PELORUS JACK. A TALE OF A WHITE WHALE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 47, 25 February 1908, Page 2

PELORUS JACK. A TALE OF A WHITE WHALE.

(For The Po&t.) It was in Ihc spring of the year, in latitude 60deg. South, when the sundogs nero growing paler with the warm approach of the true sun, and the beams of the Aurora were losing (heir brilliance, that Pplovug Jack found himself strayed from the school of narwhals to which he and his mother belonged. This school disported themselves, in summer, in the waters of a large inland sea in Antarctica, and in the winter always clustered on the verge of the pack-ice and under tho solid drift ice. In the latter, they made blow-holes, ao the seals do. These marvels w ore a ghastly white in colour, like their cousins of the Arctic regions — white as ghosts — as a matter of fact, the name narwhal means, "corpse-fish" ; but unlike the northern fish, the males of this species had no long straight ivory tusk, and they were of an even shyer disposition than the northern narwhal of the Arctic seas, which have rarely been soon further South than 65 degrees, though once, in 1648, one was seen in the Firth of Forth, and another at Wessdale Sound, in Shetland, in 1808. But Pelorus Jack's people clung always to the drift ice, and never went beyond the sound of tho grinding, rolling floes. When Pelorus Jack first missed his comrades, there had been a great upheaval of the- breaking icepacks, and search as he would no trace of them rewarded his efforts. So he lay still and listened, as whales do, with every nerve an hi.s body, for the vibrations of sound \vhich would direct him to the familiar icepacks. And presently he sensed the ice. He found it was all around him. But it was different ire from what he was accustomed to. He tried to sound beneath it, and, after a prolonged dive, name to the surface iigain breathless. He soon found that he could not escape, and coutonted himself with swimming round the prison formed by the junction of two icebergs, the side of one of these being a. deep wide bay. Pelorus Jack went with the drifting berg, further and further north/ Before long he found an opening in the melting ice., and made his escape to the open sea. Yet this was a strange, new world to him, and he still clung to tho ico for very companionship. Tho spring wasv a cold one, so the water was not uncomfortably warm for the narwhal. Yet ho often dived down to the cold base of the iceberg and stayed there as long as he could. In the course of its drift, the bsrg came a long way north, past Chatham Islands and into the West Wind Drift. But it, had lost a great deal of its bulk by the action of the warm wind and sea. It became smaller and shallower till the day came when Pelorus Jack had no iceberg to keop cool against, and he was a much-worried mammal indeed. He lay for many hours and listened for tho ice : for the almost insenj.iblo vibrations by which he know of objects being near him, and soon ho sensed something which caused a thrill to pass through him.. The object was coming nearer, and Pelorus Jack moved towards it. Presently, almost beneath him, a gicat bull-whale soared up through the ocean depths, and, crashing on to the surface, blew white vapour skyward. After this the white whale felt less lonely. lie moved towards another centre of sound-wares which reached him. This timo the cause of the vibrations puzzled him. It was larger than a whale, and it floatsd just below the surface of tho water. On its belly were long trailing sea-growths, and it moved slowly and clumsily. Pelorus Jack waited for it to sound so that he might eoc what sort of fish it was. But it made no •downward move, only tossed and swung ajoug slowly, now and then wagging its strangely-shaped tail. Pelorus Jack follow edit, in company with aome porpoises, but always at a respectful discauco. He never came up to blow near the strange fish. In fact he found the water at the surface so \mcomfortably warm that he leapt bolow for the greater part of tho time. The warmth did not suit the ice-bred fish ; ' and though no adapted himself to it somowhat he never grew to his full size. Day after day he followed the queer fish he had discovered. Sometimes it vibrated, sending out sound-waves as tho tense ice did. That was when it was windy and rough on tho surface. And one day they came to a deep, rocky coast where tho water was cool and fish abundant. There wore sharks, too, and blackfi&h. Pelorus Jack continued to follow, until ho felt a strong tide beginning to drag him along. He swam warily, while the big fish above him began td move swiftJy with the tide. There were muffled noises inside it, and it threw a black young one overboard, nearly striking the white whale. lie thought it was going to sound at hut, but it wan swept swiftly away on the rushing current, dragging its young one along after it by a rope. Then tho rope parted, and Pelorus Jack never saw that big fish again. He wont down and smeit (ho young one. It was cold and still, and by instinct he knew that it had no life. How was he to know that it was the anchor of the ship of D'Urvillo or De Surviiie, the French navigator, who was caught by the tide and swept through tho French Pass, tho existence of which was thus discovered ? For many years Pelorus Jacn lived contentedly enough in his new quarters. Ho found a cool, comfoi table nook among the seaweed and rorks, and ho almost forgot the ice and the great inland sea and his old comrades. Then on a day when he had <-ttarcd end captured his daily feast of fish, he was dozing and dreaming, when he suddenly stiffened in every nerve. He heard the ico calling ; louder and louder the sound became, a drumming, tearing sound like -wide floes crushing ana straining and splitting. Like a flash, ne raced towards it. As he approached, it became deaieuing, and ho leaped upward and blew hard in his joy. Then, 10, another big fish like that which he lost in the swift water so long ago! The same, except that at its tail a spinning flu tore the sea lo foam and bubbles. He rubbed against tho fish. It was cold as ico and it throbbed as the ice did. Pelorus Jack played around its snout and under its belly, always avoiding its fin. Onward it went, straight to the swift water, nnd ojico moro Pelorus Jack lost his comrade. Ho heard it going away, away. Yet ho would not follow thiough such swift water. Later on tho fish came again ; and afterwards, others, some with two spinning fins. There was one fish whose fins sang moie of the loe than all the vest, and lie always followed this one a long way when it was goiii" to Picton or Wellington. On one dull aflernoon, when the sea was like soiled ink mid heavy-look-ing as oil, the silences of tho deepplaces wore broken by the song of this steamor's fins. She came from Nelson, through the French Pass, and stopped to unload stores at tho settlement there. While her fins were .silent,, Pelorus Jack played lazily around tho bay. On the steamer's d-n-ks was a man who carried a gnu, a-nd there was also a man who was a great authority on the creatures of the sea, and they had both come specially to see this lonely fish which made friends with Mm steamers. The fins began spinning again, and tho white vlialo llow (o meet the stsanier. As sho gathered way, he pkvyctl in the foam at hor lmws, cuddling ngniu&t her :nul now and again diving beneath li"i l forefoot, then soaring lo thr suriacn to snorl J through the blow -hole in his head. And

the two men watched him, both curious to know what sort of fish he was, as he turned and gyrated and sounded about this best-beloved of bis stoamer-friends. The man with the gun raised it quickly to his shoulder. There was a flash and a report. But quick as the man was, Fclorus Jack was quicker. There was not oven a streak where ho disappeared. Yet the bullet scratched him, and ever afterwards he associated the pain ho felt with the fish which sa^aig most like the icp. And he never wont out lo meet it any more. The expert on the denizens of the deep said (here was no other mammal like him in the world, so Hip people who lived on and I ravelled by the steamers, and who looked on Pelorus Jack as an old friend, made an agitation, quoting the words of the man who watched Pelorus Jack in all friendliness, and tho New Zealand Government made a law to protect Prlorus Jack from the harpoon of the whale and the bullet of tha sharpshooter. So to this day, the white whale lives under the protection of the Government, the only known fish of his kind, lurking among the seaweeds and tho sea-silences, and listening for the spinning fins that sing to him the songs of the ice and the wide inland sea where he lived so long ago. A lonely fish, with only tho steamers for comrades. WILL LAWSON.