appeared to have destroyed its main-spring, and paralyzed its source.

Those who had before kept aloof at a respectful distance, now approached to behold the last pangs of the monster of the deep, which was upwards of ten feet in length, and a huge prototype of the dog-fish so common on our own coasts: at every convulsive opening of the mouth he displayed the most formidable array of teeth, which, disposed in three distinct ranks, appeared to be controlled by a muscular power, as they at will were either in a recumbent or erect position, in the same manner as we behold the claws of a cat, which, when uncalled for, lie slumbering and unseen, but which dart forth like lightning to seize a victim or an enemy. Adhering tenaciously, even in death, to his back and flanks were numerous small fishes of between four and six inches in length; these, which were with difficulty detached, are called "suckers."*

The

* The Echeneis Remora or sucking-fish, adheres not only to the shark, but to the bodies of other large fishes, and to the sides of ships. The ancients enter

CUTTING UP A SHARK.

41

little "pilot-fish" was, however, not forthcoming; he had abandoned his craft, and was now probably cruising on his own account.

Most of us were so intently engaged in witnessing the dissection of this piratical rover of the seas, that the increasing gloom which overspread the horizon had hitherto escaped our notice; but there was at least one watchful eye who kept a bright, though nervous look out over the elements-that was the skipper's, who startled us by the hoarse tones in which he issued the sudden and unexpected orders to take in all sail.

tained many fabulous ideas of the extraordinary powers of this little animal; Pliny relating that it could stop a galley with four hundred rowers, or a ship in full sail. Buffon says, what this fish has peculiar to itself is, that the crown of the head is flat and of an oval form, with a ridge running lengthways and crossways, to this sixteen ridges, with hollow furrows between, by which structure it can fix itself to any animal or other substance, &c. The same author says of the shark, "The teeth are the most formidable part of his composition; they consist of six rows, amounting to 144 in number, hard, sharp-pointed, and wedge-like in their form; and the creature is possessed of the singular power of erecting or depressing them at pleasure.”

The air was still perfectly calm, and the ship rolled heavily on the black and heaving billows of the main, the motion of whose bosom resembled the condensed and concentrated breathing of some great monster lying in wait for his prey. The Captain's orders had no sooner issued from his lips than a crash as of ten thousand avalanches burst in deafening peals over-head; large and single drops of rain stained, at intervals, the shining decks, and a feathery line of white foam proclaimed the approach of the squall, which scarcely gave us time to secure our upper gear as we cowering ran before its furious blast. The rain now descended as if the very sluice gates of heaven were opened: this probably in some measure kept down the rising billows, but far as eye could stretch through the drifting torrents and salt spray, the broad surface of the deep presented an universal appearance of white and bubbling foam, through which we were now madly flying under a closereefed fore-sail; and as the ricketty old Clémentine quivered again to her very centre even under this scanty show of canvas, our

only remaining consolation, as we turned in for the night, was that of having plenty of sea room, on which to run our headlong race with the angry children of Æolus, whose wrath we had, by our protracted delay on the coast, so rashly and inadvertently provoked.

Next morning, after making my toilet as well as the violent motion of the vessel and the

66

dead-light" state of my cabin would admit of, I went on deck to ascertain the condition of affairs, which still bore a most gloomy aspect. We were yet under scanty canvas, and still without our upper sticks, scudding before the gale, which, although partially decreased, had so ruffled the bosom of the deep, that the straining of the old ship, as she painfully laboured over the mountain billows, fearfully increased the water in the hold, and it was impossible any longer to conceal that she was in a decidedly leaky state; the wātāer pomps were in constant requisition, and the skipper, “bad luck to him," looked the very picture of despair. But to shorten a long tale: we fled before the enemy until he gave up the pursuit, and left us somewhere very near the Nicobar

44

A LONG PASSAGE.

Islands, and then painfully retracing the way we had lost, until, just as we hailed with delight a distant view of the perfumed shores of Ceylon, another broadside from the monsoon sent us once more flying across the Bay, when the Captain-au désespoir, from the state of the weather, that of his gallant craft, and of the commissariat department, which now began to fail at last made up his mind to take refuge at the Mauritius, where we arrived about the middle of July, after thus assiduously ploughing the Bay of Bengal for upwards of three months in a cranky old hulk, and during the utmost severity of the south-west monsoon.

So much for the Clémentine! * And as I stepped ashore at Port Louis I registered a vow in heaven never again to tread her decks, nor to sail if possible under any other colours save the British union Jack.

* On undergoing some very necessary repairs at the Mauritius, she returned to Columbo and the Malabar coast, and reached Bordeaux, (as the author was afterwards informed,) after a passage of only fourteen months from Calcutta, the old ship in a sad state, and her crew eaten up with scurvy!