AN ADVENTURE WITH A SHARK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1243, 25 September 1875, Page 19

AN ADVENTURE WITH A SHARK.

Paul Boynton, who has had a good deal of experience »s a diver, gives the following account of a curious adventure which ho had with a rfiark :—": — " I was down on a nasty rock bottom. A man never feels comfortable on them ; he can't tell what big creature may be hiding under the huge quarter- deck sea leaves which grow there. The first part of the time 1 was visited by a porcupine fish, which kept sucking its quills up and bobbing in front of my helmet. Soon after I saw a big shadow fall across mo. and looking up there was an infernal shark playing about my tubing. It makes you feel chilly in the back when they're abs/ut. He came to me slick as I looked up. I made at him and he sheered off. For near an hour he worked at it, till I could stand it no longer. If you can keep your head level it's all right, and you are pretty safe if they're not on you sharp. This ugly brute was twenty feet long, I should think, for when I lay down all my length on the bottom he stretched a considerable way ahead of me, and I could see him beyond my feet. Then 1 waited. They must turn over to bite, find my lying down bothered him. He swam over me three or four times, and then skulked off to a big thicket of sea weed to consider. I knew he'd come back when he'd settled his mind. It seemed a long time waiting for him. At last he came viciously over me, but, like the time before, too far from my arms. The next time I had my chance, and ripped him with my knife as neatly as I could. A shark always remembers he's got business somewhere else when he's cut, so off this fellow goes. It is a curious thing, too, that all the sharks about will follow in the blood trail he leaves. I git on my hands and knees, and as he swam off I noticed lour dark shadows slip after him. I saw no more that time, They did not Ukimyeomywy,