A BAY OF ISLANDS ROMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8112, 17 May 1906, Page 4

A BAY OF ISLANDS ROMANCE.

London, March 23. About twenty miles to the southward of the Bay of Islands stands, a short stone's throw from the mainland, a mighty mass of rocks, forming a narrow channel through which schools of whales used to pass on their way south. Mr Frank Bullen, who, by the way, is now on his way to Australia on a lecturing tour, makes this circumstance the setting to one of his short stories in *' Sea Spray," his newly-published volume. " The Fate of the Inventor," as the story is called, describes how oue Eopata, a Maori whaler, first hit upon the idea of entrapping the whales as they passed through the narrow chan. nel at Whangamnmu. Eopata and his comrades spread across the lower end of the channel " a great net of 2inch i'->pe, fifteen fathoms long, and seven tauiu.us wide, with bordering ropes of Sinch stuff, and bridle ropes -of 6inch •luff at either end, spliced into 7inch hawsers." After a long and weary waiting, a school of sperm whales, led by a majestic bull, came steering majestically into the channel. In a few minutes all was confusion and uproar. The whole channel seemed packed with the heaving bodies of the mighty monsters, who were panio-strickon and helpless in the presence of this new terror For a few. minutes Eopata and his boat's crew sat as if stupefied, Only for that brief space though. Then, with a yell of triumph, Eopata urged liis men to pull forward, and as they emerged upon the gigantic turmoil each man seized a lance, and lunged it at the nearest black mass to him, as if the old destroying instinct of his c nnibal ancestors lud suddenly awakened within him. Eopata was transformed Uttering inarticulate cries, his beard flecked with foam and blood from his clenched jaws, his arms seemed to work like pistons of a steam engine, as uuiiriug, as forcefully, and yet withal he kept a wary eye upon the closely packed masses before him, and cast au oecasional glance at the straining hiwsers on either shore to see if they still held. And then suddenly came the catastrophe. He had thrust his lance deep down into the body of a whale, wallowing by the side of the boat, and while wrenching at it in the effort to withdraw it, the whale swiftly rolled outwards, spouting blood. Eopata should have let go, but did not, why, none would ever know, and his body Hew through the air, falling between two dying monsters, and disap, earing beneath the crimson foam. To attempt a rescue wai impossible, for jhc space between the boat and the point where he sank was close packed with the gigantic bodies of the victims.

After a brief spice, Kopata's comrades set to work again and fought on until six whales were harpooned and beached. The day's work assured the success of the new venture, and opened the partner's way to wealth. But the body of the inventor of the great scheme was never seen again.