4.94. HISTORY or 



:i bait. The poor man, struck with terror at its approacli, cued 

 out to liis companions in the vessel to take him on board. 'I'hey 

 rccordingly threw him a rope with the utmost expedition, and 

 were drawing him up by the ship's side, when the shark darted 

 af^ter him from the deep, and snapped off his leg. 



Mr Pennant tells us, that the master of a Guinea-ship, find- 

 ing a rage for suicide prevail among his slaves, from a notion the 

 unhappy 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 ter- 

 rible 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 vei-y 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 ascribed 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 shaik, 

 which had followed the ship, had bit her oflf from the middle. * 



* A singular circumstance occurred in February 1814, at St Vincent, in 

 Jamaica. A gentleman, named Whitlow, sailing in a boat at night from the 

 leeward port of Kingston, and sitting in the stern sheets, a large shark that 

 had foUoAved made at length a spring at his intended victim, knocked off his 

 hat, but at the same time fell into the boat. The gentleman, with great 

 presence of mind, immediately jumped up and secured the voracious mon 

 ster with a cloak and some bandages. It measured twelve feet, and was of 

 enormous weight. 



A Calcutta paper contains the following extract of a letter from Kidge. 



