Year: 1861

Catching a Shark.


Has my reader ever been present at the
capture of a shark? If he has crossed the
line, or even if he knows what it is to spend
O week or two in Hthe calm latitudes,n the
debateable border sea between the ordinary
breezes and the trades. he is no stranger to
the assidnous attentions of this lank and
1.-THE tenant of the tropical seas. Jack
familiarly calls him by the title of "Sea
lawyer" for reasons which are by no means
complimentary to the learned profession and
views him with that admixture of hate and
fear with which unsophisticated landsmen
are apt to regard his terrestrial representa-
tives. To bait a line and catch the mackerel
or the bonto, is always welcome occupation
to the sailor; but to no amusement does
Jack bend himself with such hearty alacrty
as to take the "shark" When, on approach
ing the northern tropic,


"Down drops the breeze, the sails drop down."
'tis not "sad as sad can be-" for all is hilar-
ity and alertness. Away goes one to the
harness cask for junk of salt pork, another
on his knees before the cabin locker, rum
maging out an enormous hook which
tradition confidently reports is deposited
there third is unreevng the studding sail





customer needs stout gear; a fourth is
standing on the taffral, keeping an eye on
the monster, that now drops off and now
comes gliding up, light, green mass,
through the blue water, till his whiteness
nearly touches the surface, and telling the
villain all the while, with uncouth maledic-
tionS, that his time is coming. The mate is
on the jb-boom welding the grains, whose
trident prongs he has been for-the last half
hour sharpening with file, ready to take by
force any one of the hated race who may be
too suspicious for the bait astern. And now
the skipper himself comes up, for even Dig
nifty cannot resist the temptation, and with
his own brawny hands puts on the enticing
pork, and lowers away.


'Tis twirling and eddying in the wash of
the ships counter; the crew are divided in
their allegiance-half cluster at the quarter
to witness the captains success, half at the
cat-heads to see the mates harpooning.
There scuttle up the two little pIlot-fshes,
in their banded livery of blue and brown,
from their station one on each side of the
sharks nose; they hurry to the bait, sniff at
1t, nlbble at it, and then back in all haste to
their huge patron, giving his grimness due
information of the treat that awaits him.
See how eagerly he receives it with lateral
wave of his powerful tail he shoots ahead,
and is in an instant at the pork. "Look out
there Stand by to take turn of the line
round Delaying pin, for he's going to bite,
and he'll give us sharp tugp' Every pair
OF eyes is wide open, and every mouth, too
for the monster turns on his side, and pre-
pares to take in the delicate morsel. But
no; he smells the rusty iron, perhaps, or
perhaps he sees the line at any rate, he
contents himself with sniff, and drops
astern; coming forward again. however, to
sniff and sniff again. 'Tis perilous yet It's
tempting.


A shout forward The mate has struck
one! And away rush the after band to see
the sport the skipper himself hauls in the
line and joins the shouting throng. Yes !;
the grains have been well thrown, and are
fast in the fieshy part of the back. What
monster full fifteen feet long, if he's an
inch and how he plunges and dives, and
rolls round and round enraged at the pain
and restraint, till you can't discern his body
for the sheet of white foam in which it is
enwrapped The stout line strains and
creaks, but holds on dozen eager hands
are pulling in, and at last the unwilling vic
tim is at the surface just beneath the bows,
but plunging with tremendous force.


Now, one of the smarter hands has jumped
into the forechains with a rope made into
moose. Many efforts he makes to get this
over the tail, without success at length it
is slipped over, in an instant hauled taut,
and the prey secure.


"Reeve the line through block, and take
a run with it'll" Up comes the vast length,
tail foremost, out of the sea for moment
the ungainly beast hangs, twining and bend
ing his body, and gnashng those horrid
fangs, till half dozen boat hooks guide the
mass to his death bed on the broad deck
Stand clear If that mouth gets hold of
your leg, it will cut through it-sinew, mus
Gle, and bone; the stoutest man on board
would be swept down if he came within the
reach of that tail. What reverberating
blows it inflicts on the smooth planks


One cannot look at that face without an
involuntary shudder. The long fiat head,
and the mouth SO greatly overhung by the
snout, impart most repulsiye expression to
the countenance and then the teeth, those
terrible serried fangs, as keen as lancets, and
yet cut into fine notches like saws, lying row
behind row, row behind row, six rows deep!
See how the front rows start up in erect
stiffness, as the creature eyes youl You
shrink back from the terrific implement, no
longer wondering that the stoutest limb of
man should be severed in a moment by such
chirurgery. But the eyes! those horrid
eyes it is the eyes that make the shark
what it is-the very embodiment of Satanic
malignity. Half concealed beneath the
bony brow, the little green eye CLEANS with
so peculiar an expression of hatred, such a
concentration of fendish malce-of quiet,
calm, settled villainy, that no countenance
that | have ever seen at all resembles.
Though | have seen many shark, could
never look at that eye without feeling my
flesh creep, as it were, on my bones.


RATHER Low-NECKED.-The following out
side touch is related by Mrs. Piozzi, in a
letter from Bath, in 1918, when the fashions
of ladies' dresses exposed ia considerable
of the nude, and Talleyrand said of F. SIS
robe--H EIle commence fror, f1rd ef f,,;t tror