Grandfather's Yarns.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 38, 15 December 1894, Page 5

Grandfather's Yarns.

WHALING- ADVENTURES. AT CLOSE QUARTERS WITH A SHARK. THE LATE CAPTAIN HOWELL. A GRAND OLD PIONEER. THE LOSS OF THE AMAZON. (All Rights Reserved). No. 32. 'I “ Grandfather, will you tell us what a boatsteerer had to do ?—what his work was I mean,” said Pred. “ Well, my boy, a boatsteerer’s work was not very easy and rather risky, too, unless a person was nimble and could balance himself well ; ,but of course, as in most things, use went a long w r ay. The boat steerer pulls the foremost oar (the harp'ner oar, they call it), till the headsman gives the order to lance; then he goes for ard and stands in the bow with the iron raised in his hand till the moment comes for him to let the iron fly. Then he pays the rope out. The box-lining coil, as it is called, is fastened to the harpoon, and lies in the bow of the boat; the other end runs aft, and is fastened to the loggerhead. Then, after the whale is fastened to, the fooat-steerer steers for the headsman after the whale, and that is the hardest part of all—at least I used to think so. “ I remember well one afternoon we were out, both our boat and Young’s, and we were each fast to a whale. We had seen three whales coming in from seaward, and that was why we went out, though it- was rough. Young’s boat was about a mile and a-half from our boat when Bill G-ully, the boatsteerer, said to Young —‘ Griffiths’ boat has gone down —I saw it.’ “ ‘ Cone down !’ said Young--- rubbish. They’ve lowered the sail, that’s all.’ “ £ A sail doesn’t go down like .that when it’s lowered,’ persisted Cully, so Young told them to pull in our direction. “ Cully was right, too. The line fastened” to the whale was too short, and as we were towing her along she sank, taking the boat down with her. We were all in the water in a minute. Four of the men started at once to swim to leaward towards Young s boat, and I was just going with them when an Australian native named Ceo. Chase, who pulled the after oar, called out to me- —‘ Oh, Bill, for God’s sake, don’t leave me.’ “ I’d quite forgotten about the poor chap, and he couldn’t swim either. . I couldn’t leave him like that, so I swam back to him with another oar. He had kept hold of his own oar all the time. I put an oar under -each arm, and it was surprising how splendidly he floated. “ We hadn’t been long there when I felt the rough back of a shark against my feet. 1 pulled off my coat, which was a thick pilot, determined to do all I could to save my life, but I needn’t have troubled myself, for the shark went down to the whale and didn’t think any more about us. “ When Young’s boat come up I was eating a piece of fat damper which floated near me, and they did chaff me. One fellow began singing— Some fell on ±o their bended knees, And others fell to weeping ; Rut I fell to my bread and cheese, ‘ For I always look out for the main thing. Years afterwards in Otago the chaps ■used to chaff me about that fat damper and Bill Cully would sing that same Irish song that they sang that day. Whenever he began —

‘ I gave the captain five thirfceens To take me over to Margate. Before we got half over the way It blew a terrible hard rate. The captain cried, “We’ll all be lost ” Said Paddy, “ I don’t care a farden, .Yon promised to take me safe over, you know, And I’ll make yon stick to your bargain,”^ it was the signal for a vol|fes. of chaff for me.

“ That same day, though,” Griffiths, our headsman, was nearly drowned. He depended rather too much on his swimming powers, and didn’t stop to take off: any of his clothes, but started off with boots, coat, sou’-wester, and two pairs of trousers on. Of course that hampered him terribly, and he was just at bis last gasp when they hauled him into the boat.’ “ That same season Griffiths was nearly killed, too. One day onr two boats were out aftei three whales, and we had each fastened to oue, when I saw the loose whale coming right under our boat. I called out to Griffiths, and he turned to me and bawled —“D—you and the loose whale, too —attend to the boat,’ “ Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when the loose whale turned round, and struck Griffiths with the corner of her flukes and sent him flying aft against the anchor. His head was terribly cut, and he lay there motionless with blood streaming from the'wound in his head. “ We then all thought he was dead, and the men were all saying it was a judgment on him, for the whale did not touch the boat —never struck a man but Griffiths, though it might have settled us all. I- felt wild with them, though, because a few minutes

before they had a 1! been indulging in language a good deal worse. “ He lay there for a good while till a chap we'always called ‘ Old Harry,’ saw him move, so he emptied the fresh water keg over him, and then we saw some signs of returning life. We left Young to anchor the three whales for they got the other one, and we pulled in with Dick Griffiths and put him to bed. He was delirious for three days, but the cook kept dosing him with tea and rum —always with the same comforting remark that ‘if it doesn’t do him any good, it can’t do him any harm.’ “ A few mornings afterwards Young came out of the hut and said to me, —‘ Well, it has been rum treatment, but it has answered all right, for Richard is himself again.’ “ Grandfather,” said Fred, as there was a considerable pause after he finished about Griffiths, “ Could you tell us who brought the first cattle and sheep here ? A fellow was asking me tfie other day if yon knew.” “ Well, I don’t know who brought them here, my boy, but I know that Captain Howell brought the first cattle, about 80 head, to Riverton in the Kaiwari. He brought them from Twofold Bay, also a mare and foal. He gave all of his relations so many head of cattle each, on the condition that he got the male increase ! for a certain time for beef for his vessel.

“ Then some years afterwards, when he came down from Sydney in the Eliza, he brought between 500 and 600 sheep, and shared them with his relations. He was about the best man to his own people that I ever saw. The reason he bought the Eliza was because he lost his vessel, the Amazon. One dark, thick, rainy night they were coming’ from Jacob’s River into the Bluff. Tommy Chasland remarked that it wasn’t fit to go into the Bluff, but they all chaffed him and said he wanted to go to Stewart Island because his wife was there, so when they shaped her head into the Bluff Tommy went below. “ They hadn’t gone far before the vessel ran on to the locks at the Point, if they had put Tommy in charge it would not have happened. Well, they all managed to get ashore in the boat, and a good deal of the oil floated up, as it was flood tide, and was recovered next day. By daybreak there wasn’t a spar of the Amazon to be seen.

“But it didn’t affect Capt. Howell much—he was worth thousands then. He bought the Frolic from Johnny Jones, paying for it in oil. Then he filled her with oil and took her to Sydney. He sold the oil well, and the Frolic, too, though she wasn’t worth much, and as rotten as a pear. She was built of what we called apple tree. Then he bought the Eliza and came back to Jacob’s River. He brought the sheep with him and 1500 sovereigns tied up in a dirty old

silk handkerchief. I remember seeing it handed to him over the vessel’s side into the boat.” ... “ Grandfather, you promised to tell ns about Judge Montague,’ said Jack. ‘ So I did, answered Grandfather, “but we’ll have to put that off for another time now.”