Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1915 — WONDERFUL SWIMMER [ARTICLE]

WONDERFUL SWIMMER

\\ ho Kept Husband and Baby Afloat for 26 Hours. While we waited at Cairns, of the North Queensland coast, for the New Guinea packet to be under way across the Coral Sea we got the ear /ts a Cape York aborigine who had some years before astonished ian world by saving his life from the sea in the midst of a great hurricane. The wind had fallen down so swiftly—and with such furious white violence (said they)—that of the 500 luggers of the pearling fleet which it cast away, some were blown to' the bottom within a few rods of shore with the loss of all hands.

In the season of the great hurricane this aborigine was shipped aboard a lugger of 18 tons to fish the Great Barrier the Cape York coast for shell and beche-de-mer. When the big wind came down (said he) it lifted the little lugger clean out of the water —like a leaf in a gale—and flung her back capsized and cast away. And so swift was this, and wanton, and complete, and careless and lazy, that' the aborigine was greatly astonished, for he had not thought that any wind could accomplish it. It was then near 6 o’clock of a Saturday evening, and all at once it was dark. The wreck of “the lugger vanished in the sur-j prising night, and a smother of broken water. What a turmoil there was—how the wind tore off the crests of the magical waves and drenched the air with a stifling mist of spray—and what" a confusion of | noise and movement, and how black I and how white the rush of the night —the aborigine could not with any ' art relate; but said, with his eyes; popped out, in the recollection of the magical performance of that jin- ( kie-jinkie gale, “My word, one big-1 fellow seal’ 4 He was tossed and! driven like a chip of driftwood all ! that night (said he); his head was up, his heels were up, he was rolled over and over, he was beaten deep under water, the breath was blown 1 back in his mouth; and he fancied sometimes that the wind picked him up with its hands and cast him . through the air, from crest clear of the sea—which was doubtless true, for the wind was magical: strong, and in the magical wrath, * and magically as sticky as gum. S In the morning the aborigine fell in with his lubra (wife) ;, and the lubra stood by—to help him (said they), being a stronger swimmer than he, and a more cunning diver after • shell and beche-de-mer, and more daring and elusive in shark water; so that her value was known to all masters of luggers out of Thursday Island and known quite

as well, you may be sure, to the aborigine. By and by—dawn long ago come and noon near, and the wind abating—these two could glimpse the land from the crests of the waves. It was far away—a low, • blue line. Yet now, having found themselves,, they set out heartily, in about their fourteenth hour on the water, to win the shore In the afternoon the aborigine began to fail. The thing was too much for him. He lost heart (said, he); he was worn out, and needed food—sleepy, too, with weakness. His anxious little lubra must rest him, now and again—support him whilst he lay still, and once, indeed, while he nodded, off to sleep, and in this way refreshed his strength and spirit. And so they swam together and paused to rest, and swam on—the woman having no rest at all, but lending strength to the man,' at shortening periods, all the while. In the end they crawled up the beach and fell down and slept for a long time. It was then 8 o’clock Sunday night; they had been in hurricane water a matter of 26 hours; and the man surely would ha've gone down had it not been for the faithful little lubra. And they did not wake up (said the aborigine) until dawn of Monday. All this while the woman had carried the baby. It was dead, of course —must have died soon in the smother. “Wouldn’t drop it,” said the skipper of our sloop. We watched the aborigine and his lubra leave the warm, green water. “That little woman?’' said I. “Oh, my word, not at all-” the - skipper exclaimed. “The woman went crazy when she woke up in 'the morning and found her baby dead. And the black fellow deserted her. This one’s a new one!”—Harper's Magazine.