WIRING A WHALE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1646, 13 November 1873, Page 4

WIRING A WHALE.

The following extraordinary incident is related to the "Times of India, ') by a correspondent^ who describes himself as an eye witness :— ' s Gn July 7 the Gwadur-Kurrachee section of the Persian Gulf cable was suddenly interrupted. H.M.s steamer Amber witch, under the command of Captain •Bishop, left for the fault in the course of the following day, and arrived at the position indicated by the tests at 1 o'clock on Saturday, that is, about 40. houra after the, occurrence of the interruption. After grappling the cable, and picking up a short length towards the fault it became evident from the increased strain' that the cable had fouled something on the bottom, as the deck engine, unassisted, was quite unable to bring the cable up, but after hauling it from all points of the compass tne obstruction appeared to suddenly give way,. and the body of an immense whale was brought to the surface, firmly secured by two and a half turns of the cable round its tail. Many of the outer wires of the cable were broken and twisted, the gutta percha badly torn, and the conductor of the cable broken. The cable had evidently been hanging for some distance in a bight over a sudden depression in the bottom; and the only explanation that can be offered is that the whale, while rubbing x itself to get rid of the. parasites which attach themselves to these animals, had turned suddenly while passing through the bight, and thus twisted the cable round its body. It is worthy of mention that a fault occurred at about the same point a few years ago, when the cable broke while being hauled in. From the manner in , which the cable was found to be twisted, it was always supposed that the damage had been done by an anchor, bnt.it is more than probable that a whale was then, as now, the author of* the mischief. For upwards of 50 or 60 yards on either side of the. fault, the cable was perfectly bright, but not worn, presenting all the appearance of having been constantly rubbed against some soft substance. About tyro-thirds of the Thale was still uneaten by the sharks when we first got .it to the surface, but on Teturning to the spot the next morning, after the completion of the repairs, everything had disappeared, excepting the tail and about 14ft of the back)bone. , ,„ > , ;