OCCULT INHABITANTS OF THE SEA AND RIVERS
_Phantom Ships_
From time to time, one still hears of a phantom ship being seen, in
various parts of the world. Sometimes it is in the Straits of Magellan,
vainly trying to weather the Horn; sometimes in the frozen latitudes of
the north, steering its way in miraculous fashion past monster icebergs;
sometimes in the Pacific, sometimes in the Atlantic, and only the other
day I heard of its being seen off Cornwall. The night was dark and
stormy, and lights being suddenly seen out at sea as of a vessel in
distress, the lifeboat was launched. On approaching the lights, it was
discovered that they proceeded from a vessel that mysteriously vanished
as soon as the would-be rescuers were within hailing. Much puzzled, the
lifeboat men were about to return, when they saw the lights suddenly
reappear to leeward. On drawing near to them, they again disappeared,
and were once more seen right out to sea. Utterly nonplussed, and
feeling certain that the elusive bark must be the notorious phantom
ship, the lifeboat men abandoned the pursuit, and returned home.
A fisherman of the same town--the town to which the lifeboat that had
gone to the rescue of the phantom ship belonged--told me, when I was out
with him one evening in his boat, that one of the oldest inhabitants of
the place had on one occasion, when the phantom ship visited the bay,
actually got his hands on her gunwales before she melted away, and he
narrowly escaped pitching headlong into the sea. Though the weather was
then still and warm, the yards of the ship, which were coated with ice,
flapped violently to and fro, as if under the influence of some mighty
wind. The appearance of the phenomenon was followed, as usual, by a
catastrophe to one of the local boats.
I very often sound sailors as to whether they have ever come across this
ominous vessel, and sometimes hear very enthralling accounts of it. An
old sea captain whom I met on the pier at Southampton, in reply to my
inquiry, said: "Yes! I have seen the phantom ship, or at any rate a
phantom ship, once--but only once. It was one night in the fifties, and
we were becalmed in the South Pacific about three hundred miles due west
of Callao. It had been terrifically hot all day, and, only too thankful
that it was now a little cooler, I was lolling over the bulwarks to get
a few mouthfuls of fresh air before turning into my berth, when one of
the crew touched me on the shoulder, and ejaculating, 'For God's
sake----' abruptly left off. Following the direction of his glaring
eyes, I saw to my amazement a large black brig bearing directly down on
us. She was about a mile off, and, despite the intense calmness of the
sea, was pitching and tossing as if in the roughest water. As she drew
nearer I was able to make her out better, and from her build--she
carried two masts and was square-rigged forward and schooner-rigged
aft--as well as from her tawdry gilt figurehead, concluded she was a
hermaphrodite brig of, very possibly, Dutch nationality. She had
evidently seen a great deal of rough weather, for her foretopmast and
part of her starboard bulwarks were gone, and what added to my
astonishment and filled me with fears and doubts was, that in spite of
the pace at which she was approaching us and the dead calmness of the
air, she had no other sails than her foresail and mainsail, and
flying-jib.
"By this time all of our crew were on deck, and the skipper and the
second mate took up their positions one on either side of me, the man
who had first called my attention to the strange ship, joining some
other seamen near the forecastle. No one spoke, but, from the expression
in their eyes and ghastly pallor of their cheeks, it was very easy to
see that one and all were dominated by the same feelings of terror and
suspicion. Nearer and nearer drew the brig, until she was at last so
close that we could perceive her crew--all of whom, save the helmsman,
were leaning over the bulwarks--grinning at us. Never shall I forget the
horror of those grins. They were hideous, meaningless, hellish grins,
the grins of corpses in the last stage of putrefaction. And that is just
what they were--all of them--corpses, but corpses possessed by spirits
of the most devilish sort, for as we stared, too petrified with fear to
remove our gaze, they nodded their ulcerated heads and gesticulated
vehemently. The brig then gave a sudden yaw, and with that motion there
was wafted a stink--a stink too damnably foul and rotten to originate
from anywhere, save from some cesspool in hell. Choking, retching, and
all but fainting, I buried my face in the skipper's coat, and did not
venture to raise it, till the far-away sounds of plunging and tossing
assured me the cursed ship had passed. I then looked up, and was just in
time to catch a final glimpse of the brig, a few hundred yards to
leeward, (she had passed close under our stern) before her lofty stern
rose out of the water, and, bows foremost, she plunged into the stilly
depths and we saw her no more. There was no need for the skipper to tell
us that she was the phantom ship, nor did she belie her sinister
reputation, for within a week of seeing her, yellow fever broke out on
board, and when we arrived at port, there were only three of us left."
_The Sargasso Sea_
Of all the seas in the world, none bear a greater reputation for being
haunted than the Sargasso. Within this impenetrable waste of rank,
stinking seaweed, in places many feet deep, are collected wreckages of
all ages and all climes, grim and permanent records of the world's
maritime history, unsinkable and undestroyable. It has ever been my
ambition to explore the margins of this unsightly yet fascinating marine
wilderness, but, so far, I have been unable to extend my peregrinations
further south than the thirty-fifth degree of latitude.
Among the many stories I have heard in connection with this sea, the
following will, I think, bear repeating:--
"A brig with twelve hands aboard, bound from Boston to the Cape Verde
Islands, was caught in a storm, and, being blown out of her course,
drifted on to the northern extremities of the Sargasso. The wind then
sinking, and an absolute calm taking its place, there seemed every
prospect that the brig would remain where it was for an indefinite
period. A most horrible fate now stared the crew in the face, for
although they had food enough to last them for many weeks, they only had
a very limited supply of water, and the intense heat and terrific stench
from the weeds made them abnormally thirsty.
"After a long and earnest consultation, in which the skipper acted as
chairman, it was decided that on the consumption of the last drop of
water they should all commit suicide, anything rather than to perish of
thirst, and it would be far less harrowing to die in a body and face the
awful possibilities of the next world in company than alone.
"As there was only one firearm on board, and the idea of throat-cutting
was disapproved of by several of the more timid, rat poison, of which
there was just enough to go all round, was chosen. Meanwhile, in
consideration of the short time left to them on earth, the crew insisted
that they should be allowed to enjoy themselves to the utmost. To this
the captain, knowing only too well what that would mean, reluctantly
gave his consent. A general pandemonium at once ensued, one of the men
producing a mouth accordion and another a concertina, whilst the rest,
selecting partners with much mock gallantry, danced to the air of a
popular Vaudeville song till they could dance no longer.
"The next item on the programme was dinner. The best of everything on
board was served up, and they all ate and drank till they could hold no
more. They were then so sleepy that they tumbled off their seats, and,
lying on the floor, soon snored like hogs. The cool of the evening
restoring them, they played pitch and toss, and poker, till tea-time,
and then fooled away the remainder of the evening in more cards and more
drink. In this manner the best part of a week was beguiled. Then the
skipper announced the fact that the last drop of liquor on board had
gone, and that, according to the compact, the hour had arrived to commit
suicide. Had a bombshell fallen in their midst, it could not have caused
a greater consternation than this announcement. The men had, by this
time, become so enamoured with their easy and irresponsible mode of
living, that the idea of quitting it in so abrupt a manner was by no
means to their liking, and they evinced their displeasure in the
roughest and most forcible of language. 'The skipper could d----d well
put an end to himself if he had a mind to, but they would see themselves
somewhere else before they did any such thing--it would be time enough
to talk of dying when the victuals were all eaten up.' Then they
thoroughly overhauled the ship, and on discovering half a dozen bottles
of rum and a small cask of water stowed away in the skipper's cabin,
they threw him overboard and pelted him with empty bottles till he sank;
after which they cleared the deck and danced till sunset.
"Two nights later, when they were all lying on the deck near the
companion way, licking their parched lips and commiserating with
themselves on the prospect of their gradually approaching end--for they
had abandoned all idea of the rat poison--they suddenly saw a hideous,
seaweedy object rise up over the bulwarks on the leeward side of the
ship. In breathless expectation they all sat up and watched. Inch by
inch it rose, until they saw before them a tall form enveloped from head
to foot in green slime, and horribly suggestive of the well-known figure
of the murdered captain. Gliding noiselessly over the deck, it shook its
hands menacingly at each of the sailors, until it came to the
cabin-boy--the only one among them who had not participated in the
skipper's death--when it touched him gently on the forehead, and,
stooping down, appeared to whisper something in his ears. It then
recrossed the deck, and, mounting the bulwarks, leaped into the sea.
"For some seconds no one stirred; and then, as if under the influence of
some hypnotic spell, one by one, each of the crew, with the exception of
the cabin-boy, got up, and, marching in Indian file to the spot where
the apparition had vanished, flung themselves overboard. The last of the
procession had barely disappeared from view, when the cabin-boy, whose
agony of mind during this infernal tragedy cannot be described, fell
into a heavy stupor, from which he did not awake till morning. In the
meanwhile the brig, owing to a stiff breeze that had arisen in the
night, was freed from its environment, and was drifting away from the
seaweed. It went on and on, day after day, and day after day, till it
was eventually sighted by a steamer and taken in tow. The cabin-boy, by
this time barely alive, was nursed with the tenderest care, and, owing
to the assiduous attention bestowed on him, he completely recovered."
I think this story, though naturally ridiculed and discredited by some,
may be unreservedly accepted by those whose knowledge and experience of
the occult warrant their belief in it.
Along the coast of Brittany are many haunted spots, none more so than
the "Bay of the Departed," where, in the dead of night, wails and cries,
presumably uttered by the phantasms of drowned sailors, are distinctly
heard by the terrified peasantry on shore. I can the more readily
believe this, because I myself have heard similar sounds off the Irish,
Scottish, and Cornish coasts, where shrieks, and wails, and groans as of
the drowning have been borne to me from the inky blackness of the
foaming and tossing sea. According to Mr Hunt in his _Romances of the
West of England_, the sands of Porth Towan were haunted, a fisherman
declaring that one night when he was walking on them alone, he suddenly
heard a voice from the sea cry out, "The hour is come, but not the man."
This was repeated three times, when a black figure, like that of a man,
appeared on the crest of an adjacent hill, and, dashing down the steep
side, rushed over the sands and vanished in the waves.
In other parts of England, as well as in Brittany and Spain, a voice
from the sea is always said to be heard prior to a storm and loss of
life. In the Bermudas, I have heard that before a wreck a huge white
fish is often seen; whilst in the Cape Verde Islands maritime disasters
are similarly presaged by flocks of peculiarly marked gulls.
On no more reliable authority than hearsay evidence, I understand that
off the coast of Finland a whirlpool suddenly appears close beside a
vessel that is doomed to be wrecked, and that a like calamity is
foretold off the coast of Peru by the phantasm of a sailor who, in
eighteenth-century costume, swarms up the side of the doomed ship,
enters the captain's cabin, and, touching him on the shoulder, points
solemnly at the porthole and vanishes.
_River Ghosts_
In China there is a strong belief that spots in rivers, creeks, and
ponds where people have been drowned are haunted by devils that,
concealing themselves either in the water itself or on the banks, spring
out upon the unwary and drown them. To warn people against these
dangerous elementals, a stone or pillar called "The Fat-pee," on which
the name of the future Buddha or Pam-mo-o-mee-to-foo is inscribed, is
set up near the place where they are supposed to lurk, and when the
hauntings become very frequent the evil spirit is exorcised. The
ceremony of exorcism consists in the decapitation of a white horse by a
specially selected executioner, on the site of the hauntings. The head
of the slaughtered animal is placed in an earthenware jar, and buried in
the exact spot where it was killed, which place is then carefully marked
by the erection of a stone tablet with the words "O-me-o-to-fat"
transcribed on it. The performance concludes with the cutting up and
selling of the horse's body for food. Amongst the numerous other creeks
that have witnessed this practice in recent years are those adjoining
the villages of Tsze-tow (near Whampoa) and Gna-zew (near Canton).
Various of the lakes, particularly the crater lakes of America, were
once thought to be haunted by spirits or devils of a fiery red who
raised storms and upset canoes.
_Sirens_
But by far the most fascinating of all the phantasms of the water are
the sirens that haunted (and still occasionally haunt) rivers and
waterfalls, particularly those of Germany and Austria. Not so very long
ago on my travels I came across an aged Hungarian who declared that he
had once seen a siren. I append the story he told me, as nearly as
possible in his own words.
"My brother Hans and I were wandering, early one morning, along the
banks of a tributary of the Drave, in search of birds' eggs. The shores
on either side the river were thickly wooded, and so rough and uneven in
places that we had to exercise the greatest care to avoid getting hurt.
Few people visited the neighbourhood, save in the warmest and brightest
time of the day, and, with the exception of a woodcutter, we had met no
one. Much, then, to our astonishment, on arriving at an open space on
the bank, we heard the sound of singing and music. 'Whoever can it be?'
we asked ourselves, and then, advancing close to the water's edge, we
strained our heads, and saw, perched high on a rock in midstream a few
feet to our left, a girl with long yellow hair and a face of the most
exquisite beauty. Though I was too young then to trouble my head about
girls, I could not help being struck with this one, whilst Hans, who was
several years older than I, was simply spellbound. 'My God! how lovely!'
he cried out, 'and what a voice--how exquisite! Isn't she divine? She is
altogether too beautiful for a human being; she must be an angel,' and
he fell on his knees and extended his hands towards her, as if in the
act of worship. Never having seen Hans behave in such a queer way
before, I touched him on the shoulder, and said: 'Get up! If you go on
like this the lady will think you mad. Besides, it is getting late, we
ought to be going on!' But Hans did not heed me. He still continued to
exclaim aloud, expressing his admiration in the most extravagant
phrases; and then the girl ceased singing, and, looking at Hans with her
large blue eyes, smiled and beckoned him to approach. I caught hold of
him, and begged and implored him to do nothing so foolish, but he
wrenched himself free, and, striking me savagely on the chest, leaped
into the water and swam towards the rock.
"With what eagerness I counted his strokes and watched the dreaded
distance diminish! On and on he swam, till at length he was close to the
rock, and the lady, bending down, was holding out her lily hands to him.
Hans clutched at them, and they were, I thought, already in his fevered
grasp, when she coyly snatched them away and struck him playfully on the
head. The cruel, hungry waters then surged over him. I saw him sink
down, down, down: I saw him no more. When I raised my agonised eyes to
the rocks, all was silent and desolate: the lady had vanished."