116 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
exceedingly attractive, especially when hungry, we heard of only 
a single instance in which any one of these usually voracious 
monsters has dined upon a negro, and the report in that case is 
not very well authenticated. 
While in Florida, a gentleman having a plantation upon the 
St. John’s, mentioned to us that he could not give credit to all 
the claims that had been made and published concerning the 
Bahamas, and upon being pressed to state particularly what 
claims he considered unfounded, he replied—‘‘ Well, take for 
instance the Bahama sharks; it is affirmed that they never injure 
people. Now I can’t believe that story. Why, last summer, at 
the mouth of the St. John’s, Mr. and his family left their 
cottage to bathe in the river. His wife entered the water first, 
and while she was wading out, in the presence of her husband 
and children, she uttered one loud scream of pain and terror and 
disappeared. Her body was afterwards recovered, minus one 
arm. <A shark had seized her by the arm, drawn her under 
water, and bitten her arm off. Ido not believe that over in 
Nassau where sharks are plenty, they are so different from ours.” 
It is proverbial that every story has more than one side—and 
we found it so in this case. Upon inquiry, we ascertained from 
some friends of ours who own a cottage at the mouth of the St. 
John’s, that the lady in question, in company with another lady, 
went out upon a sand bar, and remained there about an hour; 
that in the mean time the tide rose, increased the depth of the 
water, and the force of its current between them and the shore; 
that in attempting to return, one lady got into a hole beyond 
her depth; that her companion, in endeavoring to rescue her, 
also got into deep water; that one was in consequence drowned, 
while the other floated away quite a long distance, upon the sur- 
face of the water, but was rescued at last unharmed, by a gentle- 
man who went in a boat to her relief, passing on his way through 
