252 

 ADVENTURE WITH A SHARK. 



DURING the night we stood off and on under easy sail, and next 

 morning, when the day broke, with a strong breeze and a fresh 

 shower, we were about two miles off the Moro Castle, at the entrance 

 of Santiago de Cuba. 



The fresh green shores of this glorious island lay before us, fringed 

 with white surf, as the everlasting ocean in its approach to it gradu- 

 ally changed its dark blue colour, as the water shoaled, into a bright, 

 joyous green under the blazing sun, as if in sympathy with the genius 

 of the fair land, before it tumbled at his feet its gently swelling billows, 

 in shaking thunders on the reefs and rocky face of the coast, against 

 which they were driven up in clouds, the incense of their sacrifice. 

 The undulating hills in the vicinity were all either cleared, and covered 

 with the greenest verdure that imagination can picture, over which 

 strayed large herds of cattle, or with forests of gigantic trees, from 

 amongst which, every now and then, peeped out some palm-thatched 

 mountain settlement, with its small thread of blue smoke floating up 

 into the calm, clear morning air, while the blue hills in the distance 

 rose higher and higher, and more and more blue and dreamy, and 

 indistinct, until their rugged summits, could not be distinguished 

 from the clouds through the glimmering hot haze of the tropics. 



A very melancholy accident happened to a poor boy on board, of 

 about fifteen years of age, who had already become a great favourite 

 of mine from his modest, quiet deportment, as well as of all the gun- 

 room officers, although he had not been above a fortnight in the ship. 

 He had let himself down over the bows by the cable to bathe. There 

 were several of his comrades standing on the forecastle looking at him, 

 and he asked one of them to go out on the spritsai 1-yard, arid look 

 round to see if there were any sharks in the neighbourhood; but all 

 around was deep, clear, green water, lie kept hold of the cable, 

 however, and seemed determined not to put himself in harm's way, 

 until a little, wicked urchin, who used to wait on the warrant officers' 

 mess, a small, meddling snipe of a creature, who got flogged in well 

 behaved weeks only once, began to taunt my little mild favourite. 



"Why, you chicken-heart, I'll wajrer a thimbleful of grog, that 

 Mich a tailor as you are in the water can't for the life of you swim 

 out to the buoy there. " 



"Never you mind, Pepperbottom, " said tlir hoy, Diving the imp 

 the name he had richly earned by repeated flagellations. "Never 

 you mind. I am not ashamed to shew my naked hide, you know. 

 But it is against orders in these seas to go overboard, unless with a 



