SCENES IN INDIA. 
preter: for, under the most forbidding exterior, this 
man possessed great kindliness of nature. His coarse 
boisterous sincerity soon lost its rust, and we saw 
through the superficial crust that there was the polish 
of kindly feelings beneath ; and he shortly became an 
object, if not of respect, at least of general well-liking. 
There were two officers besides the captain, and a 
crew of forty Lascars. One of the officers was a young 
man of education and of considerable literary attain- 
ments ; the other was a much commoner order of 
person, although esteemed by the men as admirably 
skilled in the science of seamanship. 
On the afternoon of the second day after we had 
left Calcutta, having cleared the Sunderbunds, we 
amused ourselves by throwing out a bait for a shark, 
A large fish soon took the hook, but so desperate were 
its struggles, that it snapped the rope and escaped. 
Another tackle, newer and stronger, was immediately 
prepared, when the same fish almost instantly seized 
it, and, after a mighty resistance, was drawn up over 
the ship’s side and safely lodged upon the deck. The 
hook of the first line was stuck fast in its throat, 
while the last hook was securely fastened in its sto- 
mach. Its strength was prodigious, and so furiously 
did it lash the deck with its tail, as to render it dan- 
gerous to approach within its sweep. With a single 
stroke it overturned one of the guns; the carpenter 
then severed the dangerous member with the blow 
of an axe ; after which, the savage creature was 
quickly despatched. It measured nineteen feet. When 
opened, there was taken from its stomach a piece 
of solid timber thirteen inches long, and as thick 
