STRANGE ADVENTURE WITH A WHALE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8162, 25 January 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

STRANGE ADVENTURE WITH A WHALE.

Information from the Island of Sandy states that two men in the north end of the island went off in a small yawl-boat, about 12ft of keel, to the fishing; in the Bay of Newark. They had got out in the middle of the bay, had anchored their boat by means of a rope and stone, and were in the act of shooting their lines when they were astonished to see a large herd of whales in close proximity to thorn, of a species which appear on the northern coasts at all seasons of the year, being twenty to twenty-four feet in length, and considered very mischievous and voracious. The large boats in the summer time arc sometimes annoyed with them, and use all manner of devices to frighten them away, such as throwing burning fuel at them, as they frighten all the cod away. They came very, near the boat, when they all went down, and one seems to have got entangled with the anchor rope, it having gob round his fin and head when coming to the surface. Away , went the whale with the boat in tow, the rapidity at which they were going making the sea stand in furrows at each side. They were towed in this style for oyer two miles, when the rope broke, and .the monster joined his companions, who were keeping close at hand*