462 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



ed so. We had expected to celebrate this day by dining 

 with the American consul in Havana ; but our vessel lay 

 like a log, and we were scorching, and already pinched 

 for water ; the bare thought of a Fourth of July dinner 

 meanwhile making Spanish ship-cookery intolerable. 

 We had read through all the books in the mate's libra- 

 ry, consisting of some French novels translated into 

 Spanish, and a history of awful shipwrecks. To break 

 the monotony of the calm, we had hooks and lines out 

 constantly for sharks ; the sailors called them, like the 

 alligators, ennemigos de los Christianos, hoisted them 

 on deck, cut out their hearts and entrails, and then 

 threw them overboard. We were already out ten days, 

 and growing short of provisions ; we had two young 

 sharks for dinner. Apart from the associations, they 

 were not bad — quite equal to young alligators ; and the 

 captain told us that in Campeachy they were regularly 

 in the markets, and eaten by all elasses. Tn the after- 

 noon they gathered around us fearfully. Everything that 

 fell overboard was immediately snapped up ; and the 

 hat of a passenger which fell from his head had hardly 

 touched the water before a huge fellow turned over on 

 his side, opened his ugly mouth above the water, and 

 swallowed it : luckily, the man was not under it. To- 

 ward evening we caught a leviathan, raised him four or 

 five feet out of the water with the hook, and the sail- 

 ors, leaning over, beat his brains with the capstan bars 

 till he was motionless ; then fastening a rope with 

 a slipnoose under his fins, with the ship's tackle they 

 hoisted him on deck. He seemed to fill half the side 

 of the vessel. The sailors opened his mouth, and fas- 

 tened the jaws apart with a marlinspike, turned him 

 over on his back, ripped him open, and tore out his 

 heart and entrails. They then chopped off about a foot 



