Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1891 — A Huge Pet. [ARTICLE]

A Huge Pet.

On a small island in the middle of the South Pacific lives a planter, the only white man on the island —which is full of brown-skinned folk—who cuts and dries the meat of the cocoanut, which he sells to trading vessels. When any stranger stops at his island he will give blip of the best that the island affords; ho will get up great concerts and dances of the Islanders; above all, he will take him out to see his pet, which is, perhaps, tho largest and oddest’animal that was ever petted by any man. This pet is a sperm whale nearly seventy feet long, rHe came through the narrow entrance into the little harbor, which is walled by a coral reef, when quite small, and remained until he had grown so large that he could not get out if he wanted to. The great creature comes up to bo fed when the planter blows a horn, and after his meal of a barrel of chopped meat or fish performs some ponderous And amusing tricks, apparently knowing what is expected of him.