SHARKS CHLOT?nFOmrEr) Bf CLIMAtE. 115 



ating powers arc, as in sleep, quietly at work. Entering the 

 dining room of the Victoria Hotel for our breakfast soon after 

 eight o'clock one morning, and finding as usual at that early 

 hour nearly a hundred seats at the tables unoccupied, Are said io 

 the head waiter, '' There arc a good many lazy persons in this 

 hotel.*' ''Yes," he replied; ''it's the place to be lazy — that's 

 what people are here for."' It is only occasionally that the ama- 

 teur fishermen have life and Aim enough eA'Cu to fish, being, like 

 the author, satisfied to simply sail OA-er the beautiful Avaters. 

 Some persons explained to us, upon their return from a fishing 

 excursion, that the fish they cauglit Avere not "gamy," and made 

 none of those heroic struggles for freedom Avhich giA'o spirit and 

 zest to i^iscatory sports in northern Avaters. The fish Avhich they 

 caught were large, fat and beautifully colored. Sharks abound, 

 and come near enough to the surface to be soothed and quieted 

 by the Bahama air. As the tempting bait floats near the top of 

 the water about three rods from the boat, it is very interesting 

 to watch, in the clear Avater, the movements of the sharks as they 

 reconnoiter and cautiously approach the savory but deceitful 

 prize. The larger ones manifest the prudence so characteristic 

 of age, while those smaller and younger, as our sable yachtman 

 forcibly expressed it, "jess like de children what den no' no bet- 

 ter," impetuously rush forward and are caught, toAved to the 

 boat and shot for their temerity. One of the captured was, Avitli- 

 out any court-martial trial, shot in the head, and, with his jaAvs 

 extended to their utmost capacity, exhibited in the court of tho 

 hotel. It was seven and one-half feet long, and had a capacious, 

 well-armed and ugly looking mouth — extremely repulsive to all 

 except those Avho have a romantic desire to take part in the old 

 drama of "Jonah and the Whale." It should be said to the 

 credit of the Nassau sharks, that while the black divers in the 

 clear and transparent waters of the Bahamas must look to them 



