1955-01-15 — Page 6

- Page 6

Smoke SKIPPER

BRAND BRITISH

NAVY CUT

MILD, MEDIUM & FULL STRENGTH. Sold at all Tobacconista's and Storas.

FANS

SANDALWOOD-SILK FANS,

PLASTIC, CARYED FANS, ETC.

By

1

The China Mail

brings you another super- serial, packed with thrills. Start reading

today.

Hover

THE CHINA-MAIL, SATURDAY, JANUARY 15,- 1955. --

HIDDEN MYSTERIES OF THE UNDERSEA JUNGLE

white rubber dippers strapped

learned

note

my feet for anything white attracts a shark-l huve plung- ed and played among them.

Thưa, lui Oly few years, I of their HARKS are cowards. buvo

if I had known this habits than has been discovered at the time, I would before lui centuries,

found, I have experi- Everything I have

reported to a professor enced the terror of grap have

These friend who has made a lifelong of one pling with

of sharks and is regarded study of the

leading would never have suffered authorities on them. His and its comment after seeing one of pay the agony of feeling

have eraet fangs crunching into underwater Ilms was:

wasted my life". my thigh and the great jaws holding mk! In a vice-like grip far below the surface, almost drowning me

monsters

Hea;

so it seemed in the blood that

[ro gushed

wound.

as one of

the world's

Dat before tell you of my WuYes My adventures beneath the

wi

in many parts of the world, let

explain this business Through the centuries, a underwater hunting-how legend aggressiveness go about it and why and fearlessness has been built up arounal the shark. Only in recent years have The activities of underwater explons.

Foremost is fusemnation Neverly all the work has brest

Everest Jan {:4! elumbed, There BOOTIN itle be is vered 121 the

But there tu marth"

Voyages Blutige

journeys to 1 stars,

through

Spatter and the stepths

which cover

And it is alt there for us to explore, NOW.

"Before you die, do your best to borrow or teal equipment. which will enable you to take

look at this new world."

Those ណថ the words of William

Beebe,

the Kreat American Dish-zoologist und knows the en- explorer, who chanting and mysterious under- water universe better, perhaps, than any other man on earth.

Inn only echo the senti- of this enthusiast who 418 fascinated on the Pacific -bed, hour after hour, amie! the wonder of a coral bank. cursing The frailty

the of human troy when, at last, the

formers voldness

htru to the surface.

Like most other underwates hunters mut explorers, I began to dive for the sheer sport of 11. Only much later did i becon Interested In the scientifle side,

Among us there code of behaviour sonelly,

JKVXT

bs & Mariel And, per- 151 Wwwr when hunÉ ·

nd-

hunters like myself made it new t

thal free of ༢༣། poredible for most

oxy appartakass o anilors' still are the gryan, iungination legend, founded

Ing. To my way of thinking yarns and fishermen's tales, turing

that woul be fair To be disproved.

il vantage. Rather than adopt

which mechusterl 115,000,000 square

Tutus

remain me to would permult submerged almost indefinitely

Bs long or at ferunt for could stand the cold 1 prefer to rely on the capnelly of my

pitting Junge,

against Jay quarry what physieni stamina I

Arifles or abanit three-quarters of

the surface of the glue

4421

I know that Today shark will not attack a fear Je man face to face.

het as more and more of the

of Duter

སྙ』211、ཐཱ* know that even when corner- mys eres

revetied Wil eucls ed at close quarters a shark being

today. your. SU wilt hesitate to lunge at a sing

bant of under- diver who looks him stead wat explorers and hunters are fastly in the eyes the evening the mysteries of the as a lion tamer deep from which sprung humatt same way loes with his beasts in the fe #self vires ring.

in

ever-growing

10

.:

prekanterse Kemerde Hral developed

juter, a ling and

tex, for walking

Th

with five

diy lapt

Fi

11

fish, the Streeks

at trast, Ther mysteries of aufer zpove connot compare

I

the at

with el

And with the confidence funded on this knowledge

the seattl I have been able to go down 112201

majestic he tooking glass of the waves Those Jual

natural ole he is teeming and exclling und the here 15 beauty beyond dreams of those who have never that sent other vestvend 119145 whe

with world

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21

1

ارمنا

Then,

I would dream of hunting

any creature which has not at least an equal change of victory in the under- water struggle between 19.

the To kill inthiscriminately Ash which accept the diver as a usually without fear but often with curiosity - that, in my view, would be too easy. Toe truel, simply a point- less mussuTO

Rut to pit one's wits agabal shark cowardly. powerful yes, but freacherous and watch- ing for a suoi of fear or weak-

battle with ness); I join

giant manta ray weighing two Lors and "flying" through the water like some fullscule delta-

buinber why, that,

wing

Think, is sport.

But bust of all

with my special

Cites fr

like to dive

I

water-light

cameras, to bring

back to the surface not just me mangled, lifeless body but

a permanent Blm poem of move-

na and loveliness.

on

011

Before

out veling underwater expedition, it is - to undergo mantha ot sential training

in

Four of us train together Paris, devoting us much time as we can spare from our occupa- tions from my own work in the car industry and any com- rades from?: theirs in dentistry, and in in machine-tooling plumbing.

Several times a week we go swimming bath,

to an indoor

By JEAN FOUCHER CRETEAU

"Sharks are cowards. If I had known this at the time ! would never have experienced the terror of grappling with one of these monsters of the sea; I would never have suffered the agony of feeling its cruel fangs crunching into my thigh and the great jaws holding me in a vice-like grip far below the it seemed-in the blood surface, almost drowning me--so that gushed from my wound.”

-

life adventure stories So begins one of the great real which has been written by JEAN FOUCHER CRETEAU, 39– year-old French businessman, whose underwater colour film won a first-prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, and who likes nothing better than photographing and playing with the most terrible monsters of the deep!

He describes how he was trapped by an underwater ser- pent in the ghostly hulk of a sunken prison ship; how he wrestled, barehanded, with a shark which gripped his thigh as in a vice; the terrible dementia of a youth whose sense of balance and direction were destroyed by an underwater ex- plosion of his ear drums.

He tells of a diver who was carried to his death on the sea-bed with lead weights around his waist: he takes you with him on a dive of discovery through an underwater jungle of sharks; he writes of blood-chilling encounters with those tigers of the sea, the barracudas; with giant manta rays which glide towards him like bomber planes; with some of the ugliest monsters of the ocean. He tells of the perils, and the rewards, of the pearl divers.

As if suspended in mid-air this divor looms eerily among multi-coloured fish. The object in his hands is a special underwater camera.

remaining longer and langer under water cach day. And lle face down on the surface, or a few inches below it, taking ar then, at last, we spend a lot of

while remaining Ume in an open-air pool where freely

It 13

in a is

possible to descend, position to ace clearly what gradually, to greater depths, going on down below or to get thus accustoming our ear drumy ready for another plunge.

to the preJSUNG,

A great maxim of the under- water explorer is never to dive

One

reason for good

companion

For our expeditions we wear alone. face maska, short breathing this is that It is advisable to who can a rear guard tubea (or schoorkels); ordinary have

and on our give warning of any dangers swimming trunks; feet long rubber lippers, shaped that may be lurking behind. A also an insurance Uke fish-talls, to give us greater

a diver being trapped speed and power in movement.

by some sea beast or plant; About our waists we carry belts

for some fastened death losing consciousness to which are kalves and small Icad weights reason; or losing himself in the that follows down in the dreaded dementia to help keep us

an explosion depths.

of the epr drums caused by water pressure.

If we are without cameras we may carry in our hands a har- poon spring gun or a spear for protection.

The breathing tube, of course, te of time only to enable us to

One of my three diving com- panions is alive today only because the rest of us were in the sea with him when the un- expected happened.

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

THOSE LIGHTS --WAY DOWN --MIGHT BE PHOSPHORESCENT

FISH OR--

}

low the surface, no matter how

I turned, how I fought

gulped water

Into

my

lungs. I felt life slipping away when,

the mercifully,

guva - Just A Miele.

again. With a supreme

rope

Then

effort

I managed to get my face out

of the water for an Instant, Once gasping a breath of air. mora And then I was dragged down again.

But those whiffs of oxygen Iow

I Beconds gave me the needed. Now I managed to free and the tangle mywell from float to the surface, where I lay my bock, shivering anxi sobbing.

mn

I had lemned my lesson-two

For lessons, in fact,

It 19 для foolish to dive without a knife us it is to dive without a con- ponion,

are cash-

The belta wp weur

lead Hal because without the weights of eight or ten pounds valuable which they contain, energy would have to be ex- pended in the struggle to re- main at depths of 20 ft. or more and to prevent oneself drifung

mturally to the surface.

You the bolta

can be weighin themselves,

Last

their and

menace In

August one friend of mkie carried a little too much weight with him on a dive and was knocked unconscious when he struck his head below the water, The weights kept him down. And on the sea-bed he

died....

ear

I wrote just now of another danger the dementia caused

of the by an explosion drums That 14 an necident greatly feared by underwater explorers. It can happen even in water as shallow as 10 or 12 fcol-so be worned, Only long and careful training seems to make the cars capable of with- standing water pressures.

I shall never forget thu dreadful picture of a youth whaso

drums exploded when he was 18 feet down.

car

(bat

I am told by those who have survived the experience that the explosion seems like of a block-buster going off in

And this your head,

boy, In- deed, reacted as if his mind had been shattered. He writhed and reeled about down there in the depths, looking for al the world like some lighung white fish on the end o! line- except that there was no line.

With his vision blurred and his sense of balance destroyed he did not know where he was or what he W59 doing. He plunged deoper sull. thinking

perhaps thut he

WOA

surface

striking

ת

for the Ho swam in circles

upside down, backwards, side- ways. His the body went in- lo almost unbelievable contor- tione

It was a terrible spectacle and a terrible fight to bring him up. Yet he lived. The ear drums heated. And happily he is diving again today.

But these things are inf fortunes the kind of accident

He had harpooned a big shark became jammed beneath a rock which can occur in any spart

written of them here which, fighting frandcally to and, unable to hold my breath I have the death in the way of it any longer, I had to strike out only so that you will have a

for the surface. somehow kind,

wrapped the

of all the true appreciation difficulties, all the hazards when harpoon cord round the driver,

you come to read the tales I completely trapping him.

We saw the danger at once. At any moment the shark might plunge to the depths, dragging our friend to a level at which his lungs and cars would burst and the life would be crushed out of him by water pressure. we drew out Just in time sheath-knives and cut him free.

more thani a

J did not notice that the other end of the rope had be shall tell in future instalmenta come entangled in my belt and, of my story. when I was no

1 shall foot or 60 from, the life-giving

tell of adventures air above, I was halted with beneath the Atlantic, Mediter-

and a violent jerk as the line drew ranean

Red Sea; of encounters ·writt tight.

sharks, barracudas (thoro tigers of thé I fought to

manta rays and the sca), giant free the rope around my waist, ugliest monsters of the occans

the of plunges

with the pearl

Pante-stricken

ears

but in my haste I drew tangled knot tighter. My In my early underwater ex- ploring days, I nearly lost my sung, my head swam and my divers; and of being trapped by Tifo

Mediterranean lungs seemed likely to burst as a huge underwater serpent in

the ghostly hulk of

a sunken Inshed out writhing through ignoring the golden. I

prison-ship. rule of never diving alone. twisting and, turning.

ܠܰܐ

the

Not only was I by myself but I had no knife. I took with me only my harpoon gun with its nylon rope. After I had fired the gun one end of the rope

MANDRAKE-- SOMÈTHING'S STOPPED I HEARD A THUMP--THEN | USE OUR MOYDA'S STILL RUNNING WE STOPPED

BUT WE CAN'T

MOVE!

and

I could feel my hands, some- times my legs, protruding into the free air so near to mo and yet so impossibly far away. But my face remained just be

By Lee Falk and Phil Dayls

WE'RE IN WATER A HALF-MILE DEER COULDN'T HAVE SNAGGED

ANYTHING

I'LL DIVE UNDER THE KEEL AND HAVE

A LOOK.

OILMANDRAKE--I'M AFRAID DON'T GO --| IT MAY BE SOME |THING.TERAJOLE~~

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