Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1883 — CATCHING A SHARK. [ARTICLE]

CATCHING A SHARK.

How a 1,6000-Pounder Wm Landed—Following the Ship for Nearly a Week, From the American Angler. In the summer of 1882, being then 'twenty-eight years of age, strong healthy, and full of hope, I found myself, in company with 183 other adventurous spirits, a passenger on the good ship Revenue Captain Seth Crowell, of Cape Cod, master,.from New York, bound for Australia. Our passengers were a splendid lot of fellows, hailing mostly from Upper Canada, Quebec and Nova Scotia, with some •four or five from New York and Brooklyn. With the exception of two benedicts who had their families with them, every man of us was under thirty years of age Even our captain as fine a specimen of an American sailor as ever trod a deck, had 'not reached his third decade. We sailed east around the Cape of Good Hope; and when I say that our passage -extended to ten days without a sight of land, except the Island of St. Paul, seen at a distance, you may form some idea of the shifts and expedients we ware put to in order to pass the time, and the “fun and the deviltry and • diversion” thence arising. We exhausted every kill-time device known to weary and impatient marines. We read every scrap of printed paper to be found so many times over that we were all crammed with literature to the lips. We told stories, played euchre, whist, cribbage, old sledge, and every other game known to Hoyle; got up concerts and glee clubs; pitched quoits, with ropes instead of iron; indulged in private theatricals: shot at floating marks caught dolphins, porpoises, flying-fish, gulls, albatross, and Mother Carey’s -chickens; worked up the position and progress of the ship each day, and carried on a daily paper until it died out of want of mental pabulum; and then, with the distant gold fields still far beyond our ■eager and expectant gaze, we sighed for new delights. One day we found ourselves becalmed in the Indian ocean, south latitude 23 degrees, east longitude 80 degrees, within the tropic of Capricorn, between the island of Madagascar and the Australian coast. For nearly a week a monstrous shark, with his two attendant pilot fish, had been following us, much to the annoyance of the old salts, whose superstitious fears pointed > some ill co While the ship one day lay languidly heaving upon the slight swell of the calm, but ever-reetless ocean, the old man-eater displayed his huge bulk close to the port side, and there remained, evidently waiting for the usual contents of the cook’s garbage bucket we had never yet caught a shark, and I asked the captain’s permission to take this fellow, it was readily granted, and we proceeded at once to business. Borrowing a shark hook, bent upon about two feet of chain, from the first mate, we tied a strong line to the chain, put upon the hook .a chunk of pork, and threw it overboard. After a moment’s inspection the monster slewed lazily over on his side and took the bate. Two of us had hold of the line, and by a strong jerk we fastened him securly. Then we got a whale harpoon and drove it well into his shoulder. Next we took a stout rope, made a running bowline at one end passed the loop over and around the hook and harpoon lines, pulled the shark’s head a little out of water, and jammed the bowline firmly about him behind the first fin. Then we ran the rope through a block at the end of the main yard; fifty willing hands seized it and ran aft, and his sharkship was speedily on board. All this time, to the utter confusion of my preconceived ideas, the fish made no resistance whatever, but so soon as he reached the deck there was the mischief to pay. He flopped und jumped and plunged about in a terrific manner, opening and closing his fearful jaws in a vicious and highly suggestive style. There was on board a spaniel dog, which, on seeing the unusual commotion, ran up to the prize, barking furiously. He was just in time to receive a violent blow from the tail of the fish, which sent him heels over head clean across the deck, where he brought up howling against the bulwarks. The owner of the dog, a little . French Canadian, now seized a handspike and dealt the savage monster several heavy blows near the tail, and afterwards Chopped that powerful member off, This put a stop to his acrobatic feats and he lay as quiet as a log. It was ' Jarq r s xwitnen of tbe great

blue or white shark. He measured a trifle over fourteen feet in length; greatest girth, seven and a half feet; supposed weight, 1,500 or IfiOO pounds. Great curiosity was manifested by all hands as to the contents of his stomach, and upon opening this we found—oh horrors!—the leg of a sailor——’s overalls, and not a thing beside! I got as my own share the dressed backbone of the creature, which I used as d walking stick and afterward sold to a squatter in the interior for £2. We found the strong, musty smell ao offensive that we speedily threw the carcass overboard, when it was quite pitiful to see the bereaved pilot-fish swimming about it in a dazed and wondering manner. These looked very much like striped bass, and seemed to be about six or eight pounds in weight They followed the remains of their deceased patron down into the depths and finally disappeared.