After this incident the divers always took a tomahawk with them on
their expeditions, in order to lop off the tentacles of any octopus
that might try to attack them in the boats. And, by the way, we
saw many extraordinary creatures during our cruise. I myself had a
serious fright one day whilst indulging in a swim.

We had anchored in about five fathoms, and as I was proceeding
leisurely away from the vessel at a slow breast stroke, a monstrous
fish, fully twenty feet long, with an enormous hairy head and
fierce, fantastic moustaches, suddenly reared up out of the water,
high into the air. I must say that the sight absolutely unmanned
me for the moment, and when this extraordinary creature opened his
enormous mouth in my direction, I gave myself up for lost. It did
not molest me, however, and I got back to the ship safely, but it
was some little time before I recovered from the terrible fright.

Occasionally too we were troubled with sharks, but the Malays did
not appear to be very much afraid of them. Their great dread was
the ground shark, which lay motionless at the bottom of the sea,
and gave no indication of his presence. The result was that
occasionally the divers would sink down to their work quite
unknowingly almost by the side of one of these fearful creatures,
and in such cases the diver rarely escaped without injury of some
kind. With regard to the ordinary shark, however, our divers
actually sought them. Their method of capturing them was almost
incredible in its simplicity and daring. Three or four of our
divers would go out in a boat and allow themselves to drift into a
big school of sharks. Then one man, possessed of more nerve than
the rest, would bend over the side and smartly prick the first one