Ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from the extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed.

For the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by hundreds; but by thousands and by myriads.  Trust me, there are more sharks in the sea than mortals on land.

And of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs.  But by the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening the sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are classed under one family; which family, according to Muller, king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous tribe of the Chondropterygii.

To begin.  There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so called by sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard knocks received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar.  At times, these gentry swim in herds; especially about the remains of a slaughtered whale.  They are the vultures of the deep.

Then we often encountered the dandy Blue Shark, a long, taper and mighty genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a Bond-street beau, and the whitest tiers of teeth imaginable.  This dainty spark invariably lounged by with a careless fin and an indolent tail.  But he looked infernally heartless.

How his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude, savage swagger of the Tiger Shark; a round, portly gourmand; with distended mouth and collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom he might devour.  These gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in the South Seas, picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a tit-bit, a stray sailor.  No wonder, then, that sailors denounce them.  In substance, Jarl once assured me, that under any temporary misfortune, it was one of his sweetest consolations to remember, that in his day, he had murdered, not killed, shoals of Tiger Sharks.

Yet this is all wrong.  As well hate a seraph, as a shark.  Both were made by the same hand.  And that sharks are lovable, witness their domestic endearments.  No Fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable side.  In the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her cub, as Hagar did Ishmael; or a queen of France the dauphin.  We know not what we do when we hate.  And I have the word of my gentlemanly friend Stanhope, for it; that he who declared he loved a good hater was but a respectable sort of Hottentot, at best.  No very genteel epithet this, though coming from the genteelest of men.  But when the digger of dictionaries said that saying of his, he was assuredly not much of a Christian.  However, it is hard for one given up to constitutional hypos like him; to be filled with the milk and meekness of the gospels.  Yet, with deference, I deny that my old uncle Johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him.  Love a hater, indeed!  Who smacks his lips over gall?  Now hate is a thankless thing.  So, let us only hate hatred; and once give love play, we will fall in love with a unicorn.  Ah! the easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must work hard.  Love is a delight; but hate a torment.  And haters are thumbscrews, Scotch boots, and Spanish inquisitions to themselves.  In five words—­would they were a Siamese diphthong—­he who hates is a fool.