Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1873-09-11
A PAIR OF FISH STORIES.
A Whale Caught I'm = Submarine
Cable.

WrltluR 1EOm AuEr0Cuee, 1uOl8, on
the 8th ult., correspondent signing
himself II. Izaak Walton, sends the
following to the London Times:
"The cable between Kurrachee and
Gwadur "a distance of about three
hundred miles) suddenly failed on the
evening Of: the 4th inst. The telegraph
steamer Amber Witch, under the com.
mand of Capt. Bishop (late I. NJ, with
the electrical and engineering staff un'
der Mr.. Henry Nance, proceeded on
the following day to repair the damage.
which by tests taken at either end ap-
peared to be one hundred and eighteen
miles from Kurrachee. The Amber
Witch arrived on the glound at p. NJ,
on the 9Th, q heavy sea and thick fog
prevailing ct the time, but the cable
was successfully grappled within a
quarter Of a mile of the fault.
The soundings at the fault were very
irregular, with over-falls from 80 to 70
fathoms. On winding in tho cable un-
usual resistance was experienced, as if
it were foul of rocks. but after Perse-
Vering for some time the body of
an immense whale, entangled in the
cable, was brought to the surface,
when it was found to be firmly secured
BY two aud a half turns of the cable
Immediately above the tail. Sharks
and Dish had partly. eaten the body
which was rapidly decomposing. the
jaws falling away upon reaching the
surface. The tail, which measured
fully twelve feet across, was perfect,
and covered with barnacles at the ex-
tremities. The sea being too rough at
the time to make use of the boats, an
attempt was made to haul the whale
on board, but its own weight broke it
away from the injured cable as soon as
it was above the surface.
Apparently the whale was at the time
of ENHANCEMENT using tho cable to free
itself from parasites, such as barnacles,
which annoy them very much, and the
cable, hanging in loop over a subma-
rine precipice, he probably, with a
FLIP OF his tail, twisted it round HIM,
and thus came to an untimely end.
During the time the Amber Witch
remained on the ground. a large school
OF whales continued to play in the close
vicinity of the ship, frequently blowing
within a dozen Yards of the vessel, and
even rubbing themselves against the
hawser by which the skip was secured.
Before the outbreak of the Civil War
several American whalers regularly fire.
quented the coast of Beloochistan, and
were generally very successful in filling
up with oil in single season, but Of
late years the whale fishery in these
waters has been abandoned.
To show how close these whales
can be approached, I may mention
that I was coming in a native boat from
Ormara to Kurrachee, q distance of
one hundred and forty miles, ON the
18th of November, 1871. The inhab-
itants of the coast looked on me as a
jadoo-wallah, or magician, when first
introducing the telegraph into their
inhospitable country, and remembering
the annual display OF meteors would
take place about the time of my leav-
ing Ormara, I told my wild boatman
to expect shower of stars during the
night. The meteoric display duly
commenced about A. H., and shortly
afterwards an enormous whale came
alongside and kept company with the
boat, now and then passing under it
and grazing it with his bach, much to
our alarm. Having double -barreled
rifle and revolver under the cork bed
on which I was lying, wished to fire
at the whale, with a view to frighten
him away, but the natives begged me
not to do 50, as he would de-
stroy the boat; and vivid recollections
of the pictures illustrating whale fish,
ing, with boat thirty feet in the air,
bottom upwards, and the crew with
their ropes, harpoons, etc., coming
down head foremost, satisfied me of
the prudence of their advice. We
made all haste to get into shallow
water, my crew praying furiously and
to Allah for protection, when
another whale came alongside, and the
two kept us company for two or three
hours, until we got into some four
fathoms of water. Had I not been
we'll armed I should probably have
been treated like Jonah or disposed of
in some equally unceremonioas man.
ner, although, perhaps, with a less
fortunate result.
As the officers engaged in repairing
the late fault and the boatmen who
me in 1862 are all acces-
sible, 1 must refer any skeptical read
ers to them for corroboration of my
statement.