HE DROPPED INTO THE SEA.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 338, 30 January 1889, Page 5

HE DROPPED INTO THE SEA.

" Still, Mr Baldwin, you must have met with more than one curious adventure in the astonishing career you have followed. Can you recall any of them ?" " One I can recall most distinctly. It's not the sort of thing a man is likely to forget, I can tell you ; and I've a tolerably good memory at the worst of times. Well, sir, it happened this way. I was performing this same feat at one of our wateringplaces known as Rockaway Beach. I had gone up all serene and reckoned upon making a pretty smart descent. I did ; but not quite according to programme. When the parachute spread it took me out to sea, and I dropped upon the most uncomfortable substance for anything but a sea-fowl to touch with his feet. 1 fell plumb into the sea, and not being a seafowl, I needn't tell you that I Tiad an uncomfortable time of it until I was rescued. I was only in the water some two or three minutes, but you may take my word for it when I opine it wa3 quite long enough under the circumstances. Fortunately, I could swim. 1 didn't feel happy though ! My balloon, on that occasion, apparently made a bee-line for England, but it was picked up by an in-coming vessel and brought back into port."