THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT. 91

agreeing as to the size, shape, and motion of this wonderful
creature, as well as in less important particulars.”

The great Sea-Serpent was estimated to be from seventy to
one hundred feet in length ; the two ends of it could not be
seen at once with Gloucester’s best telescope. It was about
as large round as a half-barrel, and of a dark brown color.
Its back was covered with singular bunches ; some said eight,
some said twenty in number. The creature was said to have
a head in appearance and size like a horse’s. It made a
track in the water visible for half a mile. When on the sur-
face, it seemed to move about a mile in four minutes ; but
when underneath, judging by the motion of the water, it
travelled at the fair rate of a mile in two minutes. It had
a tongue like a harpoon, about two feet in length, which it
darted out when disturbed. Sometimes it amused itself by
playing in circles upon the face of the water. When it was
tired of this hideous waltz, and wanted to go to the bottom,
instead of diving or swimming down, or even turning to
“look before it leaped,” like most fish, it simply cropped:
sank like lead; went all at once.

On the 14th of August there came a little girl (she after-
wards married the boy whose cow discovered the Serpent;
and, though I don’t suppose that was a matter of much interest
to the Serpent, it may be of some to those young folks who are
beginning—a very bad beginning !—to read novels) from over
the opposite side of the harbor, where the hills are as green as
Eden, into the dingy little town which looks like a dream