For several days our Chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid Tiger Sharks.  A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till you come to the cross-roads.  But giving it up at last, for a bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until completely out of sight.  Much to the Skyeman’s chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance poised for a dart.

But of all sharks, save me from the ghastly White Shark.  For though we should hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and disliking is not hating.  And never yet could I bring myself to be loving, or even sociable, with a White Shark.  He is not the sort of creature to enlist young affections.

This ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by night than by day.  Timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding along just under the surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a milky hue; with glimpses now and then of his bottomless white pit of teeth.  No need of a dentist hath he.  Seen at night, stealing along like a spirit in the water, with horrific serenity of aspect, the White Shark sent many a thrill to us twain in the Chamois.

By day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the ponderous sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he fetched a long breath after napping below.

And time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the chain-plate armor and golden scales; the Nimrod of the seas, to whom so many flying fish fall a prey.  Flying from their pursuers, many of them flew into our boat.  But invariably they died from the shock.  No nursing could restore them.  One of their wings I removed, spreading it out to dry under a weight.  In two days’ time the thin membrane, all over tracings like those of a leaf, was transparent as isinglass, and tinted with brilliant hues, like those of a changing silk.

Almost every day, we spied Black Fish; coal-black and glossy.  They seemed to swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel; their dorsal fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes.

Of a somewhat similar species, but smaller, and clipper-built about the nose, were the Algerines; so called, probably, from their corsair propensities; waylaying peaceful fish on the high seas, and plundering them of body and soul at a gulp.  Atrocious Turks! a crusade should be preached against them.

Besides all these, we encountered Killers and Thrashers, by far the most spirited and “spunky” of the finny tribes.  Though little larger than a porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan himself.  They bait the monster, as dogs a bull.  The Killers seizing the Right whale by his immense, sulky lower lip, and the Thrashers fastening on to his back, and beating him with their sinewy tails.  Often they come off conquerors, worrying the enemy to death.  Though, sooth to say, if leviathan gets but one sweep al them with his terrible tail, they go flying into the air, as if tossed from Taurus’ horn.