DOWN IN TEE DEEP.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 194, 6 January 1913, Page 3

DOWN IN TEE DEEP.

FOR THE .JEUELS OF T:;K TASMANIA. MR VICTOII IiERHE'S ENTERPRISE. STEEPLEJACK AND DIVER. Mr. Victor Berge. steeplejsuk and diver, after touring New Zealand in hi* former capacity, and repairing all the chimney-stacks and steeples that want repairing, is opening the New Year under the sea by an attempt to recover from the wreck of the Tasmania, off the Mahia Peninsula, the valuable ease of jewels that went down in her. The attempt 3ms been made before on two or three occasions, but Mr Berge has succeeded in other cases after failures, and lie may succeed this time. The Tasmania is down in sixteen fathoms, and Mr Berge has frequently exceeded this. In Australia he made a double name, as steeplejack and diver, and he hopes to repeat the performance in the Dominion. As steeplejack he has already done all that can be dqne in the way of climbing and repairing factory chimneys, and he is now to try what harvest the deep Sea will provide.

AN EXPERIENCE UNDER THE SEA. While in town a few days ago making preliminary arrangements, Mr Berge told of some of his experiences diving for wrecks off the coast of South Africa, from which country he hails. Early in his career as a diver he was commissioned by a bereaved husband in England to dive'for the body of a lady, who had been drowned in the wreck of an Aberdeen liner from Australia in Mussel Bay a few days before. The number of the unfortunate passenger's cabin was given —the wreck having taken place at night —and Mr Berge went down. In deep water the sunken steamer lay. over a 'hundred feet below the surfaie. Things are almost dark so far down, ir.it the; intrepid young diver lanri-d en the deck and grouped his way down the stairs towards the passage off which the particular cabin lay. Down below he found a tangled mass of deck caire and loose wreckage clinging against the roof of the alleyway. This he carefully cleared and flung to one side, so that it would not hamper the air-tube and life-line, on which the diver altogether depends. Then he put forward his hand to feel the way along, and touched something soft. He started back in dismay and horror. It was tlhe face of a corpse, one of the drowned passengers. Berge was just beginning diving then, being still in his teens, and it took him some moments to recover from the shock.

rßiit time is precious many fathoms deep below the sea, and he <lrew the corpse out of the way and moved down the passage way towards the cabin. It was pitch-dark here and everything had to be done by sense of touch. At length he came to the cabin he wanted and opened the door. In the dim, watery light inside, given by a skylight opening deckwards. Berge 'saw a sight he has never forgotten—one of the most strangely beautiful sights imaginable. . In her berth was a woman with eyes wide open with a look, of wonder, as if she had just awakened from sleep. In the naturalness of her pose she seemed alive, and to young Berge it was as if her eyes were directed on him- as an intruder into her cabin. Her hair floated upward toward the light, like a cloud of the finest seaweed, and waved in the current caused by the sudden opening of the cabin door. Away down there, though time was precious, the diver could not move his eyes away and .4ood for a few minutes as in a trance. Then he remembered big business and. taking the body in-his arms, grouped hit way back to the staircase and then to the deck. He gave the signal and was hauled up slowly to the surface, where he appeared to the men working the like the bearer of a mermaid to the ''''<£- er world. The body was buried asMfre. FIGHT WITH AN OCTOPUS.

On another occasion, while diving for tin and copper in the wreck of i.n old Spanish paddle-boat, which went <!• wn i» Delagoa Bay ninety years.. Berge had a struggle with an octopus, and nearly lost his life. TTe had preriously been warned about the creature by a l'oituguese diver, who bad been scared aimy from the wreck by one of i's attacks. Nohting happened until Berge, to get the tin out, had blown up the deck of the old boat with dynamite. Then cne day, while bending down to fasten the sling round the ingots of tin, so that they could be hauled aloft, he felt 'something clap him on the leg. and again on the back. The diver, drawing his diver's knife—a two-edged weapon as keen as a razor —swung round and began to slash round in all directions to cut himself free. He cut off one tentacle and another, but the rest fastened on him and he tripped up, with the octopus on his back. Tt is exceedingly difficult for a diver to get up from 1 this position in any case, quite apart from the Incubus of an octopus, and Berge. unable to defend or extricate himself .by his own efforts, pulled bis lifeline, which wns fortunately free, foul' times sharply in quick succession. Tliis is the signal to pull up-at once—'in danger." A TUG-OF-WAB.

The surface crew got the signal and pulled, but the octopus, with half his tenacles on Berge and the other on the ship, refused to let go. T» the tug-of-war the united efforts of the representatives of mankind won. The octopus, still clinging to Berge, was dragged from hie hold on the wreck and went up aloft with his intended victim. When the two appeared together the mystery was explained to the crew on the boat, and the devil-fish was quickly despatched. Tt was a perfect man-eater of its kind. Berge lias frequently seen octopuses on the sea-lloor, but ha* never been attacked since. He. says, if the diver goes about his work quietly and without fuss, the octopus will not molest him, but let him moire towards the fish and it will go for him at once. The horrid guardian of the Spanish wreck was, of course, an -exception. Of sharks, Berge says the best way is to open the airvalve strong and the stream of bubbles soon frightens them away. Many other fish take a fancy to the diver and rub against him most caressingly. ' Some used to come to him day by day in bis work down in the deep, and were recognised as some eort of company in the loneliest of all occupations.