A FIGHT WITH A FISH. Narrow Escape of a Diver From Drowning.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 215, 13 August 1887, Page 2

A FIGHT WITH A FISH. Narrow Escape of a Diver From Drowning.

The Paris coi respondent of the " London Telegraph" writes: " A diver named Quintree had a remarkable fight with a formidable fish called the boultous or bondro, a kind of shark which infests the Breton coast at Douarnenez, the other day. According to all accounts Quintree had a narrow escape, and his own report of his terrible experience reads like a stanza from Schiller's famous poem, or a page from one of Jules Verne's romances The diver, an old salt, was employed by the Government, and in pursuit of his daily duty descended, in a diving apparatus, oil the Douarnenez pier for the purpose of laying the foundation of an addition to that structure. While he was at Iho bottom oi the sea, the men working the air pump in the pontoon boat above were suddenly frightened by feeling the alarm MgnaL They instantly pulled up, and brought a large boultous nearly eight feet long to tho surface. The marine monster's head foi mod three-quarters of his length, and his un.derjaws were of immense size. Shortly after wards Quintree came up,his hands on the air pipe of his helmet and his diving apparatus somewhat damaged. It appears that when he went down to his work he had scarcely got to the last rung of,tho ladder when lie saw the eea monster lying between two huge lumps of rock. He had in his hands only his stone chisel and a hammer, and ho intended to go up for a crowbar at once, but the fish, was too fast for him. It came to ward him through the green with its enormous jaws wide open. Without losing a moment Quintree managed to wound the animal in the throat with his chisel and then held it down on a stone while he drew his knife and made a hole in its body, through which he passed a rope and thus sent the fish to the surface. Had it not been for his quickness and dexterity, the diver, owing to the rents which the fish would make in his apparatus, would have been drowned and thus devoured. As it happens, it wa« the boultous that was not only defeated but eaten, for its body was divided among the victor and his comrades, who made a capital boullubaisse of its prime parts.

A man we have heard of lias such a cracked voice that he fru'ely .says anything without breaking iiis word.