Western news-Democrat. (Valentine, Neb.) 1898-1900, 1898-11-17
SEIZED BY AN OCTOPUS.
F-iphtfuI Experience of a Man VI"
the New Guinea Coast.

the New Guinea Coast.
The greatest enemy the divers had 10
fear in the waters of New Guinea was
the dreaded octopus, whose presence
Occasioned far greater panic nan the
appearancc Of a mere shark. These
loathsome monsters would sometimes
come and throw their horrible tentacles
over the side Of the frail craft from
which the divers were WorklnS anu
! actually fasten on to the men theHl-
selves, dragging them out into the wa
ter. At other times Octopuses nave
been known to attack the divers do"h
below, and hold them relentlessly under
water until life was extinct. One Oh
our own men had q terribly narrow es-
cape from one of these fearful crea-
lures. l must explain. however, that
each evening, when the divers returned
from pearl fishing. they roped all their
little skiffs together IL let them lie
aStern of the schooner. wen, one
night the wind rose and rain fell a
ily, with the result that next morning
all the little boats were found more OF
less waterlogged. Some of the Malays
were told off 20 90 and bale them out
While they were at work n or the
men saw a MISUNDERSTANDING, Dlack
object in the sea, which so attracted
his curiosity that he dived overheard to
find out what it was. He had barely
reached the water, however. when an
immense octopus rose into view, n
at once made for the terrified man, VINO
instantly saw his danger, and with
great presence of mind promptly turned
and scrambled back into the boat.
The terrible creature was after him,
however, and to the horror of the on
lockers it extended its great flexible
tentacles, enveloped the entire boat,
man and all. and hen dragged the
whole down under the crystal sea. The
divers Mortified comrades rushed to his
assistance, and an attempt was made
to kill the octopus with a harpoOn, but
without success. Several of his more
resOurceful companions then dived into
the water with a big net made Of rope,
which they took right underneath the
octopus, entangling the creature and
its living prey. The next step was to
drag up both man and octopus into the
whaleboat, and. this done, the unfOrtu-
nate Malay was at length seized by his
legs and dragged by sheer force out of
the frightful embrace, more dead than
alive. However, we soon revived him
by putting him in n very hot bath, the
water being at such 4 temperature as
actually to blister his skin. 1t is most
together drowned, as he had been held
under water by the tentacleS OF the
octopus for rather more than two min
utes. But, like all the Malays of our
party, this man carried Il knife, which
he used to very good purpose on the
monsters body when first it. dragged
him under the water. These repeated
stabS caused the creature to keep roll
ing about on the surface. The unhappy
man was in this way enabled 10 get
an occasional breath Of air, otherwise
he must infallibly have been drowned.
The octopus had an oval body, and was
provided with an extraordinary num-
Der of tentacIes-six very large ones
and many smaller ones OF varying sizes.
1t was a notwithstanding creature, with
Il fiat, Shiny body. yeIlowish-white in
color, with black spots and a hideous
of a mouth. without teeth. 1t is
the tentacles of the creature that are
dreaded, on account Of the immense
sucking power which they possess. At
this incident the divers always took
a tOmahawk with them on their expedf-
tons, in order to lop off the ~tentacles
of any octopus that might try to attack
them.-World Wide Magazine.