re not to be pulled on board, partly from the dangerous action of
their tails and jaws even when half dead, partly on account of the
confusion they make while floundering about the decks; so we hauled them
close to the top of the water, fired a bullet into their brains and cut
them loose. We killed thirty that morning in this way, some of them
eight to ten feet long.

The most horrid thing I know is to see, as I have done on more than one
occasion, a man taken by a shark. You hear a fearful scream as the poor
wretch is dragged down, and nothing remains to tell the dreadful tale
excepting that the water is deeply tinged with blood on the spot where
the unfortunate man disappeared. These ravenous man-eaters scent blood
from an enormous distance, and their prominent upper fin, which is
generally out of the water as they go along at a tremendous pace, may be
seen at a great distance, and they can swim at the rate of a mile a
minute. A shark somewhat reminds me of the torpedo of the present day,
and in my humble opinion is much more dangerous.

Once we caught a large shark. On opening him we found in his inside a
watch and chain quite perfect. Could it have been that some poor wretch
had been swallowed and digested, and the watch only remained as being
indigestible?

It is strange to see the contempt with which the black man treats a
shark, the more especially when he has to do with him in shallow water.
A negro takes a large knife and diving under the shark cuts its bowels
open. If the water is deep the shark can go lower down than the man and
so save himself, and if the nigger don't take care he will eat him; thus
the black man never goes into deep water if he can help it, for he is
always expecting a shark.

CHAPTER V.

SLAVER HUNTING.

Shortly after the duel at Rio I went to England, but to be again
immediately appointed to a vessel on the Brazilian station.

It was at the time when philanthropists of Europe were crying aloud for
the abolition of the African slave trade, never taking for a moment into
consideration the fact that the state of the savage African black
population was infinitely bettered by their being conveyed out of the
misery and barbarism of their own country, introduced to civilization,
given opportunities of embracing religion, and taught that to kill and
eat each other was not to be considered as the principal pastime among
human beings.

At the period I allude to (from 1841 to 1845)