Pearl Shelling Adventure

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume VI, Issue 1675, 4 July 1906, Page 4

Pearl Shelling Adventure

A diver thinks no mote of dropping over board and goiDg to tho bottom than you do of getting into a cab and driving down one ol the streets of a New Zealand oily. In tropical and semi tropical waters, men who have learnt; thoir diving atbomn somotimes find theuiaolvea in oiroum« atanqea which are a bit startling at tho' outset, but to which they soon become ao'oustomed, Tho sharks aro rather disoonraging at first, but though they aro mighty ugly bruteß end somotimes show signs of nggrcs siveness, they gonerally stein more frightoned of us than we are of thorn, nnd soon sheer off, The great danger of sharks is the chanco of gettiiig the nir tube twisted round their tails, That has happened beforo now, with awkward rcsulis, In the Arilnro Sea I onoe went down when the water was alive with snakesnasty hairy-necked brutes, striped .yellow and black, all sizes from six inches to nine feet, They hadn't the slightest fear of one, and no doubt if they could have seen flnytbinp to bite thoy would have bitten. It was just as well they didn't for their bite is certain and pretty sudki death,

Pearl shelling up on the northern ooast, I got the one scare of my life. I had always heard that orocodilos buried their prey, or fixed it up under a log or rock, and left it for some days, until sufficiently high to suit their palates; and I had also heard that tbo blaok divers declared that a very big one paid oocasionil visits to an oyster bed off the mouth of tho riyer, though soycral miles out at sea, where the fleet I was working with Mod, Tho white people op the boats did not believo it, hit at alleventr, when ''big fellow alligator" was supposed to be about, the niggers, who didn't oaro a dump for Bharks could aot be induocd to go down, In common, with the rest of tho whites, I doubted the story of the mighty saurian, as I had never seen ono so far out at sea, and I did not healtato to drop overboard when required, Down I went and, as luck would have it, landed right on a splendid patch of shell, I had just got to work, whan I noticed that while the wster close behind me was perfectly cloar there was a muddy patoh a few yards to my right. It was evident that something was stirring the bottom, and I watobed in tently to soo the oauso of the commotion. Presently it ceased, aud as the water cleared I saw about ten yards from me & huge orocodile watohing me with its little, vicious, pig-like eyes, Olose beside the monster wan a mass o! rook with a protndiog shelf, and it dawned upon'me that he was planting his "kill" beneath it. I knew I ought to give the signal to go up, but some how the brute fascinated me, and a strango ouriosity glued me to the spot, watching with all my eyes, His huge paw—that furthest from me—was holding down something which ho had evidently been covering with mud under the jutting rook, What was that something? As I gazed and gazed, riveted to the spot I made the form of a blaokgin lying on its side, held down by the great claws, and with ita ghastly dead eye? staring straight at me. Then the monster-he was not an inoh less than 18 feet long-suddenly shiftod bis position, moving his right paw towards me, and looking me squarely in the face, The moment broke the spell, and the noxt instant I was on my way to the surface. Never did the journey up seem to long, and never did I get on board so quickly. I don't think that patch of shell has ever been disturbed since then,