Swallowed by Whale—Support for Jonah

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7199, 23 April 1930, Page 8

Swallowed by Whale —Support for Jonah

like chaff over the surface of the sea, | and dived fathoms deep, while the other boat picked up all but two of their shipmates. Date that afternoon two other boats niet with more success. They approached the same bull with great precaution, and the man in the bow got his “poon” home. Before sunset the whale was- alongside, and men were on the flensing platform cutting in. The enormous monster was covered in walls of blubber. Men worked with flensing knives, stripping off great- blankets of fat through the night and part of the following morning. Then they put tackles on the stomach of the whale and hoisted it on deck. Something moved inside the covering, which was quickly slit open, and the form of James Bartley, one of the two lost seamen, was found quivering and unconscious. They soused him with salt water. As he seemed to revive, he was carried to the cabin, where he was washed and given sips of brandy. For two weeks the demented man hovered between life and death. Bartley, in telling his experiences, recalled being upset in the boat. He remembered being dashed high into the air. Then he heard a rumbling sound as of a train travelling at full speed through a tunnel. He imagined that the noise was caused by the tail of the whale pounding the sea. He was in perfect darkness as he felt about with his hands and touched some slimy substance which yielded to pressure. Then he felt himself being drawn forward into a chamber where there was more air.

■a NE of the greatest stories | in the modern history of i the sea is recalled by I the sale of the Star Line sailing ships owned by 2 the Alaska Packing Company (says a writer in the “Sunday News”), for it was on board one of these vessels that James Bartley astonished the world by proving that the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale was more than a possibility. The Star of the East was whaling in sight of Pembroke Light, Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, in February, 1891, when whales were sighted as the sun broke over the eastern horizon. Two boats fully manned made for the nearest whale, a big bull, which seemed aware of danger. The second boat lowered raced the first one, and approached the whale too recklessly. The boat’s crew seemed all too anxious to get their harpoon “home” before the other boat arrived. The whale lay idle until the boat drew alongside. Then, with a flip of his great tail, he scattered boat and men

just before the war, when he and Gaby were appearing at tho Apollo Theatre in Vienna. Suddenly there burst into Gaby’s dressing-room an excited lady, who gave the name of Navratil. She flung her arms around the neck of the astonished Gaby with protestations of affection, hailing her as “dear sister.” Stage stars are frequently the victims of demonstrations of this kind, and Gaby seems to have paid little attention to the incident. During the war, however, when Gaby was appearing in London, someone informed the British police that she was not really French, but an enemy alien, a Hungarian subject. Detectives called on the dancer, but she was able to produce satisfactory evidence denying the allegation. This is the story, as told by Mme. Berkes. Pier sister, Hedwig, _ was born, she says, in 1884 at Horni-Mos-tenice, a small town which was then in Hungary, but which has become Czecho-Slovak territory since the partition of Hungary. When she was 17 years old, Hedwig, a bright vivacious blonde like Gaby herself, decided to seek her fortune

on the stage. She appeared as a dancer in Cracow, Lemberg, and Vienna. She kept in' touch with her family in a somewhat casual manner by means of postcards and brief notes, scribbod in her dressing-room at the theatres at which she was appearing up and down Europe. One day they received a letter from her, posted in London, in which she declared he intention of assuming in future the name of Von Nogradi, as she had made some influential friends who hated Hungary and Hungarians. That was the last they heard of her. Now for the most dramatic episode in this strange story of confused identities. Hedwig Navratilova is alive, and is living in Biarritz. Recently Madame Berkes began proceedings in the French Courts to gain possession of Gaby’s fortune. The answer of Madame Caire was to institute a suit for defamation of character against Madame Berkes. Naturally these matters were widely discussed, and they came to the ears of the former Hungarian dancer, who now lives very quietly in a beautiful villa near the Spanish frontier. She

Sailor Released from Living Tomb by Knives of Comrades . ..A Nightmare Tale from the Deep Waters . . .

In vain he tried to escape from his prison. Evei’y time he started to crawl toward the narrow entrance some irresistible force drew him back. Then his terrible plight dawned on him. He was inside the body of the whale. The heat was terrific. Perspiration oozed out of the pores of his skin. It was stifling. He grew weak from the strain, and at last he became exhausted. Death did not seem far away. He collapsed, and remembered nothing more till he awoke in the cabin of his ship. Although Bartley recovered sufiiciently to carry on his duties, his skjn never regained its natural appearance. It retained a deathly white pallor. His case was watched carefully for some time. There are many cases on record where whales have deliberately awaited the coming of boats before attacking them. Sir John Bland Sutton, the famous surgeon, recalls an instance where a boat from a whaler harpooned a cachelot, or sperm whale, when it turned on the boat and bit it in two. Marshall Jenkins, one of the boat’s crew, was swallowed by the monster. The harpoon took effect, for after diving, the whale came to the surface, and in its death agonies brought up Marshall Jenkins, little the worse for his amazing experience. Dr. Ambrose Wilson, a year or two ago, provided further evidence of the possibility of the truth of the Biblical story of Jonah by detailing the interior of a sperm whale, a species 80 feet in length. He declared that there would be sufficient room for 20 Jonahs to stand and move about in the interior of such a whale.

immediately telegraphed to her parents requesting them to put an end to their projected lawsuit. She describes as ridiculous the suggestion that she and Gaby Deslys ever passed for one another. “I only knew Mile. Deslys very slightly,” said Madame Hedwig Navratilova. Despite her protestations that she intends to put a stop to the legal proceedings which are in their preliniinary stage, .two distinguished Frenchmen have resolved to probe the matter to the bottom. They are Maitre Bergeon, Senator of the Department of Bouches-du-Rhode, and his friend the lawyer, Maitre Chapuis. When the latter was told of Mme. Navratilova’s dramatic reappearance, h-' declared: — “It is certainly amazing. But lam in possession of confidential information which proves beyond a doubt that the Gaby Deslys of 1907 was not the same girl as the Gaby Deslys of 1902. “The Gaby of 1919 was no more French than I am Czech.” Here the matter rests for the moment.