Democratic messenger., 1881-09-10
STORY OF A WHALER.

About the year 1918, the "Essex, "
Pollard, master, was cruising for whales
in the equatorial regions of the Pacific
Ocean west of South America. One day
the vessel encountered one or two whales,
or whale with her young one. A large
animal STAYED in two of the boats. The
other boats, distance off, saw the men
struggling in the water. Captain Pol
lard sailed his vessel to rescue them.
| The whale retreated to distance of half
a mile, and then came with great veloci-
ty for the vessel, striking her amidships
with his head and starting leak instant
ly. The infuriated animal, acting evil
IDENTIFY with "malice aforethought," re-
treated twice and repeated the blows.
The third time it crushed in the whole
side of the vessel, which sank instantly
The men went into two boats. These
parted in midocean, in the Pacific, near
the equator. One was never heard of
again the other, with Captain Pollard
on board, headed for South America.
They were eighty days in this open boat.
| While in this forlorn condition, watch
ing every day and hour for a sail, they
were struck one day by bill-tish, a va
riety of the sword-fsh. The blow started
plank near the keel of the boat. They
took off their jackets, stuffed them INTO
the hole to stop the leak, and began to
bale out the boat. They had an AK,
and managed to find two or three nails.
With these they set to work to repair
the place, but whenever they went to
drive nail. the plank would spring ;
they could not drive it from the inside
of the boat, and had no awl or gimlet
with which to make hole by which it
might enter the planking. A man named
Nixon said: "The only way this job can
be fixed is to hold the AK on the out
side and hammer the nail from the in
| side, so as to clinch it. eyes" said
Captain Pollard, 'thats all right, Nixon,
if we only had somebody under the bot
tom Of the boat to hold the axe" Said
Nixon " I'm the man that's going to do
that" He jumped overheard, took the
ak, and held it under water against the
boat until they hammered in the nails.
Then he was lifted on board almost un-
conscious, but he revived. They then
kept on their course as well as they
could, but at length ran out of provi-
sions. Finally, after enduring untold
horror, they were compelled to resort
to the sailors last expedient, and drew
lots to see who should die and furnish
food for his companions. Either one or
two of the crew lost their lives in this
way. 1t is said that the second lot fell
upon q slender young man in delicate
health, whose life the captain could not
bring himself to take. but said "Take
me-" They concluded to try the lot
again, when it fell upon the same per-
son. Scarcely had the shot been fired
which put an end to his life, when a
vessel hove in sight. which rescued
them. Captain Pollard could often be
seen afterward by summer visitors to
Nantucket broken-down, shattered
old man. From being one of the bold
est captains that sailed from the island,
he was such wreck that if he saw two
or three people gathered together in the
street, or if any one took up newspaper
in his presence, he hurried away in
stantly, for fear of hearing something
about shipwreck He died four or five
years ago. There is now but one sur
vivor of that boats crew, and that is
Nixon, the man that held the AK under
the water.