The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1896-09-09
FIFTY MILES OF SNAKES.
STRANGE TALE TOLD BY CAPTAIN
PEABODY OF PORTLAND.

He Saw the Great Sea Serpent and Millions
otOtbers, and That Too without Having
Drunk Any Dispensary Liquor.
NEW York, Sept. 3.-A big fleet OF
sailing ships, with vast, varied and
weird assortment of tales from the
deep, reached this port recently. The
fleet is the largest that has come in in
many day, and the yarns that were
spun ran the entire gamut of marine
adventure. There were stories of mu'
tiny, of raving typhoons, of compos'
ants, that marine corpse light which
no wind can blow out; of that strange
disease. beri-beri, which afllicts sailor.
men who sail on sugar laden ships; OF
water snakes, such as the Ancient
Mariner never dreamed of; ola three
sided conflict between sea serpent,
an alligator and shark-but wait till
you hear the stories.
The long overdue clipper Roanoke,
owned by the Sewalls and built at
Bath, was among the arrivals. She
was from Honolulu. Tugs been search,
ing for her throughout the past week.
She brings the biggest cargo ofsugar
ever carried by thing atioat. The
vessel herself is the largest Of her class:
Eight other square riggers followed
the giantess into port. They are from
: all over the world, and all sorts OF
conditions of seafaring have been
theirs.
81 An outline of the adventures met
4 was telegraphed to the city upon the
81 fleets arrival at Quarantine, and short
q ly afterward I went alongside the big
B Portland packet Tam O'Shanter. Cap
tain Peabody had told the Quarantine
Blnan about his having sailed through
Fifty miles of snakes-of wriggling,
coiling things of many colors and of
many shapes. And this, too, off Bor-
neo, where the Raines bill runs not to
the contrary.
Captain Peabody was leaning
against the after railing when climb
ed on board. His head was swathed
in a bandage. and when l asked him
about snakes he said that the bandage
had nothing to do with the Casa
wholly unrelated incident. A boil
was the wherefore of the bandage.
About snakes9 Well, come below,
and he would talk that subject out
lengthwise.
Twas off Borneo wnere he saw them,
"where there amt no ten command l.
ments," but where there are plenty OF
snakes and such. For fear the impress
sion would fade, or that he might for
get some of the details, Captain
Peabody wrote out an account of these
strange happenings at the time. The
reporter was allowed to copy it. This
is what the record says:
''An account of the sea serpent, as
seen from the deck Of the ship Tam
O'Shanter, off the coast of Borneo.
"At the risk of being doubted and
called evil names I am going to try
to describe a little incident that has
happened during our late passage in
this ship from Hong Kong to New
York, and I may add en- passant only
one Of the many remarkable incidents
Il hear the landsmen call them-that
have happened during my thirty-four
years of sea life.
MAY %, 1s96.-At daylight, the
low land OF Borneo in sight of the ship,
exactly on the equator and in longi-
tude 109 degrees z minutes East, l no.
ticed that the water on the pert side of
the ship looked very muddy, while
that on the starboard or off shore side
was quite blue. On pulling up a
bucket of water from either side of the
ship we found that the blue water was
as we expected, quite salt, while the
muddy water on the port side was near
ly fresh as water could be under such
conditions.
The fresh water had, without doubt,
been driven far off shore by one of
the many estuaries of the Pentiniak
River, the tides of which are very
strong, especially on the ebb, when
the fresh water forces its way for fully
five miles off shore and, for some un-
explained reason to me, refusing to
amalgamate with the salt water.
Large numbers of sharks, all sorts
of others fishes, and snakes, were seen
on the blue water side. Some of the
snakes were of immense size, while the
smallest, which came very close to the
ship, were not less than three feet
long. They were OF all imaginable
colors, some of the long ones very
prettily stripped, and others spotted.
"On the port, or fresh water. side a
number of alligators and huge catfish,
such as we catch in the Southern riv-
ers, were to be seen swimming close to
the dividing line of fresh and salt
water, and every once in awhile one
could be seen to make dash at dol
phin or boneta and ..seize the fish in its
jaws, swim back 10 fresh water and
eat its unfortunate victim at leisure.
"But the alligators were not always
so fast in their excursions, for we saw
one which had to pay dearly for its
temerity in trying to seize beautiful
dolphin that was at the moment being
hotly pursued by an immense shark.
Alligator and shark both seized the
dolphin at the same moment, and In
an instant we beheh a most terrific
conflict. The shark in the melee
managed to seize the alligator's right
hind leg in its mouth, and, keeping
itself we'll under water 10 avoid the
frightful lashings of the gators terri.
BILE tail, it simply steered the unfortun-
ate saurian out into the blue, or salt,
water. This appeared to be more than
the alligator could stand, for we saw
he rapidly grew weaker, and the shark
also appeared to realize that he had
his antagonist out of his element. for
he suddenly let 90 the bulldog hold