EVERY MAN HIS OWN SHIPMASTER.

Waka Maori, Volume 11, Issue 10, 25 May 1875, Page 106

EVERY MAN HIS OWN SHIPMASTER.

Amongst the passengers by the "Queen," a steamer belonging to the National Company, on her last voyage from New York, was a Captain Paul Boynton, of the New Jersey Coastguard, a professional diver. When the " Queen " had got two or three hundred miles from New York, Captain Boynton, if we are to believe what we hear, declared his intention of jumping overboard and swimming back, in order to test a peculiar apparatus for floating, to which he was quite anxious to trust his life. The captain of the steamer, however, would not permit what he regarded as a perfectly suicidal proceeding; and so the professional diver, sorely against his will, was not allowed to throw himself into the sea. Instead of repining over the restraint to which he was subjected, Boynton sought to make converts in favour of the invention he desired to experiment with, and when the "Queen" was about seven miles of the Irish coast he obtained leave of absence in the fashion he required from the captain. Instead of selecting a calm day and warm sunshine for his first plunge, Boynton launched himself into the deep at half-past 9 o'clock on a dark night, with a gale blowing. As he dropped into the waves the steamer forged ahead. "All right, captain," roared the adventurer cheerily, and was then lost sight of in the tossing waste of waters amidst the breathless astonishment of the passengers. A hero never drowns. Captain Boynton turned up next evening in Cork not a bit the worse for his adventure. And yet, as may be easily surmised, he had no fair-weather time of it. "While the houses were shaking and slates were being blown off roofs in London, this bold swimmer was alone upon the stormy sea, encased in his magic dress, carried up and down the alternate hills and valleys of the ocean until he confesses to feeling for the first time in his life sea-sick. No steward was available during the hour of trial; but then, on the other hand, there was no confined cabin to aggravate his sufferings. As he neared the coast

the tempest increased in violence. He was close to the cliffs, where "some idea of the heavy season may be gathered from the fact that one moment, having mounted on the top of a huge wave, he seemed to be on a level with the cliff tops, the next instant he was hurled down into an abyss of a hundred feet, shut in by high walls of water. In this frightful manner he was tossed for more than an hour." At length having been seven hours in the water, and having swum over thirty miles, Captain Boynton steered him! sell into harbour, and got to Skibbereen, where he posted a number of letters entrusted to him for the purpose by the passengers of the steamer. m The achievement of the professional diver was intended to illustrate the advantages and capabilities ot a costume by which a man becomes as it were his own ship, and is quite independent of steamers or packet-vessels. When an entrance is effected into these garments, and they are inflated properly, it is almost impossible for the tenant of the suit of safety to come to grief. He must float whether he will or n °*«. "jf 18 ! 0 arran S ed > we believe, in compartments, so that if there was a leak in any one quarter he would still have nothing to fear, except whatever inconvenience he might suffer from being slightly out of trim. He possesses the power of steering and sculling himself, being furnished with a paddle for the purpose. As when one jumps from a steamer into the Atlantic it is impossible to tell how long one may remain m the Atlantic, the voyager of the future must be provided with food. He carries a bag of sustenance sufficient to last him ten days; but he must be prepared for other contingents besides those of hunger and thirst. Knocking about the sea he might be run down by a careless ship, and so he has a lantern to affix to his head-piece, which he can also, we are informed, use as a reading-lamp, for a smali library would seem to form a part of his equipment. Again, who knows but he may stumble against a shark, and so we have him armed with an axe and a long knife. He furthermore bears a flag, and can hoist the ensign; while, when tired of paddling, he can erect a sail as readily as a nautilus.— Some News.