152 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



Blacks remain for hours together in the water on the reefs 

 when beche-de-mer fishing, and the record of an attack is 

 rare indeed. They are far more fearful of the monstrous 

 groper (Promicrops itaiara), which lying inert among the 

 coral blocks and boulders of the Barrier Reef, bolts any- 

 thing and everything which comes its way, and which will 

 follow a man in the water with dogged determination, foreign 

 to the nervous, suspicious shark. Recently a vigorous young 

 black boy was attacked by a groper while diving for beche- 

 de-mer. The fish took the boy's head into its capacious 

 mouth, mauling him severely about the head and shoulders, 

 and but for his valiant and determined struggles would 

 doubtless have succeeded in killing him. 



Such an incident as the following does not convince 

 blacks that the sharks of the Barrier Reef are dangerous. 

 The captain of a beche-de-mer cutter was paddling in a 

 dinghy along the edge of a detached reef not many miles 

 from Dunk Island, while several of his boys were swimming 

 and diving. Suddenly one of them was seized and so 

 terribly mutilated that he died in a few minutes. Although 

 the captain was within 8 or 10 feet of the boy, and 

 three of his mates not more than a few yards off, though all 

 were wearing swimming goggles which enable them when 

 diving to distinguish objects at a considerable range, though 

 the sea was calm and clear and the water barely 10 feet 

 deep, no one saw a shark or any other fish capable of 

 inflicting such injuries as had caused the death of "Jimmy," 

 nor was there any disturbance of the surface of the water. 

 Years before a countryman of the unfortunate "Jimmy " 

 was mauled by a small shark, but got away, though 

 crippled for life. By some quaint process of reasoning the 

 companions of the boy who was killed connected his death 

 with the attack upon the other, the scene of which was 

 200 miles distant, and became convinced that he had been 

 the victim of "nother kind altogether" a sort of mys- 

 terious marine " debil-debil," not known to entire satisfac- 

 tion by the best-informed black boy, and quite beyond the 

 comprehension of the dull-witted white man. Having 



