yo RAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



dark, and it looked like tlie writhing lake of snakes in 

 Dante^s " Inferno/' And then, too, there is that beauti- 

 ful portent, the fairy cave, or, as the mariners pro- 

 fanely call it, the " sun-dog,'^ which looks like the end 

 of a rainbow which has lost its way in the eastern sky. 

 They say some syren sits there the livelong day, combing 

 out her locks, warbling her deadly strains the while ; for 

 after one is seen, it is " Everything snugged down for 

 the night.'' 



Ah, well, with all its advantages, a sea voyage of 

 ninety days is a tedious business, especially when one's 

 pay is not going on all the time. I managed to relieve 

 the monotony of the voyage somewhat by catching a 

 shark or two. One night I had a dolphin hook towing 

 overboard, when, feeling a tug at it, I commenced 

 hauling in ; to my astonishment, I found I had a shark 

 about six or seven feet long at the end of the line ! He 

 followed the pull of the line quietly as a mackerel till he 

 was close under the stern, when the mate unbent a sheet, 

 and had a bowline round him in no time. He then 

 seemed to think something was the matter, and com- 

 menced to kick and pull like a demon. The watch soon 

 hove him aboard, however, and the carpenter had his tail 

 off in a crack. Inside his stomach we found an officer's 

 cap recently swallowed — probably dropped overboard 

 •from some ship ahead of us — and which was immediately 

 appropriated by the mate. 



The captain was very angry at our hauling the shark 

 aboard on the quarter-deck, as he declared we should 

 smell the stink of the shark's blood for days after. I 

 laughed at him, but most certainly when walking on the 

 leeward side of the poop we distinctly perceived the 

 disgusting, sickening odour which proceeds from a live 



