Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-02-13
OUTSIDE A w HALE
The Surprising Position in Which North
Oarolinian Pound Himself
A Whale Hunt ON the Carolina Cons
and the Exciting Details Told
by Capt. Jim.

The piscatorial reporter will now intro
duce Capt. Jim Willis. who will favor the
readers of The Star with a fish story. Capt.
Jim halls from Morehead City, North Caro-
lima, where he runs pleasure craft for the
accommodation of northern consumptiyes
At this moment he is leaning against the
buffet at the Normandie, and this is what
he is saying:
Down yonder where 1 live We have all
sorts of finny denizens of the deep from
minnows up to whales, including yachts
men. 1 don't propose to stuff you with a
trout story. or to say anything to you about
the size of black bass, because 1 am aware
that there are a lot of land-lubbers right
here in this city who can lie just about
as hard as anybody else in this particular
line. / can't tell yarn with any bigger
bass in it than the next fellow. My spe-
cia,ty is the whale. I'd like 20 bet hun
dred dollars to "A cent that when 4 re-
quest for story comes round / can catch
a bigger whale than anybody else.
But, throwing all jokes to the four, or
even a greater number of the winds of
heaven, i did have an experience with a
whale that came near to making a Jonah
cut of me with the casting up process omit
ted. One sunny afternoon, not very long
ago, / was sitting in the shade of my own
fig tree and swinging in my own grape vine
swing. 1t was one of those days when ma
ture takes an outing.
This is Fish Poetry.
The heavens and the earth were a poem
| of sunshine. green and blue A gentle wind,
| that would not have kissed a blush of tan
| on the face of the fairest girl, played an
| idyll on the leaves and branches of the
! trees; patches of nstless cloud frescoed the
dome of space and the glittering stretch o
water answered in sunlight to the sun. Tn
| sea was quiet, even unto the ever undulat
| ing, restless ground swell and in thi
mighty mirror the heavens saw themselve:
as they are seen. Each tiny wavelet rip
pied on the beach directly at my feet, in {
| lazy limpid way, and seemed to say that i;
was almost too faint to move, and thai
| really, had IL not been for the eager waters
| in its rear, 1t would not have come to land
| Il was one of those days when a man can
go to Elysium without the sacrifice OF
| health.
column of fragrant smoke asceaded
from my sweet cob pipe, and i felt as
| though l was the chosen of the Lord. The
| ideal rather than the real held sway. a
splash OF water was seen to seward. A JET
| OF the ocean went up and fell back a.
| spray. L saw this, but / was in too much
of reverie to trace causes. A party of my
| fisher friends, who lived farther up the
\ beach, came running by. and as they passed
| me they sang out There she blows" This
cry woke me up Once more the jet of wa
| ter spurted upward from the sea, and down
to the pier j rushed. A whale is apt &c
create sensation In any seaside commun.
4 ity, even though there be no summer guests
because there is always many hundreds OF
dollars concealed on its person. 1t is a red
| letter event in local annals when a whale
comes down town. The saloon keepers es-
pecially make merry ove- the arrival
This kind of guests, however were SO few
and far between at Morehead that accom-.
modations for them were rather below the
| standard.
Somewhat Crowded.
Our reception facilities in this particular
instance were so inadequate that IL was
long an open question whether that whale
| would or would not conclude to settle in
our town. 1t was only by luck and through
| no par ticular preference of his own that he
did SO. The town only boosted of two har.
poon outfits One was an ancient HARMON
gun that years before had been found IN
wreckers on board the hulk of a South Sc,
whaier, which had gone on our coast while
pound 10 New Bedford, and the other was
very primitive haEd-power harpoon rig
| There wasn't a real whale beat in the town
but four ordinary fishing boats wera man.
| ned by as many crews One carried the har.
pooh gun and one the Handwriting anna.
| ratus The other two were without any
armament excepting several shotguns and
4 one or two rifles
| 1t was almost a hopeless case with us
| for II whale is not lit in the yitals h.
VIII go down to come to the surface in a
| distant part OF the sea- When one Is
struck in the vitals, he spouts or hIowS
| blood. and then floats into eternity. wf
rowed OF so as to come at the game from
dinerent points of the compass 4 was m
the gun boat. As We approac hed the wha Is