176 FEARFUL INSTANCES OF SHARKS' RAPACITY. 



legends were formerly in circulation among the people rela- 

 tive to the regard paid by the sharks at sea to priests of 

 their temples, whom they were always said to recognize, and 

 never to injure. But for the sharks, the South Sea Islanders 

 would be in comparatively little danger from casualties in 

 their voyages among the islands ; and although, when armed, 

 they have been known to attack a shark in the water, yet, 

 when destitute of a knife or other weapon, they become an 

 easy prey, and are consequently much terrified at such mer- 

 ciless antagonists. 



A fearful instance is related of the rapacity of the shark, 

 when a number of chiefs and people — altogether thirty-two 

 • — were passing from one island to another in a large double 

 canoe. They were overtaken by a tempest, the violence of 

 which tore their canoes from the horizontal spars by which 

 they were united. It was in vain for them to endeavor to 

 place them upright, or empty out the water, for they could 

 not prevent their incessant overturning. As their only re- 

 source, they collected the scattered spars and boards, and 

 constructed a raft on which they hoped to drift to land. 

 The weight of the whole number who were now collected on 

 the raft was so great as to sink it so far below the surface 

 that they sometimes stood above their knees in water. 

 They made very little progress, and soon became exhausted 

 by fatigue and hunger. Destitute of a knife or any other 

 weapon of defence, they fell an easy prey to these monsters. 

 One after another was seized and devoured or carried away 

 by them, and the survivors, who with dreadful anguish be- 

 held their companions thus destroyed, saw the number of 

 assailants apparently increasing as each body was carried 

 away, until only two or three remained. The raft, thus 

 lightened of its load, rose to the surface of the water, and 

 placed them beyond the reach of the voracious jaws of their 

 relentless destroyers. The voyage on which they had set 

 out was only from one of the Society Islands to another, con- 



