTLE KING.
An Adventure With the Monster That Many Call the Sea Serpent-The Matt uraIist and His Studies.

Many Call the Sea SerPent-The Nat
 uralist and His Studies.
 1 From the San Francisco Call
 i ''Those fellows look like sea serpents,
 said one of party of southern Californiant who were comfortably seated on the piazzs l of the Cliff House opposite Seal Rocks | There was somewhat of resemblance. The main part of the herd usually seen here were high on the rocks roaring with their usual pertinacity, while grizzly Ben Butler formed | a prominent center, the exposure of all eyes seal, sea lion and human. Around the | rocks were swimming a number of small, | attenuated, glistening seals, dozen or more | following each other in single file, and as l they dived under and reappeared it was easy \ to imagine that they formed a single long and slender, snake-like animal.
 'EExcuse me, Colonel, ," said a small, red l faced man, who sat near by and had heard l the remark, ''but did you ever see sea sar- pint?'
 | ''No, never did, i" replied the newly pro- | noted colonel, ''but I suppose you have" "Right you are,' answered the stranger. l ''I foller the sea. My ships up the river, ) | jerking his finger toward the city, land what you said about sarpints made me think | of reg'lar out an outer I see about one l weeks ago.
 ] t'It was this way" continued the sailor, | seeing that his listeners were interested, knocking his pipe against the rail and drop I ping it into his pocket. "We had two pas | sengers from the Sandwich Islands aboard, and one of lem had dingey boat on deck 1 that he was bringing up, and whenever it got calm, as it did several times, he would | put over the dingey and take pull. Gene l rally when wasn't doin nothin' tuck holt and gev him a lift; and one day, it bein dead calm, tuck the oars myself and pulled ahead and to the wind'ard about half mile He was one of these ere scientific cranks. He give me half a dollar for scoopin' up an old sunish; in fact he had heaps of sand to 1 throw away on things that wasn't wuth noth- | in. Every time he went out in the dingey | he carried glass dish and a net, and scooped up everything he could in the way of livin' things; but, was sayin', he paid | for it like soier. We'll, this 'ere day what I had reference to we workin' slowly along-I don't believe the ship was making two knots-when all at once the boss leaps to his feet and sings out kind O low like, Whats that, Bobs' I stops rowin' and | looks around kind of reckonin' that he had sighted another kind of a sea bug, when I clapped my eyes on a crltter the likes Of which I never see afore-a Chinese sar- pint s'help me. We could see about ten foot of it a lyin' on the water. It had big ! black head the size of ten gallon keg, a mouth with one tooth like an eagles claw,
  nee's.
 "About ten foot of the back was above water and I reckoned it drew about faith om and was matter of fifty foot long. Its back was like board, black your hat and a number of ribs runnin' fore an aft like rails. see all this about twenty foot away and the boss he was takin' it all in, swear in low-lilze that he hadn't no harpoon, for s'help me he'd hit it sure; but as it was we
 only had two oars and he motioned me for
 to pull slow. So we kinder pulled ahead on the quiet till he was within ten foot, when l
 see it was covered with barnacles and had two forepaws each five feet long. l believe
 that man would have grabbed it open hand ed, but made slip and the sea sarplnt opened its eyes, give us one look and was off, and between you and l 1 wasn't sorry for it. But wasn't he mad! I couldn't git noth- in outen him; but he knew what it was, and there's the name he writ for the skipper to put on the log. I copied it. It's terror, but perhaps some of you gentlemen is up in | the dead languages and kin make it out, ,' 1 and the sailor took out of a little bag sus pended about his neck roll of bills, needles and thread, piece of navy plug, sea bean and finally an old envelope, on the back of which was printed in large irregular letters, l ''Sphargis Coriacea."
 l "Ahl' exclaimed the colonel, as he inter preted the writing, ''so that was the name of l the sea serpent?"
 ''That was it just as it came from the log,' 3 | replied the sailor.
 l "Well then," explained the colonel, stthis
 is the name of turtle, and a rare one
 too, found occasionally in the Pacific and
 in all oceans-the leather back. the king 1 of all turtles. This is the second one have | heard of in these waters for many years
 The first I came pretty near capturing, but ii
 cleaned us out, and you have told you1
 yarn perhaps you would ike-to hear mine.
 and the sailor holding his assent, he contin-
 ued "Same years ago was interested in g
 schooner that ran from Frisco down the
 coast and up the Gulf of California on 6
 sort of general trading business. On one trip she got into some trouble, little differ
 ence about @ matter of duty or something
 Anyway the skipper, who was third owner,