The most remarkable story, I felt worthy of record, and I will give it in the mate's words.
"When I was mate of the clipper ship "Nonesuch" (she had three decks and no bottom) we were sailing in the Indian Ocean bound from Mauritius to Calcutta, in ballast. One day, looking to windward I saw a great splashing in the water, which rapidly approached the vessel. I ran up the mizzen-rigging and discovered that a large whale was coming towards us pursued by a swordfish, which made attacks upon it whenever it could overtake the whale. As they neared the ship the whale sank a little below the surface of the water, and then, seeing the hull of the vessel in the way, it rose to the surface, gave one twist of its tail, and with a tremendous effort leaped into the air, and went clean over the royal-mast head. I never was so astonished in my life, and the swordfish appeared to be equally surprised, for he stopped and looked aloft for half a second, and then making a dive he went under the keel of the ship. As he rose to the surface on the other side, he pointed his sword up straight in the air, and when the whale fell he caught it on the point and whirled it round and round for nearly a minute. Then the whale got off, the swordfish being wearied out, I suppose, and both started on another race. After going a little distance the whale turned towards the ship, and being too feeble now, from loss of blood, to take another leap, he struck the ship and swung alongside, broadside on. The swordfish came on with such force that his sword pierced the body of the whale and we felt the jar as it struck the ship's side. There they lay thrashing and bleeding. We were surprised that the whale didn't move off, as we had been going five or six knots, and we also noticed that our speed was reduced. The carpenter went down into the hold, and found that the fish's sword had cut right through the side of the ship, and whale and swordfish were made fast to us. He got his hammer and bent the end of the sword so that it couldn't be pulled out; and the whale soon dying, we turned into a whale-ship for a while, cut it up and tried out several barrels of oil. We shot the swordfish with a rifle, but left his sword in the plank, and it was cut out when we got home and put in a museum for a curiosity. We found the greatest lot of trash in the whale's stomach that you can imagine—pieces of sailor's shirts, old boots, tin pans, glass bottles and preserve-cans. There was a very fine linen handkerchief with some queer letters in the corner, which no one could make out. The captain carried it home and showed it to a minister, who was a great scholar. He said the letters were Hebrew and spelt Jonah! There seemed to be no doubt that this was the very whale that swallowed the prophet, when he cut sticks off to sea and got hove overboard in a gale of wind. It's said Jonah felt down in the mouth after the whale took him in, and no doubt he cried and took out his handkerchief to wipe his eyes. Then he came out pretty sudden, and must have dropped it in his surprise. I've always believed in Jonah since then."
One afternoon, when ninety-eight days out, we sighted Java Head, the south-western point of Java, and at sunset were just fifteen miles west of it. This seemed almost like arrival at our destination. It is a great relief to the navigator, after months of steering by the stars, to find his reckoning proved correct by seeing the dry land appear, just where his calculations lead him to look for it. It thrills his mind to think that he has been enabled to find his way through pathless wastes, over half the circumference of the globe, to a little head-land in the eastern seas. He feels a reverence for the noble science whose deductions have led to this result, and also usually indulges in some self-complacent emotions at his own successful application of its rules. Having bearings of the land he now knows where he is by sight, and gladly leaves his life of faith. He finds, however, that this element of security is offset by a vast increase of danger. In proximity to the land are rocks and shoals, and around them sweep ever varying currents. Dark nights and storms envelope and assail him, and hours of anxiety are passed, such as are wholly unknown in the deep sea sailing.
This night I was destined to experience the hazards of coast navigation and to recognize the preserving hand of God in preventing our shipwreck. Knowing my position so exactly, I felt emboldened to attempt to work into the Straits of Sunda in the night. In the evening a fresh breeze sprang up ahead varying from E.S.E. to E.N.E., accompanied by heavy rain-squalls. The night was very dark and I remained on deck the whole time, except for the few moments occasionally required for marking the supposed position on the chart and planning the movements of the vessel. We made several tacks and at three o'clock in the morning, when I supposed we were well into the Straits, after a rain-squall had passed, the clouds broke away, revealing the old moon just getting out of bed from behind a high hill directly ahead, towards which we were hastening at a rate of speed which would have cast us upon its shores in another quarter of an hour. The bark was immediately hove to, while I tried unsuccessfully to verify my position. Daylight revealed that we had been about running into Java Head, the current having set us back S.W. by S. 32 miles in twelve hours. So here we were, instead of being in the Strait, still at its entrance, not having secured any gain from all the night's work, the insidious current having robbed us of the fruits of our toil. I had been fretting all the night because the wind would not haul and allow us to steer in a certain direction. I was thrilled and instructed by noticing on the chart that, if I had been permitted to take the course I desired, we should have certainly been wrecked on the dangerous reef extending from Prince's Island. How near we came to it I cannot say, but that we avoided it was not owing to my own skill, but to Him whose hand led me in the uttermost parts of the sea. Many a successful navigator in these Eastern waters could join me in acknowledging that in some instances his safety has been owing "more to luck than good management" as the common phrase goes, or as one had better say, to a kind Providence. This event gave me an illustration of "Prayer answered by crosses" and in later trials has helped me to say: "Thy will be done."
The next night, being in very close quarters among islands and rocks, I took bearings of a light to test my progress, the darkness hiding the dangers from view. A light breeze was blowing, and the bark moved at the rate of about two knots through the water. The light however remained on the same bearing, showing that we gained nothing on it, and I supposed the same strong current was neutralizing all the power of the wind. I was about to come to anchor to avoid the peril of drifting about in the darkness amid so many dangers, when a close inspection of the light with the marine glass, showed it was not on the land, but on board a vessel in shore, sailing with us, and on the other side we soon discovered a rock, which we were passing quite swiftly, the current evidently having changed in the opposite direction. This event supplied another moral reflection: the importance of measuring by a right standard.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The owners' private signal.