OCR Text |
Show WHALE PILOTS VESSELS THROUGH FRENCH PASS 'Pelorus Jack" Meets Steamships Going Go-ing to New Zealand and Takes Them Under Protection. Auckland, New Zealand --Pelorus Jnck U tho name of the oddest lit lot In thn world. For lf eais ho has piloted I every steamship g tug tlnoitgli tho French pass to the port of Nelson, New Zealand, with one exception. Pelorus Pel-orus Jack Is a gu-at whllo llsli some HI feet long, the onl.v one of the kind ever seen In that part of tho world, and a species not curelv determined by the IIkIi sharps Some say ho Is a ZIphliiK, or while whale, others maintain main-tain that lie Is an albino of the ocrn species, known to anii-n as the killer." Whatever iiiuy be his scleutlllc nntne. all New- Xea'.mders know Pel I - . v 1 He Meets the Incoming. Vessels ana Pilots Then Into the Harbor, 1 orus Jack, and undi r that name hu Is , protected bj a spiclai uct of parliament. parlia-ment. Some one shot at htm once, and New Xeuland uroto In Indignation anil demanded that parliament take the pilot of French pass under Its partlc-I partlc-I ular protection. When Pelorus Jack hears, or other-I other-I wises senses, the throbbing of a screw. he puts out from Pelorus koiind to French pass, and meets the steamship, i and for several miles he pla s around I her bows' and dliorts hlrnielf as If ho were pleased to m-c the ship und I everybody on board. I That is. unless the .hip happens to , ho the I'rilon company's Penguin. Jack will have nothing to do with the Penguin, and he seems to know her at a distance. One day ho was piloting tho Penguin through the pass, and getting too clotc in crossing her bow ho received an ugly blow from hor sharp sterft thn mark of which he carries car-ries on his side to this day. 1 Why Pelorus Jack accompanies tblps through rnch pact, nobody knows, The Maoris say that once up- Ct on a time there was a pilot who wick ' 'i edly and treacherously ran n ship U- b H on the rocks and wrecked bur, destiny - , , , jflB lug llio lives of tunny mariners. When iHrBasi the wicked pilot died, his soul wns IH not permitted lo lly to the North cap H nnd plunge Into the sea and Journey- 1H to lliiwulkl. at do all good Maori souls. it was sent Into the body of the great H white lUh to do peuuaco und repara- H tlon for a thousand years by piloting H ships safely past the scene of his sin. H |