The year 1866 was characterized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious
and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.
Not to mention rumors which agitated the maritime population
and excited the public mind, even in the interior of continents,
seafaring men were particularly excited.  Merchants, common sailors,
captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and America,
naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several States
on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter.

For some time past vessels had been met by "an enormous thing,"
a long object, spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent,
and infinitely larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale.

The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books)
agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in question,
the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of locomotion,
and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed.  If it was a whale,
it surpassed in size all those hitherto classified in science.
Taking into consideration the mean of observations made at divers times--
rejecting the timid estimate of those who assigned to this object
a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated opinions
which set it down as a mile in width and three in length--we might fairly
conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly all dimensions
admitted by the learned ones of the day, if it existed at all.
And that it DID exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that tendency
which disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we can understand
the excitement produced in the entire world by this supernatural apparition.
As to classing it in the list of fables, the idea was out of the question.

On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson had met
this moving mass five miles off the east coast of Australia.
Captain Baker thought at first that he was in the presence of an
unknown sandbank; he even prepared to determine its exact position
when two columns of water, projected by the mysterious object,
shot with a hissing noise a hundred and fifty feet up into the air.
Now, unless the sandbank had been submitted to the intermittent
eruption of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had to do neither
more nor less than with an aquatic mammal, unknown till then, which 
threw up from its blow-holes columns of water mixed with air and vapour.

Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July in the same year,
in the Pacific Ocean, by the Columbus, of the West India
and Pacific Steam Navigation Company.  But this extraordinary
creature could transport itself from one place to another
with surprising velocity; as, in an interval of three days,
the Governor Higginson and the Columbus had observed it at
two different points of the chart, separated by a distance
of more than seven hundred nautical leagues.

During the first months of the year 1867 the question seemed buried,
never to revive, when new facts were brought before the public.
It was then no longer a scientific problem to be solved, but a real
danger seriously to be avoided.  The question took quite another shape.
The monster became a small island, a rock, a reef, but a reef of indefinite
and shifting proportions.


The accident happened about five o'clock in the morning, as the day
was breaking.  The officers of the quarter-deck hurried to the after-part
of the vessel.  They examined the sea with the most careful attention.
They saw nothing but a strong eddy about three cables' length distant,
as if the surface had been violently agitated.  The bearings of the place were
taken exactly, and the Moravian continued its route without apparent damage.
Had it struck on a submerged rock, or on an enormous wreck?  They could
not tell; but, on examination of the ship's bottom when undergoing repairs,
it was found that part of her keel was broken.

This fact, so grave in itself, might perhaps have been forgotten
like many others if, three weeks after, it had not been re-enacted
under similar circumstances.  But, thanks to the nationality of
the victim of the shock, thanks to the reputation of the company to
which the vessel belonged, the circumstance became extensively circulated.