It was about sixty feet in length and twenty in thickness, with a vast horny head, ponderous jaws, and back covered with scales.

Its eyes were of prodigious size, and it had the appearance of a crocodile, with the vast size of a whale.

It was unlike a crocodile, however; for it had fins rather than paws, and must have been as clumsy on the land as a seal or a walrus.
It lay on its side, and the athaleb had fed itself from the uncovered flesh of its belly.
There was nothing here to induce us to stay, and so we wandered along the beach in the other direction.

On our right was the bay; on our left the rocky shore, which, beginning at the beach, ran back into the country, a waste of impassable rocks, where not a tree or plant or blade of grass relieved the appalling desolation.

Once or twice we made an attempt to penetrate into the country, where openings appeared.