CH0NDR0PTEE,YaiA2^S. 425 



than a European ; for a dark and unctuous, rather than 

 clear and fair skin ;* on this account^ in a mixed group 

 of bathers, the blacks are always the selected victims of 

 a first attack ;t hut though negro-flesh be sharks:" venison, 

 to get at human flesh of any description, they will make 

 extraordinary efforts — ^bound for this purpose out of the 

 sea like tigers from a jungle, right athwart a steam ves- 

 sel in fiiU course, to pick off either a dead Negro dan- 

 gling from the bowsprit, or some unwary sailor occupied 

 in the rigging ; J sometimes he will leap into a high fish- 

 ing-boat, to the consternation of the crew, and grapple 

 with the men at their oars ; or, when hard pressed and 

 hungry, even spring ashore and attack man on his own 

 element. 



A famished shark will snap up everything, even to a 

 bit of his own body ; and individuals have been known 

 to pursue with such greediness a part of their own jaw, 

 torn off by a hook, as not to be scared from their pur- 

 pose even by the discharge of cannon ! But though he 

 may swallow all, yet there axe some morsels even a shark 



* This is to be attributed, no doubt, to the ' odora canum vis,' 

 wMch enables these dog-fish to sniflf carrion, it is said, to the dis- 

 tance of six leagues, and no doubt to smell out a Negro further 

 than a white. 



t This being well known in the colonies, unfair advantage used 

 to be taken of it by the whites, who, when they bathed in sharky 

 localities, would surround themselves with a body-guard of Ne- 

 groes as perquisites to these anthropophagizers not to molest 

 them dxiring their dip : ' a la honte de rhumanit^,' writes Buffon, 

 ' les blancs out pu oubUer les lois sacr^es de la nature, au point 

 de ne descendre dans les eaux de la mer qu'en pla9aiit autour 

 d'eux de maJheureux Nfegres, les victimes de leur oruaut^.' 



J Among the atrocities practised onboard slave-ships, one was, 

 according to Commerson, the suspending a dead Negro from the 

 bowsprit, in order to watch the efforts of the sharks to reach binn ; 

 and this they would sometimes effect at a height of more than 

 twenty feet above the level of the sea. 



