which we put baits of raw meat. I may as well mention a fact not
generally known, viz., that a shark must turn on his back before opening
his capacious mouth sufficiently to feed himself; when he turns he means
business, and woe to him who is within reach of the man-eater's jaws. On
this occasion what we offered them was merely a piece of meat, and most
ravenously did they rush, turn on their backs, and swallow it, only to
find that they were securely hooked, and could not bite through the
chains that were fast to the hooks--in fact, that it was all up with
them. Orders had been given by the commanding officer that the sharks
were not to be pulled on board, partly from the dangerous action of
their tails and jaws even when half dead, partly on account of the
confusion they make while floundering about the decks; so we hauled them
close to the top of the water, fired a bullet into their brains and cut
them loose. We killed thirty that morning in this way, some of them
eight to ten feet long.

The most horrid thing I know is to see, as I have done on more than one
occasion, a man taken by a shark. You hear a fearful scream as the poor
wretch is dragged down, and nothing remains to tell the dreadful tale
excepting that the water is deeply tinged with blood on the spot where
the unfortunate man disappeared. These ravenous man-eaters scent blood
from an enormous distance, and their prominent upper fin, which is
generally out of the water as they go along at a tremendous pace, may be
seen at a great distance, and they can swim at the rate of a mile a
minute. A shark somewhat reminds me of the torpedo of the present day,
and in my humble opinion is much more dangerous.

Once we caught a large shark. On opening him we found in his inside a
watch and chain quite perfect. Could it have been that some poor wretch
had been swallowed and digested, and the watch only remained as being