The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1912-07-04
SPECTACULAR SEA FROLIC.
Sharks and Swordfish Convert Play
Into Bloody Tragedy.

| Into BLOODY Tragedy.
That hardest of hardy ship-neWs
ANNALS, the story of the deep sea
quarrel between swordfish and whale
it was a shark this time-reached
port in good order to-day on board
the stanch ship Caledonia of the An
chor Line, says the New York Even
ing Post. 1t had grown so since last
season that some of the oldest salts
of the Battery park benches did not
recognize it.
1t was a calm and beautiful Sab
bath morn at sea. The Caledonia,
ploughing ner way through bottle
green ocean, was sixty miles due
east of Montauk Point. Capt. F. H.
Wadsworth was on the bridge. Pas
sengers and crew lazed idly on deck.
All was peace and tranquility. Sud-
| denly some one with keen eyesight
espied the perennial commotion in
the water just off the ships bows.
All eyes at once peered seaward ex-
pecting to be rewarded with view
of the usual death struggle between
shark and sWordfsh.
To their utter amazement and de-
light, what should meet their wonder
ing eyes but scores-aye, scores-of
swordfsh and sharks frolicking in
friendly play about the ship! 1t was
easy to see that they were making a
splendid Sunday dinner of bluefsh,
mackerel, porgies, founders, young
halibut and other we'll known varie-
ties. The Caledonia's passengers
said the swordfish averaged twenty
feet in length, and that, while the
sharks were not quite as large as
that, they were just as numerous.
Having feasted on the fat of the
sea, the monsters of the deep frolick-
ed some more, darting hither and
yon through the salt sea waves.
Playfully, the swordfsh ran their
to crimson, as the bodies of the
sharks and tossed them high in the
air, then deftly caught them and re-
peated the performance. The sharks,
in turn, took playful nips at the
swordfish and chased them all around
the ship. This continued for an hour,
when one of the swordfish erred in
his Judgment of distance and caught
shark on the point of his bony nose,
piercing the shark and ending his ca
reer then and there.
With the death of their school
mate, the sharks, becoming infuriat-
ed, turned upon the swordfsh, and
the battle which followed-from al!
accounts-was indescribably horri-
BILE. AS was the case last year, and
the year before that, the water boiled
with the movements of the sharks
and fish, and the pale blue changed
to Crimson, as the bodies of the
sharks were pierced by the swordfish
and the razor-like teeth of the man
eaters slashed the sides of the de-
mons of the deep. Round and round
the ship the angry throng raced, the
water becoming a deeper red with
every passing moment, while the
bodies of sharks and swordfish alike
f1oated here and there on and near
the surface.
One particular pair of lighters
were watched by Purser Johnston,
who said that the sword of the great
fish broke off in ramming the side
of the Caledonia after missing a
vicious thrust at his enemy. Before
the swordsman of the deep could save
himself by flight the shark had kill
ed and begun to devour him. Soon
after this the fighting mass began to
lag astern, and the ship came on
alone, leaving the fighters to their
fate, and the final details of the bat
tie to the landlubber's imagination.
ss0Tn RuTp MINER OFT AGAIN,