Never, within the history of mankind, does there appear to have been a time when dwellers by the sea did not believe in some awful and gigantic monsters inhabiting that unknown and vague immensity.

Whether we turn to Genesis to find great sea-monsters first of created sentient beings, or ransack the voluminous records of ancient civilisations, the result is the same. What a picture is that of the Hindu sage in the Fish Avatar of Krishna, finding himself and his eight companions alone in their ark upon the infinite sea, being visited by the god as an indescribably huge serpent extending a million leagues, shining like the sun, and with one stupendous horn, sky-piercing.

In the brief compass of this chapter I do not propose to rÉchauffer any sea-serpent stories, ancient or modern. More especially because my subject is the Kraken, and while I hold most firmly that the gigantic mollusc which can alone be given that title is the fons et origo of all true sea-serpent stories, it is with facts relating to the former that I have alone to deal. As might have been expected, all stories of sea-monsters have a strong family likeness, showing pretty conclusively their common derivation, with such differences as the locality and personality of the narrative must be held accountable for. But among sea-folk, as among all people leading lives in close contact with the elemental forces of Nature, legends persist with marvellous vitality, and so the story of the Kraken is to be found wherever men go down to the sea in ships, and do business in great waters.

Substantially the story is: that long low-lying banks have been discovered by vessels, which have moored thereto, only to find the supposed land developing wondrous peculiarities. Amid tremendous turmoil of seething waters, arms innumerable, like a nest of mighty serpents, arose from the deep, followed at last by a horrible head, of a bigness and diabolical appearance unspeakably appalling. Fascinated by the terrible eyes that, large as shields, glared upon them, the awe-stricken seamen beheld some of the far-reaching tentacles, covered with multitudes of mouths, embracing their vessel, while others searched her alow and aloft, culling the trembling men from the rigging like ripe fruit, and conveying them forthwith into an abysmal mouth where they vanished for ever.

Such a story, especially when embellished by professional story-tellers, has of course met with well-merited scepticism, but sight has been largely lost of the fact that from very early times much independent testimony has been borne to the existence of immense molluscÆ in many waters, sufficiently huge and horrific to have furnished a substantial basis for any number of hair-raising yarns. And having myself for some years been engaged in the sperm whale fishery, all over the globe, I now venture to bear the testimony of another eyewitness to the truth of many Kraken legends, however much they may have been, and are now, doubted.

To eager students of marine natural history, nothing can well be stranger than the manner in which, with two or three honourable exceptions, the sperm whale fishers of the world have “sinned their mercies.” To them as to no other class of sea-farers have been vouchsafed not glimpses merely, but consecutive months and years of the closest intimacy with the secret things of old ocean, embracing almost the whole navigable globe. And when, unpressed for time, they have leisurely entered those slumbrous latitudes so anxiously avoided by the hurried, worried merchantman, how utterly have they neglected their marvellous opportunities of observation of the wonders there revealed. It may not be generally known that during long-persisting calms the sea surface changes its character. From limpid blue it becomes greasy and pale, from that health-laden odour to which the gratified nostrils dilate, and the satisfied lungs expand, there is a gruesome change to an unwholesome stench of stagnation and decaying things, such as the genius of Coleridge depicted when he sang:

Strangest of all the strange visitors to the upper world at such times is the gigantic squid, or cuttle-fish. Of all the Myriad species of mollusca this monster may fairly claim chief place, and neither in ancient or modern times have any excited more interest than he. Gazing with childlike fear upon his awe-inspiring and uncanny bulk, the ancients have done their best to transmit their impressions to posterity. Aristotle writes voluminously upon the subject, as he did about most things, but his cuttles are such as are known to most of us. Pliny leaves on record much concerning the SepiadÆ which is evidently accurate in the main, mentioning especially (lib. ix. caps. iv. and xxx.) one monster slain on the coast of Spain which was in the habit of robbing the salt-fish warehouses. Pliny caused the great head to be sent to Lucullus, and states that it filled a cask of fifteen amphorÆ. Its arms were thirty feet long, so thick that a man could hardly embrace them at their bases, and provided with suckers, or acetabula, as large as basins holding four or five gallons. But those who have leisure and inclination may pursue the subject in the works of Ælian, Paulinus (who describes the monster as a gigantic crab), Bartholinus, Athanasius Kircher, AthenÆus, Olaus Magnus, and others. Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, in his Natural History of Norway, has done more than any other ancient or modern writer to discredit reports, essentially truthful, by the outrageous fabrications he tells by way of embellishment of the facts which he received. Least trustworthy of all, he has been in this connection most quoted of all, but here he shall be mentioned only to hold his inventions up to the scorn they so richly deserve.

The gigantic squid is, unlike most of the cephalopoda, a decapod, not an octopod, since it possesses, in addition to the eight branchiÆ with which all the family are provided, two tentacula of double their length, having acetabula only in a small cluster at their ends. This fact was noticed by Athanasius Kircher, who describes a large animal seen in the Sicilian seas which had ten rays, or branches, and a body equal in size to that of a whale; which, seeing how wide is the range in size among whales, is certainly not over-definite. Coming down to much later days, we find Denys de Montfort facile princeps in his descriptions of the Kraken (Hist. Nat. de Molluscs, tome ii. p. 284). Unfortunately, his reputation for truthfulness is but so-so, and he is reported to have expressed great delight at the ease with which he could gull credulous people. Still the best of his stories may be quoted, remembering that, as far as his description of the monster is concerned, he does not appear to have exaggerated at all.

He records how he became acquainted with a master mariner of excellent repute, who had made many voyages to the Indies for the Gothenburg Company, by name Jean Magnus Dens. To this worthy, sailing his ship along the African coast, there fell a stark calm, the which he, even as do prudent shipmasters to-day, turned to good account by having his men scrape and cleanse the outside of the vessel, they being suspended near the water by stages for that purpose. While thus engaged, suddenly there arose from the blue placidity beneath a most “awful monstrous,” cuttle-fish, which threw its arms over the stage, and seizing two of the men, drew them below the surface. Another man, who was climbing on board, was also seized, but after a fearful struggle his shipmates succeeded in rescuing him. That same night he died in raving madness. The mollusc’s arms were stated to be at the base of the bigness of a fore-yard (vergue d’un mÂt de misaine), while the suckers were as large as ladles (cueillier À pot).

One who should have done better—Dr. Shaw, in his lectures—calmly makes of that “fore-yard” a “mizen-mast,” and of the “ladles” “pot-lids,” which may have been loose translation, even as the scraping “gratter” is funnily rendered “raking,” as if the ship’s bottom were a hayfield, but looks uncommonly like editorial expansion, which the story really does not require.

Another story narrated by Denys de Montfort relates how a vessel was attacked by a huge “poulp,” which endeavoured to drag down vessel and all; but the crew, assisted by their patron, St. Thomas, succeeded in severing so many of the monster’s arms from his body that he was fain to depart, and leave them in peace. In gratitude for their marvellous deliverance they caused an ex voto picture to be painted of the terrible scene, and hung in their parish church, for a testimony to the mighty power of the saint.

In the Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society (lxviii. p. 226), Dr. Schewediawer tells of a sperm whale being hooked (sic) which had in its mouth a tentaculum of the Sepia Octopodia, twenty-seven feet long. This was not its entire length, for one end was partly digested, so that when in situ it must have been a great deal longer. When we consider, says the learned doctor, the enormous bulk of the animal to which the tentaculum here spoken of belonged, we shall cease to wonder at the common saying of sailors that the cuttle-fish is the largest in the ocean.

In Figuier’s Ocean World he quotes largely from Michelet, that great authority on the Mollusca, giving at length the latter’s highly poetical description of the vast family of “murderous suckers,” as he terms the cephalopoda.

In the same work, too, will be found a most matter-of-fact description and illustration of the meeting of the French corvette Alecton with an immense calamary between Teneriffe and Madeira. This account was furnished by Lieutenant Bayer to the AcadÉmie des Sciences, and is evidently a sober record of fact. The monster’s body was hauled alongside, and an attempt was made to secure it by means of a hawser passed round it, but of course, as soon as any strain was put upon the rope, it drew completely through the soft gelatinous carcass, severing it in two. The length of this creature’s body was fifty feet. But M. Figuier is not satisfied; he says that even this account must be taken cum grano salis, so unwilling is he to believe in a monster that would evidently settle the great Kraken and sea-serpent question once for all.

Even Dr. Solander and Mr. Banks, after finding a cuttle six feet long floating upon the sea near Cape Horn, which was quite beyond all their previous experience, could not bring themselves to believe in the existence of any larger. So at the beginning of this century, while people had largely consented to accept the sea-serpent, they would have none of the Kraken or anything which might reasonably explain the persistence of evidence about him. But had these scientific sceptics only taken the trouble to interview the crews of the South Sea whalers, that sailed in such a goodly fleet from our ports during the first half of the century, they must have been convinced that, so far from the Kraken being a myth, he is one of the most substantial of facts, unless, indeed, they believed that all whalemen were in a conspiracy to deceive them on that point.

Any thoughtful observer who has ever seen a school of sperm whales, numbering several hundreds, and understood, from the configuration of their jaws, that they must of necessity feed upon large creatures, can never after feel difficulty in believing that, in order to supply the enormous demand for food made by these whales, their prey must be imposing in size and abundant in quantity.

On my first meeting with the cachalot, on terms of mutual destruction, I knew nothing of his habits, and cared less. But seeing him, when wounded, vomiting huge masses of white substance, my curiosity was aroused, and when I saw that these masses were parts of a mighty creature almost identical in structure with the small squid so often picked up on deck, where it falls in its frantic efforts to escape from dolphins (CoryphÆna), albacore, or bonito, my amazement was great. Some of these fragments were truly heroic in size.

Surgeon Beale, in his book on the sperm whale, only credits the cachalot with being able to swallow a man, but with all the respect due to so great a writer, I am bound to say that such masses as I have seen ejected from the stomach of the dying whale could only have entered a throat to which a man was as a pill is to us. We can, however, only speak of what we have seen, and perhaps Dr. Beale had never seen such large pieces ejected.

In an article in Nature of June 4, 1896, I have described an encounter which I witnessed between a gigantic squid and a sperm whale, in the Straits of Malacca, which, as far as I am concerned, has settled conclusively the Kraken and sea-serpent question for me. This terrific combat took place under the full glare of a tropical moon, upon the surface of a perfectly calm sea, within a mile of the ship. Every detail of the struggle was clearly visible through a splendid glass, and is indelibly graven upon my mind. It was indeed a battle of giants—perhaps all the more solemnly impressive from being waged in perfect silence. The contrast between the livid whiteness of the mollusc’s body and the massive blackness of the whale,—the convulsive writhing of the tremendous arms, as, like a Medusa’s head magnified a thousand times, they wound and gripped about the columnar head of the great mammal,—made a picture unequalled in all the animal world for intense interest. The immense eyes, at least a foot in diameter, glared out of the dead white of the head, inky black, appalling in their fixity of gaze. Could we have seen more nearly, and in daylight, we should have also found that the sea was turned from its normal blue into a dusky brown by the discharge of the great cephalopod’s reservoir of sepia, which in such a creature must have been a tank of considerable capacity. Each of those far-reaching arms were of course furnished with innumerable sucking discs, most of them a foot in diameter, and, in addition to the adhering apparatus, provided with a series of claws set round the inner edges of the suckers, large as those of a grizzly bear. Besides the eight arms, there were the two tentacula, double the length of the arms, or over sixty feet long—in fact, about the length of the animal’s body, and quite worthy of being taken for a pair of sea-serpents by themselves. But the whale apparently took no heed of the Titanic struggles of this enormous mollusc. He was busy wielding his mighty jaws, not in mastication, but in tearing asunder the soft flesh into convenient lumps for being swallowed. All around were numerous smaller whales or sharks, joining in the plentiful feast, like jackals round a lion. Every fisherman worth his salt knows how well all fish that swim in the sea love the sapid flesh of the cephalopoda, making it the finest bait known, and in truth it is, and always has been, a succulent dainty, where known, for mankind as well. But it is evident from the scanty number of times that the gigantic cuttle-fish has been reported, that his habitat is well beneath the surface, yet not so far down but that he may be easily reached by the whale, and also find food for his own vast bulk. Probably they prey upon one another. From what we know of the habits of those members of the family who live in accessible waters, it is evident that nothing comes amiss to them in the way of fish or flesh, dead or alive.

The Prince of Monaco, who is a devotee of marine natural history, was fortunate enough to witness some bay whalers at Terceira early this year catching a sperm whale. He and his scientific assistants were alike amazed at seeing the contents of the whale’s stomach ejected before death, but their amazement became hysterical delight when they found that the ejecta consisted of portions of huge cuttle-fish, as yet unknown to scientific classification. The species was promptly named after the Prince, Lepidoteuthis Grimaldii, and a paper prepared and read before the AcadÉmie des Sciences at Paris. So profoundly impressed was the Prince with what he had seen, that he at once determined to convert his yacht into a whaler, in order to become better acquainted with these wonderful creatures, so long known to the obtuse and careless whale-fishers. One interesting circumstance noted by the Prince was the number of circular impressions made upon the tough and stubborn substance of the whale’s head, hard as hippopotamus hide, showing the tremendous power exerted by the mollusc as well as his inability to do the whale any harm.

But were I to describe in detail the numerous occasions upon which I have seen, not certainly the entire mollusc, but such enormous portions of their bodies as would justify estimating them as fully as large as the whales feeding upon them, it would become merely tedious repetition.

As I write, comes the news that an immense squid has just been found stranded on the west coast of Ireland, having arms thirty feet in length, a formidable monster indeed.

In conclusion, it may be interesting to know that these molluscs progress, while undisturbed, literally on their heads, with all the eight arms which surround the head acting as feet as well as hands to convey food to the ever-gaping mouth; but when moving quickly, as in flight, or to attack, they eject a stream of water from an aperture in the neck, which drives them backwards at great speed, all the arms being close together. Close to this aperture is the intestinal opening, a strange position truly. Strangest, perhaps, of all is the manner in which some species grow, at certain seasons, an additional tentacle, which, when complete, becomes detached and floats away. In process of time it finds a female, to which it clings, and which it at once impregnates. It then falls off, and perishes. It is probable that the animal kingdom, in all its vast range, presents no stranger method than this of the propagation of species.