of his element, he has by no means lost his power of doing mischief; and I would advise no one to come within range of the tail, or thrust his toes too near the animal’s mouth.  The blow of a tolerably large-sized shark’s tail might break a man’s leg; and I have seen a three-inch hide tiller-rope bitten more than half-through full ten minutes after the wretch had been dragged about the quarter-deck, and had made all his victors keep at the most respectful distance.  I remember hearing the late Dr. Wollaston, with his wonted ingenuity, suggest a method for measuring the strength of a shark’s bite.  If a smooth plate of lead, he thought, were thrust into the fish’s mouth, the depth which his teeth should pierce the lead would furnish a sort of scale of the force exerted.

I need scarcely mention, that, when a shark is floundering about, the quarter-deck becomes a scene of pretty considerable confusion; and if there be blood on the occasion, as there generally is, from all this rough usage, the stains are not to be got rid of without a week’s scrubbing, and many a growl from the captain of the after-guard.  For the time, however, all such considerations are superseded; that is to say, if the commander himself takes an interest in the sport, and he must be rather a spoony skipper that does not.  If he be indifferent about the fate of the shark, it is speedily dragged forward to the forecastle, amidst the kicks, thumps, and execrations of the conquerors, who very soon terminate his miserable career by stabbing him with their knives, boarding-pikes, and tomahawks, like so many wild Indians.

The first operation is always to deprive him of his tail, which is seldom an easy matter, it not being at all safe to come too near; but some dextrous hand, familiar with the use of the broad axe, watches for a quiet moment, and at a single blow severs it from the body.  He is then closed with by another, who leaps across the prostrate foe, and with an adroit cut rips him open from snout to tail, and the tragedy is over, so far as the struggles and sufferings of the principal actor are concerned.  There always follows, however, the most lively curiosity on the part of the sailors to learn what the shark has got stowed away in his inside; but they are often disappointed, for the stomach is generally empty.  I remember one famous exception, indeed, when a very large fellow was caught on board the Alceste, in Anjeer Roads at Java, when we were proceeding to China with the embassy under Lord Amherst.  A number of ducks and hens which had died in the night were, as usual, thrown overboard in the morning, besides several baskets, and many other minor things, such as bundles of shavings and bits of cordage:  all of which were found in this huge sea-monster’s inside.  But what excited most surprise and admiration was the hide of a buffalo, killed on board that day for the ship’s company’s dinner.  The old sailor who had cut open the shark stood with a foot on each side, and removed the articles one by one from the huge cavern into which they had been indiscriminately drawn.  When the operator came at last to the buffalo’s skin, he held it up before him like a curtain, and exclaimed, “There, my lads! d’ye see that?  He has swallowed a buffalo; but he could not disgest the hide!”