The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1897-05-22
IN A WHALES STOMACH.

Capt. Davis Visited the Interior of No
Less Than Five Mammals.
Capt. S. A. Swinnerton, having sailed
the seas for many years, is now keeper
of Lighthouse No. 30, off Noank, Conn.
During his sea life Capt. S%winnerton
was a whaler. Naturally he knows other
whalers, and when he read DR.. Lyman
Abbott's sermon on Jonah and the
whale he %bethought himself of Capt.
James r. Davis, of Noank, a retired
whaling captain, rs years cid, who has
been five times a JONAH" which is
Capt. Davis w way of saying hat he
has lived in the bellies of five different
whales. ..
Unfortunately for the strictest pos
sible application of Capt. Davis expert
ences to the Scriptural story, but no
doubt fortunately for Capt. Davis him
self, his whales were dead. But he was
in them-of that there is no doubt-and
he has lived to smoke a pipe and tell
about it, and Capt. Swinnerton tells the
story of his friends experience thus:
Il dined yesterday with a man, now
rs years of age, who has been in the
bellies OF five different whales. He is
Capt. James r. Davis, of Noank, Conn.,,
and this was done when he was a young
man of 90 years of age. He was one of
the crew of the whaling ship Tiger,
Capt. William Brewster, of Stonington,
Conn, which left thatplace in 1S45, sail
ing direct around the Horn to the whal-
ing grounds of the Pacific. Afterward
the ship sailed to Magdalena bay, off
the Lower California coast. The gray
back whales use it as a breeding ground
and are found here in great numbers.
The COW whales float up on the sandy
shore of the still waters and when the
tides fall the young whales are born on
the beach. The calf when born has it's
hukes bent up like a hook, and it is
several days before this hook straight
ems out enough forit to use it to swim.
'The mother whale will sport about
the bays until her baby gets the crook
outofits tail and then teaches it to swim.
The COW whale when about to calve is
very fat and valuable and yields about
40 barrels of oil from the blubber and
seven barrels from the inside heart fat
and that about the liver and entrails.
"The mother whales never desert
their young and thus become easy cap
lures. After being killed they are towed
alongside the ship. A cutting-in chain
is fastened to the side, fin, a tackle from
it to the mainyard hauled tight and one
strip of blubber cut into. This is called
a blanket piece. Then the ribs are cut
at the backbone and the blanket piece
and the ribs are hauled up from the
carcass, leaving a hole in the upper part
of the body just back ofthe head.
"a man enters this hole and cuts all
the fatty substance from about the
head, which is shaped like a chickens
gizzard, but from two feet to 80 inches
in diameter.
Capt. Davis told me that he was in a
different whale each day Cor five days,
being inside each mammal about an
hour doing this work, and that it is a
common custom for a whaler to be fora
time a Jonah in the whales stomach.
Capt. Davis has been a Jonah on five
different occasions, Now, if a young
man of % years can live in a whales
stomach, even though the whale be
dead, why could not the Jonah of the
Bible live three days and as many nights
in that famed whale of Scripture? Capt.
Davis five whales had not been dead very
long when he was in them."-N. Y,
Herald.