The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-05-14

A Sailors Story OF How He Got an Ex-
traordinRry Stem for His Pipe.

A Sailors Story OF How He Got an Hex
traordinRry Stem for His Pipe.
An old sailor. whose appearance in
dicated that he had been much buffeted
tyy wind and wave, stood resting his
back against mooring-post near q
bulkhead in South street, meditatively
smoking. The glowing bowl of his pipe
rested on the top of barrel some dis
lance away, aud the stem was fully four
feet long. 1t was very thin, and seemed
TO be bone. It's hye was bright,
glossy black, though What its original
color had been the sailor had to say. 1t
curved with a long. graceful, uniform
sweep from the mariners lips to the
bowl.
-Its the wing bone of man-o'-war
bird" said the owner, when asked about
it. Land folks, believe, call them
albatrosses; we sailors like the old
name of man-o'war bird better. / caught
the one that got this stem from about
five hundred miles south of the Cape of
Good Hope. hooked him with piece of
raw fat pork tied to the end of q rope
lanyard. 1t was blowing half gale Of
wind, and the man-o'-war birds were out
enjoying it, as usual.
"They just touch the top of q wave
with their feet. and then give a sharp,
quick cry and go driving on a hundred
yards or SO before they take another
plunge. l got big lump of fat pork
at the galley, and let it tow overheard
with the Lanyard, about fifty yards
astern of the ship. One of the birds
saw it, and had swallowed it in a minute,
and we began to haul him in. Ny stars,
but he gave us job. 1t took five of US
to get him on deck, and then, of all the
unwieldly birds you ever saw he was
the worst. A goose would have been
graceful to him, and he did not seem
bit like the beautiful white birds of his
kind that were sweeping about the ship,
now ahead and now astern, sailing
against the wind or with it at just about
the same rate of speed, and seeming to
be part of the gale.
my prisoner squatted down on the
deck and began to cry. There was no
doubt about it. He sobbed and whim-
pered like hurt child, and the tears
ran down his long hooked beak and
dropped off the knob at the end. After
time he became seasick. But his i'll
ness did not cease there. He got more
and more sick every minute as the YES
sci rolled and pitched in the heavy sea
that was running. 1t was genuine sea-
sickness. This seems curious with q
bird that lives altogether on the water,
but man-o'war bird always gets sea-
sick when he is taken on the deck of a
rolling ship. i would have saved him
if 1 could, but if / had thrown him
overheard he would have been swamped
by the big seas before he could have
used his long wings. Neither could he
rise from the deck, and in about two
hours he laid his head down ON the
planks and died.
Il divided the long wing bones among
the crew, and they all made pipe-stems
of them. They are hollow, fesh-col-
ored, and very light, and that is the
reason the man-o'war bird can fly SO
long. 1t is forever on the wing, amt
only goes ashore on some uninhabited
island at breeding time. Sailors think
they sleep flying, that is, some of them
think SO, but believe they sleep float
ing ON the water, when it Is calm
enough-which is not often about the
Cape of Good Hope, or else never sleep
at all. They are the biggest birds that
live anywhere. The one that caught
weighed twenty-nine pounds, and meas
ured seventeen feet from wing tip to
wing tip, and he was not at all large
one. No, we had no ill-lpck after the
birds death. If you shoot one and kill
him you may look out for squalls, but
to catch him with piece of fat pork
and let HIM die on deck is different
thing altogether, you know. '-Net
York san.