Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy: A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities. — John Shaqi
Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy: A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities.Anonymous
History
Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy: A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities.
Anonymous
Mutiny; Pirates; Seafaring life; Shipwrecks
Captain Lyons of the Raith of Leith, while prosecuting the
whale-fishery on the Labrador coast, in the season of 1802, discovered
a large whale at a short distance from the ship. Four boats were
dispatched in pursuit, and two of them succeeded in approaching it so
closely together, that two harpoons were struck at the same moment.
The fish descended a few fathoms in the direction of another of the
boats, which was on the advance, rose accidentally beneath it, struck
it with its head, and threw the boat, men, and apparatus about fifteen
feet into the air. It was inverted by the stroke, and fell into the
water with its keel upwards. All the people were picked up alive by
the fourth boat, which was just at hand, excepting one man, who having
got entangled in the boat, fell beneath it, and was unfortunately
drowned. The fish was soon afterwards killed. The engraving on page
30, is illustrative of this remarkable accident.
In 1822, two boats belonging to the ship Baffin went in pursuit of a
whale. John Carr was harpooner and commander of one of them. The whale
they pursued led them into a vast shoal of his own species; they were
so numerous that their blowing was incessant, and they believed that
they did not see fewer than an hundred. Fearful of alarming them
without striking any, they remained for a while motionless. At last
one rose near Carr's boat, and he approached, and fatally for himself,
harpooned it. When he struck, the fish was approaching the boat; and,
passing very rapidly, jerked the line out of its place over the stern,
and threw it upon the gunwale. Its pressure in this unfavorable
position so careened the boat, that the side was pulled under water,
and it began to fill. In this emergency, Carr, who was a brave, active
man, seized the line, and endeavored to relieve the boat by restoring
it to its place; but, by some circumstance which was never accounted
for, a turn of the line flew over his arm, dragged him overboard in an
instant, and drew him under the water, never more to rise. So sudden
was the accident, that only one man, who was watching him, saw what
had happened; so that when the boat righted, which it immediately did,
though half full of water, the whole crew on looking round inquired
what had become of Carr. It is impossible to imagine a death more
awfully sudden and unexpected. The invisible bullet could not have
effected more instantaneous destruction. The velocity of the whale at
its first descent is from thirteen to fifteen feet per second. Now as
this unfortunate man was adjusting the line at the water's very edge,
where it must have been perfectly tight, owing to its obstruction in
running out of the boat, the interval between the fastening the line
about him and his disappearance could not have exceeded the third part
of a second of time, for in one second only he must have been dragged
ten or twelve feet deep. Indeed he had not time for the least
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