A TALE OF A SHARK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVII, Issue 126, 30 May 1893, Page 4

A TALE OF A SHARK.

It was Capt. J a uk'S Wright who told the story, and when he had lini-j'.ied his auditors irut up and faded away in tin* dim twilight. Capt. Wright, or ' Cap'n Jim, 1 as he is better known, sails from Maine, but, with his schooner the Mary Jane, he had been running pineapples from the West Indies to this city. He was entertaining some friends in his room at one of the down-town hotels und a newspaper man was among them. ' I have told you some of my experiences, but 1 don't think I related what happened to a shark a little way from Port Antonio, Jamaica, two trips ago. It was in the latter part of May, and you know the West India sun is not only warm, but it is hot enough to draw the tar out of the decks and make the oakum show. We were, perhaps, a hundred miles southwest of the point, and there was a dead calm on. • We had beeen running before a squall which had developed into a gale, and had been driven away out of our course. The men were idling about the deck and all were trying to keep cool. My only passenger and myself were on the poop drinking some gin and water with a little lime juice in it, and enjoying the life as only men can who do nothing else. The passenger had the glass, and he was sweeping the water behind us looking for anything that might turn up After looking in one direction several minutes he said: 'There's a sea serpent or something just oil' the port quarter, and he's raising a row.' 1 iSure enough there was a commotion in the water and now and then a big head would rise up and flap back again with a splash. As the thing was headed for us we were naturally a trifle excited and waited anxiously for the end. It came ma few minutes and instead of being a sea serpent it was a big shark, and he was evidently in trouble. His head appeared to be about twice the size of an ordinary varmint, but his body was so thin that if he had ribs one could have counted them. We baited a big hook with a piece of beef, as we could not lind the harpoon, and dropped it overbosrd. 'ihe shark must have known there was something to eat, for he dived, and we thought we had him sure. lii a few minutes there was a pulling on the line, and we hauled in. There was the bait and hook, but no lish. The shark bubbled up presently right near the vessel, and frightened us. My passenger almost had a lit, and, rushing into the cabin, he brought up a Winchester rifle. He was a good shot, and, after banging twice, the big i'sh rolled over dead. We rigged a tackle and slung him on the deck and got a foot-rule to measure him. He footed up twenty-two feet and eleven inches from nose to tail, but my, he was thin ! We got a knife and went to work on him, and found that the shark had been starved to death— actually starved to death, Ile had swallowed Jthe half of a beef barrel and the open end was towards his mouth, lt was full of lish and the bones of a human being. It was something new to me and I deoided to find out more. We cut him open and he was so shrunken that both sides of his stomach had grown together and thus prevented the small lish, which might have escaped the barrel, from entering hia stomach and giving him nourishment. I had part of his backbone made into a walking-cane, and his mouth and head into a workbasket for my wife.