ied comrades rushed to his assistance, and an attempt
was made to kill the octopus with a harpoon, but without success. Several
of his more resourceful companions then dived into the water with a big
net made of stout twine, which they took right underneath the octopus,
entangling the creature and its still living prey. The next step was to
drag up both man and octopus into the whale-boat, and this done, the
unfortunate Malay was at length seized by his legs, and dragged by sheer
force out of the frightful embrace, more dead than alive, as you may
suppose. However, we soon revived him by putting him into a very hot
bath, the water being at such a temperature as actually to blister his
skin. It is most remarkable that the man was not altogether drowned, as
he had been held under water by the tentacles of the octopus for rather
more than two minutes. But, like all the Malays of our party, this man
carried a knife, which he used to very good purpose on the monster's body
when first it dragged him under the water. These repeated stabs caused
the creature to keep rolling about on the surface, and the unhappy man
was in this way enabled to get an occasional breath of air; otherwise he
must infallibly have been drowned. It was a horrible-looking creature,
with a slimy body, and a hideous cavity of a mouth. It is the tentacles
of the creature that are so dreaded, on account of the immense sucking
power which they possess.

After this incident the divers always took a tomahawk with them on their
expeditions, in order to lop off the tentacles of any octopus that might
try to attack them in the boats. And, by the way, we saw many
extraordinary creatures during our cruise. I myself had a serious fright
one day whilst indulging in a swim.

We had anchored in about five fathoms, and as I was proceeding leisurely
away from the vessel at a slow breast stroke, a monstrous fish, fully
twenty feet long, with an enormous hairy head and fierce, fantastic
moustaches, suddenly reared up out of the water, high into the air. I
must say that the sight absolutely unmanned me for the moment, and when
this extraordinary creature opened his enormous mouth in my direction, I
gave myself up for lost. It did not molest me, however, and I got back
to the ship safely, but it was some little time before I recovered from
the terrible fright.

Occasionally too we were troubled with sharks, but the Malays did not
appear to be very much afraid o