THE OTHER JONAH
The Biblical story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale — just an ancient fish story? Don’t be too sure. As recently as 100 years ago, a human being was swallowed by a whale and lived. In February, 1891, a young English sailor named James Bartley was a crew member on the whaling ship Star of the East, which ranged the waters off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, searching for marine leviathans. Suddenly, three miles out, the sailors spotted a sperm whale that later proved to be 80 feet long and weighed 80 tons. Two boats with crew members and harpooners — one of them Bartley — were dispatched to kill the whale. As they closed in, one harpooner catapulted his eight-foot spear toward the sea beast. The instant it struck, the whale twisted and lashed out with its fanning tail. The tail slammed into one rowboat, lifted it into the air and capsized it. But the sailors soon…
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