fact too well attested. I have elsewhere[8] related several instances of
this having occurred. Omitting those, I will give two or three others
which have since come under my notice. Sir Grenville Temple, in his
'Excursions in the Mediterranean Sea,' tells how a Sardinian captain,
whilst bathing at Jerbeh, was seized and drowned by an octopus. When his
body was found, his limbs were bound together by the arms of the animal;
and this took place in water only four feet deep.
[8] See 'The Octopus; or, the Devil-fish of Fiction and of Fact.'
1873. Chapman and Hall.
Mr. J. K. Lord's account of the formidable strength of these creatures
in Oregon is confirmed by an incident recorded in the _Weekly Oregonian_
(the principal paper of Oregon) of October 6th, 1877. A few days before
that date an Indian woman, whilst bathing, was held beneath the surface
by an octopus, and drowned. The body was discovered on the following day
in the horrid embrace of the creature. Indians dived down and with their
knives severed the arms of the octopus and recovered the corpse.
Mr. Clemens Laming, in his book, 'The French in Algiers,' writes:--"The
soldiers were in the habit of bathing in the sea every evening, and from
time to time several of them disappeared--no one knew how. Bathing was,
in consequence, strictly forbidden; in spite of which several men went
into the water one evening. Suddenly one of them screamed for help, and
when several others rushed to his assistance they found that an octopus
had seized him by the leg by four of its arms whilst it clung to the
rock with the rest. The soldiers brought the 'monster' home with them,
and out of revenge they boiled it alive and ate it. This adventure
accounted for the disappearance of the other soldiers."
The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, who for more than a quarter of a century has
resided as a missionary amongst the inhabitants of the Hervey Islands,
and with whom I had the pleasure of conversing on this subject when he
was in England in 1875, described in the _Leisure Hour_ of April 20th,
1872, another mode of attack by which an octopus might deprive a man of
life. A servant of his went diving for "poulpes" (octopods), leaving his
son in charge of the canoe. After a short time he rose to the surface,
his arms free, but his nostrils and mouth completely covered by a large
octopus. If his son had not promptly torn the living plaister from off
his face he must have been suffocated--a fate which actually befell some
years previously a man who foolishly went diving alone.
In _Appleton's American Journal of Science and Art_, January 31st,
1874, a correspondent describes an attack by an octopus on a diver who
was at work on the wreck of a sunken steamer off the coast of Florida.
The man, a powerful Irishman, was helpless in its grasp, and would have
been drowned if he had not been quickly brought to the surface; for when
dragged on to the raft from which he had descended, he fainted, and his
companions were unable to pull the creature from its hold upon him until
they had dealt it a sharp blow across its baggy body.
A similar incident occurred to the government diver of the colony of
Victoria, Australia. Whilst pursuing his avocation in the estuary of the
river Moyne he was seized by an octopus. He killed it by striking it
with an iron bar, and brought to shore with him a portion of it with the
arms more than three feet long.
Mr. Laurence Oliphant, in his 'China and Japan,' describes a Japanese
show, which consisted of "a series of groups of figures carved in wood,
the size of life, and as cleverly coloured as Madame Tussaud's
wax-works. One of these was a group of women bathing in the sea. One of
them had been caught in the folds of a cuttle-fish; the others, in
alarm, were escaping, leaving their companion to her fate. The
cuttle-fish was represented on a huge scale, its eyes, eyelids, and
mouth being made to move simultaneously by a man inside the head."
An attack of this kind is most artistically represented in a small
Japanese ivory-carving in the possession of Mr. Bartlett, of the
Zoological Gardens.[9]
[9] This carving was figured in illustration of an interesting
paper by Professor Owen, C.B., F.R.S., &c., "On some new and rare
Cephalopoda," in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, April
20, 1880.
The Japanese are well acquainted with the octopus; for it is commonly
depicted on their ornaments, and forms no unimportant item in their
fisheries.
I have recently had an opportunity of inspecting a most curious
Japanese book, in the possession of my friend Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier,
which is chiefly devoted to the representations of the fisheries and
fish-curing processes of the country. It is in three volumes, and is
entitled, 'Land and Sea Products,' by Ki Kone. It is evidently ancient,
for it is slightly worm-eaten, but the plates, each 12 inches by 8
inches, are full of vigour. Two of these illustrate in a very
interesting manner the subject before us, and by the kindness of Mr.
Tegetmeier I am able to give facsimiles of them, which appeared with an
article by him on this book, in the _Field_ of March 14th, 1874. Fig. 5
represents a fisherman in a boat out at sea: a gigantic octopus has
thrown one of its arms over the side of the boat; the man, who is alone,
has started forward from the stern of the boat, and has succeeded, by
means of a large knife attached to a long handle, in lopping off the
dangerous limb of his enemy. As Mr. Tegetmeier says, "From the extreme
matter of fact manner in which all these engravings are made, and the
total absence of exaggeration in any other representation, I cannot but
regard the relative sizes of the man, the boat, and the octopus, as
correctly given, in which case we have evidence of the existence of
gigantic cephalopods in Japanese waters." The only doubt I have is
whether the fisherman correctly described his assailant as an octopus,
and whether it was not a calamary. Fig. 6 is a vivid picture of a
fishmonger's shop in a market, under the awning of which may be seen two
arms of a gigantic cuttle hung up for sale as food. These are evidently
of most unusual size, judging from the action of the lookers on; the one
to the left, with a tall stand or case on his back, like a Parisian
cocoa-vendor, is holding out his hand in mute astonishment; whilst the
attention of the smaller personage in the right-hand corner is directed
to the suspended arms of the cuttle by the man nearest to him, who is
pointing to them with upraised hand. In another plate in this most
interesting work a Japanese mode of fishing for cuttles is delineated. A
man in a boat is tossing crabs, one at a time, into the sea, and when a
cuttle rises at the bait he spears it with a trident and tosses it into
the boat.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--JAPANESE FISHERMAN ATTACKED BY A CUTTLE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--ARMS OF A GREAT CUTTLE EXHIBITED IN A JAPANESE
FISHMONGER'S SHOP.]
The octopus, therefore, though not abundant on our own coasts, is found
in every sea in the temperate zone; and in so far as that it secretes an
ink with which it can render the water turbid, and has many radiating
arms with which it can seize and drown a man, it possesses certain
attributes of the Kraken; but we have no authentic knowledge of its ever
attaining to greater dimensions than I have stated, nor does it bask on
the surface of the sea. It is not amongst the _Octopidae_ therefore that
we must look for a solution of the mystery.
The basking condition is fulfilled by the _Sepia_; and its flattened
back, supported and rendered hard and firm to the touch by the
calcareous _sepiostaire_ beneath the skin, is broader in proportion than
that of the octopus or the squid. Thus _Sepia_ might pass as a
microscopic miniature of the great Scandinavian monster. But it lacks
the character of size. We have no reason to believe that any true
_Sepia_ exists, as the family is now understood, that has a body more
than eighteen inches long. If it were otherwise it would be more likely
to be known of this family than of its relatives, for its lightly
constructed and well known "cuttle-bone" would float on the surface for
many weeks after the death of its owner, and large specimens of it would
be seen and recognised from passing ships.
As we can find no species of the _Octopidae_ or _Sepiidae_ which can
furnish a pretext for the stories told of the Kraken, we must try to
ascertain how far a similitude to it may be traced in the third family
we have discussed, the _Teuthidae_.
The belief in the existence of gigantic cuttles is an ancient one.
Aristotle mentions it, and Pliny tells of an enormous polypus which at
Carteia, in Grenada--an old and important Roman colony near
Gibraltar--used to come out of the sea at night, and carry off and
devour salted tunnies from the curing depots on the shore; and adds that
when it was at last killed, the head of it (they used to call the body
the head, because in swimming it goes in advance) was found to weigh 700
lbs. AElian records a similar incident, and describes his monster as
crushing in its arms the barrels of salt fish to get at the contents.
These two must have been octopods if they were anything; the word
"polypus" thus especially designates it, and moreover, the free-swimming
cuttles and squids would be helpless if stranded on the shore. Some of
the old writers seem to have aimed rather at making their histories
sensational than at carefully investigating the credibility or the
contrary of the highly coloured reports brought to them. These were, of
course, gross exaggerations, but there was generally a substratum of
truth in them. They were based on the rare occurrence of specimens,
smaller certainly, but still enormous, of some known species, and in
most cases the worst that can be said of their authors is that they were
culpably careless and foolishly credulous.
Unhappily so lenient a judgment cannot be passed on some comparatively
recent writers. Denys de Montfort, half a century later than
Pontoppidan, not only professed to believe in the Kraken, but also in
the existence of another gigantic animal distinct from it; a colossal
_poulpe_, or octopus, compared with which Pliny's was a mere pigmy. In a
drawing fitter to decorate the outside of a showman's caravan at a fair
than seriously to illustrate a work on natural history,[10] he depicted
this tremendous cuttle as throwing its arms over a three masted vessel,
snapping off its masts, tearing down the yards, and on the point of
dragging it to the bottom, if the crew had not succeeded in cutting off
its immense limbs with cutlasses and hatchets. De Montfort had good
opportunities of obtaining information, for he was at one time an
assistant in the geological department of the Museum of Natural History,
in Paris; and wrote a work on conchology,[11] besides that already
referred to. But it appears to have been his deliberate purpose to
cajole the public; for it is reported that he exclaimed to M. Defrance:
"If my entangled ship is accepted, I will make my 'colossal poulpe'
overthrow a whole fleet." Accordingly we find him gravely declaring[12]
that one of the great victories of the British navy was converted into a
disaster by the monsters which are the subject of his history. He boldly
asserted that the six men-of-war captured from the French by Admiral
Rodney in the West Indies on the 12th of April, 1782, together with four
British ships detached from his fleet to convoy the prizes, were all
suddenly engulphed in the waves on the night of the battle under such
circumstances as showed that the catastrophe was caused by colossal
cuttles, and not by a gale or any ordinary casualty.
[10] 'Histoire Naturelle generale et particuliere des Mollusques,'
vol. ii., p. 256.
[11] 'Conchyliologie Systematique.'
[12] 'Hist. Nat. des Moll.,' vol. ii., pp. 358 to 368.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--FACSIMILE OF DE MONTFORT'S "_Poulpe colossal_."]
Unfortunately for De Montfort, the inexorable logic of facts not only
annihilates his startling theory, but demonstrates the reckless falsity
of his plausible statements. The captured vessels did not sink on the
night of the action, but were all sent to Jamaica to refit, and arrived
there safely. Five months afterwards, however, a convoy of nine
line-of-battle ships (amongst which were Rodney's prizes), one frigate,
and about a hundred merchantmen, were dispersed, whilst on their voyage
to England, by a violent storm, during which some of them unfortunately
foundered. The various accidents which preceded the loss of these
vessels was related in evidence to the Admiralty by the survivors, and
official documents prove that De Montfort's fleet-destroying _poulpe_
was an invention of his own, and had no part whatever in the disaster
that he attributed to it.
I have been told, but cannot vouch for the truth of the report, that De
Montfort's propensity to write that which was not true culminated in his
committing forgery, and that he died in the galleys. But he records a
statement of Captain Jean Magnus Dens, said to have been a respectable
and veracious man, who, after having made several voyages to China as a
master trader, retired from a seafaring life and lived at Dunkirk. He
told De Montfort that in one of his voyages, whilst crossing from St.
Helena to Cape Negro, he was becalmed, and took advantage of the
enforced idleness of the crew to have the vessel scraped and painted.
Whilst three of his men were standing on planks slung over the side, an
enormous cuttle rose from the water, and threw one of its arms around
two of the sailors, whom it tore away, with the scaffolding on which
they stood. With another arm it seized the third man, who held on
tightly to the rigging, and shouted for help. His shipmates ran to his
assistance, and succeeded in rescuing him by cutting away the creature's
arm with axes and knives, but he died delirious on the following night.
The captain tried to save the other two sailors by killing the animal,
and drove several harpoons into it; but they broke away, and the men
were carried down by the monster.
The arm cut off was said to have been twenty-five feet long, and as
thick as the mizen-yard, and to have had on it suckers as big as
saucepan-lids. I believe the old sea-captain's narrative of the incident
to be true; the dimensions given by De Montfort are wilfully and
deliberately false. The belief in the power of the cuttle to sink a ship
and devour her crew is as widely spread over the surface of the globe,
as it is ancient in point of time. I have been told by a friend that he
saw in a shop in China a picture of a cuttle embracing a junk,
apparently of about 300 tons burthen, and helping itself to the sailors,
as one picks gooseberries off a bush.
Traditions of a monstrous cuttle attacking and destroying ships are
current also at the present day in the Polynesian Islands. Mr. Gill, the
missionary previously quoted, tells us[13] that the natives of Aitutaki,
in the Hervey group, have a legend of a famous explorer, named Rata, who
built a double canoe, decked and rigged it, and then started off in
quest of adventures. At the prow was stationed the dauntless Nganaoa,
armed with a long spear and ready to slay all monsters. One day when
speeding pleasantly over the ocean, the voice of the ever vigilant
Nganaoa was heard: "O Rata! yonder is a terrible enemy starting up from
ocean depths." It proved to be an octopus (query, squid?) of
extraordinary dimensions. Its huge tentacles encircled the vessel in
their embrace, threatening its instant destruction. At this critical
moment Nganaoa seized his spear, and fearlessly drove it through the
head of the creature. The tentacles slowly relaxed, and the dead monster
floated off on the surface of the ocean.
[13] _Leisure Hour_, October, 1875, p. 636.
Passing from the early records of the appearance of cuttles of unusual
size, and the current as well as the traditional belief in their
existence by the inhabitants of many countries, let us take the
testimony of travellers and naturalists who have a right to be regarded
as competent observers. In so doing we must bear in mind that until
Professor Owen propounded the very clear and convenient classification
now universally adopted, the squids, as well as the eight-footed
_Octopidae_, were all grouped under the title of _Sepia_.
Pernetty, describing a voyage made by him in the years 1763-4,[14]
mentions gigantic cuttles met with in the Southern Seas.
[14] 'Voyage aux Iles Malouines.'
Shortly afterwards, during the first week in March 1769, Banks and
Solander, the scientific fellow-voyagers with Lieutenant Cook
(afterwards the celebrated Captain Cook), in H.M.S. _Endeavour_, found
in the North Pacific, in latitude 38 deg. 44' S. and longitude 110 deg. 33' W.,
a large calamary which had just been killed by the birds, and was
floating in a mangled condition on the water. Its arms were furnished,
instead of suckers, with a double row of very sharp talons, which
resembled those of a cat, and, like them, were retractable into a sheath
of skin from which they might be thrust at pleasure. Of this cuttle they
say, with evident pleasurable remembrance of a savoury meal, they made
one of the best soups they ever tasted. Professor Owen tells us, in the
paper already referred to, that when he was curator of the Hunterian
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and preparing, in 1829, his
first catalogue thereof, he was struck with the number of oceanic
invertebrates which Hunter had obtained. He learned from Mr. Clift that
Hunter had supplied Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks with stoppered
bottles containing alcohol, in which to preserve the new marine animals
that he might meet with during the circumnavigatory voyage about to be
undertaken by Cook. Thinking it probable that Banks might have stowed
some parts of this great hook-armed squid in one of these bottles for
his anatomical friend, he searched for, and found in a bottle marked
"J. B.," portions of its arms, the beak with tongue, a heart ventricle,
&c., and, amongst the dry preparations, the terminal part of the body,
with an attached pair of rhomboidal fins. The remainder had furnished
Cook and his companions Banks and Solander with a welcome change of diet
in the commander's cabin of the _Endeavour_. As the inner surface of the
arms of the squid, as well as the terminals of its tentacles, were
studded with hooks, Professor Owen named it _Enoploteuthis Cookii_. He
estimates the diameter of the tail fin at 15 inches, the length of its
body 3 feet, of its head 10 inches, of the shorter arms 16 inches, and
of the longer tentacles about the same as its body--thus giving a total
length of about 6 ft. 9 in. Although individuals of other species, of
larger dimensions, are known to have existed, this is the largest
specimen of the hook-armed calamaries that has been scientifically
examined. It would have been a formidable antagonist to a man under
circumstances favourable to the exertion of its strength, and the use of
its prehensile and lacerating talons.
Peron,[15] the well-known French zoologist, mentions having seen at sea,
in 1801, not far from Van Diemen's Land, at a very little distance from
his ship, _Le Geographe_, a "Sepia," of the size of a barrel, rolling
with noise on the waves; its arms, between 6 and 7 feet long, and 6 or 7
inches in diameter at the base, extended on the surface, and writhing
about like great snakes. He recognised in this, and no doubt correctly,
one of the calamaries. The arms that he saw were evidently the animal's
shorter ones, as under such circumstances, with neither enemy to combat
nor prey to seize at the moment, the longer tentacles would remain
concealed.
[15] 'Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes.'
Quoy and Gaimard[16] report that in the Atlantic Ocean, near the
Equator, they found the remains of an enormous calamary, half eaten by
the sharks and birds, which could not have weighed less, when entire,
than 200 lbs. A portion of this was secured, and is preserved in the
Museum of Natural History, Paris.
[16] 'Voyage de l'Uranie: Zoologie,' vol. i., part 2, p. 411. 1824.
Captain Sander Rang[17] records having fallen in with, in mid-ocean, a
species distinct from the others, of a dark red colour, having short
arms, and a body the size of a hogshead.
[17] 'Manuel des Mollusques,' p. 86.
In a manuscript by Paulsen (referred to by Professor Steenstrup, at a
meeting of Scandinavian naturalists at Copenhagen in 1847) is a
description of a large calamary, cast ashore on the coast of Zeeland,
which the latter named _Architeuthis monachus_. Its body measured 21
feet, and its tentacles 18 feet, making a total of 39 feet.
In 1854 another was stranded at the Skag in Jutland, which Professor
Steenstrup believed to belong to the same genus as the preceding, but to
be of a different species, and called it _Architeuthis dux_. The body
was cut in pieces by the fishermen for bait, and furnished many
wheelbarrow loads. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys[18] says Dr. Moerch informed him
that the beak of this animal was nine inches long. He adds that another
huge cephalopod was stranded in 1860 or 1861, between Hillswick and
Scalloway, on the west of Shetland. From a communication received by
Professor Allman, it appears that its tentacles were 16 feet long, the
pedal arms about half that length, and the mantle sac 7 feet. The
largest suckers examined by Professor Allman were three-quarters of an
inch in diameter.
[18] 'British Conchology,' vol. v., p. 124.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--GIGANTIC CALAMARY CAUGHT BY THE FRENCH DESPATCH
VESSEL 'ALECTON,' NEAR TENERIFFE.]
We have also the statement of the officers and crew of the French
despatch steamer, _Alecton_, commanded by Lieutenant Bouyer, describing
their having met with a great calamary on the 30th of November, 1861,
between Madeira and Teneriffe. It was seen about noon on that day
floating on the surface of the water, and the vessel was stopped with a
view to its capture. Many bullets were aimed at it, but they passed
through its soft flesh without doing it much injury, until at length
"the waves were observed to be covered with foam and blood." It had
probably discharged the contents of its ink-bag; for a strong odour of
musk immediately became perceptible--a perfume which I have already
mentioned as appertaining to the ink of many of the cephalopoda, and
also as being one of the reputed attributes of the Kraken. Harpoons were
thrust into it, but would not hold in the yielding flesh; and the animal
broke adrift from them, and, diving beneath the vessel, came up on the
other side. The crew wished to launch a boat that they might attack it
at closer quarters, but the commander forbade this, not feeling
justified in risking the lives of his men. A rope with a running knot
was, however, slipped over it, and held fast at the junction of the
broad caudal fin; but when an attempt was made to hoist it on deck the
enormous weight caused the rope to cut through the flesh, and all but
the hinder part of the body fell back into the sea and disappeared. M.
Berthelot, the French consul at Teneriffe, saw the fin and posterior
portion of the animal on board the _Alecton_ ten days afterwards, and
sent a report of the occurrence to the Paris Academy of Sciences. The
body of this great squid, which, like Rang's specimen, was of a deep-red
colour, was estimated to have been from 16 feet to 18 feet long, without
reckoning the length of its formidable arms.[19]
[19] In the accompanying illustration, the size of the squid is
exaggerated, but not so much as has been supposed.
These are statements made by men who, by their intelligence, character,
and position, are entitled to respect and credence; and whose evidence
would be accepted without question or hesitation in any court of law.
There is, moreover, a remarkable coincidence of particulars in their
several accounts, which gives great importance to their combined
testimony.