The accident was the fruit of gross carelessness, and should never have occurred; but then, strange to say, disasters to whale-boats are nearly always due to want of care, the percentage of unavoidable casualties being very small as compared with those like the one just related.  When the highly dangerous nature of the work is remembered, this statement may seem somewhat overdrawn; but it has been so frequently corroborated by others, whose experience far outweighs my own, that I do not hesitate to make it with the fullest confidence in its truth.

Happily no lives were lost on this occasion, for it would have indeed been grievous to have seen our shipmates sacrificed to the Manes of a mere black-fish, after successfully encountering so many mighty whales.  The episode gave us a great deal of unnecessary work getting the two halves of the boat saved, in addition to securing our fish, so that by the time we got the twelve remaining carcasses hove on deck we were all quite fagged out.  But under the new regime we were sure of a good rest, so that did not trouble us; it rather made the lounge on deck in the balmy evening air and the well-filled pipe of peace doubly sweet.

Our next day’s work completed the skinning of the haul we had made, the last of the carcasses going overboard with a thunderous splash at four in the afternoon.  The assemblage of sharks round the ship on this occasion was incredible for its number and the great size of the creatures.  Certainly no mariners see so many or such huge sharks as whalemen; but, in spite of all our previous experience, this day touched high-water mark.  Many of these fish were of a size undreamed of by the ordinary seafarer, some of them full thirty feet in length, more like whales than sharks.  Most of them were striped diagonally with bands of yellow, contrasting curiously with the dingy grey of their normal colour.  From this marking is derived their popular name—­“tiger sharks,” not, as might be supposed, from their ferocity.  That attribute cannot properly be applied to the SQUALUS at all, which is one of the most timid fish afloat, and whose ill name, as far as regards blood-thirstiness, is quite undeserved.  Rapacious the shark certainly is; but what sea-fish is not?  He is not at all particular as to his diet; but what sea-fish is?  With such a great bulk of body, such enormous vitality and vigour to support, he must needs be ever eating; and since he is not constructed on swift enough lines to enable him to prey upon living fish, like most of his neighbours, he is perforce compelled to play the humble but useful part of a sea-scavenger.