THE SHARK. 



271 



thousand pound weight ; and we are told par- 

 ticularly of one, that had a human corpse in 

 his belly. The head is large and somewhat 

 flatted ; the snout long, and the eyes large. 

 The mouth is enormously wide, as is the 

 throat, and capable of swallowing a man with 

 great ease. But its furniture of teeth is still 

 more terrible; of these there are six rows, ex- 

 tremely hard, sharp-pointed, and of a wedge- 

 like figure. It is asserted that there are 

 seventy-two in each jaw, which make a hun- 

 dred and forty-four in the whole ; yet others 

 think that their number is uncertain ; and 

 that in proportion as the animal grows older, 

 these terrible instruments of destruction are 

 found to increase. With these the jaws, both 

 above and below, appear planted all over ; but 

 the animal has a power of erecting or depress- 

 ing them at pleasure. When the shark is at 

 rest, they lie quite flat in his mouth; but 

 when he prepares to seize his prey, he erects 

 all this dreadful apparatus, by the help of a set 

 of muscles that join them to the jaw; and the 

 animal he seizes, dies, pierced with a hundred 

 wounds, in a moment. 



Nor is this fish less terrible to behold as to 

 the rest of his form : his fins are larger in pro- 

 portion ; he is furnished with great goggle 

 eyes, that he turns with ease on every side, 

 so as to see his prey behind him as well as 

 before ; and his whole aspect is marked with 

 a character of malignity: his skin also is 

 rough, hard and prickly; being that substance 

 which covers instrument cases, called sha- 

 green. 



As the shark is thus formidable in his ap- 

 pearance, so is he also dreadful from his 

 courage and activity, No fish can swim so 

 fast as he ; none so constantly employed in 

 swimming ; he outstrips the swiftest ships, 

 plays round them, darts out before them, re- 

 turns, seems to gaze at the passengers, and 

 all the while does not seem to exhibit the 

 smallest symptom of an effort to proceed. 

 Such amazing powers, with such great appe- 

 tites for destruction, would quickly unpeople 

 even the ocean, but providentially, the shark's 

 upper jaw projects so far above the lower, that 

 he is obliged to turn on one side, (not on his 

 back, as is generally supposed,) to seize his 

 prey. As this takes some small time to per- 

 form, the animal pursued seizes that oppor- 

 tunity to make its escape. 



Still, however, the depredations he commits 

 are frequent and formidable. The shark is 

 the dread of sailors in all hot climates ; where, 

 like a greedy robber, he attends the ships, in 



body, the ventral fins distinct ; the first dorsal fin is 

 placed behind the ventral ; the second dorsal fin is less, 

 and nearly opposite the anal ; the tail is narrow, ending 

 below in a sharp angle. 



expection of what may drop over-board. A 

 man who unfortunately falls into the sea at 

 such a time, is sure to perish, without mercy. 

 A sailor that was bathing in the Mediter- 

 ranean, near Antibes, in the year 1744, while 

 he was swimming about fifty yards from the 

 ship, perceived a monstrous fish making to- 

 wards him, and surveying him on every side, 

 as fish are often seen to look round a bait. 

 The poor man, struck with terror at its ap- 

 proach, cried out to his companions in the 

 vessel to take him on board. They accord- 

 ingly threw him a rope with the utmost ex- 

 pedition, and were drawing him up by the 

 ship's side, when the shark darted after him 

 from the deep, and snapped off his leg. 



Mr Pennant tells us, that the master of a 

 Guinea-ship, finding a rage for suicide pre- 

 vail among his slaves, from a notion the un- 

 happy creatures had, that after death they 

 should be restored again to their families, 

 friends, and country ; to convince them at least 

 that some disgrace should attend them here, 

 he ordered one of their dead bodies to be tied 

 by the heels to a rope, and so let down into 

 the sea; and, though it was drawn up again 

 with great swiftness, yet in that short space, 

 the sharks had bit off all but the feet. Whether 

 this story is prior to an accident of the same 

 kind, which happened at Belfast in Ireland, 

 about twenty years ago, I will not take upon 

 me to determine ; but certain it is, there are 

 some circumstances alike in both, though more 

 terrible in that I am going to relate. A 

 Guinea captain was, by stress of weather, 

 driven into the harbour of Belfast, with a lad- 

 ing of very sickly slaves, who, in the manner 

 above-mentioned, took every opportunity to 

 throw themselves overboard when brought up 

 upon the deck, as usual, for the benefit of the 

 fresh air. The captain perceiving, among 

 others, a woman slave attempting to drown 

 herself, pitched upon her as a proper example 

 to the rest. As he supposed that they did not 

 know the terrors attending death, he ordered 

 the woman to be tied with a rope under the 

 arm-pits, and so let her down into the water. 

 When the poor creature was thus plunged in, 

 and about half way down, she was heard to 

 give a terrible shriek, which at first was as- 

 cribed to her fears of drowning : but soon 

 after, the water appearing red all round her, 

 she was drawn up, and it was found that a 

 shark, which had followed the ship, had bit 

 her off from the middle. 



Such is the frightful rapacity of this ani- 

 mal ; nothing that has life is rejected. But 

 it seems to have a peculiar enmity to man : 

 when once it has tasted human flesh, it never 

 desists from haunting those places where it 

 expects the return of its prey. It is even 

 asserted, that along the coasts of Africa, 



