Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1889-12-20


He proved this fact thousand times
over. Harbor sharks, for reasons best
known to themselves, will sometimes
pass swimmer by, but they are small
fry compared to the hammer heads and
white sharks of mid-ocean. The true
man-catcr is not shore fish, except in
tropical waters. When whaler is en-
gagged in cutting in and trying ont, and
is drifting off before the wind, your real
man-catcr appears. have seen them
twenty live feet long, barnacled up and
moss grown like ancient whales, and evil
IDENTIFY hundred years old. These are
the demons of the deep, who will rush
upon raft and upset it or tear it to
pieces, and who seem to feel no pain
from the prick of lance. We rot a
whale to the southwest of Conception, Il
hundred miles of shore, and Finch gave
us his first exhibition. We had an
eighty barrel fish iashcd head and tail TO
our starboard side, and were Just hook
ing on to the first blanket piece to hoist
away, when three or four monster sharks
appeared. The one who came up astern
WAS OF such size that the men called ont
iii amazcmcnt. He lay with his dorsal
fin above water, and we could see every
inch of him. II was enough to give you
a IN, l, i,,l- l..
awful mouth.
When Finch saw This shark he said he
would drive him away The Captain or
dcred him to go about his business, not
wishing TO loose 81 man but Finch waited
until the officers were oil their n,,ard,
and then went overheard Off the lee bow
with great splash. There was n wild
cry from the crew and II rush with ropes,
but Tom looked up and laughed and
swan around the stern of the ship. The
big man cater had backed Off about 90
feet at the splash, but two others, almost
us large, had come up on the quarters.
and there lay three of the wiclcdcst fish
in the Atlantic Ocean. Everybody
shouted and gcsturcd and half Il dozen
ropcs'-cnds were thrown to Tom, but he
would not mind us. He suddenly sank
below the surface and made a bee line
for the big fish, and, TO my surprise, the
old fellow dartcd aside to escape the
collision.
1t is truth TO The letter that Tom Finch
drove every one of those monsters away
from the slip, and for an hour Inc pad
died about in the water and was un-
harmcd. In the course of couple of
hours :he big shark returned. A piece
of blubbcr was tied up in an old coat
and dropped overheard, and he made a
dash of Il hundred feet and boltcd it
down like Il flash. He then took up his
station OIL our quarter, and not over
thirty feet way, and the sailor mounted
the rail and made a long leap right ut
him. The shark went OIL like streak,
and We saw him no more
Once, when we were in the harbor of
Honolulu, Tom gave Il public exhibition,
and at least 5000 people saw him swim
about among the sharks just outside the
surf. Several dogs were thrown to them
TO he dcvourcd, and gallons of blood
were poured on the water to excite them,
but never 4 one came within five feet of
the sailor. lie had no peculiar odor
about him that we could detect, and
why the sharks feared him was as much
Il puzzle to himself as TO others.
Among Toms adventures was his es-
cape from the Greek pirates of the A:gcan
Sea couple of years before he Joined
our ship. I give this because every par-
ticular Of it is Il matter of official record.
He was one of the crew of an Italian
brig making voyage 10 Constantinoplc,
and on the return, while bccamed among
the islands ut the mouth of the Archipcl-
ago, couple of boats, carrying 20 men
each, pulled ont from one of the islands
and attacked them. There were - men
on the brig, and, though poorly armed,
they gave the pirates a hot fight before
the vessel was carried by boarding.
When Tom saw that all was lost he hid
himself away, and was not discovered
until the brig had been lowed into a
cove. The Greeks had cooled of then,
and instead of cutting his throat they
took him ashore to make slave of him.
The island was the rendezvous of n bad
gang and it seemed that portion of
them were away on an expedition. For
this reason the brig was pulled into the
cove, which had very deep water, an
chored stem and stern, and her overhaul
ing was deferred until the other party
should return.
Tom was the sole survivor of the
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