A SEA MONSTER.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2445, 5 November 1886, Page 2

A SEA MONSTER.

The following story, which it will be admitted eclipses that of the Auckland amphibious monster, is told by a correspondent of the Sydney Town and Country Journal;

" And now, as we had been wondering a few minutes previously whether there was any truth in the stories which had so often been told of ' The Great Sea Serpent,' Mr Ohilds volunteored his experithe matter. Ho had not only seen the * serpent,' he had been in peril from the brute, and that, as he remarked, not very far from the spot where we were then reposing, and where he was 'lying' in every sense of the word. From Mb statement, which 1 here present for the benefit of the British Association should any of its inembors ever visit New South Wales, it appeared that ho had once been tho crew of a small cutter which sailed from Sydney for George's river with a cargo of bricks. Besides himself there were a captain and a boy on board. The wind, though light, was contrary; and directly they cleared the South Head, and made a tack out seaward, the great sea serpent, a fearful monster, came at them open mouthed, exhibiting a capaoity to swallow cutter, crew, and cargo at one gulp. For some reason he did not do this at once; but he played around the doomed craft, exhibiting his terrible length, which the narrator estimated at a mile, though he admitted that in his fright he might have exaggerated a yard or two. This interval of recreation was availed of by the captain, a man of resource, in devising means for their salvation. He placed a number of bricks in the galley fire, and when the monster came up at last in a manner which indicated business and no mistake, a red-hot brick was popped into its open mouth. This caused it to dive with a roar of pain like that which Mr Child assured us an elephant might give. Presently the sorpent came at thorn again, cooled and determined, and was again got rid of by means of a hot brick. And again and again did that great sea serpent return for his victims; and again and again was he beaten off.' .But as the brute got accustomed to hot bricks, so the intervals bctweon his attacks became shorter and shorter, and in the meantime the cutter had to be worked, and the supply of heated bricks maintained. The captain, crew, and boy worked harder and harder and just as their last brick had been flung out they ran the cutter ashore close to where we wore then listening to the story; and Mr Childs and his companions

■jumped Oli tliiSbeaobj yards, ''v.v atteL finding themselves in faintid. 4 The cutter, .her jiaving been dia* r.l' pMedof, was'iying light, and grounded i v\: so cloge to the short flud in such shallow "'A water that, the serpent Could not get near tp it to destroy it; and so he swam away mth the whole cargo of bricks in his Stomach. And that ia4he tale of "The ■Great Sea Serpent" which I heard on the . . . shores of Botany Bay.