Hide Article Text (OCR)
ST. JAMES^—IA MAN SWALLOWED BY A WHALE.A SPLENDID YARN. t,,?he following story, which appeared recently in the Great Yaimouth j titercutyf deserves to be reproduced in fail. It may not be true; but, as fifePfcar.Wiide^woul^say, at leastjt is pe?|eetj—t y^sit February the whahng ship Star of %e £st was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands searching for whales, which were very scarce. One ; i®t«mng^he look-But sighted a Whide?about three miles away on the starboard quarter. Two boats were manned. In a short time one of the . hoatswas hear enough to enable the harpooner to‘send a spear nito ih$ whale, which proved to he an exceedingly large one. With the shaft : its-aide the animal sou^feC and then sped away, dragging the boat * £terfifmwrith terrible speed. He swain, straight away about,five miles, When fie turned and came back almost directly toward the spot where.he -had been‘harpooned. The sfecond boat waited for him, and when but a Short distance away from It1 he ..rose to the surfa'ce. As soon as his back snowed above the Surface of the water the harpooner in the second boat , drove another. spear iufo him. The pain apparently crazed the whale; for it threshed afiout fearfulfy, a9d.1t wgsf feared that the boats would be swamped and the ctews drowned. Finailly, the whale swam away, dragging the two Boats; after .him. He went about three miles and . sounded or sank, and his whereabouts could not be exactly told. The lines -attached to the harpoons were slack, and the harpooners began slowly to drag them1 in and Coil them:in the tubs. As soon as they were tautened the whaleMroae to the sii*lce and beat about with its tail in the maddest fashion. The boats attempted to get beyond the reach of the animal, which was apparently in its death agonies, and one of them succeeded, but the other was dess fortunate. The whale struck it with his nose and upset it. •The men Were thrown into the water, and before the crew of the other boat could pick them up one man was drowned and James Bartley had disappeared.Full Inside.When the whale became quiet from exhaustion the waters were searched -for Bartley; but he could not be found, and, under the impression that he ; t*id bee n struck by the whale’s tail and sunk to the bottom, the survivors * ^ trowed back: to the sfiip. The whale was.dead, and in a few hours the great • body wasiymgjjy the ship’s side, and the men were busy with axes and spades cutting through the flesh to secure the fat. They worked all day and a part of the night. They resumed operations the next forenoon, and were soon down to the stomach, which was to be hoisted to the deck. The workmen were startled while labouring to clear it, and to fasten the chain about it to discover something doubled up in it that gave spasmodic signs of life. The vast pouch was hoisted to the deck and cut open, and inside was found the missing sailor doubled up and unconscious. He was laid out on the deck and treated to a bath of sea water, which soon revived ■ him; but his mind was not clear, and he was placed in the captain's tJ[uarters, where he remained for a fortnight, a raving lunatic. He was care-ully treated by the captain and officers of the ship, and he finally began to fcet possession of his senses.At the end of the third week he had entirely recovered from the shock and resumed his duties. During the brief sojourn in the whale's belly Bartley’s skin, where it was exposed to the action of the gastric juices, underwent a striking change, ilis face and hands were bleached to a deathly whiteness and the skin was wrinkled, giving the man the appearance of having been parboiled. Bartley affirms that he would probably have lived inside his house of flesh until he starved, for he lost his senses through fright and not through lack of air. He says that he remembers the sensation of being lifted into the air by the nose of the whale and of falling into the water; then there was a fearful rushing sound, which he believed to be the beating of the water by the whale’s tail; then he was encompassed by a fearful darkness, and he felt himself slipping along a smooth passage of some sort that seemed to move and carry hi in forward. This seusation lasted but an instant, then he felt that he had more room. He felt about him, and his hands came in contact with a yielding Slimy substance that seemed to shrink from his touch. It finally dawned upon him that he had been swallowed by the whale, and he was overcome with horror at the situation. He could breathe easily, but the heat was terrible. It was not of a scorching stifling nature, but it seemed to open the pores of his skin and to draw out his vitality. He became very weak, and grew sick at the stomach. He knew that there was no hope of escape from his strange prison. Death stared him in the face, and he tried to look at it bravely; but the awful quiet, the fearful darkness, the horrible knowledge of his environments, and the terrible heat finally overcame him, and he must have fainted, for the next he remembered was being in the captain’s cabin.Bartley is not a man of a timid nature; but he says that it was many weeks before he could pass a night without having his sleep disturbed with harrowing dreams of angry whales and the horrors of his fearful prison. The skin on the face and hands of Bartley has never recovered its natural appearance. It is yellow and wrinkled and looks like old parchment. The health of the man does not seem to have been affected by fiis terrible experience ; he is in splendid spirits, and apparently fully enjoys all the blessings of life that come in his way. The whaling captains say that they never knew a parallel case to this before. They say that it frequently occurs that men are swallowed by whales who become infuriated by tfie pain at the harpoon and attack the boats; but they have never known a man to go through the ordeal that Bartley did and come out alive.Close Quarters.“ They Never Knew a Parallel Case.”
Newspaper Details
London St James Gazette
London, Middlesex, GB
Sat, Jan 23, 1892
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Mr X.
CA 02 Dec 2024
Other Publications Near London, Middlesex
London Standard
Morning Chronicle
London Morning Post
London Daily News
Guardian
