Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1895 — A BIG FISH STORY. [ARTICLE]

A BIG FISH STORY.

Acres of Porpoises and a Whale One Hundred Feet Long. Captain J. G. Baker, of the fourmasted steel ship Kenilworth, recently arrived at New York from Honolulu, brings to port with him a fish story of heroic proportions, that will make an ordinary sea-serpent seein trivial in comparistm. The ship was about 150 miles east of Cape Henlopen when a school of whales was sighted about a mile away on the starboard quarter. Captain Baker declares there were twenty of them, of varying sizes. Some of them were splashing water and playing a sort of deep-sea leap frog. Others were doing a series of giant acrobatics, which would make the fortune of any summer resort. Captain Baker is usually an unimpressionable man, but as he watched the demonstration he exclaimed, “Great Gosh!” Butthat was not the only surprise he was to meet. At night the ship sailed into a strange looking sea. It was cut up into small hummocks, and when the Kenilworth trembled, shook and jolted, the boatswaid said, “We’re gone ashore.” But he was wrong. Captain Baker's keen eye at once discovered that the ship had sailed into a great area of porpoises. Porpoises, porpoises, ns far as the eye could reach, “blowing” themselves and making merry. It seemed as though the ship was riding on their backs.

The moon came up, and Captain Baker said he never before saw such a sight in his life. The backs of the fish showed before him in the glistening spray for acres. “It seemed,” said he, “as though we had run aground on porpoises.” But still there was more in store for Captain Baker. He hod sailed the sea for years, but he solemnly avjws that he never saw such a whale as was sighted off Barnegat. It was just to leeward, and lashing the sea and spouting in an awesome manner It was of the sperm species, and the captain says that at a conservative estimate it must have been at least 100 feet long.