EYES DECEIVED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 434, 19 January 1933, Page 2

EYES DECEIVED

MONSUER SEA SERPENT IS REALLY CLUMP OF SEAWEED. A good story of a sea-serpent is told by Mr. A. W. Pearce, representative in New Zealand and Australia for the VPort of London Anthority, in his rereeently published hook, "Windward Ho." Mr. IPearce was then seeond officer on the Don, commanded by Captain Robert Woodward. In 1885 th'e Don was nearing Colon with Ferdinand de Lesseps and several other noted French engineers on board. Ahout 8.30 p.m. Captain Woodward, who was a bit of a wag, put his head down the iskylight while a banquet was in progress, and shouted "Come on deck, come on deck all of you and see the Sea-serpent." Everyone rujshed on deck. It was a bfight, moonlight night, and there, plainly visible to all, was some enormous monster under the moon's light. "See his head, see his teeth," cried the "Old Man," and so vividly did he describe the reptile that an artist sketched it, and all the passengers, headed by de Lessepps, signed a statement agreeing to the truth of the tsketch. This sketch ap»peared in nearly , all the' illustrated papers of the world as a well-authen-ticated picture of a sea-serpent. In reality it Was only an .enormous mass of Sargasso seaweecl, with numerous fish jumping round it.