A DIVER'S ADVENTURES.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2124, 25 October 1875, Page 3

A DIVER'S ADVENTURES.

A correspondent who has interviewed Captain Boyton sends a report of the Captain's statements to the Gentleman's Magazine:—" Soon afterwards I worked down into the Gulf of Mexico. The first coral I raised was at Catoche. Knocking round about there, I heard of the loss of the schooner Foam. The first mate and three men got saved, but the captain, his daughter, and three men pot lost. I slung round to see if she could be raised. After we'd spent the best part of a week, we sailed over and dropped, anchor. It was a lovely Sunday morning when we struck her. She lay in sixty feet of ■water, on a bottom as white as the moon. Looking down I could see # her loaning over on one side upon the coral, reef. When I got down to her I saw she had torn a great gap in the reef when she ran against it. The mainmast was gone, and hung by the fore. I clambered; I saw whole shoals of fish playing in an.d out of the hatches. First I went to look for the bodies, for I never like to work while there's any of them about. Finding the fo'castle • mpty, I went to the two little state cabins. It was rather dark, and I hud to feel in the lower bunks. Thee was nothing ia the first, and in the other the door was locked. I pried it open and shot back the lock witu my adze. It flew open, and out something fell right against me. I felt at once it was the woman's body. I was not exactly frightened, but it shook me rather. I slung it from me. and wen* out into the light until I got. hold of myself Then I turned back and brought her out —poor thing, she'd been very pretty, and as I carried her in niy arms with tier white face nestling against my shoulder, she seemed as if she was only sleeping. I made her fast to the line, as carefully as I could, to send her up, and the fish played about her as if they were sorry she was'going. At last I gave the signal and si»e went slowly up, her hair floating round her hea,d like a pillow of goldenseaweed. That was the only body I found there, and 1 managed after to raise considerable of the cargo. Only one of my expeditions was among the silver banks of the Antilles—the loveliest place I ever saw, where the white coral grows into curious tree-like shapes As I stepped along the bottom it seemed as if it was a frosted forest. Here and thfcre trailed long fronds of green and crimson sea-weed Silver-bellied fish flashed about among the deep brown and purple sea ferns, which rose as high as my.nead. As far as I could see all round in the transparent waters were different colored leaves and on the floor piles of ■hells so bright in color that it seemed as if I had stumbled on a place where they kept a stock of broken rainbows. I could not work for a bit, and had a quarter determination to sit down for a while and wait for the mermaid. I guess if those sea-girls live anywhere, they select this spot. After working the inside out of half an hour, I thought I had better go to work and blast for treasure. A little bit on from where I sat were the remains of a treasure ship. It was a Britisher, I think, and corals had formed all about her, or rather about what was left of her. The coral on the bottom and round her showed black spots. That meant a deposit or%itheriron on silver. I made fairly good hauls every time I went down, and sold one piece that I had to Mr Barnum of .New York. After I left there I had a curious adventure with a shark. I was down on a nasty rock bottom. A man n^ver feels comfortable in them; he can't tell what big creature may be hiding under the huge quarter deck pea leaves which grow there. The first part of the time I was visited by a porcupine fish, which kept sticking its quills up and bobbing in front of my helmet. Soon after I saw a big shadow fall across me, and lookiig up there was an infernal shark playing about my tubing. It makes you feel chilly in the back when they're about. He came to me slick as I looped up. I made at him and he sheered off. For near an hour he worked at it, till I could stand it no longer. If you can keep your head level its all right, and you are pretiy safe if they are not on you sharp. This ugly brute was twenty feet long I should think, for when I lay down all my length on the bottom he stretched a considerable way ahead >of me, and I could see him beyond my feet. Then I waited. They must turn over to bite, and my laying down bothered him. He swam over me three or four times, and then skulked off to the thicket of seaweed to consider. I knew he'd come back when he settled his mind. It seemed a longtime waiting for him. At last he came viciously over me, but like the time before, too far from my arms. The next time I had my chance, and ripped him with my knife as neatly as I could. A shark always remembers he's got business somewhere else when he's cut, so ofl 1 this fellow goes. It is a curious thing, too that all sharks about will fo low in the blood trail he leaves. I got on my hands and knees, and as he swam off I noticed four dark shadows slip after him. I saw no more that time. They did not like my company. After a short period of experience in pearl-diving, the next is the loss of nearly everything that he possessed, including his diving apparatus, in a conflagration. Captain BoytoD, in a sort of desperation, took service in the Mexican war, and led an exciting life till, growing tired of the semi-barbarian mode of warfare, he deserted, crossing from Matamorase afc midnight in an old tub of a boat in which he expected every minute to go to the bottom. Arriving at Brownsville, he " fixedhimself into hard work " at a dry goods store. Then he wrote home, and hearing that his father was dead, grew restless again, and " waded away north," through Victoria, Saii Antonia, Indianaolia, and by a schooner from Galveston, whence he proceeded via New Orleans/Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington to New York. There he stayed until he had, filled his pockets again, and having sefc himself up with a diving auit, he shipped for Havre. ■ , • ■