The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-21
TONED BY A WHALE.
old Sea Captain Tells of Experience
 With Unique Motive Power.

With unique Motive Power.
 Captain Quincy Of the John Perkins clipper rigged, referring to a para graph about shark steering whale whose tail had been cut off by a cruel lot of sailormen, said: Tt may look to some folk like nature faking but I can readily believe 1t to be natures gospel. I've seen many stranger things on the ocean To mention them now would get me In the ;Ananias club, but one of these days I'll write book However, there's one story I want to tell you right now, lest some fellow without a reputation and of no char acter should get in ahead of me and spoil it. The John Perkins was tow ed over 1000 miles by whale I'm talking of 1852" he went on. That was the year of great storms on the Pacific. Many vessels were wrecked. The John Perkins had about every 1 thing above decks carried away, and when the storm abated we drifted helplessly in dead calm. One day a school of enormous whales surround ed us, You never saw such monsters. They looked big enough to eat the ship, and some of the crew fell l a-praying.
 T recollect," continued the cap tain, laughing reminiseently, "one of the wags in the crew came up to me in very solemn way and said there was a Jonah aboard and the crew wanted him fed to the whales. pre- tended to take the matter under ad- visement. Only sudden change in the situation saved his life. All of the whale disappeared except one giant leviathan. He could not have been less than 100 feet long. He had been feeding for days on pteropods (frlinute shrimp like crustaceans) un- til he was as drowsy as boa constric- tor after meal of antelope or jack rabbits, and he lay on the surface of the ocean as dead as an island. Jerry Collins, that same way of sailor, said to me it might not be bad Idea to harness that whale and make him tow us bit.
 "Well, sir, it's a fact that was fool enough to tell Jerry to go ahead and have all the fun he wanted; to keep the crew in good spirits till the wind freshened and we could rig up some jury masts The head of the whale was over fifteen feet wide. Jer- ry got an iron rod twenty feet long l for a bit, and attached 1t to some three-inch hawsers for a bridle. While hte whale was fast asleep he got five volunteers to help him row out and work the rod into the mouth of the monster. It wasn't half as much trouble as you might think. Then they fastened sort of belly-band around the whales body just back of the peotoral fins, and another just back of the anal fin, attaching the hawser to these in loose loops so they could be played as easily as we can play the reins in driving horse.
 T din't pay great deal of atten- ton to what was going on. It was fun for the crew, though, so l retired to my cabin. Sudenly I felt the John Perkins begin to lunge ahead as if a Gordon Elnons tug had struck her for a tow. I rushed on deck, and so help me Moses, if there wasn't that big whale bounding along at ful tilt with the ship in tow! The boys had at tached the hawser to the windlass, and by using handspikes expertly were able to give the animal direction, Did you ever hear of such thingG We'll sir, that whale pulled us over 1000 miles, and never so much as turned aside or attempted to balk. He was lharnessed in such 8 manner that he was oblieed to stay on the surface of the water; and I suppose the scare we threw into him kept him moving straight ahead. New York Press.