Year: 1876

There was thick bank of cloud.


on the horizon, and as the sun ros,


from the sea, behind the dark banl


great masses of color-red and blue


and yellow-lit up the whole expanst


of sky and sea. l was looking at a


strange ruddy plot of red on the wa


ter right astern when | saw, appar


entity near the horizon, but in the


red blot, dark moving shadow. II
did not seem to move with the other
shadows on the sea, and this fixed


my attention to it. Soon | saw il


was steadily approaching the vessel.
l could distinguish no form, only a
dark shadow, but | made out certain
ly that it was advancing toward us
and at great rate. Fifteen minutes
must have passed when l at last be-
came able TO distinguish the form of
the advancing object. | spoke to
the captain afterward as to the dis
lance the object could have been
from us when l first distinguished it,
and he told me / must have been de-
ceived by the moving lights in sup
posing it near the horizon; and he
guessed, from what said, that it was
then three or four miles distant.
Mistakes of like nature, he said are
commonly made by the inexperi
enced. l cannot accurately de-
scribe my feelings on beholding that
hideous sight. At first l turned to
call out, to bring others to look on
with me; but before a cry could pass
my lips, q second feeling of selfish
pleasure that | alone saw that fear
ful thing, seized me, and turned my
eyes again to the sea and kept them
there. Within Il hundred feet of the
stern of our vessel, not now ap-
preaching us, but simply following
steadily in our wake, was this hide
Gus thing. A great mass of what
looked like sca-wecd, on which fu
tile attempt at combing had been
made, rose out of the water. This
mass must have been twenty or thir-
ty feet in length and ten feet in
width, and as it came on it caused 4
wide ripple in the water that show
ed there must be still greater part
below the surface. From the center
part Of this mass, raised just clear
above it, and facing the vessel, was
great black head. The top was
quite fiat, in shape not unlike that
of a monstrons 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, ex-
cept the captain himself, saw the
thing afterward, but they were scarce
ly two who could agree as to the
color and nature of these eyes. /
can only, therefore, write as they ap
peared to me. The eyeballs were
enormous; they must have been four
or five inches in diameter. They
scintillated constantly. Every one
knows the extraordinary appearance
of a surface covered with small al
ternate squares Of bright red and
bright blue, the quivering, uncertain,
unfixed look such a surface has, the
difficulty, the impossibility expert
enced by the looker-on to fix the
color of any particular square. The
eyeballs of this thing had such a
quivering, uncertain look; but they
were not red, nor blue, in their color;
they were of bright, burning 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 visi-
BILE from its extreme brightness, 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 de-
fined, and seemed to remain in the
same place. The motion, however, of
the thing was so steady that no de-
duction could fairly be drawn from
their not changing their position.
The appearance of this extraordi-
nary creature was. so new to me, so
entirely outside all my previous ex-
perience, that / had no preconceived
ideas with which to compare the
thoughts it raised in my mind. So
the impression it caused was vague
and indefinite, and I can only say
that it raised in me extreme horror
and dislike.


I had been so absorbed in the
pleasing pain of looking at the thing,